Digital Age

If carbon offsetting just isn’t personal enough for you, here’s a cheeky option to erase any negative effects of your “romantic” footprint. If you God forbid find yourself cheating on your loved one, you can now offset that cheating through CheatNeutral, an infidelity offseting service. Thanks to them, all your potential transgressions will be offset and your relationship fine once again.

Just how does it work? If you ever feel the need to pollute your relationship, simply go to CheatNeutral and, by paying for their monogamy-boosting offset projects, get a certificate from them stating that you have offset my cheating. Were your partner to find out about the infidelities, well then by showing her your certificate, he/she would understand that you have offset all the infidelities and you can save yourself from emitting bad feelings to each other, thus saving the relationship.

Now some of you may be wondering if truly this system is the best way to save a relationship. Wouldn’t a better way have been not to have cheated in the first place? Nonsense, say CheatNeutral! Their adultery offseting programs is certified and proven, by CheatNeutral, to reduce cheating worldwide. And before you ask, a cheating offset does not increase cheating in this world, as in order for you to cheat, you must pay someone not to cheat, making it all right to do so.

As always, we here at Inhabitat encourage you to stay informed. Cheating is an activity which may cause harm on your life and the lives of others, so we’d strongly recommend that you avoid it at all costs. However, if you must, CheatNeutral can give you an option to save your living environment. Take a look around their website, in particular their about page for important information about their program. I mean surely if it works with carbon offsets this can work as well, right? Right?

+CheatNeutral

Happy New Year from Inhabitat! Today marks the beginning of a new calendar year, and it’s the perfect opportunity right now to look towards the coming year with new ideas, goals and resolutions. While it

As we count down to the New Year, we are taking a moment to review 2007 and think about the highlights of the year. Each of us here at Inhabitat have our own personal opinions about what the most important Inhabitat stories of 2007 were. But ultimately, all that really matters is what you — our readers — think. Counting down from ten to one, based on traffic and reader comments, these were the most popular Inhabitat stories of 2007:

10. TOP FIVE SEXIEST SUSTAINABLE SPORTS CARS - 09/21/07 by Jorge - 35 comments

9. SEVILLE SOLAR POWER TOWER- 04/21/07 by Jorge - 42 comments

8. GREEN GRAFFITI - 10/24/07 by Abigail - 43 comments

7. CRYSTAL ISLAND - WORLD’S BIGGEST BUILDING - 12/26/07 by Karim - 44 comments

With the new year rapidly approaching, now is a great time to stop and reflect on 2007. Looking back on the past year, and forward to the new one, we at Inhabitat are excited to see such great progress made in sustainable design and innovation. Here are our top 10 green design stories of 2007- what we think were the most important and exciting stories of the past year. We can only hope next year will see even more progress and exciting developments in the field of sustainable design.

10. PLASTIC BAGS GET THE BOOT
This year cities started joining the anti-plastic bag bandwagon, banning their use in establishments like grocery stores and supermarkets. San Francisco took the lead, with Hong Kong, Melbourne, and even many countries in Africa taking similar strides. Plus, the canvas shopping bag and particularly the I Am Not A Plastic Bag became supremely popular as goods-toting alternatives. Inhabitat even launched our own supremely sexy eco-tote to aid in this movement, and we still have a few left, for those who want some.

9. LEDS GET COOLER AND COOLER
While LEDs aren’t necessarily a new story for 2007, the super-efficient light-emitting diodes are popping up everywhere and becoming much more widely available to consumers these days, grabbing market share in Christmas lights, lightbulbs, traffic lights, and even in luxury home decor. We’re hoping 2008 will be the year of the LED, and that the uber-green light devices will become even more practical and widely accepted.

8. SOLAR POWER BEEFS UP
No longer is solar power limited to big clunky panels- the sun’s energy is now able to be harnessed and utilized through a series of cutting-edge technologies like NanoSolar super-thin films and even roll-up panels, making solar power infinitely more flexible and practical. Massive solar power stations are popping up around the world (like the impressive one we reported on in Seville, Spain), and rental programs like CitizenRe’s ReNu are trying to make solar power accessible to more homeowners, by taking the initial installation costs out of the equation.

7. SUSTAINABLE CARS GET SEXY (aka the year of Tesla)
After years of heel dragging and false starts, car companies seem to be seeing the light of the Prius and are finally realizing that going green can make green. Now that every car company on the planet is trying to go green, we have to applaud Tesla Motors for taking a risk and launching the sexiest and most stunning electric vehicle to date. Though the Tesla Electric Roadster, is probably out of most of our price ranges, we love that it is helping to give sustainability sex-appeal and helping spread the word that good design and environmental friendliness are not mutually exclusive. It even raises the bar on sports car performance and design! We can’t wait to see what Tesla has on tap for 2008.

6. INCANDESCENT LIGHTBULBS KICK THE BUCKET
As CFL’s and LEDs become more and more commonplace, and the disadvantages of the archaic incandescents bulbs become more widely known, cities, states and even countries are stepping up and banning the old style bulbs altogether. First Australia banned the bulb, then Ireland stepped up, and last we heard even the slow moving U.S of A. just passed a law to ban sales of incandescents by 2012. In 2008 we’re hoping to see many more countries will follow suit.

5. FASHION GOES GREEN
From organic cotton going mainstream, hitting the racks at H&M, Neiman Marcus and the Gap, to awesome eco fashion shows hitting the runways in New York City, London and Paris, and new wearable lines like SheBible and Ekovarahuset, we’re thrilled that the past year has seen a serious dose of style added to sustainability. Consumers are more conscious of where what they wear comes from, and fashion designers are looking to green materials and production methods to enhance their designs rather than limit them.

