In 1896, the last great Passenger Pigeon flock came to roost on the banks of the Green River outside Bowling Green, Ohio.  Hunters descended on the roost and killed nearly the entire flock.  Two hundred thousand dead birds were barreled and loaded into boxcars.  Shortly after leaving the depot, the train derailed.  Stranded in the heat, the birds were left to rot.

At the time of European arrival, Passenger Pigeons accounted for up to forty per cent of the land birds of North America.  They flew in vast flocks, numbering in the millions, sometimes eclipsing the sun from noon until nightfall.  Flying sixty miles an hour, they migrated across their geographic range, which stretched from the northeastern and mid-western states and into Canada to the southern states.

In the 19th century as America’s urban population grew and the demand for wild meat increased, thousands of men became full-time pigeon hunters.  With nesting sites holding unimaginable numbers, hunters slaughtered the birds with great efficiency.  It was inconceivable that in less than fifty years, the Passenger Pigeon would be nearly extinct.

On March 24^th, 1900, a boy in Pike County, Ohio shot the last recorded wild Passenger Pigeon.  Fourteen years later, under the watchful eyes of her keepers, the last captive Passenger Pigeon, Martha, died in her cage at the Cincinnati Zoo.

tonight a writer/artist gave a speech
i stole his language
to bring back to you:

fluxus
the robinhood of the avant garde
only instead of giving to one
it gives to all

subversive and select economy
loophole of copyright
archive of ephemera

all my writing is appropriated
everything is free
my dated rhetoric
taking us
to the summer of love

idealogy and practice
of radical distribution

fuck you
this is reserved for poetry
so leave me alone

we’re in the midst of a revolution
so large
we don’t even recognize it

they’re patroling
they’re vigilant
and they will screw you

and now for something completely different:

you were lucky
to have had
these fingers
passenger pigeon essays
hand-made lanterns casting glow into rainwet dark
ritual
honesty that began in berkely
this fist
chestgut ripped open
fearlessness
homework
determination and boxing gloves
earplugs
heat, blueprints, 12 year old boys worthy of documentation
falling apart barn dreams

me and a whole army agree
truth grenades
hooked to our beltloops

I took a date to the Smithsonian
and told her: Here lies Martha, or stands, perched
somewhere in the marble recesses of

our natural history, all boxed up
velvet maybe, dusty now. I once saw
her cousin dodo, stuffed, feathered gray, white,

chicken down all over. Martha kept her own
bones displayed over her title, from egg
to Ohio to block of ice. Last. Last.

Last night I took another girl, second
date, to see again the henned-up dodo
mounted beside decayed remains, glass eyes

fixed upon insects long drowned in amber,
a coelacanth in the next room, drowned too.
But maybe Martha has friends in the dark

museum storerooms, a red rail, dead with
the dodo, bathed in formaldehyde, C-
H20, so close to being alive.

.on september first in the year…

.1653 composer johann pachelbel was born and centuries later their canon in d appears in seul contre tous directed by gaspar noé.most classical music is a lot of stuffy rubbish but this is one of my favourites.

.1752 the liberty bell arrived in philadelphia.and then it cracked.

.1914 the last known passenger pigeon martha named for martha washington died in the cincinnati zoo.the body was frozen into a block of ice and sent to the smithsonian institute where it was skinned and mounted.

.1920 richard farnsworth was born and went on to a permanent place in my memory for riding a lawn tractor from iowa to wisconsin in the straight story directed by david lynch as well as an uncredited role in the wild one and the role of a shot-dead-in-the-end sheriff in misery.

.1922 lily munster was born.

.1929 anne ramsey who played that no good ma fratelli in the goonies was born.

.1967 die hexe von buchenwald ilse koch committed suicide in prison at the age of sixty proving it is never too late to give up.

