Sustainable Living

Happy Kwanzaa - Faith/Imani

2012-01-01T19:07:00.001-04:00

Trusting and believing with our heart and mind in ourselves, our parents, our teachers, and our leaders and our capacity as a people to make a better world.

As Marianne Williamson says "Creating the world we want is a much more subtle but more powerful mode of operation than destroying the one we don’t."

We have to trust that every day we can create the world we want to live in and leave to our children.

Happy Kwanzaa - Creativity/Kuumba

2011-12-31T08:34:00.002-04:00

"Working diligently to continuously enhance our families, neighborhoods and people." from http://kwanzaaguide.com/

There is so much work to do to undo the damage that our consumerist growth based economy has wrought. We must work to cleanse the toxicity left behind by our addiction to fossil fuels, junk food, and the acquisition of unnecessary plastic objects. We must harness the creative genius within us as individuals and a community to create the world we want to live in.

The previous two days have been busy around The Sustainable Living Project and I failed to post the Kwanzaa principles. Here they are;

Cooperative Economics/Ujamaa: "Sharing and pooling our financial resources and goods and services for the common benefit of family and community participants with the goal of building and sustaining cooperative economic enterprises."http://kwanzaaguide.com/

Observing the ways of nature we see that it is cooperative more than competitive. Competition in human endeavour is corrupting while cooperation is character and community building.

Purpose/ NIA - "Fulfilling our duty and obligation to contribute to the high and morally serious purpose of nation-building, i.e. the quest to recover and restore our people to their traditional greatness" see more at http://kwanzaaguide.com

Nia is crucial for living a meaningful life. In these times, when we face The Long Emergency we must work to create The Long Emergence. It is up to us to create the world we want to live in, with resilience, connectedness, unity, self determination, interdependence upon our neighbors, clean air, clean water, clean food, and clean energy. If we choose to be puppets and ignore the principle of Nia we will end up with the catastrophe that is even now being engineered by the globalized growth at all costs economy.

Happy Kwanzaa Day 3 Ujima- Collective Work and Responsibility

2011-12-28T14:33:00.000-04:00

"Collective work and responsibility is a powerful force in the construction of family and community, and in healthy development of children. This principle instructs that we are all responsible for the welfare and success of each other. All adults, for example, are responsible for the welfare of the community and for the nurturing and development of children. Similarly, all adults are responsible and accountable for the success and failure of neighborhood schools and the safety of the community. Neighborhood safety is most definitively grounded in a network of caring adults who monitor the behavior and skills acquisition, i.e., education of children in the neighborhood. Hence, as indicated above, collective work and responsibility is a powerful and transformative value, which if observed by critical mass of neighborhood residents, would have the effect of raising our neighborhoods to a level capable of producing persons of moral, academic, and professional excellence." see more at
http://kwanzaaguide.com/2011/12/kwanzaa-2011-ujimacollective-work-responsibility-day-december-28th/

Ujima gets to the heart of community, exhorting us to look after one another and work together to insure our future, to take responsibility for our actions, resilience.

Happy Kwanzaa Day 2 Kujichagulia

2011-12-27T11:37:00.000-04:00

Kujichagulia

"Kujichagulia principle says African Americans, like all people, need shared cultural values, symbols, rituals, and practices in order to give their families and children meaning and value, and identity and community.

The practice of kujichagulia/Self-determination affirms the right and responsibility of African Americans to think, to speak, and to act from their own cultural framework. By doing this, blacks make a contribution to the whole of humanity and thus are confirmed in their human worth. Blacks would do well to remember Mary M. Bethune instruction: “We as blacks must recognized that we are the custodians as well as heirs of a great civilization. We have given something to the world as a race and for this we are proud and fully conscious of our place in the total picture of mankind’s development.” for more see
http://kwanzaaguide.com/2011/12/kwanzaa-2011-kujichaguliaself-determination-day-december-27th/

For me this is about our need as an local culture to assert our self determination, to reclaim our independence from the globalized, corporate controlled economy of destruction. Yesterday I expressed my Umoja, Unity, by attending a local Kwanzaa celebration. Today I will express my Kujichagulia by practicing my drumming, studying resilience, stoking the fire with waste wood to stay free of fossil fuels where I can, eating home cooked food, and doing some Transition planning.

Happy Kwanzaa

2011-12-25T10:17:00.002-04:00

Day one
"Unity/Umoja To strive daily to engage in practices which build bonds of affection and attachment to our family members, our school teachers, and our neighbors
Perspective on Unity
Promoting the unity of the human family is the task of the whole family. Unity is action on behalf of the family, calling us to help overcome the divisions among family members, and to strengthen the ties that define and bind us as family members. Unity is the spiritual and social gravity which pulls the family together- husband and wife, parent and children, and family and neighbor. At its core, the principle unity is about attachment- attachment to each others and most importantly to the values which define us as family, as community and as a people. On Unity Day, the family celebrates its togetherness (ingathering), the achievements of family members (the harvest concept of Kwanzaa)."
from http://kwanzaaguide.com/2010/12/december-26-day-one-of-kwanzaa-umoja-day/

The Man Born to Farming by Wendell Berry

2011-11-27T16:37:00.001-04:00


The Man Born to Farming

The grower of trees, the
gardener, the man born to farming,

whose hands reach into
the ground and sprout,
to him the soil is a
divine drug. He enters into death yearly, and comes back
rejoicing. He has seen the light lie down in the dung heap, and
rise again in the corn. His thought passes along
the row ends like a mole.

What miraculous seed has
he swallowed

that the unending
sentence of his love flows out of his mouth
like a vine clinging in
the sunlight, and like water
descending in the dark? - Wendell Berry

A Wendell Berry quote

2011-11-22T14:27:00.001-04:00

"We have been winning, to our inestimable loss, a competition against our own land and our own people. At present, what we have to show for this 'victory' is a surplus of food. But this is a surplus achieved by the ruin of its sources." from Nature As Measure 1989

Personal Sustainability quote of the day

2011-11-13T08:23:00.001-04:00

The key is changing our habits and, in particular, the habits of our mind. - Pema Chodron

Transition excitement

2011-10-29T16:17:00.006-03:00

We are set to attend the Transition training on the 4th-6th of November in Sautee GA. They've got us a free place to stay that will let us bring Annie the dog and are being extremely helpful. We've also got another awareness raising presentation on the 13th of November and are busy publicising that. Additionally some folks in our neighborhood seem excited about it. WooHoo! At last we are underway with Transtion Hickory or Transition Catawba or whatever it ends up being.

For more info in Transition check out Transition US and or the Transition Network

A personal relationship with Jevons

2011-10-25T11:35:00.001-03:00

I listened to a wonderful interview with efficiency guru Amory Lovins on Science Friday recently and was so impressed with Mr. Lovins techno-optimism. With the effects of Peak Oil becoming more obvious on a daily basis we clearly need to pursue energy efficiency at all costs. However we need to do all we can to avoid the pitfalls of the Jevons paradox, whereby the increased energy, money, time etc available to us are not reinvested into pointless consumerism and wasteful energy, money, time etc expenditures, thereby cancelling out the gains from efficiency. Here is the Wikipedia definition of the Jevons paradox:

"In economics, the Jevons paradox (sometimes Jevons effect) is the proposition that technological progress that increases the efficiency with which a resource is used tends to increase (rather than decrease) the rate of consumption of that resource.^[1] In 1865, the English economist William Stanley Jevons observed that technological improvements that increased the efficiency of coal-use led to the increased consumption of coal in a wide range of industries. He argued that, contrary to common intuition, technological improvements could not be relied upon to reduce fuel consumption.^[2]
The issue has more recently been reexamined by modern economists studying consumption rebound effects from improved energy efficiency. In addition to reducing the amount needed for a given use, improved efficiency lowers the relative cost of using a resource, which increases the quantity demanded of the resource, potentially counteracting any savings from increased efficiency. Additionally, increased efficiency accelerates economic growth, further increasing the demand for resources. The Jevons paradox occurs when the effect from increased demand predominates, causing an increase in overall resource use.
The Jevons paradox has been used to argue that energy conservation is futile, as increased efficiency may actually increase fuel use. Nevertheless, increased efficiency can improve material living standards. Further, fuel use declines if increased efficiency is coupled with a green tax that keeps the cost of use the same (or higher).^[3] As the Jevons paradox applies only to technological improvements that increase fuel efficiency, policies that impose conservation standards and increase costs do not display the Jevons paradox."

So as we pursue more sustainable lifestyle choices it is important to reinvest in sustainability rather than consumerism. Examples might be; purchasing rainwater harvesting equipment instead of a new flat screen TV, going solar instead of going nuclear or fossil (a choice you can make at home), repairing that old car rather than buying a new one (even if it is a more efficient one), choosing to work less for money and thus have more time to grow food or hang out with family (and also pay less taxes), designing car free days into your schedule to reduce energy use while also encouraging fewer shopping trips, etc, etc.
In short, we need to develop a personal relationship with Jevons.

Check out the second half of the Radio Ecoshock Episode I've posted in the audio above for more on these ideas. Or you can click here for that audio file: http://www.ecoshock.net/eshock11/ES_110629_Show.mp3

The deck takes shape

2011-10-18T13:51:00.002-03:00

basic framing, with portal for tank access, step stringers, and some trex installed

cross bracing and notched post attachments


attaching Trex step treads to stringers, note temporary post and insulation

notching the real post

Getting Annie used to the new surface, the hatch over a tank is just perceivable

The deck over the rainwater tanks is coming along nicely. Due to a problem with supply of quality black locust and the extra expense involved we opted to build the main frame out of treated pine and cover it with Trex, a 95% recycled plastic and wood chip product. The arbor and shade structure will be, hopefully, out of black locust. This deck will not only shade the rainwater tanks but the attached shade structure will shade the southeast facing wall and windows while providing a climbing surface for kiwi's and grapes. It also gives us back our east steps and entrance as well as access to the eastside rainwater diverter and first flush device for clean out.

Transition, cool weather and car free days

2011-10-04T19:45:00.002-03:00

It's gotten quite cool here in Hickory, down into the 40s at night and only in the 70s during the day. We even used the wood stove this week, both for heating and cooking. We had a couple of car free days out of the last seven and it's looking like tomorrow will be car free as well. I'm mostly working on the deck, notching and putting in the posts, and I have to get the new porch timbers sealed in preparation for installing the new windows. Jacq has been very busy processing loads of basil into frozen pesto, clearing tomato beds, laying new soil and mulch before planting fall crops, and completing the glazing order. We have to get the windows in before winter. I spent some time today shoving recycled styrofoam all around the back of the rainwater tanks in preparation for freezing temperatures. As they get full sun in the morning, I hope that insulating the backs and tops will keep them from freezing this winter. We have been using a lot of rainwater for washing clothes as well as the garden. I also used it to mix concrete footers for the deck posts.
The really big news this week is that we had our inaugural Transition Hickory awareness raising presentation. The turn out was about 23 folks with limited publicity. Currently there are three more possibilities for talks as well. We hope that soon we will have folks stepping forward to be on the Steering committee. If you'd like to know more about Transition check out Transition US or watch the video above.

World Car Free day

2011-09-22T21:01:00.002-03:00

Well, we failed at going carfree on World Car Free day. But we went car free yesterday and for the last 2 weeks we've had 2 out of 7 days in each week car free, so I don't feel so bad. We try to have at least one car free day each week which really isn't so hard to do if you just put your mind to it. I think as oil prices continue to rise over the long term we will see more and more people finding that making their lives more car free really is worth doing. The thing is, we already have a really good reason to drive less, climate change. So why wait?

Wrapping up the summer garden. Winter seed ordered. Finally!

2011-09-09T20:36:00.000-03:00

At last we have placed our order for our winter seed and bulbs from Territorial, Multiplier Onions (somewhat of a perennial way to grow onions apparently), Elephant Garlic (to add to the two other types of winter garlic already due for shipment in October), shallots, two kinds of fava beans (an edible nitrogen fixing cover crop that will also grow tall enough to function as a privacy screen when almost all else is bare), an ancestral purple carrot, broccoli, and rutabaga. We've already planted lots of brassicas (collards, kale, cabbage, cauliflower, brussel sprouts), parsnips, turnip, turnip greens, beetroot, radish, and a fresh crop of mammoth red clover as a cover crop on a new layer of soil in the experimental bed. We also found more blueberries, grapes and kiwis on sale at Lowe's garden center which will need to go in the ground before frost as well as a tea plant and a fig tree. There is parsley, stevia and chamomile to prepare for the greenhouse. Recently we've dried basil, mint, lemon balm, stevia, and the tobacco is drying upstairs. We've canned over 20 quarts of tomatoes in addition to having eaten at lest that much fresh, frozen two quarts of tomato sauce, and are halfway through eating three quarts of salsa. We've frozen about a quart of pesto and there are heaps of basil left in the garden. The garlic, onion and leeks were extremely successful but are almost gone now. The pumpkins are harvested early due to the stink bugs (the little buggers left us with only one butternut squash!) we've 3 or 4 watermelons left to eat and a few more still growing. We've eaten about 6 big and delicious cantaloupes and there is one more still growing. The grapes were tasty but not prolific, the nettle, lambs quarter, NZ spinach, sorrel and chard were prolific but under utilized. All our fruit trees are still too young to bear and the blueberries too only produced a handful as they are still small. With lots of green beans to eat and lots blanched and frozen, we have fab greens for winter usage. Also frozen are several bags of cabbage and collards which produced surprisingly until the end of July! So all in all the spring and summer planting was successful. A beautiful six foot turmeric plant is in flower as shown in the photo! We will probably leave this in the ground hoping that after the winter it will sprout again.

