News, updates, thoughts, reviews, shows and random stuff
Simple Sustainability Thinking Small: How a couple downsized from making $42,000 a year to $6,500 and lived to tell the tale
A great story on AZSustainability today tells the story of L. Kevin and Donna Philippe-Johnson who successfully from a typical $24,000/yr urban lifestyle to one requireing only $6,500/yr.
It was at this point that I realized something was wrong. The life strategy I had grown up to believe in was no longer working and there didn’t seem to be any answers. Obviously, no one was going to get me out of this, so I decided I needed to take matters into my own hands and figure out a way to redefine my basic approach to living.
Click Here to read the article.
Simple Sustainability Phoenix Mayor Gordon Promotes Solar Power
In his State of the City Address, Gordon outlined a proposal for the Valley’s first solar power plant in Buckeye, plans for the city to power its buildings from the sun and incentives for homeowners to use solar energy in their homes.
Click Here to read the article
Simple Sustainability Green Living For Renters
RiverWired has a great article today containing some great tips for apartment-dwellers who want to live green:
Simple Sustainability Sony Holds Silicon Valley Recycling Event
With the switchover to digital TV, thousands of analog televisions are being abandoned (I have three myself). Recognizing the potential for thousands of old TVs ending up in the landfill, Sony is holding a recycling event for Silicon Valley residents on March 28, 2009 from 9am to 4pm at the Shoreline Amphitheater.
They will be accepting electronics from any brand.
Innovative Ideas Tweet-A-Watt
Tweet-A-Watt is a modified Kill-A-Watt that has been modified to use Twitter to publish its power consumption figures.
This DIY project can be found here:
Urban Farming at its Finest Sharing Backyards
On one hand, there are people with plenty of space but no time, desire, or skill. On the other hand, there are people with the time, desire and skill, but no space.
What if there were a service that matches these two kinds of people?
SharingBackyards.com wants to do just that. It is a cool mashup using Google maps. You can zoom in on any area looking for people who have space or want space.
Urban Farming at its Finest The Greening of Flint, Michigan
By the end of the year, Genesee County Land Bank will have almost 3,000 vacant residential lots in the city of Flint, MI. There is a silver lining to the house mess though: A growing army of urban farmers and gardeners is turning those vacant lots into vegetable gardens.
Click Here to read the article.
Simple Sustainability Bokashi: Not Your Father’’s Compost
I found this very interesting article on CleanTechica.com about a different, faster way to make compost. It’s called Bokashi, relies upon fermentation, and produces usable compost in a matter of days.
The other difference is that it is anaerobic, relying upon the lack of oxygen to do it’s job. Which in turn means no odor. Making bokashi compost is simple. You need a couple of big containers with tight-fitting lids (to keep the oxygen out), some kitchen scraps, and bokashi mix. The mix contains wheat bran, molasses, and EM’s – the efficient microorganisms that drive the process.
Click Here to read the article.
Here is a link to a supplier of Bokashi kits and a sully of the mix.
Simple Sustainability Greg Peterson at West of Western
Greg Peterson will be giving a seminar at the West of Western Culinary FEstival, March 13 and 14, located at the phoenix Art Museum.
Click Here for more information
Simple Sustainability Wind Power: Another View
EcoRenovator brings us part 1 of this multi-part article on the realities of generating your own electricity from wind power:
Simple Sustainability DIY Wind Power
MIchael Davis has built his own fully-functional wind-powered generator, complete with turbine and electronic control system. He has written a web page showing you how to do it too:
Click Here to read it.
Urban Farming at its Finest Chickens: Brigid’s Dilemma
There is an article in Civil Eats Brigid Gaffikin about raising chickens. She writes about her emotional struggle between seeing chickens as pets and seeing them as food.
For anyone considering raising chickens (particularly an old softie like me) it is a must-read:
Click Here to read the article
Urban Farming at its Finest Surviving and Thriving in Philly
I found this great upbeat article in World Changing about turning things around in Philadelphia.
Imagine instead that, 20 years from now, Philadelphia’s green economy enables everyone to work a few hours creatively daily, then relax with family and friends to enjoy top-quality local, healthy food. To enjoy clean low-cost warm housing, clean and safe transport, high-quality handcrafted clothes and household goods. To enjoy creating and playing together, growing up and growing old in supportive neighborhoods where everyone is valuable. And to do this while replenishing rather than depleting the planet.
Paul’s plan for Philly could be implemented almost anywhere.
Click Here to read this great article.
Simple Sustainability Lessons From Cuba
This 10-minute video describes how Cuba survived its own peak oil and moved from petroleum-based agriculture to organic farming./
Simple Sustainability 101 Going Green Tips
Innovative Ideas Less Costly Materials for Solar Panels
The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has released the results of a study that found a number of cost-effective, naturally abundant materials that could be used instead of crystalline silicon in solar cells.
Iron sulfide and copper sulfide were clear winners in terms of cost and abundance, according to the report.
Current solar technology costs about $7 to $8 per watt, Wadia said. He said the new materials could potentially cut costs by “two orders of magnitude.”
Click Here to read the article
Innovative Ideas Grow Your Own Roof
I found this article in the Mercury News.
Ed Snodgrass runs a 21st-century roofing business — one that is environmentally friendly and has nothing to do with slate, tin or asphalt. Snodgrass, 56, grows plants that make roofs green. In the past eight years, he has supplied colorful, resilient and fast-growing plants to cover nearly 2.5 million square feet of rooftops across the United States.
That’s right, a green, growing, living roof.
Click here to read the article
Click here to visit his website
Innovative Ideas Making a Compost Bin from Wooden Pallets
Greg Peterson showed me this technique a few months ago for turning four old wooden pallets into a compost bin. Now Geeen Daily has an article about it:
Urban Farming at its Finest Urbam Farms Coming to Cincinnati
The Living Cincinnati blog brings news that urban farming is coming to Cincinnati:
Well it turns out that City Council last week finally passed a plan for mini-farms. What is a mini farm or an urban farm? Well, its exactly what it sounds like: a small farm in an urban setting. Why you ask? Well, there is always a question of what to do with some of the vacant unusable city plots of land. Most of them are unbuildable plots and just sit vacant and uncared for. Many major cities have started using these plats as small gardens and farms for city dwellers. The exact details will be worked out in the next month. City officials must decide how to lease the plots, and whether to charge anything. Lets hope they don’t. Bring back the victory gardens of WWI & WWII.
Click Here to read the blog post
Click Here to read the article in the Cincinnati Enquirer
Innovative Ideas Bringing Wind Turbines to Ordinary Rooftops
WIND turbines typically spin from tall towers on hills and plains. But in these green times, some companies hope smaller turbines will soon rise above a more domestic spot: homes and garages.
The rooftop turbines send the electricity they generate straight on to the home’s circuit box. Then owners in a suitably wind-swept location can watch the needle on their electricity meter turn backward instead of forward, reducing their utility bills while using a renewable resource.
Click here to read the article.
