Why That Cheap Fabric Ain't So Cheap

by Donnalynn Polito

Looking for a cheap fabric that will bring the final touches to your living room?  What about a cheap fabric for that dress you’ve been dying to make?  Maybe you’re just looking for a particular fabric that’s beautiful and that you know you can find for a cheaper price than what your designer is trying to sell it to you for. 


We devour bargains of all sorts, and looking for a cheap fabric isn’t any different.  In fact, we devour cheap fabrics because of their pricing and are often willing to sacrifice some quality to save some money.  When it wears out, guess what, we can go out and get another one!


It’s no surprise that the demand for cheap fabric is huge.  This demand, of course, fuels an abundant supply of cheap fabric.  Sort of a whatever-Lola wants-Lola-gets routine (an old but memorable song).

The demand for cotton falls into one of the biggest demand and supply categories.  Cotton has many desirable characteristics.  Among many of its characteristics, it is versatile, stable, naturally comfortable and cheap.  

We’re not dummies.  We all recognize that cheap comes with a hidden cost, but do we really, really know just how steep that cost is?  Really?

You can guess at some of it.  For one, just like we devour bargains, boll weevils devour cotton crops.  So, yes pesticides will be among the first costs we have to factor in. 

Are you ready to factor in another 149 chemicals?  A lack of information has a huge cost. This video will bring you and Lola up to date.  Take a look.





Want to get some great tips on  how you can have that beautiful look at a good price and that keeps you and your family in that marvelous eco living lifestyle you have become accustomed to?  

Global Warming Effects On The Wallet

by Donnalynn Polito
photo by Olaf Otto Becker

One of the most expensive effects of global warming can be the rising of sea levels as we work to defend ourselves against the rising sea. 

According to glaciologists, there is growing evidence that the melting of glaciers is speeding up.  With 90% of glaciers retreating and thinning, the world’s ice is melting at an alarming rate.  Some glaciers are gone completely. 

As glaciers melt, river flow increases, but that’s only a temporary situation.  When the glaciers are gone altogether, there will be no flow into the rivers.  We will then have to rely totally on rain to sustain the rivers, an iffy possibility at best.

In Greenland, the ice is melting at a rate of 250 billion tons a year and Antarctica isn’t far behind.  This melting ice along with warmer ocean waters from climate change is making sea levels rise.

A photographer who has spent many years in Greenland taking beautiful photos of the landscape took a photo of a glacier  in 1999 for his book, Under the Nordic Light.  When he returned 3 years later, the glacier was gone. 

More recent photographs by Olaf Otto Becker show the changing landscapes of Greenland. 

The pockmarked snow in Becker’s photos are dark from an airstream of dust as far away as China.  As the dust and ice mix, they gradually become tracks, holes, then rivers, lakes and deep glacial holes that can go hundreds of feet down called moulins.

Becker's trips to Greenland and the startling photographic history he has compiled had recently been brought to the attention of the Copenhagen summit. 

Olaf Otto Becker has three books published that describe his journeys into the far reaching lands of Greenland and show a dazzling but disturbing photographic history of glaciers melting.

The names of these books are “Under The Nordic Light”, “Broken Light”, and “Above Zero”, Becker’s most recent.  A convenient Amazon link to your left is where you can easily preview and purchase any of these books.

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