Honda has started a blog specifically about the new Honda Insight:

http://automobiles.honda.com/insight-hybrid/blog.aspx

San Francisco resident Catherine Butler has recently started a consulting firm specifically for the purpose of helping you become an urban farmer.

Urban Edibles is an edible landscaping and permaculture design company whose purpose is to maximize productivity of urban spaces, localize food production, and promote community self-reliance, surplus sharing, food security, and ecological knowledge.

Catherine offers a free one-hour consultation. Urban Edibles can be your full-service farmer in your own backyard or if you are the dot-it-yourself type you can retain her simply for her consulting services, including:

–Backyard Farming with maintenance and harvesting help
–Complete Organic Gardening Services
–Edible Landscape Design
–Permaculture Design
–Medicinal Herb Gardens
–Habitat Gardens
–Greywater Consultation
–Rainwater Catchment
–Emergency and Disaster Preparedness
–Local Food Security
–Surplus Sharing Networks
–Consultation and Support for Chickens and Ducks
–Beekeeping Services

Visit the Urban Edibles website.

This week the online edition of the Coloradoan lists eleven ways to lower your energy bill: <a href=”http://www.coloradoan.com/article/20090117/COLUMNISTS104/901170302/1024″>Click Here</a> to read the article

Need help deciding on a composter?

This article in the Philadelphia Enquirer covers several styles of commercially available composters.

I found an article on Elephant Journal entitled

21 Things You’re Not Recycling

Except that most of those things we are: Things like appliances, batteries, and cardboard boxes.

The article does provide a way to recycle Tyvek envelopes, which I was not aware of.

You can always go to Earth911.com to find the nearest recycling center for almost anything.

What makes a travel business sustainable? That’s the question challenging many businesses trying to figure out what they need to be considered sustainable.

Sustainable Travel International and Darcy Hitchcock, author of “The Business Guide to Sustainability”, have created a new sustainability assessment tool for the travel industry.

Click Here to read more.

The Arizona Republic’s Arizona Living column today imagined what might be accomplished with an all-Arizona Cabinet for President Barack Obama.

Their pick of Secretary of Energy was none other thanour own Greg Peterson:

Click Here to read the article.

Maria wrote a great article on the City Dirt blog about GReg and The Urban Farm. Lots of great photos!

Click Here to read the article

I just read a great article about Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen and thie urban farm two blocks off Sunset Boulecard in Los Angeles:

Imagine sitting down to a salad of peppery arugula and heirloom tomatoes that you grew yourself. Or a Sunday omelet of eggs laid that morning, served with a thick slice of fresh sourdough, butter and apricot jam — all homemade, of course. Or imagine toasting your friends with a mead made from local honey. Where would you have to move to live like this? A commune in Vermont? A villa in Italy?

Click Here to read the article.

According to this article in the Hybrid Car Blog, Toyota is “secretly” working on solar powered electric vehicles. To start, the vehicles might only be partially powered by solar power, while offering the ability to fully charge via roof top solar panels. The long term goal, however, is to have the solar cars achieve all of their power from the vehicle’s own solar cells.

This is a story near and dear to my heart.

I hate big-box stores. Absolutely despise them. Wanna know what I dislike the most about big box stores? The ‘End-of-Life’ problem. When the bog box store closes – sometimes to move to a BIGGER box just a few miles away – they leave a hulking derelict behind. There are not many alternative used for a six million cubic foot concrete box. The impact is staggering. Once the big box store – typically the anchor for the surrounding smaller stores – leaves, most of the shoppers go with it. The next thing you know, you have an abandoned shopping center in your neighborhood.

Here is a great story on Sustainablog about people finding new uses for those abandoned big box stores.

“It’s hot in here. The A/C is off, and I’ve got the windows sealed tight to maximize my aerodynamic efficiency. I don’t think the radio reduces the output of my Honda Insight’s IMA system, but I have it off just in case. All I can hear is the quiet hum of the tires as I try to keep my speedo green and the gas engine from firing up.”

Click Here to read the article

The nation’s recycling industry has taken a sharp downturn, but Phoenix officials say the city and its residents are somewhat insulated from the worst effects.

Click Here to read the article

The online version of The Times of London has an interesting article about the environmental impact of Google searches: <blockquote>Performing two Google searches from a desktop computer can generate about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle for a cup of tea, according to new research. While millions of people tap into Google without considering the environment, a typical search generates about 7g of CO2 Boiling a kettle generates about 15g. “Google operates huge data centres around the world that consume a great deal of power,” said Alex Wissner-Gross, a Harvard University physicist whose research on the environmental impact of computing is due out soon. “A Google search has a definite environmental impact.”</blockquote> <a href=”http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article5489134.ece”>Click here to read the article</a>

<a href=”http://seattleurbanfarmjournal.blogspot.com/2009/01/what-is-with-these-seeds.html”>Urban Farm Journal has a great article</a> about seeds. Hybrid seeds vs Open-pollinated vs Genetically-modified if you are new to urban farming this is a must-read. <a href=”http://seattleurbanfarmjournal.blogspot.com/2009/01/what-is-with-these-seeds.html”>http://seattleurbanfarmjournal.blogspot.com/2009/01/what-is-with-these-seeds.html</a>

When: Saturday, January 24th from 1:30 to 4:00 PM
Location: The corner of 3rd ave and Palo Verde – 1 block South of Bethany Home on 3rd ave.
Cost: Donation

Each year Chip and Greg give a fruit tree pruning class at the Urban Farm’s other orchard where we will learn to prune both deciduous and citrus trees. And then we turn the trimming over to you and we all learn the proper techniques of pruning. This is a donation workshop and you help us prune the orchard. Bring gloves, pruning tools and saws and a desire to learn.

 

 

According to EcoRenovator, the US is now the biggest wind power generating country:

http://ecorenovator.org/biggest-wind-power-generating-country/

One of the blogs I make it a point to visit every week is Tonopah Rab’s. Rob has an organic farm west of Phoenix (near Tonopah, naturally).

His post this week will really awaken the farmer in you.

With the looming death of analog TV channels, perhaps you’ve decided to replace that analog set with a flat-panel digital TV. OK, now what do you do with the old one?

You can find out where to recycle that old analog TV here

I found this interesting video and more information on gather.com: