#(not to say that all canadian productions are trash but look in which network it ended up)

[alicepao13]

Just saying, if Citytv was to do me a solid and renew Hudson and Rex on my birthday...

I would still not like them because I'm not that easily bought and that's not nearly enough to make me see them in a good light.

[closetofanxiety]

Nitromare: Underneath the Barrel

Another week, another episode of Nitro from the Vince Russo era. This Monday is November 1, 1999, and we’re live from the Target Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I went out to Minneapolis to see a wrestling show last year, and had a fine time. I don’t know if I’ll have as much fun watching this Nitro.

We open up with Bret Hart upbraiding Hall and Nash for interfering in his match last week. They don’t know why he’s upset, since they interfered on his behalf. “Screw you, Scott!” Bret yells. 

Bret walks out to the crowd, on crutches, and tells people he thinks Bill Goldberg is the rightful U.S. champion. Sid Vicious, hair product spilling down the back of his leather vest in thick rivulets, comes out and beats on Hart. Hall and Nash come out to mock the injured Canadian hero. 

We’re still in the midst of this nonsensical tournament to crown a new WCW world heavyweight champion. The brackets make me realize I’ve been misspelling Lash LeRoux’s name wrong for two straight installments of Nitromare. It’s in the spirit of Crash TV, bro!

One thing I appreciate is that the WWE Network has left in the commercials that are wrestling-themed, so there are some Randy Savage Slim Jims ads, and a lot of ads for WCW toys. It’s amazing how little ads for wrestling toys have changed since then. The medium is ripe for reinvention.

Some recap, some backstage nonsense, and we’re onto our first match: Vampiro vs. Berlyn, in a battle to see who is the top mall goth in all of WCW. It’s a pretty decent match, and then ... Oh God, it’s the Michael Graves-era Misfits running out of the back for some reason. “Vampiro is a musician as well,” Tony notes. I’ll say this: the Michael Graves albums aren’t as bad as people claim. Some decent songs on those, but people were just going to shit on anything that wasn’t Danzig, casually overlooking that “Earth A.D.” was terrible.

Ah, let’s see: ref bump, the Misfits take out Berlyn’s bodyguard, The Wall, with a chair shot, and then help Vampiro get the cheating win over Berlyn. The Wall has miraculously recovered from being knocked unconscious 15 seconds ago, and gives the microphone to Berlyn. “From now on, screw USA!” he says. 

Backstage, Hall is reading a newspaper. Ah, the 1990s! He and Nash mumble semi-audibly to each other. In another part of backstage, the Revolution have locked a leather-clad Torrie Wilson in a cage. “She’s the property now of the Revolution,” Brain informs us. 

The Revolution come out to the ring. Perry Saturn is wearing an outfit entirely composed of denim except for his leather Kangol. “You say you want a revolution?” Shane Douglas asks. No one said that, Shane. They let Perry talk for a while, which is a bold choice. Perry demands a key on top of a pole match, the key being the one to let Torrie Wilson out of her cage. Is this the first item on a pole match of the Russo era? I believe it is. 

Dean Malenko takes the mic to call out Chris Benoit. “You’ve been nothing but a puss, old buddy,” he says. DANGEROUSLY EDGY.

Benoit comes out. All these guys are in street clothes, which hilariously means polo shirts tucked into jeans. They look like a bunch of office guys getting ready to cut loose with a game of touch football at the company picnic. Chris Benoit announces he will wrestle Dean Malenko in a cage, which for some reason causes Malenko to have some kind of psychotic break. 

Backstage, the Filthy Animals are coming into the building, and a security stops them, demanding to see backstage passes. This makes a huge amount of sense. The Filthy Animals beat the security guy up, because they can’t be contained by your rules. Meanwhile, Mike Tenay is interviewing Kimberly Page, who is flanked by all the Nitro Girls. How many Nitro Girls can you name without looking it up? Was one of them named Sapphire? That’s about as much as I can muster. Kim tells the Nitro Girls she’s leaving the group. I never really thought of her as a Nitro Girl tbh. 

