Children's Parrot Welfare Book Launch and Reading Event with Adam Arkin, Beau Bridges and More!

“Here, There and Everywhere” is a new children's book collaboration between author Mira Tweti, an award-winning animal welfare journalist, and illustrator Lisa Brady. Together they have created a breathtaking collage of words and colors that invites children and parents into the world of Sreeeeeeeet the Lorikeet.

This is probably the first parrot-welfare book for children, and it is as fun as it stunning. It is also printed on 100% recycled paper and has an upcoming groovy launch party with Adam Arkin, Beau Bridges, hip hop artist Mystic and..Eco-Libris. Check details below!

Here's a bit I found pretty funny and I can already imagine how hilarious it is going to be to read it aloud to a child:

“When Sreeeeeeeet traveled he pooped on the flowers and leaves, bushes and bees. His poop
plopped seeds to the ground and they sprouted”

And later on:

“It’s not good for a bird to be in a cage all the time,” said the owner. “They need to stretch their wings and move around freely like my birds do here.”

“It’s not good for me or my expensive furniture if he poops on it!” Peter’s mom replied.”

To find out more you'll just have to get the book!

So without further ado here are details on the book's launch party:

Actor Adam Arkin, co-star of the new NBC hit series "Life" to join actor Beau Bridges and hip hop artist Mystic with readings from the new book at a “Launch Party for Kids and Grownups”

Author and award-winning animal welfare journalist, Mira Tweti, will introduce the founders of two local parrot rescues: Rose Levine of Parrots First and Daniel Hill of The Lily Sanctuary. They will bring some parrots in their care and talk about their work caring for unwanted birds.

Tweti and illustrator, Lisa Brady, will sign first edition copies of Here, There and Everywhere, hot off the press and in time to buy as a meaningful and beautiful holiday present that benefits avian and animal welfare with each sale.

Eco-Libris will be there as well! As part of a collaboration with author Tweti, Eco-Libris stickers will be offered at the event. So when you buy a signed copy, you can buy a sticker and put it right there on your new book. Eco-Libris will plant a tree for the book you just got, thereby helping to replenish forests which are the habitat of many endangered species. More on our collaboration with Parrot Press to be announced soon.

When: Sunday, December 16, 1-4 p.m.

Where: Frank Pictures Gallery
Bergamot Station A-5
2525 Michigan Ave
Santa Monica, CA 90404

Want more details? call 310-828-0211

Yours,
Eylon @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: a great green gift for the holidays!

Green holidays - the greeting cards

One of the holidays big green issues is the greeting cards. Greeting is a nice gesture, but should it necessarily have environmental impacts?

Every year 2.65 billion holiday cards are sent in the U.S. alone. hundreds of thousands of trees are cut down to meet this demand. This is definitely a place where we can go green and act more sustainably, and the good news is that it's easier (and cheaper) than ever.

Here are few examples for greener options:

1. Make your own cards - on the website Allie's Answers, I found a great tip on making your own cards:

I’ve been saving magazines and scraps of pretty paper all year. Using a few decorative punches, and a glue stick, I mounted shapes on to recycled card stock and used rubber stamps to spell out holiday greetings.

You can get really creative with your reused materials. I made snowflakes out of scrap computer paper, aluminum foil, paper bags, and even the foil top from my vitamin bottle. The cards are easy to make. This would be a good project to do with your kids.

2. Send an online holiday card - this is also a paper-free and much greener option. You can find many websites that offer you to email greeting cards on your behalf at no cost. If you look for something more special you can check out Three Leaf Cards, which provides you with provide a customized holiday online card solution that is both only tree-free and carbon neutral.

Another interesting option would be to use the services of GoldMail, which offers an alternative, fun, and free way to send personalized messages. Friends of the Urban Forest. Check out GoldMail's presentation here - http://cdn2.goldmail.com/?GMID=1s0ntr484dns.

3. Send holiday cards made of recycled paper - If you decide to purchase greeting cards on the holidays, you can find beautiful cards made of recycled paper. Our recommendation would be on Doodle Greetings, whose cards we use for Eco-Libris holiday gifts.