.1972 bobby fischer conquered boris spassky in reykjavík iceland becoming world chess champion.decades later on september eleventh 2001 bobby said I say death to President Bush! I say death to the United States! Fuck the United States! Fuck the Jews! The Jews are a criminal people. They mutilate their children. They’re murderous, criminal, thieving, lying bastards. They made up the Holocaust. There’s not a word of truth to it. They are the worst liars and bastards. Now what goes around comes around. They’re getting it back, finally. Praise God and, you know, hallelujah. This is a wonderful day. Fuck the United States. Cry, you crybabies! Whine, you bastards! Now your time is coming.so all in all probably a very interesting person to play chess against.even if you did lose.

.1974 johnny the homicidal maniac author jhonen vasquez was born as part of some experiment inspired by the fly.they have never written any thing i did not like though my wallet sincerely wishes they would.

.1981 adolph hitlers chief architect albert speer died making love in london.

S. W. Woodhouse, the young surgeon-naturalist, left Philadelphia in the spring of 1849 to join the Creek-Cherokee boundary survey.  Like most of the Mvskokes who removed to Indian Territory a few years earlier, he had never been so far west.

Woodhouse filled three small journals during the summers of 1849 and 1850, recording his observations of the flora and fauna in Mvskoke country.  As an avid ornithologist, he was especially interested in the birds he saw while following the survey crew.

Among the many avian species he noted were the passenger pigeon, the Carolina parakeet, and the ivory-billed woodpecker.  Mvskokes who had made the long trek from the old country were familiar with all three birds as well, since each ranged widely over the southeastern part of the continent.

Passenger pigeons were once the most numerous bird in North America.  A single migrating flock could stretch a mile wide and take several hours to pass overhead.  Their roosts were congested enough to break tree limbs.  They were easy to hunt, and nineteenth-century Americans devoured them the way we eat chickens today.

Carolina parakeets also traveled in large and noisy flocks.  As the continent’s only native parrot north of Mexico, they were valued for their brightly colored feathers:  green body, yellow head, red-orange mask around the beak.  And these talkative birds would eat just about anything, including farm produce.

Ivory-billed woodpeckers were much less prevalent and preferred living in swampy forests.  With a typical wingspan of over thirty inches, they were one of the largest woodpeckers in the world.  Their black, white, and red coloration is very similar to the more common pileated woodpecker, with whom they are often confused.

These three familiar birds must have helped ease the transition for Mvskokes forced to move west, reminding them of home since time immemorial.

Unfortunately, these friendly reminders did not last long.  By the early twentieth century, all three species had been declared extinct.

American merchants overhunted the passenger pigeon as a profitable food commodity.  American farmers massacred the Carolina parakeet to protect their commercial crops.  American developers wiped out the ivory-billed woodpecker by destroying much of its specialized habitat.

We’ll never again see these three old friends winging their way across Mvskoke country.

*                *                *

The extinction of a species is always a sad event, and it’s the kind of news that usually comes from scientists who specialize in one thing or another.  As it turns out, these particular losses were also recorded in the Mvskoke language.

We can find evidence of our changing relationship to the natural world by comparing the two comprehensive dictionaries translating Mvskoke words into English:  the first, written by R. M. Loughridge and David M. Hodge and published in 1890; the second, written by Jack B. Martin and Margaret McKane Mauldin and published in 2000.

Today, for example, the Mvskoke word pvce means “pigeon.”  But as Martin and Mauldin point out, it formerly referred to “the passenger pigeon,” a more specific sense of the word that became obsolete when this bird disappeared.

The related word pvce-lane (literally, green pigeon) means “parrot.”  Loughridge and Hodge, however, noted an older sense, “parraquet” (parakeet), reflecting Mvskoke familiarity with the Carolina parakeet in 1890.  This species would also soon be gone, as would the meaning of its Mvskoke name.

The ivory-billed woodpecker is a more elusive prey.  Loughridge and Hodge recorded at least six words for different types of woodpecker, while Martin and Mauldin recorded more than eight.  Most of their definitions are too general to correlate with particular species, especially those that haven’t been seen for nearly a century.