Ernest “The Cat” Miller comes to the ring, and the fake music the WWE Network inserts over his entrance song is unbelievably bad. Seriously, go and watch this. It’s incredible. It sounds like a Casio keyboard has been sunk in a vat of pickle brine before being struck by hammer-wielding orangutans. 

He’s wrestling Lash LeRoux. “Big future ahead for this guy,” Brain says. “I can see it. He’s going to explode.” He’s now a Christian cartoonist and illustrator, so maybe? This match lasts maybe two minutes. The Cat’s knee gives out and LeRoux picks up the win.

Backstage, Hart is raging about Nash and Hall. “These guys aren’t the bottom of the barrel, they’re underneath the barrel!” he fumes. Meanwhile, dissension in the Nitro Girls as they try to decide who will be the new leader. Elsewhere, the Filthy Animals are secretly videotaping Lex Luger and Miss Elizabeth. Eddie Guerrero is wearing a fetching Cosby sweater. The camera keeps rolling after they stop acting and then they show an actual behind-the-scenes TNT director. Everyone is cracking up. LIVE TV, BRO! Maybe that was deliberate? Maybe Vince Russo was out to destroy the fourth wall once and for all?

Now we cut to a remote segment with a shockingly subdued, normal Scott Steiner talking about a back injury to Larry Zbyszko. This is a totally different Steiner. No shouting, no babbling, just a guy talking like a football player about the specifics of an injury and surgery. Larry is wearing a colored denim shirt with the Nitro logo on the breast pocket. At last, a garment fine enough for me to be wed in. Was this an attempt to do a “shoot interview”? Russo pulling back the curtain - this ain’t Scott Steiner the character, this is Scott Steiner THE HUMAN BEING! 

Now we’re back in the ring, and the Nitro Girls are dancing. I would like to read an oral history of this dance troupe. Get on that, Bixenspan. The dancing ends with some pushing and shoving, but before that can go anywhere, we’re backstage again, with Tenay interviewing Buff Bagwell. The Buff Daddy complains about “the writers” holding him back. 

A series of vignettes show us Kevin Nash doing a Vince McMahon impression. What am I doing with my life?

Back to the Nitro Girls. More pushing and shoving backstage. Trying to turn them into workers was such a characteristically Russovian decision. And, like most of his ideas, it was terrible and obviously doomed to fail.

A crowd sign: “BUFF IS THE REAL PEOPLE [sic] CHAMPION”

Stevie Ray comes out and announces that “the powers that be” have determined there will be a strap match. “Who said that? The two writers in the back?” Buff yells. Yes, Buff. So now we have a strap match. It’s not a good strap match, and the two suited goons who work for THE DAMN WRITERS IN THE BACK run out because Buff starts to win. Why do Russo and Ferrara hate Buff so much? 

We switch from the ring as the ring announcer is talking to Tenay interviewing Jeff Jarrett. “Don’t get slappy with me, Tenay!” he says. He drops some more insider terminology, because Vince Russo thought that was what normal people wanted. 

Kevin Nash comes out, a vision of horror in putty makeup, as Vince McMahon. “The fans out here, they don’t even know who he is,” Tony says. Which explains why they’re silently watching this terrible skit. Less than three years after this, Nash would be working for Vince McMahon once again, and losing to Chris Jericho in a hair vs. hair match. Life comes at you fast, Kevin.

“I put anyone out of business until I was the only show in town,” Nash as Vince says, eerily predicting what will happen in less than 18 months. The crowd is restless and bored. He uses some insider lingo, as was the style at the time. Nash-Vince introduces Scott Hall as “the Trouser Snake.” 

“He’s clean and sober!” Nash-Vince proclaims. This is grim. Fifteen years before this, a young “Magnum” Scott Hall was starting off in this very city, in the dying days of the once-great American Wrestling Association. How far we had all come. 

Hall launches some more insider lingo and does a crotch chop aimed at “the boys in New York.” Seconds and minutes of my life, rushing by, never to be held again. 

