June has been an excellent month for our ever expanding blog team at Green Options. We've added several new writers to the mix including Elizabeth Redmond on "Eco-Effective Decisions," Heidi Strebel will be covering the green scene in Europe, Robin Schidlowski will cover the Bay Area beat and most recently Colleen Patrick-Goudreau bringing tips for tasty green cooking.

As we enter July, Green Options will continue to bring you the latest on everything Green. Check out my favorite posts from the past week.

Tip o' the Day: Office Walking Club
Rebecca Carter's last post — you will be missed!

Do you work in an office park? Sit in a cubicle all day long? These "parks" are often filled with offices, and not much else. If you want to go out to lunch instead of eating in the deli downstairs, you probably need to get in your car & drive. Or do you?

Divine Trade
Divine Chocolate is a delicious Fair Trade brand that has established a competitive presence not just in Fair Trade chocolate, but in the entire chocolate market in the UK and, now, in the US. The mission of Divine is to "improve the livelihood of smallholder cocoa producers in West Africa by establishing their own dynamic branded proposition in the UK and US chocolate markets." Divine is unique in that it is a chocolate company that seeks to put more ownership in the cocoa farmers' hands.

Eco-Effective Decisions: May I Have a Side of Food with My Plastics
Americans alone use and dispose of enough paper and plastic cups, forks, and spoons every year to circle the equator 300 times. Lets break this down, mathematically first (then we can physically break down the paper and plastics). If the circumference of the earth at the equator is 24,901.55 miles (a bit longer than measured at the poles), and there are 365 days in the year, then we dispose of 20,467.027 miles of disposable paper and plastic to go ware each day! That is about enough distance to stretch from the coast of Gabon (the westernmost country in Africa on the equator) all the way around the world to the eastern mouth of the Amazon in South America, every day!!!

Lighter Footstep: 5 Reasons Not to Drink Bottled Water
Bottled water is healthy water — right?

That's what the marketers would have us believe. Just look at the labels or the bottled water ads: deep, pristine pools of spring water; majestic alpine peaks; healthy, active people gulping down icy bottled water between biking in the park and a trip to the yoga studio.

In reality, bottled water is just water. That fact isn't stopping people from buying a lot of it. Estimates variously place worldwide bottled water sales at between $50 and $100 billion each year, with the market expanding at the startling annual rate of 7 percent.

The Green Options Interview: Jeff Lazar, JLF/Lone Meadow
The hospitality industry is booming, but still has a long way to go in being green. Amy spoke with Jeff Lazar, owner of JLF, a leading supplier for custom seating in the hospitality industry, about his new collection of environmentally friendly seating, Lone Meadow and the challenges of being one of the few sustainable designers in this field.

The Ferrari Of The Future Drives Through Greener Pastures
Is there a more iconic sports car than a blood red Ferrari? Sure, the Corvette is up there, but to me the Ferrari has always been the epitome of "zoom zoom". It's encouraging, therefore, to hear today that over the next decade, the Ferrari brand will become much more environmentally friendly.

While the company stopped short of announcing an all-electric model, such additions as regenerative breaking, advanced turbocharged engines, massive weight reductions and biofuels are all on the table. Plans are in place to reduce the weight of every car over its predecessor by 300kg. Engines will be downsized, and future Ferraris will be able to use E80 bioethanol fuel. Average CO2 emissions across the product line will be reduced from 400g/km to 250.

Greening the Golden Years: Finally, Some Optimism in a Sea of Pessimism
"Something earth-changing is afoot among civil society, a significant social movement is eluding the radar of mainstream culture." That's the uplifting and optimistic prelude to comments made by environmentalist and author Paul Hawken in his new book Blessed Unrest, and in an article for Orion Magazine. I was inspired by his thoughts, and wanted to share them
Vegan BBQ, Burgers, and Backyard Bites: Fabulous and Flavorful Favorites
In my work as a vegan educator, advocate, and cooking instructor, one of my goals is to take "vegan food" out of the box. There tends to be a notion that “vegan food” exists in a food group separate from “normal food” or reserved only for those who label themselves “vegan.” But the fact is that even non-vegans eat “vegan” food every day — they just don’t call it “vegan.” Plant-based cuisine is simply made up of the foods we already eat and love: vegetables, fruit, legumes, grains, nuts, beans, seeds, mushrooms, herbs, and spices. When we recognize that “vegan” food is already part of our meals, we take the mystery out of the label.

Plant foods contain all the flavors, textures, and colors that satisfy our palates and our senses. In fact, it is flavor, texture, and familiarity we crave whenever we eat, and all of these elements are found in the rich array of plant foods available to us. The Holy Triumvirate of meat, dairy, and eggs has become so dominant in our daily diets that they have replaced what was once the foundation of the human diet: plant foods. Even when we do eat vegetables, we tend to drown them in fat-laden cheeses, oily butters, and heavy cream sauces – forgetting that the vegetables themselves contain all the flavor we crave.

Weekend Grub: Grilling with Chimney Starters
Summer is here, and for many, that means time to start cooking outdoors. For some, bottled gas (propane, most commonly) is a preferable choice for a number of reasons, while many others prefer to cook over charcoal. I'm not going to get into a long debate about which is the best. It's something like the 'paper-or-plastic' debate. Given some of the issues around the extraction and processing of propane, as well as it's non-renewability compared to wood charcoal, I think that it's possible to make the case either way.

Has Vanity Fair Tainted its Well-Intentioned Africa Issue?
Vanity Fair’s July issue is devoted to raising awareness in Africa. Guest edited by Bono, the magazine has 20 different covers featuring celebrities and cultural figures like Brad Pitt, Madonna, Maya Angelou, Oprah and President Bush involved in a game of telephone.

The magazine has been debated because it naturally raises the question of whether the use of celebrities in social campaigns raises awareness or trivializes the issue. Some see it as a positive step – some awareness is better than nothing while others are less optimistic. I personally tend to fall into the former camp. Bono has clearly made the business decision of using celebrities to sell the magazine, but he has also equally given attention to both creating awareness about issues afflicting Africa like AIDs and civil war while celebrating and focusing on progress.