Play It Green

Being a hot woman who races sports cars is enough to ensure plenty of attention (particularly from men’s magazines) and financial success. But Leilani Münter, described on her site as a “vegetarian hippie chick race car driver,” with a site called www.carbonfreegirl.com, is actually using all that attention for eco-good. She’s trying to bring environmental education to the 75 million NASCAR fans and 40 million IndyCar fans and to green racing itself, replacing oil with biofuels and instituting widespread recycling at tracks. Her “Eco Dream Team” plan involves emblazoning the sides of her 200 mph race car with an “eco message” and inviting green companies to advertise on the other parts of the car for less than sponsors would usually pay—instead of 1 company paying $1 million for sponsorship, as is the norm, 5 could pay $200,000. In other words, the green message (which hasn’t been specified) is the “main sponsor,” not an oil company.

Münter is an ambassador for the National Wildlife Federation, she contributes to the green section of the Huffington Post, and made three trips to Capitol Hill to talk about environmental legislation this year. This weekend she’s attending Powershift—a weekend full of pro-green-jobs and anti-coal demonstrations, learn-to-green seminars and live music—in Washington, D.C. where on Sat., Feb. 28, she’s speaking about “creative activism” alongside eco-actress-activist Darryl Hannah and Elliot May of Reverb. On the racetrack, she’s also the fourth woman in history to compete in the Indy Pro Series, the developmental league of IndyCar.

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Try to imagine life without shoes. Seriously. Life barefoot—not of choice, but of necessity. Presents a lot of logistical problems, doesn’t it? Actually, it’s a major healthcare concern here and abroad, because bare feet lead to scraped and cut feet which quickly lead to infection when untreated. From the Appalachian Mountains region in Kentucky and Virginia to Ethiopia, Armenia and Indonesia, the Nashville-based nonprofit Soles4Souls donates used shoes and sneakers to needy people around the world. In fact, the organization started in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia. A year later, they were donating sneakers and shoes to Hurricane Katrina victims, and now they’ve gone global. The sneaker company Run Athletics (launched by hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons and brother Joseph, a.k.a. Rev. Run of Run DMC) teamed up with carmaker Scion on a sneaker design contest that culminated in a party at the Aura nightclub in NYC on Jan. 30, with the Rev. judging. All the proceeds went to Soles4Souls. Besides purchasing an exclusive set of sneaks, anyone can contribute by simply locating a dropbox via the Soles4Souls website or shipping some “gently used” shoes of your own. Especially all you sneaker fanatics. And in case you’re wondering what happens in the very rare cases that shoes aren’t able to be used—they are recycled, of course.

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