Backstage shit. Lex, Liz, Meng, Perfect. Ah, Perfect. The last great star of the Minneapolis-based AWA, a native of nearby Robbinsdale. What did Verne make of all this? I mean, Verne probably would have tried to put a 59-year-old Baron Von Raschke over Bret Hart, but I digress.

Hennig gets a good pop when he comes out. Brain points out Hennig’s father, the great AWA star Larry Hennig, at ringside. The ghosts of the 1970s are all around us. This is a match against Disco Inferno. This will not be up to the standard of one of Hennig’s matches in the previous decade with Nick Bockwinkel. 

The crowd absolutely fucking loses it for Larry Hennig, chanting “LARE-EE! LARE-EE!” as he punches Disco Inferno. Ah, that does my heart good.

Of course, this has to be interrupted by the random appearance of some goober walking down the ramp from backstage. Disco Inferno runs out to talk to him, and they walk down the ramp to the back. The bell rings, and Hennig wins by contour. Larry claps at ringside while looking like he’s seen someone shoot a family pet. 

Some backstage garbage. We come back to the ring for a “hardcore three-way dance.” The Barbarian w/Jimmy Hart, Meng, and ... Norman Smiley dressed as a baseball catcher. Two of the all-time legit tough guys and a star from the old British wrestling, in this goofy-ass plunder battle. This should have been a stiff, nasty classic. Instead it’s a slow, sloppy farce. 

Crowd sign, evidently made by a lunatic: “PUSH DAVID FLAIR.” 

In the ring, Meng and the Barbarian are chopping the shit out of Norman Smiley. THIS IS MORE LIKE IT. Smiley’s shoulder is sliced open, probably on one of those fake trash cans. He’s stretchered away from the ring for some reason. He jumps off the stretcher when he sees that Meng and the Barbarian have knocked each other out, and covers the Barbarian for the win.

Backstage, Jim Duggan is begging an unseen Vince Russo for his job. “I’ve been wrestling for 20 years, and I think I have more fan support than some of these guys out here doing the dropkicks.” Fancy, fancy dropkicks! 

Russo, off-camera, sneers, “It’s all about ratings. Next!” He managed to keep his voice off TV for two whole weeks. As we know, the amount of Vince Russo time would only grow. 

Jarrett comes out and demands to see Luger. Jarrett is mad that Luger accused him of beating up Miss Elizabeth two weeks ago. “This is not the WWF. We don’t abuse women here!” Luger comes out and apologizes for accusing Jeff Jarrett of hitting Miss Elizabeth with a guitar. This is exactly like “War and Peace.” But it’s all a ruse! Luger goads Jarrett into insulting Meng, who runs out. Jarrett flees, wisely. 

Miss Elizabeth and Luger join Meng. Elizabeth thanks Meng, and then ... maces him. Luger pulls out a crowbar and beats on Meng. None of this makes sense. None of it has to. We are deep within the heart of the Nitromare. 

Backstage nonsense. The Filthy Animals, who Mark accurately describes as “The Go-Bots version of DX,” come out for a good ol’ fashioned object on a pole match. The object here is a key that will free Torrie Wilson from a cage. If Eddie Guerrero wins, he will reunite Torrie with her crew. Perry Saturn implies that if he wins, he will have sex with Torrie, presumably against her will. Whenever someone talks about how great wrestling was in the late 1990s, I will remember this.

Perry Saturn is driving a forklift with the Torrie cage on it. I’m not sure he’s a licensed forklift operator. Also, I’m pretty sure the Target Center is a union shop. Could be a strike in the works here. 

Tony: “It’s been a wild night.” Brain: “It’s getting better every Monday!” Only Tony is truthful. 

Eddie vs. Saturn should be a good match, but of course it’s not. After about two minutes, there’s interference from Shane Douglas, and most of the action in the match revolves around attempts to get the key off the pole. This is the problem with object on a pole matches. 