Perhaps one of these terms was used for ivory-billed woodpeckers, or perhaps the Mvskoke name has been lost.  Or perhaps it survives in the memory of one of our elders, just as some ornithologists believe the ivory-billed woodpecker still lives in the Big Woods region of Arkansas.

*                *                *

Neither dictionary includes a Mvskoke word for “extinct” or “extinction,” but maybe we should come up with one pretty soon.

Scientists now say the planet’s animal and plant species are becoming extinct at a rate higher than any time in the past sixty-five million years.  That’s going back to the fifth mass extinction in earth’s history, the one that killed most of the dinosaurs.  Cause of death?  A warmer climate.

Today we’re witnessing the sixth mass extinction on planet earth.  What makes this current episode different is that global warming is being caused by human activity.

We must reduce our exploitation of the natural world, lest we lose any more of our old friends.  We must stop climate change before it stops us.

Muscogee Nation News, September 2009

Sources:

A Naturalist in Indian Territory: The Journals of S. W. Woodhouse, 1849-50

“The Passenger Pigeon,” Encyclopedia Smithsonian

“Carolina Parakeet,” Parrot Encyclopedia

“The Search for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker,” Cornell Lab of Ornithology

English and Muskokee Dictionary, by R. M. Loughridge and David M. Hodge

A Dictionary of Creek/Muskogee, by Jack B. Martin and Margaret McKane Mauldin

“History of mass extinction is a grim lesson on climate change,” Times Online

MICKEY Z

“Thanks for the wild turkey and the passenger pigeons, destined to be shit out through wholesome American guts.”
- William S. Burroughs, Thanksgiving Prayer

Once, there were many billions of passenger pigeons in America. Then the “settlers” arrived. As one of those settlers wrote in the 1600’s: “There are wild pigeons in winter beyond number or imagination, myself have seen three or four hours together flocks in the air, so thick that even have they shadowed the sky from us.”

“By anyone’s estimation, it was the most abundant bird on Earth,” writes Alan Wiesman in his book, The World Without Us. “Its flocks, 300 miles long and numbering in the billions, spanned horizons fore and aft, actually darkening the sky.” As late as April 1873, residents of Saginaw, Michigan witnessed “a continuous stream of passenger pigeons overhead between 7.30 in the morning and 4 o’clock in the afternoon.”

By 1900, however, all the wild passenger pigeons had been killed by humans. Fourteen years later, the last passenger pigeon died in captivity. Once, there were many billions of passenger pigeons in America. Now there are none.

This might have been the most dramatic example of avicide. Today, the methods by which human activities kill birds are far more varied but no less deadly:

*As many as 80 million birds are killed each year by collisions with plate glass windows.

*60 to 80 million birds are killed each year by motor vehicles. This averages out to roughly 15 bird deaths per mile per year.

*120 million birds are murdered by hunters each year.

*Feline companions allowed to roam free kill about 4 million birds each day in North America alone. Worldwide, the yearly number of birds killed by domestic cats is in the billions.

*There are 77,000 radio-transmission towers higher than 199 feet in the U.S. and nearly 200 million birds collide fatally with these towers per year. Add in 175,000 cell phone towers and the number of dead birds approaches a half-billion annually.

*Then, of course, you have habitat loss, environmental toxins, introduced diseases, and the biggest bird killer of all: the meat-based diet, e.g. every day, 23 million chickens are killed in the U.S. for food. That’s 269 dead chickens per second.

It’s Hitchcock in reverse as the planet’s most destructive species systematically slaughters everything in its path.

Once, there were many billions of passenger pigeons in America. Now there are none.

I don’t wanna live on a planet without birds. Do you? In fact, I can’t live on a planet without birds and neither can you. So, what should we do about it…now?

