Handsome leather solar bags
Noonsolar's Fall collection of solar-charger cowhide shoulderbags makes all those other ugly solar backpacks look like conference giveaways. The bags will fully charge a phone or MP3 player in about 6 hours -- but I expect you'd use it to maintain the charge on these devices as you moved around during the day. The manufacturer suggests leaving it in a window when you get to work. Link (via Engadget)
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Perhaps in the near future, more products will be produced that generate or store solar for one use or another. A very good idea, and green to boot.
This could become a trend, and quickly...
It's not "stylish" in the least. It's skin from a dead cow that probably didn't become a fashion accessory willingly.
I strenuously second #2 by Robert.
Any possible energy savings or efficiencies generated by the solar array are entirely eliminated by the wasteful process of energy-intensive animal rearing. That bag has a huge footprint it would need to fill before it becomes 'carbon neutral' again.
I'd prefer my trendy, overpriced, sustainable development-poseur products to come without needless death.
Most leather used for garments and accessories -- especially "cowhide" -- is surplus from animals that are killed for their meat. This is an externality from a separate process, a recycled waste product. The demand for cowhide doesn't drive cattle-ranching.
Well, I for one hope that if cattle husbandry comes to an end, then the resulting massive slaughter of cows necessary to bring their population down to feral-sustainable levels will result in many quality leather accessories such as this one.
@ #4 by Cory Doctorow
Point taken.
But I've still not purchased a leather, suede, or cowhide item in over a decade. It remains the treated skin of an animal; something I'd rather not decorate myself with (and certainly not for $412).
My main complaint is people perceiving environmental responsibility and 'being green' as distinct from say, eating meat, or drinking bottled water. (You boingers have done a good job on highlighting good journalism on the topic of bottled water) This overpriced accoutrement bundles the dissonance of exploiting animals for their skin, with saving the earth with metal-free dies and carbon-friendly solar kits into one trendy package.
I am no saint, he mutters texting swiftly on his cell, but I can recognize a walking contradiction when I see one.
@4 "But I've still not purchased a leather, suede, or cowhide item in over a decade. It remains the treated skin of an animal; something I'd rather not decorate myself with (and certainly not for $412)."
Yes, but this is an entirely orthogonal issue to this:
"Any possible energy savings or efficiencies generated by the solar array are entirely eliminated by the wasteful process of energy-intensive animal rearing. That bag has a huge footprint it would need to fill before it becomes 'carbon neutral' again."
You may object to the ethics or aesthetics of wearing animal hides, but that does not mean that this bag's carbon footprint is increased by the animal byproducts used in its manufacture, given that they are almost certainly a waste product from an unrelated industry.
Indeed, if this bag has a large carbon footprint, it is more likely to arise from the high-tech manufacturing process used for the solar cells than from the leather.
Actually I'm a bit concerned about leaving a leather bag in the sun for several hours a day. I don't think that is the best way to treat leather.
With due deference to Mr. Doctorow, I'd like to suggest that the main point of putting a solar panel on a shoulder bag really isn't green-ness at all -- if you really wanted to reduce your carbon footprint you would just desist using portable electronics altogether -- but convenience and fashion.
I mean convenience in that the bag lets you charge your phone while you're walking around, so that you don't need to remember to plug it in when you get home or keep track of whether you left it at the office today. And fashion in that it's mostly a novelty but one that suggests a story behind it, which is exactly what makes a saleable fashion statement.
The leatherwork here is really nice, but I wonder how durable it is -- all those straps and stitching on the front, and how well armored is that panel on the back? Will the leather stand up to being left in a sunny window every day?
Crash, if being green means eliminating portable electronics from your life, why stop there? After all, corpses have very small carbon footprints. Breathing, eating -- even riding a bicycle -- all leave a carbon footprint.
I'd buy it...after an 80% price drop. Let the early adopters bear the pain of R&D.
Actually, most leather does not come from food animals- the cows are raised _for_ their leather, as cows intended for consumption don't have the greatest hides. So it is not a waste product.
Addt'ly, what's so eco about the toxic metals used to tan skins? Or the effect on third world workers who have to wade in that toxic shit when tanning the hides?
Dagda@12: What's your source for the idea that leather doesn't come from meat animals? Per Bunnie Huang's series on Chinese manufacturing cities, all the leather they use comes from meat animals.
As to toxic metals -- sure even the worst excesses of the tannery can't touch the processes involved in minting the solar panels, nor the labor conditions involved in retrieving the raw materials.
Unless you're involved in some kind of deep green historical reenactment club where you mine your own ores using organic shovels, any manufactured commercial artifact (including and especially the PC you're reading this on) will have a gigantic and evil carbon footprint.
If the ruling classes are going to go out this xmas and blow $400 on shoulder bags, I'd rather have them spend their dough on a bag that reduces the amount of coal we burn to run our cellphones than on some inert piece of Prada (not least because the more money there is spent on solar bags and clothes, the larger the market will be and the cheaper and more widely dispersed they will be).
Objecting to a "green" product because it is a *product* is pure doctrinaire absurdity. All the people reading this blog are digging coal with their spacebars, and living a lifestyle that is dozens of orders of magnitude more environmentally damanging that the majority of the world's population. T
he answer to that conundrum can't be that we all live like Darfur refugees. It has to be that we develop better technology that permits more people to live better lives -- and solar-charging bags are part of that technology.
If we were to surrender technology, the ensuing starvation and privation would sunder the rule of law and the capacity of humanity to create and enforce the social contracts we will need to save the planet. There will be no return to a pre-technological edenic state -- that way lies Russia-esque oligarchy where 98% of the population will burn anything to keep warm and the other 2% hunt them for sport.
Would bragging about how little you consume be your "carbon cockprint?"
"I expect you'd use it to maintain the charge on these devices as you moved around during the day."
Not with the solar panel on the wrong side of the bag.
Only the kind of shameless yuppies who would balk at this thing being leather could afford it anyway.
"Actually I'm a bit concerned about leaving a leather bag in the sun for several hours a day. I don't think that is the best way to treat leather."
I was going to leave a comment saying "one wonders how leaving the leather out in the sun for many hours might affect it..." but you've beat me to it. Anyone have any experience in this field?
Mr. Doctorow, this may be interpreted as a backhanded compliment, but long story short my respect for you has increased since reading your wonderful counters to certain comments.
Dagda, according to the manufacturer's website they "feature only chrome-free leathers which have also been naturally dyed and tanned."
http://www.noonsolar.com/about-noon/
IANM, ROBERT, and DAGDA (and anyone else who cares to comment):
I'm curious, if leather is bad for the environment, what material is your bag made out of? Because I'm guessing that it's a petroleum based?
Still waiting for a source on the comment that leather doesn't come from the same cattle raised for meat, too. Here's one that shows the opposite:
http://www.lcafood.dk/processes/industry/slaughteringofcattle.htm
MAPPO:
Once again a comment by someone who hasn't actually clicked through. The first line on the page for that bag says clearly, "Two-sided design allows solar panel to face the sun or your body"
Although it would mess up the non-techy look of the leather, functionally I'd rather have the solar panels on the front. You won't get any hot solar-charging action while carrying this bag.
"All the people reading this blog are digging coal with their spacebars."
I don't agree with Cory on everything, but he dismantles specious arguments like nobody's business.
"if being green means eliminating portable electronics from your life, why stop there? After all, corpses have very small carbon footprints. Breathing, eating -- even riding a bicycle -- all leave a carbon footprint.
Cory has officially won me over. From this day forward I will always be a fan.
Cory- so your point is that we can never hope to be as environmentally conscious as we can... therefore we shouldn't try to be *more* conscious and use, say, hemp or cotton bags, instead of animal hide?