Sign in the crowd: “CONAN [sic] IS THE TACO BELL DOG.” This is a racist reference that may be lost on younger people reading this today.

Eddie gets the key while Torrie chokes Saturn. The Filthy Animals were, theoretically, a pretty good faction. It’s kind of a fun mixture of personalities, and their all-for-one mentality really helped them stand out. They were let down by the fact that Vince Russo was in charge. 

More backstage shit, and then we’re back in the ring for a Filthy Animals match. I mean, we just had all the Filthy Animals out for the previous match, but here they are again. No way the crowd could possibly become bored by 25 minutes of the same people, right? 

Kidman and Konnan, the tag team champs, are going to be wrestling Sting and Luger. We’ve also seen a lot of Luger tonight. This is WCW, but they’re running the show like one of those super local indies where everyone has to wrestle twice on the same show. 

Some people in the crowd have Juggalo face paint, the second week in a row I’ve noticed this. Did the Misfits ever wrestle the Insane Clown Posse on a WCW show? If not, why not?

This match sucks, but Sting is still insanely popular. The crowd goes berserk at every Stinger splash. The match ends after three or four minutes via DQ, when Rey and Eddie jump Sting. The Filthy Animals were the babyfaces in the previous match, and they’re the heels here. Welcome to Vince Russo’s World of Moral Ambiguity and Veiled Rape References.

Sting is mad because Lex didn’t help against the Filthy Animals. Sting and Luger have quite the rocky friendship. Backstage, Sting knocks over an (empty) barrel of Surge, the none-more-Nineties soft drink. 

We come to the ring, where Booker T is walking out. He’s jumped on the ramp by Jeff Jarrett. This is a fun, Southern-style match, or more like a hyper fast, caffeinated version of a Southern match. Naturally, it gets interrupted by the two besuited goons working on behalf of Russo and Ferrara, and Jarrett wins. Has there been a clean pin once tonight?

A remote piece from the set of “Slam,” which would later be renamed “Ready to Rumble,” the godawful David Arquette wrestling movie. Tenay interviews Goldberg. Goldberg sure doesn’t like the Outsiders and Sid! 

A bunch of backstage garbage. Madusa, another AWA favorite, gets a nice reception from the crowd. She’s going to wrestle Evan Karagias. This is pretty much what people who don’t like intergender wrestling are thinking of when they talk about intergender wrestling. Madusa keeps trying to seduce Karagias rather than wrestle him. Madusa pins him and then makes out with him. Everything is awful.

Benoit and Malenko are wrestling in a cage. This should be a brutal classic by two of the best technical wrestlers of all time. “I can’t wait ‘til this match is over,” Brain says. I feel the same way about this episode, and this entire insane project. 

The match is not a brutal classic. It’s over in 4:29. A few decent spots, but more like a highlight reel than anything. Perry Saturn runs out to try and help Malenko. It doesn’t work. Benoit wins with a diving headbutt off the top of the cage, which is insane. The Revolution gets into the cage and they beat up Benoit. The Filthy Animals have turned into babyfaces again, and they run into the cage to help Benoit. The crowd doesn’t know what to do, so they do nothing. David Flair, the least electrifying man in sports entertainment, shows up with a crowbar to attack the Filthy Animals. Now Sting comes out to attack the Filthy Animals. With any luck, we’ll get Meng out here to attack the Filthy Animals. 

Instead, we cut to the parking garage. David Flair is trying to sneak away, but gets run down by someone driving a car. It’s Kim Page. This show is terrible. 

Backstage: someone has beaten up Nash-Vince. Good. 

Now the main event: Sid vs. Scott Hall. Why am I doing this to myself? How much longer am I going to be able to do this?

The match is bad. It lasts 4:53. For a second I have the horrifying fear that this is the match where Sid broke his leg, but then I look it up and see that it happened during the Sin PPV in January 2001. 

There’s a ref bump. Second of the night. A referee was also attacked by Shane Douglas after the key on a pole match. Bret Hart comes out on his crutches. Hits Sid. Swings and misses with Hall. Hall gets the pin on Sid. Who cares about any of this? What is even happening in this show?