Doodle Greetings is a Co-op America member from Kensington, MD. Their cards come with a beautiful design, printed on 100% post-consumer recycled paper and are made chlorine-free and acid free. Furthermore, according to Doodle Greeting's website, the paper is made entirely with renewable energy (primarily wind power).

Other ideas for cards made of recycled paper or tree-free paper can be found on this Ideal Bite's tip.

The bottom line is that the green options are right there (and we even didn't mention recycling the holiday cards you receive from others..). All you have to do is just choose and make someone else knows you care about him or her, but also about the environment :-)

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: a great green gift for the holidays!

How to live off-grid - Holiday green gift guide for book lovers: part 8

Today, stuffed with too much donuts and latkes (Hanukkah is here!), I'm happy to present you with part 8 of Eco-Libris blog's holiday green gift guide, the guide that will help you find the best green books to give as gifts this holiday season.

Today we have the pleasure to bring you a recommendation of Tracy Stokes of EcoStreet on a great new book that will take you off the grid.

Tracy is a green blogger (she co-founded EcoStreet) and an online activist who lives in suburban Surrey. She lives life to the full as a stay-at-home-mother, organic food gardener, vegetarian cook, permaculture and green living enthusiast. If you should chance to meet Tracy, you'd be amazed at how fast she can turn a conversation round to recycling.

Tracy Stoke's recommendation for this holiday's gift is:

How to Live Off-grid: Journeys Outside the System

Author: Nick Rosen

Publisher: Doubleday

Published in: 2007

What it is about: In "How to live off-grid", Nick Rosen goes into every detail of off-grid living. He provides not only the inspiration to get off the beaten track and find your own space, but also countless resources to help you do just what he suggests.

To gather the information to write this book, Nick took to the road with his wife and baby daughter in a converted care bus fuelled by vegetable oil and sun. They toured the UK meeting with off-gridders of all sorts. Yurt-dwellers, communards, utopians and rural squatters were all on Nick's path, all living happy and comfortable lives completely off-grid. Their stories are fascinating, inspiring and sometimes quite far-out. But they all have some lessons to pass on to those of us who until now have only dream about being self-sufficient.

Why it's a great gift: It's a great bit of escapism from the excesses of the holidays.

Thank you Tracy for a great recommendation! If you want to learn more on life off-grid, check out this site - http://www.off-grid.net/. You can also find there some extracts from this book.

If you choose to give your friends or family this book as a gift on the holidays, you are more than welcome to balance it out with Eco-Libris, add its sticker to the book and make it the perfect green gift for the holidays.

And just a reminder, here are the other recommendations we had so far on our guide:
Part 1 - The Man who Planted Trees by Jean Giono
Part 2 - Home Work : Handbuilt Shelter by Lloyd Kahn
Part 3 - The Joy of Vegan Baking by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau
Part 4 - The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle
Part 5 - Deep Economy by Bill McKibben
Part 6 - The Armchair Environmentalist by Karen Christensen

Part 7 - Worldchanging - A user's guide for the 21st century by Alex Steffen (Editor), Al Gore (Foreword), Bruce Sterling (Introduction)

The whole guide can be found here - http://www.ecolibris.net/holiday_guide.asp.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: a great green gift for the holidays!

Now you can find on our website two special offers for the holidays - holiday greeting cards and holiday certificate gifts.

Eco-Libris' offers for the holidays

Here's a quick reminder of the two gift options we're offering for the holidays:

1. Special Eco-Libris gift for the holidays - Plant trees to balance out the books your loved ones read. We will send them a beautiful holiday card and Eco-Libris stickers to display on their books’ sleeves. Just change the shipping address on the payment page to the address of the gift receiver and we will take care of the rest!

The holiday greeting cards we send are made by Doodle Greetings (see picture). Not only these cards come with a beautiful design, but they are also eco-friendly - printed on 100% post-consumer recycled paper and are made chlorine-free and acid free. Sounds like a good fit with Eco-Libris stickers!

2. Special Eco-Libris gift certificate - give an Eco-Libris gift certificate to the people you care about, with which they will be able to plant trees for the books they read. For every tree planted, we will send them an Eco-Libris sticker to display on their book’s sleeve.

