Relationships

How to Green Your Date

kbutler — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 15:12:51 -0400

So you’re a good-looking guy or girl. And you care about things like carbon footprints and global warming and slapping “Gas prices are my fault!” stickers on the back of a Yukon. Okay, maybe you don’t care THAT much, but you get the picture. But then you get asked out on a date. And the guy arrives to pick you up in a Yukon – sporting one of your bumper stickers. So do you send him right off to the Island of Bad Dates? (Located somewhere off the Continent of Awesome Carbs.) Or do you try to change him? Do you try to take a full-grown man (or woman…..just take everything I’m saying and add Manolos) and go to work on all the self-identity traits he has come to identify as his very soul and being?

Of course you do! Here are some tips to make your next date not only red-hot, but nicely green all over.

First of all, kick aside that car, go local, and walk. If you live in a city, this is easy. But some of you live in places where you can list cow-tipping as a high school pursuit. (I did and I have. Or observed it done, usually after a few cans of Schlitz.) So it is not so easy to leave the car behind since you have to drive 45 minutes to the nearest mall and/or TGI Friday’s. In that case, offer your date this helpful tip. Every 10 miles per hour you drive over 60 is like charging yourself an extra 54 cents per gallon of gas. Regardless of what kind of car you drive. Who knew?

Next, pick a green destination. Central Park, Runyon Canyon, Botanical Gardens of your city – all of these will put a little foliage into your excursion. Or you could find a local garden that takes volunteers and spend the afternoon working together. If you have a dog and are going to a park, bring the pooch and spend the time showcasing your awesomely paternal qualities. (Or if you’re not at all interested in impressing a girl, treat the dog with icy disdain. You might just get the same results.) And guys – trust me, if you take a girl to a flower garden on your first date, you will score major points. We like flowers. Growing them (locally and organically), seeing them, and most importantly, getting them. Gloria Steinem would agree. Trust me, I just called and asked her.

Now say you get a second date and you want to provide a romantic scene. Unplug and go candlelight over dinner. Turn off the music and instead entertain with conversation. If you play an instrument well (I cannot stress the “well” enough), sing away. Bring out the local, organic wine and enjoy!

So next time you’re in a quandary as to what to do on a date, try adding a little green.

Green Speed Dating

ckane — Thu, 22 May 2008 23:10:17 -0400

If you're an L.A. treehugger looking for love, The Hideout in Santa Monica is hosting a green speed-dating event for you on June 15 (uh, Father's Day?). The $20 admission donation goes to Developing Communities, and for that you get 20 brief face-to-face matchups with environmentalists of the opposite sex. Free appetizers and some free drinks are available. Take notes on the ones you'd like to plant gardens with, and then within 24 hours you'll get your list of the ones you liked, who liked you back.

Developing Communities is a small volunteer organization (half of the six members are former Peace Corps Volunteers) focusing on communties in South America, particularly Nicaragua.The reason for the green theme, as if anyone needs one these days, is that the group is working on bringing solar electricity to a small town in Nicaragua.

So there you have it: only 20 males and 20 females will be admitted (24-40 age range), two dudes and two chicks were already signed up and at "press" time it was still almost a month away. So if you're up for the speed dating, make haste and sign up.

Hot Chocolate: The Wedding Favors That Save the Planet

ckane — Mon, 19 May 2008 12:25:07 -0400

This is one of the best ideas I've seen yet for a pre-made green wedding favor: Endangered Species Chocolate. The company donates 10% of profits to protect "species, habitat and humanity," and they are partnered with Chimp Haven, The Ocean Conservancy, and a Nigerian co-op.

They offer a few different options for wedding and party favors, to name a few: for $35, you can get 144 squares of ethically traded, milk and/or dark chocolate. Or for the same price, you can get 120 squares of organic dark chocolate. They also sell boxes of organic, ethically-traded chocolate bars in three flavor variations. (So when some wise guy at your wedding claims that tree-huggers care more about the planet than people, throw this factoid from the Endangered Species Chocolate website back at 'em: "By purchasing ethically traded chocolate, we guarantee cacao farmers a fair wage that lead to more sustainable farming practices.")

These would also work for out-of-towner gift bags...but if you're planning a green wedding, you may not be so hot on the idea of including 100 or 200 bags of more stuff in your event. But talk about a feel-good wedding favor: gourmet chocolate plus organic, plus all the causes, plus ethically traded.

Earth Mothers and Moms: Mutually Exclusive?

ckane — Mon, 12 May 2008 23:18:30 -0400

Many moms have famously claimed that having children has made them more conscious of their impact on the planet, like Julia Roberts, Cindy Crawford, Soliel Moon-Freye and now Jessica Alba. But the question has been raised as to just how eco it is to even have a child.