[jessicakehoe]

16 Ways To Minimize Your Carbon Footprint This Holiday Season

Christmas—despite its biblical origins and self-professed giving spirit—is an orgy of consumption. The holidays see more food, more drinks, more shopping, more gifts, more travel and more human-gatherings than any other time of the year. It also sees more garbage, waste and senseless squandering of the earth’s depleting resources. Tis the season, am I right?

This year, take a moment to turn down the Michael Bublé and think about the impact your festivities are having on the environment. From eco-friendly gift wrapping to sustainably sourced trees, there are plenty of ways to eat, drink, be merry and be a friend to the planet.

Photography via iStock

The Tree

Real and plastic Christmas trees are both evergreen, but they’re also both never green. Get it? That was a fancy way of saying that whether your tree was cut down at a farm or created in a factory, you’re increasing your personal carbon footprint. Which of the two is less bad is an age-old question, with studies showing that the difference it so small, it really doesn’t matter which you choose. Here’s what science has to say: the American Christmas Tree Association (this is a real thing) did a comparative life cycle assessment in 2010 (it’s 210 pages), and found that “the impact of the tree life cycle, for all scenarios, is less than 0.1% of a person’s annual carbon footprint and therefore is negligible within the context of the average American’s lifestyle.”

1. If you opt for a real tree, look out for FSC Certification. This will confirm that your tree has been sourced sustainably.

2. When the holidays are over and it’s time to kick your festive decor to the curb, seek out local council recycling schemes that repurpose or replant trees.

3. If a fake tree is more your style, try picking up a secondhand one from an Internet marketplace like Kijiji or Facebook.

4. Or, since Christmas is sort of an annual thing, you could consider investing in a high-quality artificial Christmas tree that will last a lifetime, rather than a cheap one you’ll have to soon replace.

Photography via iStock

The Lights

Your best bet: skip them all together and light a bunch of soy candles instead. But if you aren’t interested in being the single light-less Scrooge on your street, you can make these small changes to your yearly light set-up.

5. Use LED lights on your home and your Christmas tree. LED lights use about 80-90% less energy than traditional light bulbs, which means you’re doing your electricity bill and Mother Nature a favour.

6. Put your lights on a timer so that they aren’t wasting electricity when you drink too many rum and eggnogs and forget to turn them off before bed.

Photography via iStock

The Cards

A thoughtful Christmas card is the perfect way to show a distant friend or relative a little love over the holidays. But instead of sending a physical card in the mail—Think of the paper! Think of the delivery emissions!—

7. Design an e-card, write an email (add festive emoji!) or simply give someone a “Merry Christmas” FaceTime call. I promise they’ll appreciate the message just as much.

8. Save the cards you receive and cut them into holiday gift wrapping tags for next Christmas.

Photography via iStock

The Wrapping Paper

The easy answer would be to stop giving physical gifts all together. Instead of buying plastic toys and brand new pieces of technology, you could gift everyone on your shopping list a tree! It’s a charming idea—and at $4.00 a piece, you should consider it—but it’s not an entirely realistic goal for everyone. So if you’re going to to be wrapping gifts this season, here are some of the ways to reduce your waste.

9. Skip the wrapping paper. If you’re a parent, consider letting Santa leave small, organized piles of gifts for your children. They’ll start playing right away, and you can go back to sleep.

10. Buy something reusable — like this fabric gift wrap from Montreal-based brand La Petite Boite Co. — or consider wrapping your gifts in something reused, like newspaper.

11. Foil and glitter wrapping paper is pretty, but it can’t be recycled. If you’re going to buy wrapper paper, skip these options altogether. And also, it’s important to remember to remove all tape before tossing paper in the recycling bin.

Photography via iStock

The Food

Extravagant food displays are a hallmark of the holidays. Ensure that not a bite is destined for the trash by diligently planning and preparing the right amount—and the right type—of food.