All you have to do is to choose the gift certificate you would like to give, press the 'buy' button and fill in the details on PayPal page. You can later decide if you want to send the certificate online or print it and send it by mail. Please note that you don't need to have a paypal account to purchase the gift certificate (PayPal accepts credit and debit cards), but the gift receiver will need to open a PayPal account (free of cost) to use your gift certificate.

Happy Holidays!
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: a great green gift for the holidays!

An interview with Jack Guest, creator of the film 'A Convenient Truth'

About two weeks ago I wrote here about a new film about the world getting better - 'A Convenient Truth'. I saw the trailer, read about the film on its website and was very intrigued with the film and its creator, Jack Guest.

I decided I should learn more about the film and Guest, and asked Guest for an interview. He agreed and I am happy to bring you my interview with Jack - the guy who brings us a movie that is both a green and a personal journey to a better future.

Can you please tell us what the movie is about? How does it relate to 'An Inconvenient Truth'?

The film's about the possibility that things can get better. An Inconvenient Truth showed us in no uncertain terms that we face a huge problem on planet earth. A Convenient Truth looks at turning that problem into an opportunity, showing that we can make things work, for everybody.

Is the final movie similar to what you had in mind when you started this journey?

Only a little. Once we started filming it took on a life of its own, it's a very organic process. At first I wanted to jump straight from amateur filmmaker to Oscar-winning professional, without realising that I didn't have the skills to do that. If I'd realised how much work goes into making a film I'd probably never have started.

Why did you choose to go to Sweden from all places?

I was doing lots of local green politics at the start of 2006 when Sweden announced plans to break their dependence on oil by 2020. This was a big declaration at the time. The scale of climate change wasn't widely acknowledged then as it is now, so it was a bold, forward-looking and exciting decision, and I wanted to know more.

What was the most important green lesson you learned during the work on the film?

That consistency and constancy of action is more important than grand gestures.

Is there really a convenient truth? Do you believe the Swedish solutions can be applied to other countries with different ways of thinking, like the U.S. for example?

Yes. The cornerstone of the Swedish solutions was collaboration and action. It's this spirit, rather than the specifics of solutions (which will always change from location to location), that can and needs to be applied to other countries.

The people I met were inspirational in that they saw very clearly that there was a big problem, were in no doubt as to the importance of doing something about it, and so just got on and did something. No big fuss or argument.

Their 2006 oil commission report, for example, saw politicians, civil service, business, citizens and the media all working together, communicating and collaborating to get the job done.

Many people claim that no matter what we, the people, do it has no real influence, and only governments, policies and regulation can make a difference - what are your thoughts about this claim?

For me it's a personal issue. There will always be voices on the sidelines, arguing, heckling, seeking to undermine the good work being done. My question is this, am I doing what I need to do about this issue? Am I doing the best that I know how? And will I look back and be satisfied that I played my part, whatever the eventual outcome is. If I can answer yes then I know I am contributing, no matter what anyone else says or does.

Did you manage to keep the work on the film environmental-friendly?

Yup, we're a super low carbon film. I don't know how low, but very, very low. Certainly the best that we knew how. Most of our work has been done digitally, we travelled efficiently.

What are your plans concerning the distribution of the film? will it be available online? any plans to participate in film festivals?

We're in talks with one distributor at the moment, and it's too early to say anything more. Releasing the feature length preview (95 minutes) online has worked very well. I think the main film will be more suited to a traditional style release, although there are some exciting self-distribution options opening up, like Brave New Cinemas as a way for people to organise screenings of new films for themselves all around the world.

The organic nature of the production so far has meant we haven't done any forward-planned applications to film festivals and given the ACT NOW message, I don't want to wait many months to get a good slot. We'll see.

Why did you choose to start with a 95-minute preview? what is the difference between the preview and the movie itself?

To get the film rolling, show people what we saw in Sweden, and help fund the main release next year.

The preview film is a little rough around the edges and focuses on the Swedish people and projects that we visited. Although split into five parts it remains a film in itself, produced on a low budget by a great team of collaborators. Someone said watching it is like having a nice massage.