Another two out of five car free days

2011-09-09T18:47:00.002-03:00

Had a car free day today, that's 2 this week again. It feels really good to just leave the beast alone. I guess it helps balance off all those weeks we had without a single car free day.

Dual Personal Sustainability quote of the day

2011-09-09T08:46:00.001-03:00

"When we examine our body, word and mind, we try in vain to find anything permanent there. The concept of an individual person is only sane and valid if we consider it to be one single aspect of global interdependence" - Matthieu Ricard. I really like this quote as it reinforces our oneness and the importance of cooperation rather than competition as well the completely ludicrous pursuits of satisfying the non existent self via consumerism, a pursuit which is not only bound to fail but is literally destroying the conditions upon which our physical nature depends. This leads to the second quote, "Renunciation contains an element of joy, struggle, enthusiasm, and freedom: it is the relief of finally being freed from dissatisfaction" - Matthieu Ricard. The pursuit of increased sustainability has brought joyful renunciation, primary of which is any type of paid corporate American television service. And now every time I am in contact with this pernicious form of propaganda I am extremely dissatisfied and can't imagine anyone being willing to pay for it. Why not spend the money on good organic seeds, rainwater harvesting equipment, anything to increase your personal sustainability.

Personal Sustainability quote of the day

2011-09-07T08:48:00.001-03:00

We do not become angry with the stick that hits us, but with the one who wields the stick.But the one who wields the stick is impelled by hatred, so what we should truly hate is hatred itself. - ShantidevaAs we move forward in creating a more just, sustainable and resilient culture we must not fall prey to divisiveness and blame. It is so easy to exclude those we think are most responsible for creating the problems we face in the first place. But we in the developed world are all complicit. Hatred will get us no where.

Personal Sustainability quote of the day

2011-09-03T19:21:00.002-03:00

Confidence is closely linked to how well our perceptions match reality - Matthieu Ricard

Sustainable Living Video and 3 car free days!

2011-08-29T17:21:00.000-03:00

Stoked that the last 4 days have featured 3 car free ones. In that spirit here is a video looking at a possible solution on the grand scale.

A new resident

2011-08-29T13:45:00.000-03:00

Jacq leaned over to rotate a large pumpkin and found her nose to be a few inches from this golden orb weaver. This is the first one of these we have seen in our garden, perhaps due to the recent eradication of about 10 wasp nests in the old poles on the porch as we replaced them with new wood. Apparently, wasps particularly like to feed spiders to their young. In any case, she is welcome.

Personal Sustainability quote of the day on mindfulness

2011-08-29T09:29:00.001-03:00

Change requires mindfulness. One must be aware of the conditions that lead to undesirable behaviour or mental states and act to avoid those conditions. In the practice of sustainability these conditions often lead to consumerism, poor dietary choices, wasting of time with pointless media, or unnecessary driving, for instance. Mindfulness is required to avoid the conditions that lead to these negative behaviours. Full awareness of the emotional triggers that lead us to seek solace in the acquisition of consumer items that lose their lustre within days of purchase, or the emptiness within which leads us to over-eat in an attempt to fill the void, the lack of planning that leads us to hop in the car to run insignificant errands that could be combined in fewer trips; and perhaps the most pernicious, the need to shut off our mental activity in front of a screen controlled by interests antithetical to our own. Mindfulness in all our actions is required."We live under threat from painful emotions: anger, desire, pride, jealousy, and so on. Therefore we should always be ready to counter these with the appropriate antidote. True practitioners may be recognized by their unfailing mindfulness." - Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

Personal Sustainability quote of the day

2011-08-25T15:44:00.003-03:00

"When there's a disappointment, I don't know if it's the end of the story. But it may be just the beginning of a great adventure." - Pema Chodron. Keeping perspective in this work is so important.

Personal Sustainability Quote of the day

2011-08-22T18:25:00.001-03:00

Attempting to achieve a more sustainable lifestyle is not just about your own resilience, comfort and security. It is also about creating conditions whereby the myriad creatures around us can thrive. For without the success of the ecosystems of your local neighborhood, your country and planet, your own resilience, comfort and security is at risk. "Just like space and the great elements such as earth, may I always support the life of all the boundless creatures. And until they pass away from pain, may I also be the source of life for all the realms of varied beings that reach unto the ends of space." - Shantideva

Video - David Suzuki & Thich Nhat Hanh: Despair and the quote of the day

2011-08-21T07:18:00.002-03:00

David Suzuki, Zen Buddhist Monk Thich Nhat Hanh, Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, and David Suzuki Foundation Chair Jim Hoggan in conversation about mindfulness, climate change and how to bring about the collective public awakening needed to restore health to the planet. In this video, Thich Nhat Hanh and David Suzuki discuss the challenges faced in protecting the environment and the importance of not letting despair cloud our ability to affect change. For more information about David Suzuki please visit - http://davidsuzuki.org/# For more information about Thich Nhat Hanh please visit - http://www.plumvillage.org/ "Feelings like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy, and fear, instead of being bad news, are actually very clear moments that teach us where it is that we're holding back." - Pema Chodron

Storm damage

2011-08-20T17:36:00.001-03:00

Wow! Yesterday a small tornado ripped up the neighborhood one of our rental units is in. We got an email that a tree was down and blocking the drive, I envisioned a branch or two but it twisted a full grown Bradford pear to shreds. Trees are down or ripped up all over the area including the nearby park. We've got a big cleanup job this week, lotsa firewood. I'll probably use the biggest bits to frame up a raised bed for the tenants, try to encourage them to grow some food. Today we just managed to clear the driveway for the tenants, fortunately no-one's car was in the drive when it hit and there is no damage to the house.

Personal Sustainability quote of the day

2011-08-20T10:43:00.001-03:00

"Every morning, our first thought should be a wish to devote the day to the good of all living beings." - Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

Personal Sustainability quote of the day

2011-08-19T09:10:00.000-03:00

"Nothing goes right on the outside when nothing is going right on the inside." - Matthieu Ricard

A tragedy, emotional turmoil and the personal sustainability quote of the day

2011-08-18T09:53:00.001-03:00

Yesterday was a car free day. I love it when I can leave the beast in the driveway all day.

Yesterday evening we had a graphic reminder of the harm that can be caused by driving. Just after dark, as I stepped out to walk the dog I heard a loud smash and immediate cries of pain and distress followed by a car speeding by at near 60 miles an hour, speed limit there is 25. I hurried to the intersection to see what had befallen and to whom. A dog, a pit bull mix we had seen loose in the neighborhood hours earlier, was struggling to escape from one of my neighbors who was trying to help it. Even though it's hip and leg was crushed and it probably had a broken back it managed get away using only it's front feet. Annie and I stood stock still as it passed us by with the neighbor close behind. What I didn't know was that Jacqui had heard the accident and was frantically trying to find us afraid that it was Annie who had been hurt. She was beside herself when she finally found us and I was close to tears as well. All I wanted to do was to find the poor beast and comfort it somehow. We stood and hugged to try to calm ourselves.

The police came and a whole cadre of neighbors gathered to look for the dog but it had disappeared. Who would comfort it now, hold it till it died, stroke it's head and reassure it? How sad that due to reckless driving not only was an innocent dog maimed and left to die alone but so many people were distressed and angered. Jacq and I both lost sleep last night.

"Touch is the vehicle through which we comfort one another and are comforted, via hugs or clasps of the hand." The 14th Dalai Lama

Personal Sustainability quote of the day

2011-08-17T09:38:00.001-03:00

So much about trying to create a more sustainable lifestyle, in a culture that encourages everything but sustainability, is about observation and openness to what goes on around us. This usually leads to the conclusion that some change is necessary. As always change can be challenging and even a bit overwhelming. Here is another way to look at it. From Jack Kornfield

"This is not a matter of changing anything but of not grasping anything, and of opening our eyes and our heart."

At last, a proper rainwater harvesting system!

2011-08-16T14:04:00.002-03:00

Two of the giant ones just off the truck.

One of the smaller tanks heads up the drive past the ramp.

The last big one about to slide into place.

One 500 tank is elevated for distribution pressure

Checking the fill during the first rain; the temporary covers are for shade.

At long last, we have our water tanks. The semi arrived a day earlier than expected, but we were mostly ready. I had built a ramp with my friend Carl, as we were responsible for getting them off the truck. Jacqui and I rolled them down the ramp and onto the grass at the bottom of the drive. Three 500 gallon tanks at 100lbs each and three 1550 gallon tanks at 215lbs each, that's over 6000 gallons of storage. We prepared the way, swept the drive and moved obstacles, and rolled them into place one by one. Only one of the giant tanks is hooked up for now, and it's only collecting from a little less than half the roof, but we still collected around 200 gallons in a couple of very short downpours. As that one fills, we'll pump the excess into the less giant tanks, particularly the one mounted on the plinth to provide some pressure to hoses. The Rain Reserve diverter and the Beingwater First Flush units are working great. I'll have to duplicate that setup for the south side of the house as well. This will be routed to the other two giant tanks. Until we get the deck framed in above those tanks, we won't be able to hook the last two up, as we will have to move them to access the structure. I've yet to do the drawings for the building permit for the deck, but hopefully will get that squared away this week.
Clearly the system is not complete, but it is already far superior to the drip to trashcan system I've been getting by with. The trash cans will go into service as comfrey tea brewing containers;, two are already full of composted horse manure I picked up yesterday.

Personal Sustainability

2011-08-16T09:03:00.003-03:00

As my good friend Joe reminded me yesterday, in order to thrive one must look after one's physical existence, mental well being, social interactions and perhaps most important of all, your spiritual life. I get plenty of exercise, eat mostly organic local food, I rest, study and discuss. I've joined a local church and have become involved with my immediate community. And now I've returned to regular Buddhist meditation practice and study. As I consider my spiritual well-being to be part and parcel of my mission to live more and more sustainably, and to spread the word about the challenges that face us and the solutions I believe are evident, I will share a quote from learned teachers, here on this blog, on a regular basis. Today I offer one from Jack Kornfield.

"When we let go of our battles and open our heart to things as they are, then we come to rest in the present moment. This is the beginning and the end of spiritual practice."

dry heat, tank prep, and canned tomatoes

2011-08-04T19:16:00.001-03:00

Pad for the big tanks

Tank platform prior to decking

Tomato bed #4

Nicotiana

Our first grapes

It's been in the mid-nineties round here with nary a drop of rain for days and days. We've finally had to start watering with city water. One of my nicotianas is taller than me and has flowered. The squash and melons have wilted every afternoon, only to bounce back in the cool of the evening. Our tomatoes produced enough to need a canning session and the basil is starting to go to seed, so we now have fresh pesto. We've also been enjoying some grapes from the bamboo arbor.

Our friends from Bermuda are visiting, and while Suzy helped Jacq with the canning, Carl and I built an elevated platform for one of the 500 gallon tanks I ordered. We also built a ramp for getting the tanks, three 1550 gallon and three 500 gallon ones, off the truck. I had hoped they would arrive this week but it is not looking likely. I've moved the rain barrels onto the pad until the big tanks get here.
Another project Carl helped me with is the first flush diverter for the collection system. The main diverter at the top of the gutter downspout clears out the big debris before passing on the bulk of the runoff to the first flush unit. It involves a kit of parts to which one adds various PVC pipes and fittings. The long 4" pipe collects the appropriate amount of the first runoff, later drained or set to drip, and then seals to pass the water onto the tank.

First flush and main diverter

Yikes! We've been greenwashed!

2011-07-15T21:59:00.000-03:00

We've finally been doing some research into the supposedly "Green" soaps we've been using in our laundry and kitchen sink. We are very disappointed in ourselves that we waited this long to do the research, but most of all in the corporations that have duped us into thinking we were making a better choice with their products. Perhaps they are better than Tide or Palmolive but they are still not good enough! With every day I grow more and more distrustful of corporations, but in this case I really should have known better than to trust in the first place.

The Seventh Generation products contain biocides and neurotoxins as preservatives as well as boric acid, and the ECOS product we just bought contains anionic surfactants that are negatively implicated in immune system response and allergies. This of course begs the question, are these chemicals being removed at the sewage treatment plant, or are they being dumped into the lake to be returned to us in our drinking water?

Looks like we will be making our own cleaning products once we have used up this toxic stuff and will certainly no longer be putting the gray water from the laundry or kitchen on our landscape until it is gone. We will also try using Dr. Bronners for more of our household cleaning jobs as we are comfortable, at this point, with putting that on the garden until we can get the research done. As far as the drinking water goes we will have to wait until the rainwater harvesting system goes in and has been tested. We hope that this will prove the cleanest and cheapest source of water available.

Of Black Locust, Joinery, and Sweat

2011-07-12T16:25:00.001-03:00

At long last the renovation to glass in the verandah has begun. I found a skilled carpenter willing to work with me who could find a source of locally harvested black locust timbers. This wood is highly rot and termite resistant.

Insulative strips for the slab.

Insulative strip, foam insulation, and flashing.

Before...

During...