12. Opt for turkey over roast beef. According to University of Michigan’s Centre for Sustainable Systems, for each serving of beef there are approximately seven pounds of carbon dioxide equivalents (beef production releases methane, a potent greenhouse gas). One serving of poultry, however, has just over one pound of carbon dioxide equivalents. Or, skip the meat altogether and try Lauren Toyota’s roasted cauliflower skillet, which comes basted with a savoury gravy and looks just as impressive as the real thing.

13. Let your guests serve themselves to ensure people only fill their plates with what they’ll actually eat. Bonus: you’ll end up with all the leftovers, instead of their plate scraps ending up in your garbage.

14. There are hundreds of things you can do with your leftover holiday food—and they aren’t all hot gravy sandwiches. Here are just 40 out-of-the-box ideas from Food Network Canada.

Photography via iStock

The Travel

Whether you’re escaping the Canadian cold or heading out of town to visit family, there’s a good chance you’re leaving home over the holidays. Here’s how you can avoid letting your travel plans spoil all the hard work you did to keep your carbon footprint down.

15. Carpool to family events and social gatherings. It cuts your carbon output, and makes the parking situation a whole lot easier.

16. According to The New York Times, “one round-trip flight between New York and California [generates] about 20 per cent of the greenhouse gases that your car emits over an entire year.” If you’re getting on an airplane, purchase a carbon offset to help balance it all out. Read more here.

The post 16 Ways To Minimize Your Carbon Footprint This Holiday Season appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

16 Ways To Minimize Your Carbon Footprint This Holiday Season published first on https://borboletabags.tumblr.com/

[lindyhunt]

16 Ways To Minimize Your Carbon Footprint This Christmas

Christmas—despite its biblical origins and self-professed giving spirit—is an orgy of consumption. The holidays see more food, more drinks, more shopping, more gifts, more travel and more human-gatherings than any other time of the year. It also sees more garbage, waste and senseless squandering of the earth’s depleting resources. Tis the season, am I right?

This year, take a moment to turn down the Michael Bublé and think about the impact your festivities are having on the environment. From eco-friendly gift wrapping to sustainability sourced trees, there are plenty of ways to eat, drink, be merry and be a friend to the planet.

Photography via iStock

The Tree

Real and plastic Christmas trees are both evergreen, but they’re also both never green. Get it? That was a fancy way of saying that whether your tree was cut down at a farm or created in a factory, your increasing your personal carbon footprint. Which of the two is less bad is an age-old question, with studies showing that the difference it so small, it really doesn’t matter which you choose. Here’s what science has to say: the American Christmas Tree Association (this is a real thing) did a comparative life cycle assessment in 2010 (it’s 210 pages), and found that “the impact of the tree life cycle, for all scenarios, is less than 0.1% of a person’s annual carbon footprint and therefore is negligible within the context of the average American’s lifestyle.”

1. If you opt for a real tree, look out for FSC Certification. This will confirm that your tree has been sourced sustainably.

2. When the holidays are over and it’s time to kick your festive decor to the curb, seek out local council recycling schemes that repurpose or replant trees.

3. If a fake tree is more your style, try picking up a second hand one from an Internet marketplace like Kijiji or Facebook.

4. Or, if you plan on making Christmas an annual thing, you could consider investing in a high-quality artificial Christmas tree that will last a lifetime, rather than a cheap one you’ll have to soon replace.

Photography via iStock

The Lights

Your best bet: skip them all together and light a few soy candles instead. But if you aren’t interested in being the single light-less Scrooge on your street, you can make these small changes to your yearly light set-up.

5. Use LED lights on your home and on your Christmas tree. LED lights use about 80-90% less energy than traditional light bulbs, which means your doing your electricity bill and mother nature and favour.

6. Put your lights on a timer so that they aren’t wasting electricity when you drink too many rum and eggnogs and forget to turn them off before bed.