We can make better choices; that our choices have impacts shouldn't keep us from trying to minimize those impacts.
I am really surprised at the turn this discussion took immediately. Personally I have nothing against using leather goods, and for what it's worth these folks seem to have made some effort to minimise their impact. But I was more interested in their marketing.
I just wanted to say that, first of all, the price is WAY too high for a normal person to buy, and second of all, they don't let you see what the inside of the bag looks like. Which is like saying: "buy this car, but you can't drive it or look in the windows." The inside of the bag is what you're going to use the bag for- holding stuff.
I would totally get *a* bag with a solar panel on it though. It just seems like a good idea.
Dagda, the environmental movement would be so much further along by now if its members weren't constantly testing each other's purity of intent.
umgrego2: No, I did click through and saw that they call it a two-sided bag. But look at it - it is clearly a one-sided bag with the solar panel on the inside. Calling it two-sided doesn't actually make it so.
This comment thread has made my day a little more wonderful. Oh, and the solar-skin bag is a nice idea too.
I know, lets take a boingboing tv field trip to a tannery and find out about their trade?
Dagda@25: No -- my point is, if we can make a bag that has a solar panel, that's better than a bag that doesn't have one. *Your* point is, if that bag is made of leather, we shouldn't bother at all.
Open Source Messenger bag + Flexible Solar Battery Chargers 15.4v 200mA + Lithium Ion battery = roll your own.
It won't be nearly as charming as the Noon.
#10, Cory: That was kind of my point. Every economic activity in our lives has some kind of carbon cost, and compared to most of those, the power spent on an iPod, or on operating the truck that transports the cow that makes the leather bag, is tiny.
I prefer therefore to judge a solar-powered satchel on its true merits, such as how many times it saves me from kicking myself for leaving a charger at home, or how effectively it communicates whatever it is that one wants a satchel to communicate about oneself.
If we really wanted to worry about the carbon footprint of a few feet of leather, it would be easier to look at the source of the problem -- electricity generation, mostly -- which can be addressed much more scaleable technologies for clean power. But I am not worried about the carbon footprint of my bag! I am just worried about how well it works as a bag.
I, personally, think this is a neat merging of technology and fashion.
The "meat is murder" argument should be saved for another thread. Let's face it, whether we like it or not, people are going to manufacture leather bags, shoes, etc. Why not put a solar panel on the thing to curb some energy usage?
Just wanted to drop a note to thank you all for your posts re: our bags. I'm not going to try to address all the issues/questions raised in this space because most of these issues are personal choice decisions. However, as a mangement team, we've debated many of these topics a dozen times over and these debates are tremendously valuable to our designs and processes.
We believe we've done our best to address the second level concerns that differentiate thoughtful product design from the current standard (ie...naturally tanned leather that's a meat industry by-product and a yet to be launched battery re-cylcing program)...but we're still learning and growing as a company, so all the feedback (positive and negative) provides fuel for our next designs. The company was founded and is still run by two Masters educated materials artists turned product designers....so we do our best to live the ideals we want our products to epitomize.
Hopefully, our designs will appeal to more and more of you in the future....but until then, all the best.
noon
@27,Teresa: The problem is that ever since environmentalism became mainstream, every business and entrepreneur has been trying to "cash in", like it's the latest fashion craze sweeping the nation.
But environmentalism shouldn't be a fashion craze, because fashion is all about image, and environmentalism should be all about results. For example, companies are glad to market products that appear green, or appeal to "green sensibilities", because they realize that many people are willing to pay more for things that have the image of environmentalism, even if they don't have a significantly different environmental impact.
It's because of this kind of duplicity - companies and individuals constantly trying to brand themselves as "green" when they're not at all - that environmentalists tend to be hyper-critical of commercial enterprises that purport to be green.
If the environmental movement had stopped testing the "purity of intent" of businesses and embraced anyone who made the slightest gesture towards caring about the environment, we'd be left with a big circle of everyone patting themselves on the back for appearing "green" by doing essentially nothing.
@31,Cory: The "something is better than nothing" argument is a common one, but things aren't that black and white. "Something" is sometimes worse than nothing, and I think in this case may be one of those times.
When you buy this bag, you're buying two things: the bag, and the image the bag is marketed with. Now, I'll agree that the bag itself is marginally better than a similar bag that doesn't generate clean electricity. So if that were the only issue the choice would be clear.
But really, the difference between the two bags is pretty small - I mean we're talking about a really small amount of electricity. The far more important impact this purchase has is in the mind of the buyer. Does someone who buys this bag feel that their environmental "dues" have been paid? Do they feel that making occasional purchases like this justifies or mitigates the rest of their wasteful lifestyle? Essentially, does a product like this provide a mental crutch that allows people to project a false image of environmentalism to themselves and others?
Or, on the other hand, does buying this bag make the buyer identify more with environmental issues, and more likely to take meaningful action in the future? Does the bag cause other people who see it to reconsider their own energy use?
This bag could go either way, I'm not sure...but there are definitely products which fall firmly into the first category, and it's worthwhile and important to be wary of such things. Even though they're "something", they're counter-intuitively worse than nothing.
Sorry, but saying that leather is just a "byproduct" is a cop-out.
The cattle industry depends on the profits from all of the parts of the cow (meat, skin and other products.) The crude saying I've heard is that only thing that a slaughterhouse doesn't use is the cow's fart.
If people did not purchase leather, the cattle industry would make less incremental profits per cow. As a matter of economics, they would find it less profitable to raise the cows, so fewer cows would be raised in factory farm conditions and killed. If you purchase leather, you are indirectly contributing to additional cows being killed.
If you believe that raising cows and killing them under these circumstances is ethically appropriate, that's a defensible position (although I disagree with it). However, saying "these are only byproducts" just dodges the question.
For the record, Joel Johnson of your BB Gadgets gave a scathing pan to a similar product, on many of the same grounds (cost, materials, hype, image) only marketed to different audiences:
http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2007/10/19/poptech-notes-sheila.html
Why the zealous defense of a product when its $412 rather than when its targeted, nominally at least, to help those who don't have the luxury of easy access to electricity?
Although the products are not identical, ultimately Joel's original criticism stands for both:
"I think it is safe to say...An inexpensive, durable solar-powered light would be fantastically useful in many scenarios...[but]The Portable Light smacks of remedial design as pet project, an expensive solution in search of a problem."
Shock horror disagreement in Boing Boing editorial matters! World reels as Boing Boing hivemind is shown to subsist of individuals with differing opinions!
#38 Robert, in fact they're even selling the farts. (Well, their carbon anyway.)
Dagda@25- An objection to the use of cotton or hemp is that they are cash crops, and the land on which they are grown could have been used to grow food. If all the clothing etc. made from animal skins was replaced by plant products, how much food-growing land would we lose? Using what is essentially a by-product seems better to me.
To all those who poo-poo this bag because it does not meet their high standards for ideological purity, I say hrrumph.
The Noon folks (if you bother to read the info on their website) are clearly committed to making an a product that is as environmentally friendly and socially responsible as possible. Form the natural dyed fabrics, to the vegetable tanned leather made from meat industry by-product, to the fair labor practices they employ, these folks are clearly trying to make a product that appeals to the high-fashion handbag crowd, but which is also as responsible as it can be at this point.
To take them to task for not being 'better' is absurd. The idea is not to be perfect, but to strive towards a better product and a better world. Would you rather someone bought a petroleum based bag, or a chrome-tanned leather bag that doesn't have a solar panel? Products like this can have an impact beyond the energy savings...they can be consciousness raising.
How many of you knew that vegetable tanned, biodegaradeable leather is available? It probably comes at a premium (hence the cost of these bags, I'd guess).
I call 'glass houses' on the naysayers. Quit throwing stones. You live the the United States which means YOU are part of the problem.
What's wrong with welcoming the small solutions we can find rather than trashing them?
If we never accepted imperfect attempts to improve, there wouldn't be much improvement.
Shall we condemn the Prius for taking more energy to make than a traditional car, or praise it for making hybrid cars commercially available and desireable?
I smell a bunch of hippies who are upset that their green identity is becoming more mainstream. It's like bitching when your favorite underground band gets big. Why do you want to hoarde all the goodness? Be happy that people are waking up.
And finally, if you're so concerned with being ideologically pure, then get off the internet! Write me a good old fashioned letter and tell me about the carbon footprint of your computer, is that petroleum based plastic it's made of? How much energy does it use? How many hours a day do you spend on it? How long will it last before you throw it away and it gets put in a landfill? Will it biodegrade like these bags? And when your computer does die, will you buy another one? Will you hold it to some absurd standard of ecological purity and not buy anything less than the perfect green computer? I hope so, because as far as I know, there's no such thing, and that would mean your holier-than-thou nitpicking comments would be gone from this site and we'd be free to enjoy the cool solar handbags.
End of rant.
I love this "feature":
"Two-sided design allows solar panel to face the sun or your body"
Oh, you mean you can turn the bag around?
wow IANIM @ #39:
"For the record, Joel Johnson of your BB Gadgets gave a scathing pan to a similar product, on many of the same grounds (cost, materials, hype, image) only marketed to different audiences:"
that's quite a stretch. and so good of you to copy and paste your comment on joels as well. that way more people can read your inane comment, which after having looked at your profile, you seem to leave with aplomb. a bit bored up there in the north then? maybe actually reading the links would fight that boredom.
with your logic I could state that the #10 comment from NOT A DOKTOR on Joels thread would describe you:
"It's like back in elementary school science fairs how the "popular" girls copy what won last year and have little to no idea what it is/was."
I would be incorrect though, you're the kid in the front row who smells of pee and always has his hand up whether-or-not he knows the answer.
#45 posted by sonny p fontaine
Wow. Your use of ad hominem is certainly in no need further practise, your ability to malign without offering content or rebuttal is sufficient as it is. Perhaps you should resign your boingboing account and never come back?
Its very helpful that you resort to attacking my character, then use someone else's quote entirely out of context, to call into question my ability to form an argument. I'm glad you didn't waste your time addressing any objections I raised in this thread as you, apparently unlike me, have such an excitement-filled life that you couldn't couldn't possibly find the time to support your criticism with any facts or arguments.
You state that my comparison between two overpriced products, using similar technology, with similar design, aimed at similar purposes, pitched to two different audiences in the name of 'helping them', is 'quite a stretch'.
I was pointing out that these two similar, but not identical, items received two different receptions at boingboing. Perhaps you can point out how this comparison was 'quite a stretch' given that many of their features and shortcomings overlap? But your valuable time could not be wasted on such an activity, as it would eat into your 'calling people names on the internet' time, which is penciled in between pilates and making fun of fat kids at the bus stop.
@#27 Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator
Hear F*cking hear!!!
@Cory, well argued!!
I am a vegitarian by choice, and I would still use this bag.
hahaha. this is why the left never gets anything done. it's a friggin bag. how about all the energy wasted on this debate. the person who buys this already has a dozen other bags and will use this one for 6 months (maybe) and then buy other bags. it's not about the materials it's about overconsumption which my job and probably most others out there depend upon. but heh let's get down to the important issues, namely/lamely, who is a true environmentalist and naming the names of those who don't measure up to our standards.
What a great idea, and its mobile too. Wonder if this manufacturer also makes <a href="www.beltzilla.com">belts</a> or buckles like these, so you can be seen at night. Charge that!
Sonja
not sure if my post got through