The first step was to dress the slab for enclosure. As this space will be expected to provide lots of solar gain in the winter to heat the house and help propagate plants, the slab needed to be insulated, where possible, to break the thermal bridge which would rob the space of heat. I fashioned strips of blue foam insulation, scavenged of course, with 3/8 inch exterior plywood glued on to provide a rigid and protective surface. We painted them up, see the previous post of Jacqui painting the last ones in the midday sun. These were then screwed onto the slab using tapcon screws. Over this we laid a thin strip of foam insulation, found in my father's garage, and then metal flashing with a drip edge. On top of all this we placed the 6x6 posts and a 2x6 sole board to form the base for the windows.

Of course we first removed the old posts which happened to be filled with wasp nests. I was stung the day I removed the step railings, and being somewhat allergic, I swelled up, flushed and went all woozy for the rest of the day. So unfortunately the wasps had to go. We had been co-existing rather peaceably with them since we moved in, but they wouldn't tolerate this level of disturbance, and I couldn't tolerate multiple stings. We sprayed them with dish liquid and smashed the ones that persisted in returning. OM MANI PADME HUM for the wasps. May they be reborn quickly!

Framed for windows.

Pretty, but not ready for sealing...

After the posts and sole boards were in, we measured the windows and framed in the openings for them. They won 't be installed until the wood has a chance to dry thoroughly and gets a coat of finish/ preservative.

We haven't finished the framing because some of the wood we had drop shipped to us was unacceptable, and we are waiting for replacements.

No more steps! We'll have to walk around now.

We also took this opportunity to get started on the deck that will go over the rainwater tanks. As the tanks will be in the way for the initial ledger attachment, we decided to get it done now. Tomorrow we hope the grading will take place for the tanks. This necessitated removing the east steps.

And oh yes, it was hot and humid, and we sweated buckets. The heat index was 99 degrees today, going up to 109 degrees tomorrow... a rest day! Welcome to the south in the summer.

A Mad Dog and an Englishwoman

2011-07-11T17:08:00.003-03:00

90º and 70% humidity, Midday

I'll cover what she was doing in a future post but the amazing thing is that she chose to do it in the midday sun, and it was HOT that day! How is it that she, being from Northern England, can endure heat that keeps me, from the deep south, immobile. The dog is just MAD!

All the fireworks I need

2011-07-02T13:20:00.000-03:00

Holiday Fireworks

I really can do without all the noise, smoke, and crowds of this holiday. These gladioli are all the fireworks I need.

Sustainable living video - Jared Diamond: Thoughts on Managing Change

2011-06-21T20:55:00.000-03:00

"In early 2011, ClimatePrep.org had a chance to sit down with Jared Diamond to talk about climate change, the challenges presented to conservation and development practitioners, and the opportunities he sees in confronting them.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jared Diamond is a world-renowned expert on ancient societies. His now famous book, Collapse, is a study of the choices societies have made throughout history in the face of change -- climate change, as well as others -- and the consequences of such choices.

To learn more about ways people around the world are preparing for and responding to climate change visit www.ClimatePrep.org"

some more results regarding our efficiency measures

2011-06-21T20:09:00.000-03:00

Today the outside temps reached 90º, the maximum inside temps reached 80º, no AC required.
When we got up this morning it was 76º inside, after our policy of aggressive morning ventilation was undertaken we got that down to 75º. For most of the day the house stabilized at 77º. At the hottest part of the day the house got up to 79º but we exacerbated the situation with a half hour of cooking, the oven really cranks out a lot of heat, which took it up to 80º.

So I'm still stoked, we got through a 90º day without using the AC! YeeHaw!

Household efficiency skyrockets while bank account plummets!

2011-06-20T21:41:00.000-03:00

Just in time for the first days of summer, we have FINALLY addressed two very important efficiency issues on the house at The Sustainable Living Project. In the last 2 weeks we have had our walls insulated, a process of drilling holes through the indoor plaster and blowing it in, as well as a new reflective metal roof installed over a layer of 1" foam insulation.

The walls; our brick walls get full sun for most of the day and that heat was going straight into the interior plaster, which is about 1" thick, and thence into the house. We shopped around for contractors, looking specifically for someone to use cellulose insulation as that is not only more sustainable but also less toxic. Not a single one would use it! They all use fiberglass. As the walls are sealed I believe we are avoiding exposure to the fibers, which have recently been listed by the EPA as a carcinogen, but we had to compromise on the sustainability aspect.

Being on a tight budget we have long ago reconciled ourselves to compromise when it is necessary. One of the rationales in this case is that the material is going to help us reduce our use of fossil fuels by improving the thermal efficiency of the house. Over time we hope this savings will offset the damage done in the manufacture of the less sustainable material.

On the North side, insulation first, metal on top, good riddance to the asphalt!

The roof, as with most homes here and all over the south, was covered in dark asphalt shingles applied directly over the wood sheathing. These shingles act like a massive thermal collector and the heat is passed directly indoors. In the summer heat this is lunacy! We have been planning to address this serious design flaw for some time but again, it took a while to find a contractor we were comfortable with that we could afford. He had never put a residential metal roof over insulation but was willing to look into it. After some consultation he determined that it would not void any warranties. But alas, again we compromised, going with his recommendation of foam insulation rather than a natural fiber board. This has several advantages, it is lighter, will not absorb moisture, and could be installed over the existing asphalt shingles. We really did not want to disturb the existing roof as the ensuing mess in the yard, where we grow our food, would have been quite toxic. So essentially these toxic petrochemical roofing shingles are now encapsulated under the new roof. And yes the same compromise principle applies, these materials will last a long time and will reduce fossil fuel use for their lifetime.

And oh what a difference this has made. Normally the upstairs renovation is 15º to 20º hotter than the downstairs. Now at most it has been 5º warmer. When we got up this morning, the outdoor temp was about 68º while indoors it was 74º. We embarked upon our usual practice of aggressive ventilation during the cool hours of the morning. The temp held firm at 74º. I believe this was due to the outdoor temp staying relatively cool for most of the morning as it was raining. Eventually the temp indoors dropped to 73º and later, as the outdoor temps got up to near 88º with full sun, our indoor temp rose to 75º. When I cooked a zuchini casserole in the oven at the hottest time of day the indoor temp climbed to 77º downstairs and up. I'm stoked! Essentially we've changed the way the house responds to temperature changes, slowing down it's response. This is good, as the indoor temps will likely be at their highest in the evening when the outdoors is cooling off we will be able to draw that cool air into the house to drop the temps which will continue to drop through the night as the walls will not be collecting heat from the exterior bricks. I'm betting we will not need the AC at all now. Additionally, in the winter the extra insulation should drastically reduce the amount of wood we need to burn to stay warm.

So far so good, but tomorrow, the solstice, the temps are supposed to reach into the low nineties. That'll be the real test.

the south side

Sustainable Living video - Sust Enable: The Metamentary

2011-06-10T20:54:00.000-03:00

Here's an interesting project exploring what sustainability means. Also check out
http://www.indiegogo.com/sust-enable-the-metamentary

Check out our day lilies!

2011-06-06T22:49:00.001-03:00

I really like magnolia flowers and have featured one ours for quite some time at the top of this blog. And while the blooms this year are just as lovely we have added some new perennial flowers. My new favorite flower is the clump of day lilies out in our perennial bed. I have placed it in the top slot until I discover one I like better.


here's another shot showing it's edible neighbors; french sorrel on the right and New Zealand spinach behind that.

I dig this gal's outlook and ethos. Wear Nothing New! On Ted.

2011-06-05T09:53:00.000-03:00

Crow Garlic

2011-06-01T12:57:00.000-03:00

The full plant

size 13 foot for scale

the seed head

the bulbs ready for chopping

The crow garlic is going to seed so we've been harvesting some for cooking. In the picture with the bulbs on the cutting board you can see little cloves on the side. We usually plant these back where we dug up the plant to continue the crop.

Time to make soup!

2011-05-24T19:22:00.002-03:00

When you've got a lot of anything to harvest, the easiest thing to do is to make soup.
We have turnips busting out, and tons of collard greens, onions to thin, lots of nettles, parsley, canned pumpkin and green beans from last year, and last but not least a very spicy pepper from a friends garden. Throw in some local spicy sausage meat, locally grown rice some garlic, some New Zealand spinach from the perennial bed and viola, soup! But it is almost too spicy for Jacq.

Nice turnips!


That's New Zealand Spinach in the foreground, the plant that took over the world.


We take a tea break Annie gets a play break...from napping.

work interrupted.....for a baby bird

2011-05-20T19:01:00.000-03:00

We were jamming today, getting the sweet potatoe bed ready for planting, going to do some mowing, etc, etc, ... when all of a sudden I saw it, a little yellow mouth turned upward to the sky,

right where I was about to drop some landscaping stone, yikes! ALL STOP! we've got a baby bird alert. Let's see if we can find the nest he dropped out of, leaned a ladder against the tree and went up about 10 feet, no luck, get a longer ladder, go up 15 feet, no luck. Removed the ladder and peered up one last time before trying to find someone who takes in baby birds, and there it is, just above head height and hanging half out of the tree. So I get the step ladder and have a look,

there is another little one, hunkered down trying not to fall out.

So I level out the nest and wire it in for safety, Jacq hands me up the little one, after a quick snack on a worm, and back in he goes. Eventually we saw a bird going into the nest, but too quickly to ID.We'll keep an eye out to try to make sure they haven't been abandoned and to ID them as well.
Now were were we....... Ah yes, load the mower in the car and off we go.......

We had a similar experience last May after we moved in with a baby cardinal,
http://sustliving.blogspot.com/2010/05/hours-of-drama-without-tv.html

The most sustainable meal I've ever cooked?

2011-05-18T13:05:00.000-03:00

We've had a cool spell here in the foothills of the Appalachians in North Carolina. It has brought very welcome rain, and relief from the early and impending heat of summer. With temps down in the upper 40's at night and damp seeping in through our barely opened windows, we've decided to fire up the wood stove again. It hasn't done much for our productivity. Now neither of us seem to be able to leave the room with the wood stove in! It's so cozy to sit by a fire and watch the rain outside.

But we have to eat. We've used up the last of the 25lb bag of organic brown rice so I have opened some of the multicolored local (50 miles) rice. I'll pull some onions from the east garden, dig up some wild crow garlic from the borders, clip some collard and turnip greens from the west garden, add some parsley from the herb bed, throw in some ground beef from local (30 miles) grass fed cows, and cook the whole mess on the wood stove in the pressure cooker.

pressure cooker sizzling away

To be fair, I have added 4 chopped organic carrots shipped from California, a heavy dose of imported curry powder (fortified with our own turmeric root) and a dollop of Italian extra virgin olive oil. But these ingredients amount to less than 10% of the overall meal. The wood is all rescued from the neighborhood waste stream so I'm wondering if this might be the most sustainable meal I've ever cooked.

I've experimented with low impact cooking before, check out these posts about my Free From Power Days in England.
http://sustliving.blogspot.com/2008/10/stove-by-robb.html
http://sustliving.blogspot.com/2008/10/2nd-free-from-power-day-report-by-robb.html

While the cooking itself was probably more fuel efficient with the rocket stove, I was using scrounged fuel then as well but far less of it by weight, this time I'm cooking mostly food we've grown or was grown locally. In addition, the warmth of the wood stove is welcome in these cool temps. So while this is not another Free From Power Day I think it is a good step forward towards making our mealtimes more sustainable.

350 challenge garden work party at UUCCV

2011-05-17T20:07:00.001-03:00

watering in the nicotiana, beans and corn

The day went well, from donated materials to sweat equity the output was impressive, even from the 11 year old. Here's a few shots from our church garden work party.

laying out the composter


covering the vertical garden pallets, which are the front of the composter.

very level headed our Bob

installing the stem wall to level the site, checked by Bob in the previous slide

Jacq planting the vertical garden

tidying up

It's been a year!

2011-05-05T15:34:00.000-03:00

Yesterday we celebrated the one year anniversary of our arrival in America and the start of The Sustainable Living Project. After a much needed night of rain, It was a beautiful, cool day with lots of sunshine; a lovely breeze stirred the new green growth of spring.

We spent the day planting three more trees, six more blueberries, a saw palmetto, twenty-four tomatoes, did some weeding, visited with a few local growers, and finally cooked a celebratory fish dinner garnished with some our own collards and wild garlic with an appetizer of our own fresh strawberries. Dessert was the last of the latest pumpkin pie made with last season's pumpkin and stevia.

When I look around the site I see so much to do, but more than that I see so much we have accomplished. Extensive mulching and growing beds have replaced 60% of the lawn we found when we arrived. The sickly holly hedge has tripled in size and been bolstered with fruit trees, leaf mould piles, perennial veggies and flowers, and is doing an admirable job of buffering the road beyond. After two failures, I have finally got one very successful bamboo and another holding its own next to the new pond. One massive terrace spans the width of the east side of the property while two more are rising on the south. Two of our grape vines are rapidly climbing the new arbor I'm building just fast enough to keep up with them, while a third is thriving on one of last season's cucumber trellises. Our kitchen herb bed is exploding, our nectarine trees are lush and healthy, standing five feet or more. The strawberry beds are profligate; the wood piles are sufficient to take us through next winter; my store of bagged leaves should meet our needs for mulch till fall; we've got a wide variety of double glazed windows and doors set aside for the conservatory, greenhouse porch, passive solar hot water heater and patio cover yet to come. Indoors we have removed a wall and installed the wood burner, cut insulating reflective inserts for the windows, but unfortunately are still living on subfloor as we have not found the 'right' tile, much less had time to install any. I'm now dismantling the temporary greenhouse which kept us supplied with greens all winter and helped to bring on spring plantings.

I've included a few before and after shots below.

EAST side before

EAST side now

WEST side before

WEST side now

SOUTH side before

SOUTH side now

The 350 challenge video

2011-04-28T18:14:00.001-03:00

2011 350 HOME & GARDEN CHALLENGE: *Choose Sunshine* from TINBIKE on Vimeo.

The UUCCV community garden

2011-04-28T10:47:00.000-03:00

Our church, The Unitarian Universalist Church of Catawba Valley is installing a community garden. We will be holding a work party on May 14th and 15th in conjunction with Transition US/350.org Home and Garden Challenge. Please see the side bar for a link.

The first strawberry

2011-04-27T13:04:00.000-03:00

We planted this bed in late June of last year after our first batch failed. They slept away the winter and now we have the first fruit. So sweet, no chemicals (non organic grocery store strawberries have upwards of 17 applications of chemicals), no food miles. What a Delight!
Best Methods for Growing Fruits and Berries

Earth Day Tree planting

2011-04-26T14:57:00.006-03:00

We received our sweet cherry tree from Territorial Seed on Earth day and planted it out the next day. This makes number 29 in the list of fruit bearing trees and vines we've put in the ground since we started the Sustainable Living Project just about 1 year ago. We've got plans for at least 10 more but as they are still just plans we won't talk about them yet.

In this photo you can see an apple, a plum, 5 blueberries, and 1 grape but they are all pretty small yet and hard to pick out.

The one I'm putting in is a Compact Stella Cherry. Once it was well planted the whole area got sheet mulched and bordered with logs, as you can see around the apple and plum in the background. Gradually the grass is disappearing, thank goodness for that!

Happy Earth Day and Good Friday to one and all!

2011-04-22T10:55:00.000-03:00

It's a lazy lovely morning here at the sustainable living project. Our gardens are receiving the blessings of a soft and gentle rain, a rain that brings the rebirth this holiday weekend is all about. I'm especially happy about it because my barrels were almost empty.

I've lit what will probably be the last fire of the season in the woodstove. Jacq will be cooking pumpkin soup today to utilize the fire to it's fullest. Princess Ann is curled up on her mat, still wet from her morning walk.

A finer start to an Earth Day I cannot remember. I hope each and every one of you has a wonderful day. Whether you are celebrating it as Earth Day or Good Friday or just another work day please find the time to get outside and breath some fresh air and rejoice in fullness of nature.

My Earth Day sermon - Carbon Karma

2011-04-17T16:29:00.000-03:00

Hello all. I was asked to put together an Earth Day service at our UU church and today it was delivered, including the following sermon.

Carbon Karma

The Guaymi, the Kayapo,The Beaver Lake Cree,Child soldiers of the Congo, the Inuit, the Ogoni, our neighbors our brothers and sisters. Remember these for Earth day.

I took refuge as a Buddhist in the early eighties and I have been a sporadic practitioner ever since. Over the last ten years, as I studied climate change and sustainability, I began to consider my own karma in a new way, I call it carbon karma.

The Buddhist concept of karma has to do with how one is reborn as a consequence of how one has lived. If I am selfish, grasping , or cruel I could end up being reborn as an insect, an opossum, or even a human, but lacking the basics of a life of dignity, doomed to suffer and die at a young age perhaps. Eventually, this negative karma gets worked out thru successive lives and hopefully I am born as a human with all the advantages of comfort, education, health and most importantly, the luxury of options. And if am really lucky, exposed to the dharma, buddhist truth, and thereby have the potential to escape the suffering of rebirth all together by becoming enlightened. I might even choose to dedicate myself to compassion and remain in the world of samsara to work for the enlightenment of others, becoming a bodhisattva.

About the same time as I was becoming a buddhist I began to dance around the edge of radical environmentalism; no compromise in defense of mother earth, rednecks for wilderness and the like. Meanwhile the environmental movement was evolving. From it's roots with Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, and David Brower, it began to reflect the deep ecology of Arne Naess, accepting and proclaiming the equal rights of all species, to the Eco feminism of Delores LaChapelle, which helped to enshrine social justice in the movement. Indeed, social justice and environmentalism had merged. A good example of this are Permaculture's central principles of earth care, people care, and fair share.

My own journey was somewhat different, in my mid to late twenties, I felt, incorrectly as it turns out, that the civil rights movement had dealt with all this social justice falderal and what I wanted to do was tree sit, monkeywrench, and caltrop logging roads. But alas, my timing was all wrong, my patron saint, Edward Abbey, was dead, the FBI had infiltrated Earth First, arrested its founder, members car bombed, and the radicals I met at the earth first gatherings were justifiably paranoid. So, I decided to go climbing instead. My activism was internalized. I learned to live just simply enough to pay for my climbing habit. I fancied myself a radical vegetarian, treehugging, mountain goat, cycle commuter.

Living in the pacific northwest at the time, I wandered through the few remaining old growth forests whenever I got the chance, I never stopped hugging trees. But all the while I suspected I was kidding myself, something didn't add up. In the words of William Wordsworth,

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

I was out of tune; I had a nice car, a state job with excellent benefits, a career in the arts, traveling all over to climb. I owned lots of toys; bicycles, racks of climbing, camping, skiing, snorkeling and surfing gear. How could I be so down on the consumer when I was collecting stuff as fast as I could? Getting and spending I was laying waste to my powers. I had become that which I disdained. A consumer first, a global citizen second. My carbon footprint, was huge. I had to admit it, I was personally responsible for climate change.

There is a principle called phase cancellation used to create noise canceling headphones, whereby a sound can be cancelled by producing a mirror image of that sound at the same volume. I think of my efforts to cut my carbon footprint rather like that. A ripple of good canceling out a ripple of bad. Unfortunately I was canceling merely the xylophone part in my own grand symphony of consumerism. My efforts were as a counteracting ripple in an ocean, momentary and soon invisible amongst the raging sea of getting and spending.

Abruptly, my life changed, on a climbing trip east of the cascades I met Jacqui. Within a few years, I was living a new life in the tiny island nation of Bermuda. Initially, with increased income came increased consumerism, my carbon footprint soared, quite literally as we constantly flew on and off the island.

Living on a island in the middle of the Atlantic that is too small to provide almost anything local to its residents requires massive inputs of fossil fuels. Most of the food comes from all points of the compass across thousands of miles of ocean. The electricity, despite an abundance of wind and sun, is generated by burning oil and trash, and because of the high per capita income, the conspicuous consumption is astounding. The island is only 21 miles long but even with an excellent mass transit system, the roads are choked with very expensive cars, driving very slowly.

But Bermuda's isolation had left it with one shining legacy, harvesting rainwater. It has become a high art and is required by law, as there is no native fresh water source other than rain. When I understood how an such an affluent country could still provide most of its water in a completely sustainable way I was gobsmacked. Bermuda is a microcosm of the planet at large, highly dependent upon the squandering of precious resources while situated amongst a field of plenty. Yet for most of it’s history, quite capable of gathering all the fresh water they needed merely from the rain.

The cost of living is proportionate to the per capita income. After two years of paying exorbitant rents and sky high utility bills, I finally talked Jacqui into buying a boat, sailing it across, and living aboard. Suddenly, we were living off grid, rent and utilities free. We had solar panels, a wind genny, and a backup generator. My carbon footprint, finally, after years of excess, began to fall. I began sense that my ripples were now calming someone else’s storm instead of my own.

But was it enough? Living this way I might influence a few to move in a positive direction but we clearly needed more than that. Government and the businesses that control it have no incentive to change until their profits are threatened. Eventually, Bermuda learned that endless growth is an impossibility, even if they are still unwilling to verbalize that. With limited electrical generating capacity and every square inch of the island worth so much money, there was not going to be more fossil fuel powered generation. There is no where to put it. When the island suffered blackouts due to excessive air conditioning, they got worried, would international finance want to stay on the island if infrastructure was failing? So, the rhetoric was stepped up, a sustainability commission convened, foreign consultants hired, recommendations made and slow progress began to appear.

This didn't happen because some mass movement of the populace demanded it. The percentage of the population who have implemented even significant efficiency gains is still small. This happened because government and business saw it as a threat to their power and profit base, and they delayed it till the last minute. Sound familiar?

Kenneth Bolding environmental advisor to JFK said “Anyone who believes in indefinite growth in anything physical on a physically finite planet is either mad or an economist”. This is the way of it, Bermuda exists in isolation surrounded by open sea, our planet exists in isolation surrounded by the vacuum of space. Due to its isolation and size Bermuda is perceiving its limits directly. Our planetary isolation is absolute but due to its size we are able to ignore the edges we are racing towards. But the world is finite, the resources it contains are reaching their limits. We ignore, at our peril, the simple fact that every single thing we do as creatures on this earth relies upon a functioning healthy ecosystem. As the founder of Earth Day, Gaylord Nelson said," the economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment. "

At the WTO protests in Seattle, an oil executive told Anita Roddick, the founder of the Body Shop, that what they fear is not governments, they control them, no, what they really fear is a consumer revolt. When enough of us have effected change in our own lives this will begin to impact on business and thus government. As long as they see that we are unwilling to personally do what is necessary, they will be be unlikely to take us seriously. Some would argue that the situation is too urgent to wait for that level of personal change to become widespread and I would agree. We need change, serious change, and we need it yesterday.

So where does that leave us? Let's go back to the idea of karma. If I make my living exploiting the poor, say I own sweat shops, or unjustly treat migrant laborers, many here today would agree, this would damage my karma. So please consider this. Our excessive lifestyles in the global north are dependent upon resources from the global south, mostly procured at the expense of the poor, or the local environment, or both. The carbon footprint of this resource extraction is quite literally changing our planet, into one that is inimical not just to civilization but biodiversity itself. Our behaviour as consumers is inextricably linked to a myriad of social justice issues as well as directly responsible for climate change and degradation of the biosphere. This is due to our almost complete reliance on fossil fuels to provide the energy for transportation, for extraction, and manufacturing, the energy for wars of imperialism or to prop up authoritarian regimes, the energy to enact massive environmental destruction such as deforestation, strip mining of minerals, tar sands and coal, the energy that industrial agriculture relies upon, energy to create modern medical miracles, energy to make a Hummer or a Prius. It is the energy we rely upon to create our modern lifestyles. To put it more succinctly, behind every gram of carbon dioxide emitted when we burn fossil fuels is a long chain of corruption, leading to exploitation, environmental devastation, and war, and ahead of it, not unlike some radioactive half life, lie the dark challenges of climate change. So, by addressing our carbon karma we are addressing our spiritual karma, but we are also effecting change, demonstrating that a low carbon lifestyle is not scary, not expensive, not even uncomfortable or inconvenient. Indeed it is frugal, inexpensive, and as I wrote this with my bare feet toasting in front of the wood stove, quite cozy and comfortable.

Now, I must apologize for treading into difficult and unpleasant terrain. Albert Schweitzer said “The purpose of human life is to serve and to show compassion and the will to help others.” Compassion, the root of becoming a Bodhisattva, the teaching at the heart of so many of the worlds religions. Can compassion be expressed and karmic merit gained through living a more sustainable life? I think the people I mentioned at the start of this talk would say so.

Do you remember them? Child soldiers in the Congo are used to fight wars to control mineral resources, like the rare metals that went into making this iPad. The Guaymi of Panama are struggling to avoid paying the ultimate price of our demand for copper that allows the electrification of my home. The Beaver Lake Cree are losing their rights to the boreal forests of Alberta and receiving a payment of higher rates of cancer, polluted water and air, all due to the tar sands development to produce the oil with which I drove here today. The Kayapo of the Amazon who in the face of increasing deforestation, diseases brought on by loggers, farmers, and now dam builders are fighting to survive by struggling to maintain control of their ancestral lands. This so the rainforest hardwoods can be sold to rich northerners or so that cattle can be grazed or soybeans grown, where once healthy forests stood.

And the Ogoni of the Niger delta, probably the most exploited tribe in Africa. Living in the toxic stew of gas flares, oil spills, and corruption brought on by the theft of the oil beneath their lands. Their struggle for earth care, people care, and fair share became well known when Ken Sarawewa, an Ogoni poet and activist was hanged for having the temerity to oppose Shell Oil in a non violent way. Again, so that we in the north don't have to pay too much to drive to the mall. The Inuit are losing their entire way of life in the arctic due to rising sea levels and lowering ice quantities, a result of global warming which can be blamed on, well, all of the above. All these indigenous peoples have had to watch their rights, their culture, even their lives, threatened or destroyed by our rapacious appetite for cheap consumer goods. But you can find the victims of our addiction to consumerism right here in America, just do a little research into the coal industry.

And what do we really need all that stuff for anyway. It doesn't make us happier, it doesn't make us more secure, in fact it does the opposite in both cases. For an excellent expose on this topic, with scientific fact and spiritual teaching to back it up, I recommend the books Affluenza and Simple Prosperity by David Wann.

But this is heavy stuff for a lovely Sunday morning, let’s pause, take a deep breath and clear our minds.

Perhaps this is a good time to bring up another very important buddhist teaching, Buddha nature. We are all buddhas, all sentient beings share that shining gift, it is merely obscured. The lesson here is that we should not allow our nature as consuming humans in a modern society, to stimulate a guilt trip. I’m no therapist but I have learned from bitter experience that dwelling on my failures is not progress, indeed it is further obscuration.