Photography via iStock

The Cards

A thoughtful Christmas card is the perfect way to show a distant friend or relative a little love over the holidays. But instead of sending a physical card in the mail—Think of the paper! Think of the delivery emissions!—

7. Design an e-card, write an email (add festive emoji!) or simply giving someone a “Merry Christmas” FaceTime call. I promise they’ll appreciate the message just as much.

8. Save the cards you receive and cut them into holiday gift wrapping tags for next Christmas.

Photography via iStock

The Wrapping Paper

The easy answer would be to stop giving physical gifts all together. Instead of buying plastic toys and brand new pieces of technology, you could gift everyone on your shopping list a tree! It’s a charming idea—and at $4.00 a piece, you should consider it—but it’s not an entirely realistic goal for everyone. So if you’re going to to be wrapping gifts this season, here are some of the ways to reduce your waste.

9. Skip the wrapping paper. If your a parent, consider letting Santa leave small, organized piles of gifts for your children. They’ll start playing right away, and you can go back to sleep.

10. Buy something reusable — like this fabric gift wrap from Montreal-based brand La petite boite co. — or consider wrapping your gifts in something reused, like newsprint.

11. Foil and glitter wrapping paper is pretty, but it can’t be recycled. If you’re going to buy wrapper paper, skip these options all together. And also, it’s important to remember to remove all tape before tossing paper in the recycling bin.

Photography via iStock

The Food

Extravagant food displays are a hallmark of the holidays. Ensure that not a bite of turkey is destined for the trash by diligently planning and preparing the right amount—and the right type—of food.

12. Opt for turkey over roast beef. According to University of Michigan’s Center for Sustainable Systems, for each serving of beef there are approximately seven pounds of carbon dioxide equivalents (beef production releases methane, a potent greenhouse gas). One serving of poultry, however, has just over one pound of carbon dioxide equivalents. Or, skip the meat all together and try Lauren Toyota’s roasted cauliflower skillet, which comes basted with a savoury gravy and looks just as impressive as the real thing.

13. Let your guests serve themselves to make sure people will only fill their plates with what they’ll actually eat. Bonus: you’ll end up with all the leftovers, instead of their plate scraps ending up in your garbage.

14. There are hundreds of things you can do with your leftover holiday food—and they aren’t all hot gravy sandwiches. Here are just 40 out-of-the-box ideas from Food Network Canada.

Photography via iStock

The Travel

Whether you’re escaping the Canadian cold or heading out of town to visit family, there’s a good chance you’re leaving home over the holidays. Here’s how you can avoid letting your travel plans spoil all the hard work you did to keep your carbon footprint down.

15. Carpool to family events and social gatherings. It cut your carbon output, and make the parking situation a whole lot easier.

16. According to The New York Times, “one round-trip flight between New York and California [generates] about 20 per cent of the greenhouse gases that your car emits over an entire year.” If you’re getting on an airplane, purchase a carbon offset. Read more here.

[jessicakehoe]

16 Ways To Minimize Your Carbon Footprint This Christmas

Christmas—despite its biblical origins and self-professed giving spirit—is an orgy of consumption. The holidays see more food, more drinks, more shopping, more gifts, more travel and more human-gatherings than any other time of the year. It also sees more garbage, waste and senseless squandering of the earth’s depleting resources. Tis the season, am I right?

This year, take a moment to turn down the Michael Bublé and think about the impact your festivities are having on the environment. From eco-friendly gift wrapping to sustainability sourced trees, there are plenty of ways to eat, drink, be merry and be a friend to the planet.

Photography via iStock

The Tree

Real and plastic Christmas trees are both evergreen, but they’re also both never green. Get it? That was a fancy way of saying that whether your tree was cut down at a farm or created in a factory, your increasing your personal carbon footprint. Which of the two is less bad is an age-old question, with studies showing that the difference it so small, it really doesn’t matter which you choose. Here’s what science has to say: the American Christmas Tree Association (this is a real thing) did a comparative life cycle assessment in 2010 (it’s 210 pages), and found that “the impact of the tree life cycle, for all scenarios, is less than 0.1% of a person’s annual carbon footprint and therefore is negligible within the context of the average American’s lifestyle.”