Mickey Z. is the author of two upcoming books: Self Defense for Radicals (PM Press) and his second novel, Dear Vito (The Drill Press). Until the laws are changed or the power runs out, he can be found on the Web at http://www.mickeyz.net

_______
“I never met another man I’d rather be. And even if that’s a delusion, it’s a lucky one.”
- Charles Bukowski

   The tar sealing the cracks has leaves from black walnut trees sticking to it, giving it a tarred and leafy look, black and gold.  

   Morning billboard: bullfly.com. Something to look into. [Bullfly Trading Company.]

   It is a four day. The top trivia card – from yesterday –  is purple, a color for wealth and prosperity. Three questions are written in ballpoint pen on the front. The back is plain, an indication no one made guesses  incorrrect or otherwise, they were willing to comit to paper.

    In comes the card bearer, an engaging man. Today’s card is yellow, an earth color, bright and sunny. It fits because today also a five (health) day in my way of figuring.

   “What Martha died in 1914?” is the first unanswered question from Monday. Answer: is not anyone the Census Bureau would count. She was, rather, the last passenger pigeon to die, as the species became extinct.

   Today the second question asks what is the Scoville scale and I want to say diamonds, the hardness thereof.  Close. It’s how hot is Hot, the pepper world.

   Uneventful day at park. The water is risen. A young heron flies away, protesting the intrusion. Great asymmetrical pathling.. Victor talking about polka dancing, not the same as it used to be.

   At eight a.m. the floodgates must have opened. A troop of high school athletes arrives for conditioning.  No squirrels to report.

   We moved a mole or vole off the path and let it rest in peace by a mossy root.  

 I get caught in the cross fire of a conversation about blueberries and strawberries in the ladies room. How sweet are the berries now, and there is nothing better than fresh whole sweet blueberries.

http://listverse.com/2009/07/25/10-recently-extinct-animals/

How would it feel to be the last survivor of your species? Specially read the passenger pigeon bit.. very tragic.

Monk Seal Habitat. … Monk Seal Habitat. Monk Seal Habitat by woofiegrrl. To take full advantage of Flickr, you should use a JavaScript-enabled browser and install the latest version of the Macromedia Flash Player. …[More..]


Monk Seal Action on Poipu Beach. April 19th, 2009 | Posted by Pauline. We have been on Kauai, Hawaii for the past week and are having a great time going for walks, swimming, exploring the island. Today it is raining so I had time to …[More..]

Like the only other remaining species of monk seal, Hawaiian monk seals are considered critically endangered by the IUCN red list. The population was nearly hunted to extinction. On a single voyage in 1859, 1500 seals were killed – more …[More..]

On a rainy day at the Cincinnati Zoo our family wandered into a small hut we had never been in before. There we were introduced to Martha, a passenger pigeon named for Martha Washington.

The once plentiful passenger pigeons are now extinct.

Martha lived a good and long life at the Cincinnati Zoo. The exhibit informed us that she was well cared for and lived to the ripe old age of 29 when she died Sept. 1, 1914.

But with her death came the end of the line for her entire species. As far as we know, she was the very last passenger pigeon on earth.

How did a species that numbered in the billions come to such an abrupt end? Since the passenger pigeon only thrived in large flocks, and these flocks were devastating to the rapidly spreading cropland in the Midwest, they were considered a pest. Wikipedia says, “They became such a threat to farmers that in 1703 the Roman Catholic bishop of Quebec formally excommunicated the species.”

And they proved very easy to trap and kill. Boxcar loads were shipped east, and their meat became a staple for the poor and slaves. No one could imagine these vast flocks ever being completely eradicated.

But their communal nature doomed them, and in the end, small captive flocks weakened and died out. Then there was only Martha…

Of course, many more factors were probably involved, but the starkness of the extinction of perhaps the most numerous bird on earth seems to have lessons for us all. Are we humans also much closer to extinction than we like to think?

