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Howies. I don’t think I mention these people enough on this site; they’re a company with a big heart, so much soul and a range of the most excellent ethical outdoor clothing.

I’ve been a fan and customer of Howies for a number of years now and, being a keen biker and walker, I love their t-shirts, jeans, jackets etc. all aimed at people who enjoy the great outdoors.

Personally I swear by their 100% organic cotton jeans. I have three pairs and a pair of their 100% organic canvas jeans too. I won’t buy anything else, especially not those mass-produced brands that use chemical processes to make their range look “worn” (don’t you just hate that?)

They also do great pure lambswool hats, wicked “birdie” gloves (my Mrs. has a pair) and I love their terrific merino wool fleece. But that’s their winter catalogue, so what am I talking about?

The point is, if you love biking, skating, walking or just lounging around in soft organic cotton clothing then give Howies a look-in. Get their new catalogue and have a browse or save some trees and buy something from the Howies website. They’re based in Cardigan Bay, Wales and have a shop in the big smelly city of London. But it is in Carnaby Street and London doesn’t get much cooler than that.

The new Howies Spring/Summer 2008 catalogue is, as usual, a complete work of art. I’ve actually saved all my old ones ‘cos they’re a joy to thumb through, particularly because, between the great ranges of clothes, the good people at Howies sprinkle little gems of wisdom. Their “simple is good” page rings true.

This latest version of the Howies catalogue is entitled “Three Bays” and features international photo shoots from San Fransisco and Cape Town as well as Cardigan Bay, Wales. Hardly ethical taking shots in all these far flung places is it, I hear you say. Well, that’s where Howies are the business… in their own words;

“We didn’t feel it was right to send a group of people on a plane in search of sun. So we packed up the clothes in Fedex boxes and sent them instead.”

How cool is that?

Don’t just sit there… surf!

No, that’s not a brand name or a model name, this is a mountain bike with a bamboo frame!

My own mountain bike is a full-suspension alloy number I bought a few years back (at a considerable discount) as an ex-demo from my local bike shop, but I have to admit this little beauty is quite an eye-opener.

Available in a number of frame sizes the makers, Calfee Design, reckon the bamboo frame is more crash-resistant than carbon fibre bike frames. The picture on their brochure shows Shimano XT driveset and some Richey head components, Mavic rims and a WTB saddle. However the deal is for the frame only and they have the bamboo frame listed at $2,695.

If these bikes are so strong and flexible why can’t all mountain bikes be constructed from bamboo?

Whilst my girlfriend is back in the USA news comes in that the Americans are suffering gas, or rather $4 a gallon gas I should say. Some of them are praying for gas!

You’d think the Americans haven’t got anything to complain about, after all us Brits, who pay roughly £4.20 or $8.40 a gallon*, the price of gas/petrol in the UK is more than double what they’re paying over the pond. Well, there was a time in the last couple of years, as my NY State other half reminds me, when gas was just $2 a gallon. So US gas prices have doubled in the last 2 years. If that had been the case in the UK then when was the last time we paid £2.10 a (US) gallon or the equivalent of 55p a litre? (It was 1997 apparently, so petrol prices have doubled in 10 years compared to just 2 years in the US. UPDATE 20080523: 10 year UK petrol price figures here at the BBC website)

Now why, you might ask, am I bitching about the price of gas on a green website? Well, I’m just pointing out some facts before seeing how this seems to be damaging America’s thirst for gas-guzzling cars. You see, back at the beginning of May, The Independent newspaper reported that High Petrol Prices See Americans Ditch SUVs. It seems that $4 a gallon is really starting to change drivers habits over there. Sales of the Hummer for instance, dropped by around 20% last year and by 30% in the first 3 months of this year, according to the story. One website reports that the Hummer will be dead by 2014.

There’s more detail on the decline of SUV sales in the US in that article, but think about this… if oil prices have roughly doubled in the last two years, if the price of gas in the US has doubled over the same period, and if oil does reach $200 a barrel, then isn’t it a possibility that US gas could reach the $8 a gallon mark, similar to the price we currently pay in the UK?

Sure, us Brits will probably still see an increase in petrol prices but it does appear, at the moment, that we are a little less susceptible to the incredible price increases that Americans seem to be currently bearing.

* Based upon the average UK price of 1.13 per litre according to petrolprices.com on Monday 19th May and converted to US gallons. A US gallon is 3.79 litres where a UK (Imperial) gallon is 4.54 litres.

Farmers Markets are a great way for people to find local producers and cut down on the usually unseen environmental costs that globalisation brings.