1. If you opt for a real tree, look out for FSC Certification. This will confirm that your tree has been sourced sustainably.

2. When the holidays are over and it’s time to kick your festive decor to the curb, seek out local council recycling schemes that repurpose or replant trees.

3. If a fake tree is more your style, try picking up a second hand one from an Internet marketplace like Kijiji or Facebook.

4. Or, if you plan on making Christmas an annual thing, you could consider investing in a high-quality artificial Christmas tree that will last a lifetime, rather than a cheap one you’ll have to soon replace.

Photography via iStock

The Lights

Your best bet: skip them all together and light a few soy candles instead. But if you aren’t interested in being the single light-less Scrooge on your street, you can make these small changes to your yearly light set-up.

5. Use LED lights on your home and on your Christmas tree. LED lights use about 80-90% less energy than traditional light bulbs, which means your doing your electricity bill and mother nature and favour.

6. Put your lights on a timer so that they aren’t wasting electricity when you drink too many rum and eggnogs and forget to turn them off before bed.

Photography via iStock

The Cards

A thoughtful Christmas card is the perfect way to show a distant friend or relative a little love over the holidays. But instead of sending a physical card in the mail—Think of the paper! Think of the delivery emissions!—

7. Design an e-card, write an email (add festive emoji!) or simply giving someone a “Merry Christmas” FaceTime call. I promise they’ll appreciate the message just as much.

8. Save the cards you receive and cut them into holiday gift wrapping tags for next Christmas.

Photography via iStock

The Wrapping Paper

The easy answer would be to stop giving physical gifts all together. Instead of buying plastic toys and brand new pieces of technology, you could gift everyone on your shopping list a tree! It’s a charming idea—and at $4.00 a piece, you should consider it—but it’s not an entirely realistic goal for everyone. So if you’re going to to be wrapping gifts this season, here are some of the ways to reduce your waste.

9. Skip the wrapping paper. If your a parent, consider letting Santa leave small, organized piles of gifts for your children. They’ll start playing right away, and you can go back to sleep.

10. Buy something reusable — like this fabric gift wrap from Montreal-based brand La petite boite co. — or consider wrapping your gifts in something reused, like newsprint.

11. Foil and glitter wrapping paper is pretty, but it can’t be recycled. If you’re going to buy wrapper paper, skip these options all together. And also, it’s important to remember to remove all tape before tossing paper in the recycling bin.

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The Food

Extravagant food displays are a hallmark of the holidays. Ensure that not a bite of turkey is destined for the trash by diligently planning and preparing the right amount—and the right type—of food.

12. Opt for turkey over roast beef. According to University of Michigan’s Center for Sustainable Systems, for each serving of beef there are approximately seven pounds of carbon dioxide equivalents (beef production releases methane, a potent greenhouse gas). One serving of poultry, however, has just over one pound of carbon dioxide equivalents. Or, skip the meat all together and try Lauren Toyota’s roasted cauliflower skillet, which comes basted with a savoury gravy and looks just as impressive as the real thing.

13. Let your guests serve themselves to make sure people will only fill their plates with what they’ll actually eat. Bonus: you’ll end up with all the leftovers, instead of their plate scraps ending up in your garbage.

14. There are hundreds of things you can do with your leftover holiday food—and they aren’t all hot gravy sandwiches. Here are just 40 out-of-the-box ideas from Food Network Canada.

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The Travel

Whether you’re escaping the Canadian cold or heading out of town to visit family, there’s a good chance you’re leaving home over the holidays. Here’s how you can avoid letting your travel plans spoil all the hard work you did to keep your carbon footprint down.

15. Carpool to family events and social gatherings. It cut your carbon output, and make the parking situation a whole lot easier.

16. According to The New York Times, “one round-trip flight between New York and California [generates] about 20 per cent of the greenhouse gases that your car emits over an entire year.” If you’re getting on an airplane, purchase a carbon offset. Read more here.

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