Jesus Christ warned that human survival would be on the line–unless He intervenes. Today we have heard so much about weapons of mass destruction that our minds go numb. The threat is real! But there is real hope. Jesus Christ will return and bring God’s Kingdom! I hope my short book on The Wonderful World Beyond Today will sober and inspire you.

Let me know what you think.

“In novel form, the book is much more than the simple account of the extinction of a species of bird. It’s a touching and moving narrative of the bewildered attempts of the bird to lead a normal life and yet, at the same time, a shocking and revolting exposé of man’s shortsightedness and lack of understanding of even elementary conservation practices. It’s a forewarning of doom for many other species unless concrete and immediate action is taken to preserve them; in short, this is one of the best written, most touching books ever produced.”�Baton Rouge Sunday Advocate

The Silent Sky: The Incredible Extinction of the Passenger Pigeon is available at Amazon for $15.25. To Order click here
Amazon Product Pages contain a lot of other details on this product as Customer Reviews, Sales Ranking, Special Offers, Alternate products that customers are going for and much more.Want to read these details? click here

Want to get some other Format / Binding / Version? You can search for them from here

Other Products of Interest

• Hope Is the Thing With Feathers: A Personal Chronicle of Vanished Birds
• The Last Great Auk: A Novel
• The Passenger Pigeon: Its History and Extinction
• Last of the Curlews
• Extinct Birds (Comstock books)

I am one of those annoying people who believe that the æ dipthong is the key to words like encyclopædia and archæological, and especially Archæopteryx. They just lose their Attenboroughian grandeur when spelled with an ‘e’ alone.

Now I don’t want to seem alarmist, but I think that æ is heading the way of the passenger pigeon: towards rapid extinction, despite still being incredibly useful to the English-speaking portion of the human race.

And I also think that Fairfax is not doing much to help. They slashed the guts out of their journalistic and editorial staff, and now they’re also cutting costs by cutting dipthongs. Hence such headlines as Pedophile-charge priest cleared by church inquiry. Pædophile is an inherently nasty word: there’s nothing grand about it. But it’s infinitely worse when you take out the gliding vowel.

First published at tumblr Proof (v.)

Budapest. From the moment you disembark at the incorrect train station until two hours and 20 Euros later when you finally alight from an unlicensed-car service a block from your hotel (the street is ripped up), you can sense that you’re in a special city. This fine Metropolis is being reborn at every corner (most of the streets are ripped up). Much like the unrelenting transformations that occur in such hot milieu as New York City and Tokyo, a Michelin Green Guide to Budapest published four months back will do little good here as almost everything advertised has gone the way of the Passenger Pigeon, thus enabling a most unique experience for the wearied traveler. Much like London circa 1952, most of the buildings sport a patina that speaks to an embrace of the twentieth century’s finest mode of transport. The barrage of scaffolding and street closures leads the curious tourista to ask, “Are the Olympics coming to town?” or, “Did the Taliban recently leave town?” because, in the words of our illicit driver, “Sheet damnit…everything is under reconstruccione!”  So brace yourself for a crash course in all (or some) that is Budapest as could only be provided by a complete lack of preparation and two days with a fully charged camera battery!

Grand Entrance to Matthias Cathedral in Buda

“Martha, the last known passenger pigeon [Ectopistes migratorius], died in 1914 in the Cincinnati Zoo.”

Sometimes I wish humans would just disappear and the Earth reclaim the locales we have so meticulously manicured, like in Alan Weisman’s book The World Without Us. Or like in I am Legend, which was surprisingly awesome until computer generated zombies started laying traps for Will Smith and the religious discourse kicked in.

Empty and abandoned places are always sort of interesting. I’ve had some weird dreams on the topic. The recurring one is very spooky – based on something that really happened to me which was warped by my unconscious – and I’m trying, rather ineptly, to turn into a short story. The other was a one-timer: me in a black vacuum (outer space?), sparks start jetting out of my abdomen, and I realize that this is probably what dying is.