The main movie has been produced on a bigger budget, with a more experienced team and is aimed at a wider audience. It's less about the specific Swedish solutions and more about my journey to the country, making the film, and then continuing across the Atlantic by cargo ship. It's a lot more personal.

Any advice to people who will want to follow your steps and make their own independent films on green issues? would you say that with all the hardship and budget difficulties it was worthwhile?

Absolutely. Hardship and difficulties were the only way to learn what to do better next time. My advice is go for it.

What are your plans for the future? any new project in the horizon?

I'm doing a course in Shiatsu massage and oriental therapy to learn about practical hands-on healing. There is another film on the horizon too, it's a continuation of the journey really, about going to meet some smart people to ask if it's our inner lives that are heating up the planet.

Did you receive a phone call from Al Gore yet?

No. He's a busy man. Maybe once we've built his 200 foot gold statue he'll visit.

Thank you Jack! I am going to watch the preview this weekend and I invite all of you to check it out. The 95-minute preview splits into five parts, between 5 and 30 minutes each. Each part costs about $0.75 (or £1) and you get 200 credits to watch one part for free.

And there's the trailer, if you want to get a glimpse of the movie:

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: a great green gift for the holidays!

UK book industry goes (a little bit) green

The Guardian reported yesterday that the UK books trade "has taken a step towards a greener future, setting a target of a 10% reduction in carbon footprint from 2006 levels by 2015."

According to the article, the 10% reduction target has been adopted by the industry's Environmental Action Group (EAG), a panel set up earlier this year by the Booksellers Association and the Publishers Association, where you can find high-level figures from Penguin, HarperCollins, Hachette, Random House and Faber.

This is indeed very encouraging to see that leading organizations in the UK book industry are taking action and moving in the right direction.

But isn't 10% reduction too little? not to mention the fact that the reduction will be from 2006 figures. The Kyoto Protocol for example referred to 1990 figures as the basis for CO2 reduction calculations (although, there it was only 5% reduction of 1990 figures).

Not only that, but it's also only a recommendation. Tim Godfray, the chief executive of the Booksellers Association, explained that the figure is a non-binding target they are "encouraging publishers and booksellers to adopt".

Still, I think that it is better than doing nothing and it shows that the UK book publishing industry do not ignore the environmental impacts of the industry. I truly hope to see bolder steps following this one.

Andy Tait from Greenpeace also addressed this issue on the article saying "however, the target is an encouraging start, but it's not enough...Encouraging booksellers and publishers to reduce their carbon footprint by 10% is a positive gesture, but a much more serious impact would be made if the publishing industry insisted that the pulp and paper industry that supplies them cleans up its act. Energy efficiency, clean renewable energy and an end to using paper from ancient forests could transform the industry that supplies the raw materials for our books and magazines."

I join Tait in his call to the industry and would like to add to his list also the urgent need to significantly increase the use of recycled paper.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: a great green gift for the holidays!

Eco-Libris at bookstores in Northern California

I love bookstores. I can spend hours just wandering around and looking for great books.. And now in Northern California it's getting even better - you can find Eco-Libris in bookstores!

Yep, starting this week you can find Eco-Libris stickers in three independent bookstores.

- East West Bookstore: 324 Castro Street, Mountain View, CA 94041 www.eastwest.com

- San Francisco State University Bookstore: 1650 Holloway Ave. San Francisco, CA 94132 www.sfsubookstore.com

- Willow Glen Books: 1330 Lincoln Ave. San Jose, CA 95125

In these bookstores, you can buy a new book and balance it right there. You will receive a sticker of Eco-Libris that you can proudly display on the new book, and of course a new tree will be planted to balance out the paper used for printing your new book.

All of these independent bookstores are members of the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association (NCIBA), which Eco-Libris is proud to work with. We are happy to work with independent bookstores since we see them as a viable part of a local economy that supports both community life and regional sustainability.

We hope to see more bookstores joining the list of stores that provide their customers with the opportunity to balance out the books they bought on spot. We will keep you of course posted!

Yours,

Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: a great green gift for the holidays!