Last November, the Daily Mail published an article called, "Meet the women who won't have babies--because they're not eco friendly," featuring a 35-year old woman, Toni Vernelli, who had an abortion then got sterilized at aget 27 to reduce her carbon footprint, with no regrets. Another woman made the choice to not have children for the same reason, which ended several of her relationships, and she's now with a man who's had a vasectomy.

Then in March, Treehugger mused on "Why Eco-Activists Still Have Children." It links to a piece in The Guardian weighing the pros and cons of bringing extra little consumers and potential destryoyers into the world.

Here's another view on it, from the author of Gross National Happiness, which takes a whole different analysis, considering the measured happiness of couples with children vs childless couples, and weighing that against how rewarding it is to have raised someone well in a world that needs more good eggs in it.

Image: Toni Vernelli, from the Daily Mail

Five Ways to Meet People with Green Dating and Social Networking

ckane — Mon, 05 May 2008 00:00:00 -0400

1. Take a killer, but appropriate for you, photo to use for all your social networking sites--that's your first and best way to grab people's attention. If you want to meet friends to go camping with, put up a photo of you camping. (If all you have is an out-of-focus mugshot, that's not going to work.)

2. Don't just join Facebook (or MySpace, etc.), then sit back and wait for the messages to come rolling in. Join in the conversation. Find or start groups that describe you--here's a few I found (among all the admittedly more-prevalent-on-Facebook jokey groups) Organic Gardening 101, Slow Food NYC. Then participate in the discussions and when you like what someone says, add them as a friend or send them a message.

3. There are numerous dating services created just to connect green singles and friends, and I should add to that list Care2 (definitely check out this cause-oriented social networking/dating site), but you should still work the mainstream ones like Match and eHarmony, because they're better known, so they have more members. Just be as specific as you can when describing yourself and your interests to weed out potential global- warming skeptics (aka, dumb people).

4. In the real world, volunteer for you favorite politician, cause, concert series, or independent radio station. Go to idealist.org for volunteer opportunities and events, and another resource for volunteer opportunities or "activity partners" is good old Craigslist.org.

5. Here's another real-life option: Take a class in gourmet vegetarian cooking or green homebuilding or whatever subject in which you've always wanted to become more skilled. Even if you don't meet any new friends, when you do meet someone you'll be that much more impressive.

A Wearin' of the Green...With Sexy Results

ckane — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 00:01:05 -0400

At this time of year it may seem like there's corned beef meating up every perfectly good pot of potatoes, and at the St. Patrick's Day parades, green has a much different definition than the eco meaning that's been taking over lately. If you're looking for someone with similar values to share your Guinness, and you've exhausted the options on Facebook, MySpace, and more generalized online dating options, never fear because the Internet is here.

The specialized dating service I've known of the longest is VeggieDate with 16,000 ads of lonely hearts identifying as Adventist, Buddhist, macrobiotic, and raw foodists, among other categorizations.

However, Green Singles is probably the much older dating service; it's been kicking around since 1985. The vegetarian owner/operators also run the new site Veggie Love.

There's also Earth Wise Singles, Green Thumb Dating, Vegan Passions, Green Passions, Veggie Romance, Veggie Singles (a UK-based site), and Veggie Connection.

That should be enough to keep you busy. The abundance of resources make it seem a little more easy being green in love, and a little harder to sort through them all. Some of the sites are free and some for fee. I'm assuming there's overlap in candidates on these sites, but some of that narrowing-down process is up to you, fearless dater. The Internet can't do everything.

Note: This writer has not used any of these services (she and her fiance met on regular old MySpace), and can't vouch for them or their percentage of creeps vs hots. I'm just puttin' this list out there on an FYI basis.

Me Tarzan, You Vegetarian

ckane — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 21:53:41 -0500

Folks, I think we have a micro-trend in the media coverage of this ever-greening world: Carnivore-Veg*n Love: Can it Work?

It started the day before Valentine's Day with an article in the New York Times called I Love You, But You Love Meat. And while some commenters declared the topic a non-issue and the story a non-story, in the two weeks since, it has gotten press from The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, LAist, and University of Washington's The Daily.

As Lisa Romano, a vegan who broke up with her meat-grilling boyfriend noted in the Times piece, "I need someone who is ethically on the same page." But as one commenter on LAist opined, "These people seem unwilling to compromise, period. And since a relationship is all about compromise...they will remain alone for a bit longer."

The consensus among the articles seems to be that the reationships can work, but don't always. At any rate, the issue of meat-eaters pairing up with those who abstain was contentious enough to get well over 200 comments in the Times. And any kind of press means increasing awareness of the reasons behind dietary choices like vegetarianism and veganism (including environmental ones, some of which are found here).