I was going to talk more about my history of dreaming and the legacy of how things come to artists in dreams, but it was sounding pretty New Age and self indulgent.

Not sure how I rambled my way to this point, actually, so I’ll conclude with the fact that I ate a delicious ice cream sandwich for the first time in several years tonight.

:: Bibliography ::

• “Passenger pigeon”. (2006). In Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Retrieved July 22, 2008, from http://www.credoreference.com/entry/6723645.

You can click on each piece to see the designer and more information:

Polyvore is great fun! Here is the first Not Just Pretty collage I made in case you missed it!

Passenger Pigeon was started in 2005 by Heather Schibli and Wendy Traas. They have a small studio at 135 Tecumseth Street, where they design, sample, print and warehouse their items. All their clothing is constructed locally in downtown Toronto.

The Keel Dress, shown on the left, has a soft gathered neckline, a flattering grey waistband and a pretty forest and bird motif on the skirt. It’s made of a organic cotton/soy/spandex blend.

The Dinghy Dress on the right is made of a woven organic cotton with a sweet blue bicycle pattern.

The following is an excerpt of an interview with Heather Schibli by Tim from blogto.com about Passenger Pigeon, the state of eco-fashion in Toronto and her plans for the coming year….

What is the concept behind Passenger Pigeon?

We at Passenger Pigeon believe in supporting local business (we source our fabrics from Canadian suppliers and have everything made here in Toronto), the environment (we use environmentally responsible textiles), and playful designs (we do not follow the predicted colour trends and so forth. We work with colours and images that inspire us).

In what ways is your company/clothing environmentally friendly?

First and foremost, Passenger Pigeon is deemed an environmentally friendly company for its use of eco-conscious textiles. We source fabrics such as organic cotton, hemp, organic wool, lyocell, bamboo and soy. These fibres still leave a footprint on the planet, but a much much smaller one then their counterparts. We pay fair wages to our contractors, who sew our garments here in Toronto. All our patterned fabrics are printed with water-based inks, which are better for the environment than oil based inks. We use 100% recycled, non-bleached paper for our business cards, catalogues and signs (and in fact, most of our paper work is done on the computer. We print as little as possible) printed with vegetable ink. Neither Wendy or I own a vehicle- we bike or walk to our studio and cycle when doing errands. We donate to charities like Greenpeace and WSPA.

Any plans for 2008 you’d like to tell us about?

As mentioned before, we are very exited about or Spring/Summer line. We are focusing on unbleached creams, warm blues and greys for this season with prints of bicycles and foliage. We also will be attaching a mildly political treat to each and every garment displayed on the racks at every store we sell through (it’s a surprise so you’ll have to look out for it)!

Anything else you’d like to add?

We plead – if you can not afford to support your local designers, than support second-hand shops. It lessens the burden on the planet. Avoid disposable clothing (items that survive only one or two seasons). It’s best to buy good quality classic looks that you can continue to wear for years to come. Pick up sewing! It’s surprisingly easy to convert an old sweater or dress into something fresh and exciting!

For the whole interview go to blogto.com

Wyalusing State Park is situated on the bluffs above the confluence of the Wisconsin and Mississippi Rivers.  Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, founded in the 17th century and one of the oldest towns in Wisconsin, sits below the park.  Hiking here is considered difficult because of the steep climbs down to and up from the Mississippi River.

Water is Leven, by Henk Hofstra (2007)

The ongoing interplay between man and nature occasionally throws up an oddity. In the usual course of things, cities and farmlands spread inexorably, fundamentally distorting (where not destroying outright) the ecosystems they encounter. Far less frequently, it is mankind who retreats – leaving concrete bunkers behind after a war, for example, which soon enough become overgrown and inhabited by wild cats and bats (see my post on Germany’s Westwall here).