4. RENEWABLE ENERGY GETS INNOVATIVE
No longer content to just look to solar and wind for renewable energy, tons of companies are getting creative and exploring alternative energy sources from lightning to human movement as a potential source of energy generation. Energy is embedded in everything, so it obviously makes sense to look for new energy potential in a wide variety of sources, ranging from poo power to underwater turbines to waves and even algae. This past year energy news may have sounded like headlines from the Enquirer, but we’re excited to see the search for viable renewable energies expanding beyond wind and solar.

3. ONE LAPTOP PER CHILD LEADS THE WAY IN SUSTAINABLE GADGETRY
One of our favorite examples of a great green gadget for the greater good, the One Laptop Per Child is getting all kinds of attention and is now widely available for purchase. Also known as the $100 laptop, the cute and socially innovative computer will be one of the topics of discussion at our upcoming Greener Gadgets conference.

2. GREEN PREFAB CONQUER THE WORLD
After the success last year of Steve Glen’s and Ray Kappe’s Living Home eco prefab, we were not surprised to see the worlds of green building and prefab construction coming together in 2007. This year, prefab designer extraordinaire Michelle Kaufman took green prefab to new heights by debuting her zero energy mkLotus design at West Coast Green in September. The compact home doesn’t compromise style or energy efficiency, using solar panels, recycled materials, LED lights, a green roof, water recycling system, green landscaping and even a plug for your electric vehicle!

1. AL GORE WINS THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE!
Though An Inconvenient Truth was technically last year’s news, Al Gore scoring the Nobel Peace Prize was a 2007 feat, and we are so excited that environmental issues are finally starting to get taken seriously. Along with the U.N.

Drumroll please………We know you’re anxious to see the finalists for the Inhabitat T-shirt competition, and the results are finally in. Happily, we had a ton of interest in the contest and received almost 200 entries - so it took us some time to get through all of them. Thank you SO MUCH to all who participated in the competition - we were really impressed to see so much interest and great design ideas from our talented readers. So without further ado, here are our ten finalists. Please vote on your favorite, and we’ll announce the winners on Saturday.

HABBY: I Give a Hoot
Simple Branch

Winking Habby in a Tree
Green=Good
Globe Greenery
Tree / Root / Lungs / Heart

Simple Tree Silhouette
Green T-shirt with Vine Design
Butterfly Foliage

Spring Shoots


view results

Read More…

If Duro Olowu is not on your sustainable style fashion radar, he should be. This former lawyer from Nigeria has a flair for breaking the laws of couture design via a resourceful mix of brightly colored, recycled African prints and vintage seventies-style tailoring. Olowu has made a big splash on the global ‘must-have’ list with his one-of-a-kind hippie chic and signature high-waisted patchwork dresses, recently updated to an even bolder variation featured in this season’s Barney’s New York green holiday catalog..

Olowu has a sophisticated eye for mixing recycled and custom-designed fabrics with strands upon strands of global jewelry accessories. Though his haute-couture creations carry a hefty price tag, Olowu attributes his luxurious extravagances and emphasis on ‘fashion as art’ to a desire to pay homage to the regal and stylish women of Bamako, the capital of Mali. “It’s a dizzy quick visual beauty that reflects my culture and women - it’s a very joyful dress, effortless, comfortable, and sexy without being in-your-face,” he says.

With the well-timed opening of his shop on Portobello Road in London and the wide acclaim he received after his debut at London Fashion Week last February, Olowu is now slated to bring African-inspired and mulitcultural collaged creations to the forefront of our sustainable style sensibility.

+ Duro Olowu
+ Duro Olowu Fall 2007 Collection on Style.com

Michael Jantzen’s experimental designs are a fascinating amalgamation of art, architecture, and environmental sustainability. The visionary architect’s design for the Solar Wind Pavilion is no exception. Planned for the California State University at Fullerton, the Solar Wind Pavilion is an impressive integration of wind power generation, solar energy, and rainwater harvesting, all combined into a gathering place for students and faculty for special events, studies, relaxation and meditation.

The proposed structure will be built using lightweight, high strength, composite concrete. The canopy roof would be covered with frosted glass shaded by a series of concentric louvered rings, and a large digital projection display screen would be placed at the center of the canopy roof. The pavilion could accommodate a gathering of 300 people.

The pavilion harvests energy from the natural environment which could be used to power the university. A vertical axis wind turbine mounted atop the structure would convert wind energy into electrical energy; it could be used directly or stored in batteries, placed at the base of the pavilion, for future use. Photovoltaic cells, arranged in four large rings mounted at four concentric shade louvers, would also harness solar energy to produce electricity, while the canopy roof would collect rainwater.

+ Solar Pavillion
+ Michael Jantzen

Plastic bags account for 90 percent of grocery bags in the United States.
99% of these bags are not recycled and end up landfill, harming wildlife and leaching toxins like dioxin and other carcinogens into the soil. At this point, you may be tired of hearin about how important is it to carry reusable cloth bags to the grocery store. But it is such a small, easy step that really makes a huge difference in terms of your environmental impact.

We can offer some help here at Inhabitat by providing you with a stylish organic tote bag that isn’t just an emergency stop-gap, but is an eco-fashion statement you will be proud to carry around with you.

Inhabitat Eco-friendly tote bag

Made from 100% organic cotton, these sturdy and stylish bags are printed with water-based eco-friendly inks (unlike nasty plastisol inks which most printers use). The bags are also made in the US and are extremely high-quality, rugged, and durable, so they won’t break after four shopping trips. Finally, with every Inhabitat Tote bag you purchase, you help support our publication and environmental design initiatives.

We have a limited quantity of these handmade eco-tote bags, so if you want one, act fast:

Men’s cut Inhabitat Sage Green Tree T-shirt

Women’s cut Inhabitat Sage Green Tree T-shirt