To paraphrase Pema Chodren, we must rejoice, not only in our steps forward but also in our steps back. And I say, rejoice in an obvious way. Smile, that we have the wisdom to see that we are not living as green a life as we could be. Smile, that we are so fortunate to have a neighbor further along the path, there to show us another way to step forward, maybe not today, maybe next year. Smile, to know that our essential buddha nature becomes that little bit less obscured, if we allow it, with every mindful step, either back or forward. In Buddhism, the point is not to dwell on suffering but on the ways to reduce suffering. Dwelling on guilt and anger does not help. We can have faith in our buddha nature, in our ability to transcend, to change and in the benefits of change.

But are we all buddhists? Not likely, nor should we be. If you aren't comfortable with the Buddhist concepts of karma and buddha nature, you can find edicts in every other faith that require us to do as Jesus, or Mohammed, or Baha’Ullah would do, to look after each other and creation, from the ten commandments to the most elegant and simple of them all, the golden rule, do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

I believe we are called to make our lives more sustainable for many reasons, to reduce our carbon footprint and thus our impact upon each other, to leave a verdant rich planet to our nieces and nephews, and to preserve biodiversity, the web of life. In the words of St Francis "If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men."

Or to look at it more anthropocentrically, we are called to make these changes to reduce our impact on our fellow humans, including our family members and our selves, to align our own daily existence with the requirements of our faith, whatever that faith happens to be. To quote Joel Salatin, the farmer and spokesman for sustainable agriculture, "part of our responsibility as stewards of the earth is to respect the design of creation."

I'd like to wrap up with another quote from St. Francis,

"Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible. "

Happy Earth Day

Cooking with gas

2011-03-21T16:33:00.000-03:00

Anytime we have the wood stove fired up, we use it for cooking as well as heat. We have a variety of cast iron pots to work with and are usually able to slow cook stews and sauces, fry eggs and sausages, and warm up rice. But with the weather turning warmer we have not needed the heat so we are back to using our gas range in the kitchen. In order to keep our bills and our carbon footprint to a minimum we usually plan it's use fairly carefully. For instance, to cook rice I start it off in the pressure cooker in the solar oven. This brings it up almost to a boil. As a result we require about half the cooking time on the stovetop to finish it off. When we need to use the oven, we cook as many things as possible either simultaneously or in sequence to avoid having to heat the oven up more than once. In the picture you can see what we cooked in one afternoon; an organic chicken with organic potatoes and carrots for dinner, some banana chocolate chip muffins for dessert (there were 2 trays cooked), and granola for breakfast (again there were 2 trays cooked). We tend to cook in bulk as well, we made days worth of all these dishes and they occupied the oven at the same time.

Green Growth or No Growth - a debate

2011-03-06T10:57:00.000-04:00

Check out this debate over on CBC radio with Paul Kennedy. This is the debate we should be having as a society.
http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/episodes/2011/02/02/green-growth-or-no-growth/

Heating with Biomass....Finally!

2011-02-14T11:40:00.001-04:00

We have finally got our wood stove installed. As it turned out the installation was the easiest bit, largely because I agonized over the details before ordering the parts, consequently they all fit perfectly and are operating as designed. Even breaking through the chimney was no big deal, turns out this side is only 1 brick thick so it only took about an hour to open up a hole big enough for the stove pipe. We used a liner all the way to the top of the chimney so we decided we didn't need to totally block off the fireplace on the other side. We just closed the flue and will probably stack a bunch of stone or urbancrete in there to add thermal mass and insure it never gets used again. The real work has been tearing out the wall and building a post and beam structure to support the upstairs floor. That part is still not finished, nor is the floor in the parlour tiled yet (we can't agree on the tiles). We put down some concrete board and laid a few remnant tiles on top to form the pad and protect the subfloor from cinders. You also see in the picture the silver outside air pipe leading around the corner to a hole in the floor. It is currently drawing air from the crawlspace/basement but will eventually be routed to the outside. This prevents the stove from cooling down the house by pulling indoor warm air thus requiring outdoor cold air to replace it. The same effect is why fireplaces are so bad at heating houses.

The other real time consumer has been dealing with the firewood. Since I forage the neighborhood for it on trash day, it has been coming in for many months and initially I cut it too large. This required cutting it all down to fit our smaller than expected stove. Also, I had collected so much that it was stacked in such a way that the driest wood was inaccessible behind the wettest. So I clearly had to rearrange the several tons of wood I already had and prepare the way for that which is still coming in. We have been heating with wood for several weeks now and it is amazing how quickly we are going through it. It won't be long before one whole stack, about 10' long and 6' high, one log deep, is almost gone. I've been moving much of it up to the porch and inside to free up the rack for wood yet to cut.

We paid about $1000 dollars for the stove and all the parts. The fuel is free and since we are doing almost 100% of our heating and about 70% of our cooking on it we should save over $100/month on our gas bill. At 4 to 5 months of heating season per year we should pay it off in 3 years or less.
Here is the sequence of construction and installation shots.

The wall and closet that had to come out.

Princess Ann doing a structural inspection.

busting through the chimney

assembling liner and cap before going up on the roof

screwing and sealing stove pipes

the royal seal of approval

the first break in fire

The Importance of Biodiversity in Farmers Markets by Thomas Morrison

2011-02-07T15:57:00.008-04:00

Here is a guest post by Thomas Morrison co-editor of Shadesofgreen.info. He spends a majority of his time writing on topics that are both green and progressive.

The Importance of Biodiversity in Farmers Markets

Doug Band and the CGI (Clinton Global Initiative) as well as US Ecologist Gary Nabhan have recently come out as strong proponents for crop diversity. Nabhan’s position is that in order to keep the idea of diversity at the forefront of our society, we must apply it to biology of crop diversification. His theories of promoting sustainability through grocery shopping have become popular. In a recent interview Nabhan said, “in other environmental issues we tell people to stop something, reduce their impact, reduce their damage.” His article Coming Home to Eat published in 200l can be cited as influencing the popularity of green culture, the local food movement, and the increased appearance of farmers markets all over the country.

A host of other organizations have begun to promote sustainability through the act of conservation. Bill Clinton, Doug Band and the CGI (Clinton Global Initiative) have set their sights on emission reduction projects throughout the country. In order to do this, they have partnered up with Donlen, GreenDriver, and Environmental Defense Fund with the purpose of reducing commercial fleet emissions by 20% in the next five years. The Earth Day Network has brought together local and national conservationist groups and green enthusiasts to participate in an open forum. This forum serves as a space to incite discussion and dialogue on new ways to create a sustainable planet. Individuals can reduce their carbon footprint, create less waste, and stop the unnecessary wasting of water. Gary Nabhan strongly suggests as members of society we take a larger look at the state of our planet.

The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization produced a study with results indicating that a quarter of crop diversity is left and a dozen species provides 90% of the animal protein consumed around the globe. More over, roughly four crop species supply half of the plant-based calories in the basic human diet. Nabhan theorizes that growing food locally will have a massive impact on our planet’s sustainability. The “eat what you conserve” theory says by eating the produce that we are attempting to conserve, we are simultaneously promoting the granular dissemination of a vast amount of plant types.

Agriculturist Marco Contiero adds to the theory by saying, “biodiversity is an essential characteristic of any sustainable agricultural system, especially in the context of climate change.”

According to Conterio, since individuals raise and harvest our own crops and plants, we should purchase the crops harvested and produced by other local growers. If individuals buy food grown and harvested locally, the large carbon footprint associated with the transnational transportation of food is no longer a problem. Both arguments require an active effort toward conservation and sustainability. As the spring approaches, visit your local farmers market to get all the best in seasonal fruit and vegetables. Visiting your local produce stand is also a great way to promote biodiversity, support your local economy, and experience the delicious regional food varieties.

Ted Talks - Naomi Klein: Addicted to risk

2011-01-29T21:02:00.000-04:00

#1 AKG podcast in 2011 - Falling Leaves

2011-01-16T17:17:00.001-04:00

rainbarrels insulated with leaf bags, solar oven in the background busy preheating dinner.

4'x4' leaf mould piles sheltering fruit trees, storing moisture, blocking view and noise from the road, and producing soil amendment.

watering the winter salad greens in the greenhouse.

Transcript from our latest contribution to the Alternative Kitchen Garden Podcast
Hello again from sunny Hickory North Carolina. We are most pleased to back with Emma on the akg podcast. After a very hot summer and a very cold, snowy autumn, we here at the sustainable living project are settling in for a cozy winter. We had a lovely Christmas, even with a malfunctioning gas heating system. The wood stove has been delivered but we are still in the process of installing it.

We spent a lot of time at my sister's anyway, making merry, eating her food and breathing her warm air. It started to snow on Christmas day and it stuck around for over a week which gave us about 8 inches of excuse for leaving the car in the driveway. Efforts to reduce my driving have been somewhat successful. My primary use has been to collect leaves. In fact the primary theme of my efforts in the last four months has been leaf management. There are lots of oaks, maples, gums and other deciduous trees in this town. The city gives away free recyclable plastic bags to be filled with leaves and set on the curb for pickup; if that is too much work, as it seems to be for most, citizens simply blow them with a loud, nasty fossil fueled gadget into the street where another, much larger and nastier fossil fueled gadget on a truck comes along and hoovers them up for composting.

We figure it's brown gold. Our topsoil is practically nonexistent over red clay, so why on earth would we want to get rid of all those lovely nutrients? After all, the trees have been working all year to convert what minerals and nutrients they can mine from the earth into leaves, only to drop them to nourish next year's growth. Most everybody else, aside from us and our next door neighbor, are intent on treating these nutrient rich materials as trash. Consequently, we have been competing with our neighbor to collect as much as we can, and we now have about half as much lawn as we did when we moved here.

I try to wait until just before a rain or snow to spread the leaves. This helps to mat them down and keeps them in place when its windy. We've mulched around the fruit trees, including the four new apple trees, around the raised beds to insulate them from the cold, around the bamboo and the herb bed, and under the drip line of the big maples and the dogwood. I've also created five leaf mold piles with some fencing circles built out of scavenged fencing wire. This will yield fine, loamy soil amendment in the summer, and as they are on the verge near the road they are blocking both the sound and the view of the road. That's the Permaculture reminder for this episode: stacking functions. Here's another example:

Any excess leaves we save in the bags for later use, but they are not idly stored. We've got them stacked around and on top of our rain barrels to keep them from freezing. When the morning sun shines we uncover the black tops to soak up some solar gain, covering them again when they go into shade.

Speaking of solar gain I've built a cold frame greenhouse on our south facing porch with a number of old windows left from when we fitted double glazing. The greenhouse is about waist high with a hinging lid which I can hoist up and tie off to access the seedlings, cut and come again greens, and herbs we are growing within.

Mmmm, fresh greens in the winter, yummy!

Video - Climate Denial Crock of the Week - 65 million Years with James Hansen

2011-01-03T18:28:00.000-04:00

Just when will enough be enough?

2010-12-26T08:39:00.000-04:00

The day after Christmas is a good day to ponder the excesses of the season. As much as we enjoy the feasting, the exchange of gifts, and the close family time there is a sense of fragility to this years festivities, a doubt about the sustainability many of the practices of the holiday season. As the young ones open the countless plastic doodads, packaged in single use plastic and wrapped in specialty papers and the adults quaff imported beverages, as we all enjoy our new electronics made from rare earth metals mined by slave labor in war torn Africa, I think even the most consumerist amongst us wonders if this can or should be maintained. Just when is enough enough? Perhaps we can use the sneaking suspicions engendered by our consumerism of one holiday to shape the next holiday. I don't usually make new years resolutions but maybe this year is good year to come to grips with the shortcomings of the path we are on. It is increasingly clear that we are running up against the limits to growth in the finite world we live in. An economy based endless growth is not only a physical impossibility based on the laws of physics but is also clearly faltering in spite of all our efforts to create the fiction of plausibility. Enough is enough!
We can have a steady state economy. It is a better option now and for the future.
Read the report from the Center for the Advancement of a Steady State Economy.
Enough is Enough.

For today we can take comfort that at least we have the fundamental values to rely upon in the holiday season, generosity, filial love and support, and the spiritual teachings that underlie the
holiday season. None of these need rely on the fantasies of consumerism to be achieved.

Merry Christmas, celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace

2010-12-25T07:36:00.001-04:00

Become a soldier for peace,
end to the imperial war machine.
For Jesus said "What you do to the least
of my people, that you do unto me."

If the billions spent on war
were to be repurposed for peace
we'd find the jobs long hoped for
suppressing our inner beast.

Rather than dominion and oil
let's build a new vision
of social justice and toil
for a clean sustainable position

in a world that doesn't fear us
that lives in the peace of the son
not ducking petro bullets,
powered by water and sun.

So Merry Christmas to you all
I wish for you the peace
Promised by Jesus to us all
if we can only work for the least.

The Christmas Tree debate and the genesis of a new tradition?

2010-12-23T17:41:00.000-04:00

After I posted the christmas tree post I had a most interesting exchange over on FB with my friend Jerry. It is interesting enough that I thought I should post it. Jerry agreed.