What man hardly ever does, however, is memorialize the nature he has displaced. This is one of the objectives of Dutch artist Henk Hofstra’s “blue road” in Drachten (thanks to Torontoist for featuring the project and several pictures of it), which runs for 1000 metres exactly and sports eight-metre-high letters that say (in Dutch) “WATER IS LIFE”:  the city road that Hofstra painted vivid blue runs along the course of a former waterway.

The idea of building memorials to vanquished nature is an appealing one. Imagine our cities with multi-block areas painted deep green to symbolize the woods that were cut down to make way for buildings, or yellowy-brown to represent the fields bulldozed under. Perhaps we could even paint shadow animals — like the silhouettes we sometimes paint to represent the real or potential human victims of nuclear bombs — here a moose, there a porcupine, that scattering of shapes on the next block representing a flock of passenger pigeons we netted for meat and stuffed into boxcars.

But could we live with such images pointing their accusing wings and paws at us while we shop for designer clothing and eat in fine restaurants? No, which is why we do not mention these ghosts, nor build memorials to them. Far better to forget.

The fashion show at Not Just Pretty was a fantastic time – make that ECO-fantastic!
The store was transformed into a runway to showcase some of the beautiful clothes made by designers who use sustainable materials and manufacturing processes, including Loomstate; Love, Deming; Elroy; Passenger Pigeon; and Twice Shy.

There were scrumptious canapes by De’lish, champagne cocktails by Silk Road, and hair by Shampoo Hair Bar and a percentage of the evening’s sales went to The Land Conservancy!

Here are some shots of the Fashion Show – be sure to check out the video, below!

You’ve gotta check out this funky fashion show video! It ROCKS!

Thursday, October 11th, 6 pm – 9 pm;

Fashion Show at 7

Location: 1036 Fort Street, Victoria

25% off, one night only!

Champagne cocktails by Silk Road; Canapes by De’lish

A percentage of the evening’s sales will go to The Land Conservancy.

Limited Guest List RSVP: pam@notjustpretty.com or 414 0414

Hair by Shampoo Hair Bar

Not Just Pretty is proud to offer organic and sustainable clothing, accessories, and skin care products for the fashion-minded woman.

Nature will love you!

NOT JUST PRETTY MODERN CLOTHING 1036 Fort Street Victoria, B.C. 250.414.0414

New York Fashion Week is here. Parties, skinny models: I’m pretty sure the champagne and nicotine is free flowing in Bryant Park.

But while designers are fending off PETA protests in between showing their new spring lines and partying till dawn, the rest of us are trying to keep our heads above water with school starting and that small thing called life.

And with the hubbub of fashion week upon us, it’s easy to forget that aside from living life, perhaps you should be living it with a bit of green gusto. After all, we are killing the planet and ourselves and everyone is doomed.

Luckily, there is fashion to keep us occupied… and eco fashion to make us feel we are doing something (anything?) right for the environment.

iGo Green, a new “green” section of iVillage, has done the grunt work by singling out some of the up and coming eco fashion designers to watch.

Moral Fervor designs cute tees from Ingeo, a fabric made from fermented corn. They aren’t your typical graphic tees, these are shirts you will actually WANT to wear. With flattering cuts and a simple print, the new line is comfortable, cute and eco friendly.

I am totes obsessed with this next eco line, Passenger Pigeon. Made in Canada, the designers produce eco clothes with a high fashion edge. It’s the details that make these pieces great as they make pieces that are both functional and fashionable. I LOVE the Kinglet coat, the Perula Dress and the laptop sleeve.

Del Forte has made denim green. Using 100% organic cotton, Del Forte is premium denim you can feel good about wearing for more than the simple reason that it makes your ass look awesome. A few of the products are fug, but I am loving the Willow wide leg and the Eugenia slim fit.

I doubted that Stewart & Brown’s lineup was more Anthropologie than hemp hippie; however the Summer 2007 collection proved me wrong.

Of course, the married designer duo have worked for J.Crew, Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie, which probably explains why their designs are basically of the minute designs for the sustainable type.

Being green really never looked this good.