Whenever there’s a local farmers market on we go down to see what we can do to assist with “localisation”. Afterall, if there is an oil crash and we all end up being unable to travel, we’re not going to be able to get our flowers from Kenya and beef from Argentina, so it makes sense to rely on local producers.

Farmers Markets also boost the local economy and stimulate the sense of local community.

And saying all this we’ll be down at our own local farmers market in Milford, Surrey on Sunday 18th May. We’re helping out on a stall and rolling our sleeves up to get involved, so let’s hope the weather and attendance are good.

Milford Farmers Markets are held at the Secretts Garden Centre and Farm Shop which is in Chapel Lane, Milford, Surrey GU8 5HU (We even put in a link to the map for you there). The market is open from 10:00am until 1:30pm so get there nice and early to get the best of what Surrey’s local farmers have to offer.

Back in December we brought you news on the advertising campaign by energy supplier E.ON called Reduce your Carbon Footyprint. To summarise, it’s all about getting English football fans to do their bit to reduce their carbon footprint by taking the coach and car-sharing to football matches, specifically the FA Cup. Football & energy suppliers? That’s a strange mix. So what’s in it for E.ON then? Well, E.ON sponsor the FA Cup which is next weekend. Not only is the campaign increasing their brand awareness but it is also creating the sense that E.ON really care about the environment. It’s an attempt to boost their publicly-perceived green credentials.

We were sceptical, we usually are. We’ve even been sceptical about our own champions of green energy Ecotricity, but only by questioning do we understand the answers. Upon publishing that story we received word that, despite a very public campaign to prove that E.ON is going green, they are forging ahead with plans to build a new coal-fired power station in Kingsnorth, Kent.

According to the website (”Stop Kingsnorth, no to new coal”) the new Kingsnorth coal-fired power station would belch out as much CO2 in one year as would 200 years of the the FA Cup.

Hypocrisy, madness, Greenwash?! What is the world coming to? No, don’t answer that!

For more answers on E.ON’s Kingsnorth coal-fired power station go take a look at the spoof site http://www.carbonfootyprint.org/

The rumour mill has been rumbling on about oil reaching $200 a barrel by the end of the year, I forget where the stories have come from. But when the someone from Goldman Sachs reports that $200 a barrel oil is likely then you just have to sit up and take notice.

Argun Murti, energy strategist at Goldman Sachs, said that rising worldwide demand for oil and limited supply will push the price of a barrel of oil up to $200 in the next six months to 2 years. Murti’s previous predictions that oil would reach $100 a barrel (when it was at $55 a barrel) were true, and with oil prices rising 25% in the last year and by 400% since 2001, it looks like $200 will be correct too.

The usual suspects in this current situation are China, with its voracious appetite for oil, and India, whose economy is booming. As somebody at the ethical clothing company Howies said in a catalogue a few years back… “and what if they all want a car?” That’s more than 2 billion souls in China & India…

So much for the world reducing its dependence on oil

Only last week I was looking for somewhere to recycle credit cards, old bank cards and expired store cards & membership cards. I searched the Internet but found nothing. Maybe I wasn’t trying hard enough.

Today it dawned on me, whilst looking for a plectrum/pick to play my guitar… why don’t I make guitar plectrums by recycling my old cards?

Using a plectrum (I eventually found one) as a template, I marked up an old store card and cut out each plectrum one-by-one with a pair of suitably sharp, heavy duty scissors. I managed to squeeze 6 plectrums from one card.

My new plectrums are not exactly perfectly-shaped like the ones I buy from the local music shop so they do need a little wet-&-dry to smooth off the edges. But they are novel and totally usable – very similar to a medium pick.

I’m now not only happy that I didn’t have to cut up my cards and throw them into the landfill but I have a handful of unique new picks!

Photos to follow…

Truth or Fiction? Too good to be true?

Whilst oil prices have reached $120 in the last week and the world worries about rising energy prices, along comes a simple technology that can create energy for free. Well, almost.

The EBM technology or Energy By Motion machine, is a 15 ton electro-magnetic generator that, once started, produces electricity under its own perpetual motion.

The current EBM 720 produces about 15Kw of energy from its location in Budapest, Hungary.

Whilst this is the biggest version, after 20 years of development, there are plans for a commercially-viable 100-ton unit to be produced.

Take a look at the following video of the EBM 720 and visit the Gamma Manager website.

One question: If this device is so darned good and produces free energy, why haven’t they seen the light of day sooner?

Thanks to Green Optimistic for the story.