Jerry

It certainly occurs to me to wonder whether growing spruce etc just to be cut down after a few years so that everyone can have their own family Christmas tree isn't actually a bit fucking stupid now there are so very many of us separate li...ving units and now we actually need uncountable numbers of trees - any trees - to be planted and left to grow and photosynthesise so as to get all that carbon out of the air again. I doubt I'll be persuaded to ever buy one again. We ought to be being carbon-rationed by our governments by now! And if it means less luxuries in our homes, we just need to devise and engage in lots more community celebrations and feasts to reward ourselves with conviviality and fun. Economies of scale I- bet a big collective blowout can be designed to use less resources per head for the same enjoyment pay-off per head. If fifty families are out dancing and singing and laughing together in a hall near where they live, LEAVING LIGHTS AND HEATING AND APPLIANCES OFF AT HOME UNTIL THEY GET BACK, there's a a significant carbon saving straight off.
Apart from the destitute and the truly impoverished, most of us in the industrialised countries have a level of material affluence - and profligacy - that would have been inconceivable to kings and emperors in the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries. It's about time we woke up. And use those fucking clever brains you've all got, people, to figure out what we need to drop and what we need to adopt so that we can find a way to live that works properly. Sorry for the language, but I'm terrified we'll go past the point of no return without a clue of what we're doing wrong, and that IF WE REALLY UNDERSTOOD we wouldn't dream of doing.

ME
I tend to agree, particularly about the needless and wasteful affluence. I think the real impact of the season is the excess and pointless consumerism. This is one of the reasons I wanted to make a tree this year out of trimmings rather tha...n use a real tree, just one less thing to buy. Also the tree I trimmed to make it needed trimming. I'm thinking of cutting it down as it is in the wrong place on the property, if the trimming does it I can avoid the big chop.

Every year we yanks debate, real tree vs. plastic. Most seem to think that real trees are better now but I've always been leery of the monocrop nature of big tree farms with the attendant chemical usage. There are places that maintain a healthier forest where you can tramp through the snow and cut it down yourself, kind of a family tradition. I favour the live tree in a pot that you then plant out, though not as much as this years effort, that's my best so far. Though, I've recently heard from my ex in Seattle that one we planted almost 20 years ago is thriving and taller than the house. Somehow I find the idea of a real living tree being the center of a ritualized family gathering somewhat comforting in a pagan sort of way.
Jerry

yeah... problem is the real dying ones that are what most people have. I just reckon perhaps the time has come where the idea of a tree in each home is ridiculously profligate, after all it's not as if most people use it as a tool to consci...ousness raising or anything, it's just a young tree that's been felled prematurely to die in a corner of your room so that "it makes you feel more christmassy" and "the kids would hate it if we didn't have one". Looked at that way, is it remotely justifiable as we enter deeper into a time of climate emergency?

ME
probably not, but what about the idea of live trees carefully planted afterwards? Of course making that widespread is probably as likely as getting a suburbanite to give up their SUV.
There are so many cultural paradigm shifts that have to h...appen in order to accomplish any kind of meaningful reduction of emissions, I personally will continue to try to make it happen but am not holding out much hope, or staking my daily happiness on the chance that it will.

Jerry
But having somewhere to carefully plant out the live tree can be a real challenge, especially somewhere suitable for a stressed tree (stressed after weeks in a heated home) - I don't think there are for example many suitable locations for f...orest conifer species in urban environments.
The whole Christmas Tree thing just looks like a comfort attachment to me - people are almost AFRAID that they're asking for some sort of nameless trouble to visit them if they don't do Christmas "properly". Think about it, look at the strength of the associative feelings people have about Christmas... I reckon the fear is that if we don't hold fast to these emotional anchors (trees, presents, decorations, cards, lights, food in excess, familiar old favourite movies) at this time of year we'll be swamped with emotional feelings too powerful to handle, all connected with LOSS: loss of certainty, loss of childhood innocence, loss of belief in the power of simple Goodness, loss of our hopes and dreams (our idealism and optimism). So we're as superstitious in the winter dark as our ancestors (superstition uses ritual to hold fears at bay, as does compulsive obsessive behaviour pathology), but we don't any more (if we ever really did?) have particularly wise or appropriate rituals which effectively lead us into a raised (and shared) consciousness - yet we deeply long for it. This is only thought through on the hoof Robb, it's all come up in response to your comments. I don't know how much truth I've hit on, but I feel sure there's mileage in this idea that there's something we're afraid to face THAT WE COVER UP WITH UNEXAMINED CHRISTMAS TRADITIONS, at least unexamined for whether they might have something unresolved hidden away inside them as it were.
ME
I can't disagree with any of that Jerry but perhaps we could see it as an opportunity to teach a yearly tree planting tradition.

Jerry
‎"see it as an opportunity to teach a yearly tree planting tradition" - that is a brilliant idea! I went to bed after my last post above, had been up late because I couldn't go straight to bed after going to see "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" followed by the rest of the evening belting out Sheffield carols in The Sportsman up at Lodge Moor.
ME
Maybe someone should hook up with a nursery to offer planting outings after Xmas. I suppose one would also have to have prearranged a site for planting. It would be cool if it could work.

Jerry
It's very possibly too late to rustle it up in a useful way this year, but with time to make some good arrangements and prepare some good publicity and written (print or online) resources it could be as big next year as one decided to try a...nd make it. Should work with the right planning and a good team. And could be a really good awareness-raising tool PLUS real-world benefit of trees into the ground and carbon into the trees. Got to think about after-care for planted trees though, watering in hot spells in first year, mulching etc.
ME
Yeah, I think this year might be rushing it. Better to have it all in hand when you kick it off. Might be a good initiative for Grow Sheffield, are you still working with them? Transition Sheffield might be into it as well.

The Sustainable Living Project Christmas tree

2010-12-20T11:00:00.000-04:00

Most years I don't much get into the whole Christmas thing but I think I've caught the bug this year.

I had an unexplained need to listen to Christmas music a week or so ago. My theory is that since I don't listen to the radio, we don't have a TV and we don't go to malls I haven't been bombarded with the sonic landscape of Christmas which left me open to choosing when and where to enjoy it.

We've found a local church, Unitarian Universalist, and we thoroughly enjoyed the candle light service and Christmas party.

I've even set up a Christmas tree, of sorts, as you can see in the picture. It's that strange shrub shaped green bit with the odd ornament or two just visible. But in the spirit of sustainability we managed to construct our tree from materials sourced onsite. I needed to trim the leyland cyprus nearest the house on the southeast corner in order to let more sun into the porch and house as well as to reduce shading on the garden. So I dragged out my ladders and loppers and went at it. From a well rounded full christmas tree shape it has gone to a rather needle shaped style for the winter. I chose some of the larger trimmings and arranged them into a shape that would fit into the corner of the sitting room. I shoved the butt end of the stems into a recycled pickle jar, added water and propped it up with some urbanite, strung a few lights left over from my parents things, an ornament or three and voila! A homemade Christmas.....shrub was born.

By the way, in true permaculture style of stacking functions, all the rest of the trimmings are going to pathways. Leyland cyprus needles are allelopathic and do quite a good job of suppressing grass. So with one job, I got more solar energy into the house and garden, a festive bit of Christmas deco, and some pathway mulch.

A third world country on steroids

2010-12-14T10:12:00.001-04:00

Bernie Sanders said we risk becoming a banana republic. So just what is a Banana Republic?
This is a term that developed along with the exploitation of small central american countries by large multinational fruit companies and came to mean the countries that were willing to sellout their own long term health and sustainability for the many in favor of short term minimal profit for the few. It is the kind of country with a regime in place that consistently subjugates and oppresses the poor while systematically strip mining the common resources, the real wealth of the nation, and selling it to the highest bidder while seeing to it that the profits go not to the citizens of the country but to the corporations that do the exploiting, with a few local cronies thrown included to see to it the wheels of plunder stay greased.

So what are the qualities found in such a society? Do we find them here in the good ole US of A?

1. Massive income inequity, the US has some of the worst in the world and it's getting worse.
2. Limits to free speech, the recent attacks on and prosecution of whistleblowers and free speech websites like WIKILeaks points out our unwillingness to allow free speech to undermine the activities of the ruling elite.
3. An erosion of independent Journalism and an acceptance of propaganda, all the major media outlets are now owned by for profit multinational corporations. What they call news is at it's most benign heavily censored, and at it's worse out and out corporate propaganda. Few citizens seem to realize that they have to search for journalism that is even close to objective. It is underfunded and marginalized by the corporations that own the space.
4. Substandard educational system, we have long since stopped producing the brightest and the best. Our schools are overcrowded, terribly underfunded, under constant attack from religious fundamentalists to censor content, and now under pressure to serve the needs of corporations rather than to produce well rounded citizens capable of critical thought and fully in command of the basics of the scientific method, a understanding of history, and the variety of philosophical tradition. Few of our citizens don't even understand the value of civil, polite, and intelligent debate much less the methods for engaging in such.
5. Lack of access of to health care, we may have the ability to deliver decent world class healthcare but we are certainly not allowing it to be delivered to our citizens in any sort of rational or efficient manner. We are allowing multinational corporations to profit mightily and immorally off the misery of our citizens and much of the very illness they profit from they have caused via the promotion of unhealthy lifestyle choices through corporate owned media.
6. Multinational control of government, with the enshrinement of corporate personhood and recent untrammelled permission to buy elections we have surrendered our democracy to the top few percent of income earners becoming a plutocracy and are dangerously close to fascism.
7. Multinational control of resources, for years we have been exploiting the resources of the rest of the world by propping up dictators, toppling democracies, and undermining human rights in the name of corporate profits. Now we are doing the same within our own borders.

We are indeed like a third world country on steroids, eagerly consuming our future in favor of today's excessive convenience and comfort. Our democracy is dying on the altar of consumerism right along with biosphere that supports it. It is simply unsustainable.

What's next for our beleaguered climate?

2010-12-11T10:49:00.007-04:00

Now that Cancun has followed on the heels of Copenhagen as possibly the most futile if not downright destructive gathering of governments the world has ever seen, I'm left to ponder the state of the climate and wonder just why we in North America are actually going backwards. Canada is ramping up development of the Tar Sands and actively working to prevent research into and public knowledge about the warming Arctic. Here in the US we've elected many folks who in most other countries would be considered insane, denying that we even have a problem. All around me the populace continues to hold on to the fantasy that we can and should go back to some idealized America of the 1950's with all of it's attendant ism's, optimism and racism included.

Meanwhile the peer reviewed and hard headed science moves on. The IPCC process while rigorous and useful on some level is 4 years out of date at the time publishing it's report, which makes it almost 8 years out of date now, and unfortunately this is what most governments are relying on in considering our future response to the very grave threats we face.

What most folks don't seem to understand is that the much touted 2ºC limit is not some "acceptable" level of warming, it means significant changes on our planet and to human civilization. It is, as David Wasdell says, a border between dangerous and extremely dangerous. And worse, there is no chance that we can hold ourselves to even that limit. The Royal Society of Britain has published peer reviewed papers recently, containing data from much more recent science (though still a year old due to the process of peer review to insure accuracy), that indicates that with the current sets of promises, even if we live up them, we are headed for a 4ºC rise at the very least! This signals catastrophic change in our environment.

How have we let the situation get to such an extreme? To draw once again from David Wasdell, think of it this way. If our population was addicted to heroin and it was running our civilization and the planet into the ground we would not let those most involved in profitting from that addiction set policy. That is the situation we are in, the energy companies, the transportation industry, the industrial agriculture companies, and the media industry that popularizes their products are in control and are doing everything in their power to stop change that is absolutely vital to our future on this earth. We have have handed them this power up to a point with our consumerist ways but they don't need our input anymore, they choose who gets elected, and then dictate policy as they have just done in Cancun.

Welcome to Planet Eaarth

You can hear an insightful and educational interview with Joe Romm of Climate Progress and Mr. Wasdell over on Radio Ecoshock and here in our Sustainable Living Audio player for a while as well. All the links following are taken from the Radio Ecoshock blog site.

You can hear Wasdell's lecture "Beyond the Tipping Point" here.

"Check out the Downloads and video, for talks at the "4 Degrees & Beyond" International Climate Conference 28-30 September 2009, Oxford UK."

"Pay special attention to this talk by Richard Betts, which includes (at 16 minute mark) the very points David Wasdell raises - that serious positive feedback loops are still left out of climate models (which leads to underestimates of the real possibilities). "

"THE ROYAL SOCIETY "FOUR DEGREES & BEYOND" THEME ISSUE

Joe Romm's introduction to these papers (and why they matter)."

"The Royal Society web page for the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society "4 Degrees and Beyond" theme issue:

Some of the papers are now subscription only, having been offered to the public for a few days. Given the seriousness of crashing the Earth's climate system, and in the spirit of Wikileaks, I've posted all the papers here, as pdf files.

Editorial by David Garner

Preface

Introduction

ARTICLES

Kevin Anderson and Alice Bows
Beyond ‘dangerous’ climate change: emission scenarios for a new world

Niel H. A. Bowerman, David J. Frame, Chris Huntingford, Jason A. Lowe, and Myles R. Allen
Cumulative carbon emissions, emissions floors and short-term rates of warming: implications for policy

Richard A. Betts, Matthew Collins, Deborah L. Hemming, Chris D. Jones, Jason A. Lowe, and Michael G. Sanderson
When could global warming reach 4°C?

M. G. Sanderson, D. L. Hemming, and R. A. Betts
Regional temperature and precipitation changes under high-end (≥4°C) global warming

Fai Fung, Ana Lopez, and Mark New
Water availability in +2°C and +4°C worlds

Philip K. Thornton, Peter G. Jones, Polly J. Ericksen, and Andrew J. Challinor
Agriculture and food systems in sub-Saharan Africa in a 4°C+ world

Przemyslaw Zelazowski, Yadvinder Malhi, Chris Huntingford, Stephen Sitch, and Joshua B. Fisher
Changes in the potential distribution of humid tropical forests on a warmer planet

Robert J. Nicholls, Natasha Marinova, Jason A. Lowe, Sally Brown, Pier Vellinga, Diogo de Gusmão, Jochen Hinkel, and Richard S. J. Tol
Sea-level rise and its possible impacts given a ‘beyond 4°C world’ in the twenty-first century

Mark Stafford Smith, Lisa Horrocks, Alex Harvey, and Clive Hamilton
Rethinking adaptation for a 4°C world

Francoix Gemenne
Climate-induced population displacements in a 4 degree C + world

Rachel Warren
The role of interactions in a world implementing adaptation and mitigation solutions to climate change.

AND HERE IS WHERE TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT DAVID WASDELL

David Wasdell Bio

David Wasdell video presentation, Tallberg Sweden 2008

David Wasdell videos

The Apollo-Gaia web site

Another important Wasdell paper, with the graphs and charts helpful for both his video at Talberg, and his Radio Ecoshock interview. "Runaway Climate Change, Boundary Conditions & Implications for Policy"." - Thanks to Alex Smith at Radio Ecoshock

Video - 11/26/2010 - Buy Nothing Day

2010-11-18T18:55:00.001-04:00

Remember when stores used to close.

Video -Headwaters Gathering, David Orr on climate change and education

2010-11-15T14:07:00.000-04:00

"The Headwaters Gathering brough together writers, activists, and scientists on the campus of Warren Wilson College the weekend of March 28, 2009, to create strategic alliances regarding climate change. Here, David Orr of Oberlin College comments on the importance of education in terms of climate change."

Video - Climate Denial Crock of the Week - Climate Science 1956: A Blast from the Past

2010-11-10T11:58:00.000-04:00

Video -The next installment from the Story of Stuff - The Story of Electronics (2010)

2010-11-10T11:30:00.000-04:00

Video A FOREST GARDEN YEAR Perennial crops for a changing climate by Martin Crawford

2010-11-09T12:34:00.000-04:00

A pre freeze harvest

2010-11-06T19:59:00.000-03:00

This premature harvest was brought on by a forecast for several nights of below freezing temps in our area. Here is good portion of my pre freeze harvest, you can see way too many green tomatoes, a pile of basil, a basket full of radishes w/greens on, a load of green peppers and a few that had time to turn red, and my personal favorite, a bag of nettles, half of which ended up in the evenings chili. I also cut a bunch of parsley, spearmint, lemon balm, lemon grass, and basil for the freezer. I harvested most of the stevia both for the leaves and the hopefully some seed.

That was yesterday, today I snipped all the tomato plants off and chopped them into the compost heap, I then layered a bit of composted horse manure, some topsoil, winter rye grass seed, and some hay mulch over one of the beds. Tomorrow I'll do another nearby bed and add a soaker hose to them both. I've ended up with quite a lot of soaker hose that I found on my scavenging rounds since we arrived in May. I found the hay for the mulch on the side of the road as well. The winter rye is intended to help break down the manure and will create green mulch. We hope to let it grow tall enough to make some hay and possibly give us some grain to experiment with. It is an annual so what we don't harvest will die back when the weather heats up next year.

A sad day

2010-11-03T08:24:00.000-03:00

It's a sad day, one can only hope that we will find ourselves in a situation of gridlock, anything to prevent the wholesale give away of this country to corporations. I am constantly amazed by how fickle the American public can be. We seem to expect instant results to problems that took decades to create. Our culture has become one of instant gratification, and when we don't get it we look for someone to blame. Well someday soon we will only have ourselves to blame because change IS coming. Have no doubt, a tidal wave of change is sweeping our way. Nature bats last!

Go to sleep all you TV people, SUV drivers, fast food eaters, race baiters, and tea partiers. Go to sleep and deny all, the wave approaches.

I'm drowsy, time for a nap, what's that noise I hear?

Just Say No to GMO music video by Mike Adams the Health Ranger - NaturalNews.tv

2010-10-31T12:26:00.001-03:00

Just Say No to GMO music video by Mike Adams the Health Ranger - NaturalNews.tv

My Glasshouse on Re-Nest

2010-10-25T18:57:00.000-03:00

The glasshouse I built for the global 350.org work party on 10/10/10 has shown up on Apartment Therapy's Re-Nest, one of my favorite sites for inspiration in my Reuse and Recycle endeavours. Check it out:

How To Build a Removable Mini Glass House To Extend Your Growing Season

Harvest the leaves!

2010-10-23T13:45:00.000-03:00

This is indeed a time of harvest here at the Sustainable Living project. Peas, beans, tomatoes, hot peppers, sweet pepers, spicy lettuce, flat and curly parsley, oregano, mint, lemonbalm, stinging nettle, but most importantly leaves, leaves, leaves. It amazes me to see my neighbors bag up perfectly good, nutrient rich leaves and put them on the curb for "disposal". I'm collecting them as fast as I can. It must amaze my neighbors to see me drag their "waste" into my garden and pour them out around my trees, into my borders, and especially into leafmould piles, of which I now have 7. Each pile is approximately 4 or 5 ft in diameter and currently about 4 ft high. See picture.

I see the typical suburban lawn, surrounded by lovely trees, and see no leaves on the ground! Why do away with all those nutrients? They are natures way of recycling the nutrients that the tree has worked all year to dredge out of the ground. They then rely upon those nutrients that they drop beneath their boughs to break down, foster earth worms and fungi, and return the nutrients to themselves. Accordingly I have left the leaves my own trees, my colleagues, are dropping piled beneath them, adding to the piles in an attempt to reverse the decades of waste that has left the soil thin and hard, mostly clay. The leafmould I will reap from my piles will be added to the soil in the spring both as mulch and soil amendment. Think of it like a timed release vitamin, slowly releasing vital nutrients to the soil. It will also help the soil hold moisture. Additionally the earthworms that move into it over the winter will have enriched it with their castings, the fungi spreading throughout will help form a link between the nitroben fixing bacteria in the soil and the roots of the plants to enable them to take up the nitrogen.

What a wonderful soil amendment is leafmould. Pile em up, keep em damp, and in a matter of months you have leafmould, rich in mycorhizi, a good source of slow burn nutrients, and a particularly good way to add organic matter to your soil.

Here is a link to a document produced by GardenOrganic in the UK about making, using, and the benefits of leaf mould.
Make your own Leafmould

The economic value of ecosystem services

2010-10-21T13:49:00.000-03:00

Check out this podcast over on Greenplanet FM.

Dr Wayne Cartwright ~ A courageous statement for Strong Sustainability

It's a wonderful interview with the current Chair of Sustainable Aotearoa NZ.

To paraphrase one of his most salient points, the value of ecosystem services rendered to all of humankind greatly exceeds all the economic output generated by humankind.

So what is Strong Sustainability? here is the definition from the Phase2 website, a strong sustainability think tank.

"The concept of strong sustainability is based on the scientific fact that all human life and activity occurs within the limitations of planet Earth, or the 'biosphere' where humankind lives, including all societal functions, such as the economy.

It is a self-evident truth that without a functioning biosphere there can be no society or 'sociosphere', and without a sociosphere there can be no societal functions, including an economy or 'econosphere'.

Strong sustainability recognises that in order for human civilisation to continue, the true model for sustaining the planet on which we rely to survive should look like this:

Here is the abstract from- The Ethics of a Sustainable Economy: Implications for Public Policy Dr Robert Howell and Dr Wayne Cartwright

"The currently dominant neoclassical economic model is not based on modern science or an ethic that adequately considers humanEarth relationships. This thinking and the activity based on it is leading to a dismal future for human life on Earth. It is based on the dominant ethics of utilitarianism and a version of the Lockean social contract. These, and the neoclassical model of economics, need to be replaced if sustainable human living is to be achieved. A steady state economics and an ethic based on the concepts of integrity, intrinsic value, reverence or respect, combined with equity, are required as the fundamental principles of public policy. Some of the implications for this policy in economic measurement; strategies and plans for transition; laws, regulations and taxes; government departments; money supply and banking; investment; energy; rural land use; and immigration and population, are briefly described. These changes are so profound and fundamental that many will find it difficult to move to new ways of thinking and behaving. Yet if a core function of government is to attend to the security of its citizens, these public policy directions are essential."

Also check out this post on the topic of valuing ecosystem services over at Care2Causes,

Valuing Green in Greenbacks: Should We Put a Price on Services Rendered by Nature?

What was I thinking?! Grazing for dinner.

2010-10-19T20:03:00.000-03:00

Tonight as I sat down to relax with a little snoot of Bermudian Black Seal rum and some organic cheese crackers, I perused my video collection in iTunes. Since my wife is still in the green and pleasant land I chose a BBC production from the Natural World series called "A Farm for the Future".

It chronicles the journey one woman takes from her traditional farming roots to Permaculture in order to future proof her family farm in Devon in the face of Peak Oil. It is an excellent program and I highly recommend it if for nothing else the beautiful scenes of British countryside and wildlife.

At one point our heroine, after talking with Patrick Whitefield about permaculture, is touring Martin Crawford's food forest, gobsmacked by the abundance growing naturally with very little maintenance, and it struck me, here I sit munching highly processed snack foods while sipping an imported rum while there are greens aplenty and tomatoes still to harvest from my own garden! Pausing the film I went outside and gathered two types of parsley, basil, two types of spicy lettuce, some tomatoes and my all time favorite, fresh stinging nettle!

Into a colander it went, a quick rinse, and now I'm finishing my repast of fresh greens and tomatoes, no dressing, no meat, no dairy, all grown right here within 100 feet of where I stuff my face. Bliss!

Video - Tim Jackson - Economic Collapse or Prosperity Without Growth

2010-10-19T10:43:00.001-03:00

Tim Jackson recently spoke at TED , here he is speaking in Totnes. Thanks to Rob Hopkins over at Transition Culture for the heads up on this.
"An unparalleled opportunity to come to grips with what the current financial crisis means for you.

Tim Jackson, author of Prosperity Without Growth and Ed Mayo Secretary General of Cooperatives UK will be joined by Naresh Giangrande of Transition Town Totnes in a 'trialogue'."

Rob Hopkins @ Transition Derby

2010-10-18T17:33:00.000-03:00

Rob hopkins in derby

View more webinars from Transition Derby.

10/10/10 work day, progress report

2010-10-10T17:26:00.000-03:00

I managed to complete the Glasshouse, built from reused windows, and installed the first planting. We'll raise some greens throughout the winter, it is south facing, and will thus reduce our consumption of non local food. As you can see in the picture the lid is rigged to raise and lower to regulate heat. Also the windows on each end of the lid can be operated independently. As you can see in the second picture Annie took her duties as foredog very seriously. I also took some time to spend some birthday cash on some books I've been wanting, see the links below.

350.org global work day for the climate, our project

2010-10-09T17:57:00.000-03:00

Tomorrow at 10 am I will begin putting the finishing touches on a mini glass house, made from recycled windows, intended for growing greens this winter. I also hope to drag out the used solar panels I bought about 8 years ago from Solar Living Institute for their first output test. If anyone is in the neighborhood and would like to help or just see what it is all about, I'll probably do a quick tour of the Sustainable living project as well, please stop by between the hours of 10 and 4.

Video - Once in a lifetime

2010-09-30T22:58:00.000-03:00

Don't you have days when you just feel like this?

Vote for completion, and against racism and the war on the poor

2010-09-29T10:49:00.000-03:00

I believe we face a grave threat, not from terrorism either foreign or homegrown, not from some fear of the flu trumped up to boost pharmaceutical profits, not even from the watered down progress of Obamacare. I believe we face a grave threat from within as exemplified by the coal lobby, the Koch brothers, and the extremist right wing corporate owned media.
Let's just focus on the Koch brothers for now. It is clear they believe that rich tycoons should be able to do as they please in this world, in this country, and in your neighborhood. While their support of the climate denying, antiregulation, extreme right wing, racist tea party movement is bad enough, it is their record of victimizing the poor with their filth spewing factories I'd like to bring to your attention. They have been found guilty repeatedly of poisoning the environment mostly in poor black neighborhoods. According to the new book "Sacrifice Zones"

"The Kochs' enterprises, not surprisingly, appear in Sacrifice Zones, Steve Lerner's exhaustive chronicle of toxic chemical exposure in our country. (To buy the book from Amazon, click here.) For those unfamiliar with the concept, "sacrifice zones" is a Russian term -- it refers to populated areas polluted forever by nuclear fallout. In the United States, we have fewer reactors and build them better; here the term refers to neighborhoods where industrial pollution poses a health risk.

Bet you won't be shocked to read that African Americans are 79 percent more likely than whites to live in these neighborhoods."

This threat is pervasive, here are a few examples as quoted in an article in the Huffington Post,

"Sacrifice Zones brings stories like that back home -- to a dozen communities that were knowingly polluted by American businesses. It's a repetitive book: suffering, more suffering, government indifference, then the residents fight back. It's hardly an even fight. The companies have squads of lawyers on staff. Because they often provide the only jobs for miles, they have local governments in their pockets. It's oh-so-hard to prove that the filth on the once-white sheets hanging from the clotheslines of the poor came from a polluter's smokestack. And the victories are bittersweet -- activists don't always see the fruits of their work, having used precious days from their surely shortened lives to organize their communities.

Ocala, Florida: "black snow" from a charcoal factory. A city run by five white people. Activists who presented filthy bed sheets to the city council. A plant without afterburners in its smockstacks. The company closed the plant and tore down the smokestacks before they could be tested for pollutants.

Port Arthur, Texas: 15.5 million pounds of pollutants released in a single year by a refinery owned by Shell Oil and Saudi Aramco. (Once the plant released nine tons while children were waiting for school buses.)

On and on the dishonor roll goes -- Addyston, Ohio and Daly City, California and San Antonio and Greenpoint, New York. You get the idea fast."

So how do we counter this threat? Get out and vote. Set aside your anger that the democrats have not been able or some cases willing to follow through on their promise of change, that is mostly due to the GOP, the party of NO. We must keep control of government if we are to prevent the kind of policies that brought about the recent financial crisis and the BP oil spill, the foolishness of deregulation. It is high time that we realize that corporate power has no ethic other than profit, profit at the cost of us all. While there are areas in which I vehemently disagree with President Obama, for the most part I know he has accomplished more than was accomplished in the previous 12 years. And if we give him a congress and senate that will work with him he can get even more done. If we allow government to be hamstrung yet again, we will see increased deregulation of dirty coal, oil and gas drilling, and the worst of all on the banksters who fund the destruction. Our air and water will continue to degrade, the gulf of Mexico will continue to die, along with every other ocean on earth, catastrophic climate change will become a certainty, and our deficit will soar ever higher as the rich continue to plunder the commons, impoverishing the rest of us along the way.
So please get your brothers and sisters to the polls and vote for completion, vote for candidates that will work to build a responsible government, one that works to solve the problem, rather exacerbates it with obstructionism.

Video - Climate Denial Crock of the Week - Extinction

2010-09-28T15:11:00.000-03:00

"
An accelerating rate of species extinction isn't just all part of mother natures plan.
It's an expected result of climate change.
With changes in the arctic happening faster than any other place on earth,
polar species are among those most at risk.
Case in point: The Pacific Walrus.

http://www.wwfblogs.org/climate/conte...
http://www.adn.com/2010/09/25/1471943...
http://environmentalresearchweb.org/c...

Woods Hole Research
http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=12763...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/...
http://www.physorg.com/news64375550.html"

Relish, rain, and clean fresh air

2010-09-26T12:30:00.000-03:00

Rain at last! My water barrels are almost full, the projected high temp for today is 68F, We've removed the reflectors from the windows and the house is full of soft rainy day light, and gentle moist breezes. We've taken advantage of the projected cooler temps for the next couple of days by prepping some rummage relish; cucumber, onion, ripe and green tomoatoes, sweet peppers, cabbage, and spices. We'll can it and some hot pepper relish tomorrow.
I've done a walk round the property to see where the drainage is sitting and where it is not. Our main terrace is soaking up a good bit of drainage but the area below it is still very wet. I hope my bamboo makes it through this wet spell.
Not to worry, just enjoy the change in the weather.

Video - This is What Global Warming looks like.

2010-09-25T15:41:00.000-03:00

"We have to believe what we are witnessing with our own eyes -- floods, fires, melting ice and feverish heat. From smoke-choked Moscow to water-soaked Pakistan, to soaring temperatures in the US and a deteriorating landscape in the High Arctic, our planet seems to be having a breakdown. It's not just a portent of things to come but real signs of very troubling climate change already under way.

Please join with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and take action to protect our planet -- it's the only one we have.

Take action here: http://bit.ly/bArcGx."

Video - Breathe

2010-09-23T15:31:00.002-03:00

"repoweramerica | September 16, 2010

http://repoweramerica.org/cleanair

Thousands of Repower America members around the country took a stand for clean air and submitted their photos and videos in support of the Clean Air Act. This new video is a declaration that we won't stay quiet while we lose our last, best line of defense against big polluters.

Please share this video with your friends and family and spread the message to defend the Clean Air Act for all of us.

FACEBOOK: http://j.mp/ourcleanair-FB
TWITTER: http://j.mp/OurCleanAir-T

Thank you to everyone who took action to protect this vitally important law. We used as many of the amazing submissions as possible in this final video.

Can you spot all the celebrities below? Send an email to info@repowermamerica.org with the time to the second you see them! We'll declare the winner on Twitter!

Thank you to BlueBrain ( http://www.bluebra.in ) for donating their track "Restriction." For their participation and support thank you to:

A Fine Frenzy; Alec Baldwin; Almudena Fernandez; Barely Political; The Belchertown, Massachusetts Fire Department; Blame Society (not featured); Brandi Carlile; DeStorm Power; DJ Mike Relm; Eric Beck; Hot for Words; Jeff Ross; John Popper, Blues Traveler; Kris Kristofferson; Lauren Francesca; Margaret Cho; Mark Douglas; Matt Urmy; Nalts; OK Go; UpDaBlock; Vassy Karagiorgos; Wayne Coyne, The Flaming Lips; Will of DC; Gloria Reuben; Jonathan Sexton (Not featured)."

Sign the petition

Video - Imagine

2010-09-22T16:56:00.000-03:00

Today is the International Day Against Monoculture Timber Plantations.

2010-09-21T16:48:00.000-03:00

"Today is the International Day Against Monoculture Timber Plantations. Across the globe, timber plantations are wreaking havoc on forests and forest dependent communities. Now, to further exacerbate this damage, genetically engineered trees (or GE trees) pose a new and unprecedented threat."

My love/hate relationship with the arts. Video - Ben Cameron: The true power of the performing arts

2010-09-18T18:53:00.000-03:00

After too many years making my living in dark theatres, feeling guilty about the massive waste of resources that went into mounting a show, making an ass of myself (if even if only to myself) by over analysing some poor performer just doing his or her best, stressing myself out over live performance I seemed to be the only one who felt underrehearsed for, shifting uncomfortably in my seat at a variety of performances that fell short of the mark or even worse hit the bullsey dead on, I have practically given up on attending live performance of any kind. And lately I find myself missing it. I'm even missing participating in live performance, the thing that usually stresses me out more than anything I can remember. I've struggled to justify to myself the energy I am willing to put into preparing for performance, to assign value to youth theatre, to get comfortable with the blatant expression of ego sometimes necessary to produce a good performance, all the while realizing that the immediacy of live performance is true performance, real story telling, that it has the potential to be life changing for performer and audience. Ben Cameron has helped to cement this feeling with this talk. Enjoy!

Here's a link to one of my favorite recording projects I worked on, a good reminder for why I did that sort of thing.

Video - Good design, daylighting, and learning

2010-09-15T10:09:00.000-03:00

"Douglas County School District along with top Colorado architecture firms that specialize in both designs specific to Daylight and Learning, bring a unique prototype of school design that saves energy as well as provides an optimal learning environment for our grade-schoolers. "

By The Light of Day from Douglas County Government on Vimeo.

Video - The Miniature Earth . 2010 edition . Official version

2010-09-13T09:13:00.000-03:00

"What if the world's population were reduced to 100 people community?"

Yowza! A marathon canning session.

2010-09-12T18:14:00.000-03:00

I started chopping pumpkin this morning at 9 am. It is just gone 5 pm and I have taken the second round of pressure canning off the stove. The next batch is coming to the boil in preparation for jarring up and it's turn in the pressure canner. By bedtime we will have canned another 21 quarts of pumpkin. One pumpkin, our largest, yielded about 10 quarts alone, see pictures. The seeds are from all the pumpkins we processed today. I never much cared for squash or pumpkin till I started canning it. There is something very satisfying about the texture of a perfectly ripe pumpkin, and the quantity of food one gleans from it's flesh. It's like meat or cheese more than a vegetable. Lovely stuff.

We also figured out a way with our limited cookware to only use 2 burners this time, a 50% efficiency improvement for at least part of the process over last time. It sure feels good having it all put up for the winter.

In between, chopping, canning, cooking lunch, adding the waste to the compost heap, and dealing with the dog, I managed to cut a hole in the parlour wall to expose the chimney breast in preparation for removing the wall and installing a woodstove. We have been busy bee's today. I am enjoying a much deserved Goslings Black Seal on the rocks.

Video - Genetic engineering: The world's greatest scam?

2010-09-12T08:57:00.000-03:00

"Genetic engineering is a threat to food security, especially in a changing climate. The introduction of genetically manipulated organisms by choice or by accident grossly undermines sustainable agriculture and in so doing, severely limits the choice of food we can eat.

Once GE plants are released into the environment, they are out of control. If anything goes wrong - they are impossible to recall.

GE contamination threatens biodiversity respected as the global heritage of humankind, and one of our world's fundamental keys to survival."

Taking my time

2010-09-11T10:11:00.001-03:00

So I'm eating my breakfast, it's a cool morning, rain is forecast. I hear a large truck pull up outside. It's from Lowes, on the flatbed is a project, a deck perhaps, maybe even a shade structure by the looks of the materials, the only thing missing is the labor. I'm struck with the realization that I still haven't built our shade structure, not even the grape arbor. I could have just specced it out and had all the arsenic laden pressure treated lumber delivered, put it up in a weekend. I didn't. I've been pondering ways to accomplish it in a sustainable manner. I'm getting better at the primary permaculture principle of "Long thoughtful observation". I've been drying bamboo and studying techniques for building with the plentiful, hard grass. I've been collecting urbanite, busted up concrete on it's way to the dump, to build the retaining walls and foundations with. Well, today I will get a start.

That's my urbanite pile behind the wood pile. I'd been picking it up piece by piece when I found it on the side of the road but this past Thursday I found a crew tearing out a driveway and arranged to divert one load from the landfill to my driveway. In fact, in this picture you can see, more instances of scavenging, the compost pile in the foreground (built mainly from grocery store waste, the frame is from timber found on the side of the road), the manure pile just past it on the left (scavenged from some folks with horses), the pine log terrace border (gleaned from a friends yard when they removed some beetlekill, I'll use much of the urbanite to shore this up as a drystone wall), the wood pile (found along the side of the road on trash day).

I might not be as quick but I'm sure my project will have a much lower impact than the one that just arrived on the back of the Lowes truck.

A catchy tune, World Peak Oil Song

2010-09-08T21:06:00.000-03:00

"World Peak Oil Song - Original parody by faffytunes
Here is my attempt at funny but sad at the same time.
In the style of West End theatre, Broadway, Cabaret , musical parody on the subject that is going to affect us all in the not too distant future - world peak oil.
When there is not enough oil left for world demand even though they keep finding new resources - eventually that will run out. Once we have taken from the highest mountains, the deepest oceans and polluted the north and south poles, then what? We all need fuel and things covered in plastic, goods and food imported from far off places. We need to wake up to the biggest forthcoming problem of the 21st century.
Please pass on this song as a small part of further awareness on this subject. Many thanks faffytunes World Peak Oil Song Original parody by faffytunes© www.faffytunes.co.uk"

It's great to stay at home

2010-09-07T18:42:00.000-03:00

Lately, It was starting to feel like I needed to be in a 12 step program for fossil fuel addiction. But at last, we spent two whole days at home, never cranked up the car. We worked on the gardens and workshop areas all day on Sunday and canned pumpkin on Monday. It felt good to be low energy, low fossil fuel anyway, for a couple of days.

However, the canning process certainly is energy intensive. Once we got through the prep work we had the stove going, sometimes all 4 burners for close to eight hours.We preheated some of the necessary hot water in the solar oven but since we started early we didn't get that much out of it. I do hope to set up a small biogas digester at some point to cut down on gas usage for all cooking.

We hope to remove the gas appliances and have it shut off. We already have plans to get most of our hot water from the sun but will switch to electric for backup. We'll change to an electric cooker as well which will be offset by the woodstove in the winter and the solar oven, once I solve a few problems, all year. We'll heat with the woodstove as well. The gas company charges us $10/month just to be hooked up. That $120/year could be better spent elsewhere. Of course we'll need to do the changeover on the cheap to make it worthwhile.

I'll build an improved version of my solar batch heater for the solar hot water bit and electric water heaters are cheap. We may be able to get an electric cooker from one of our rentals when it needs updating. We'll have the woodstove by this winter. We don't use a clothes dryer so the gas hookup for that won't be missed.

Today we were back in the car, we went over to one of our properties to mow the lawn.

August 2010 at the Sustainable Living Project

2010-09-01T13:07:00.000-03:00

During the month we've managed to build another raised bed and start building some soil with a compost heap inside it, done some canning, made pesto,and purchased and set up another rental property. Much appreciation to Mike Kelly over at Hickory Real Estate Group for finding us that property.

Today it's September and Dang! It's getting into the 90's again here at the Sustainable living project. I've got to get over to Duplex #1 and cut the lawn, once the grass dries, which should be around midday. The Neuton CE6 electric mower is working a treat. I can mow a lawn in half the time and have some energy left over.

We've got Duplex #2 ready to rent, one side will be occupied today. So now we get back to work at home. This morning I've watered all the beds and potted plants, cut and stacked some firewood, levelled out a site for starting the grape arbor/terrace foundation, setup the rain barrels with siphon hoses and screen in an attempt to prevent mosquitoes from breeding. Jacq has been weeding and pulling the decimated pumpkin plants. We had an infestation of squash bugs but still got upwards of 100 lbs of pumpkins and 30 of winter squash. The beans keep coming in, today is Jacq's turn to pick. We've still got a list as long as my arm but it's nice to have the opportunity to get back to it.

We've just about decided to keep Annie the dog. She has no bad habits, is mildly protective, and very sweet. We are happy to have her around to keep us company and she seems happy to have built a pack with us.

I'm almost finished the book I've linked to below. It helps remind me that I've got it easy compared to those folks. It's good read if you are interested in self reliance.