This house has been solar heated for nearly 28 years now, the glazed black box on the south wall pumps heat into the living room whenever the sun shines, consistently and reliably. It was built in the Riverside neighborhood of Cambridge, MA in 1980.
This solar collector is an air heater that takes air from the kitchen,
moves it past the black absorber plate with a fan,
and then exhausts the solar heated air back into the living room.
Sometimes on sunny winter days, the people who live there have to flip the damper and dump the collector's air outside to prevent overheating.
It has worked unfailingly all these years without any major maintenance, even for the fan and the thermostat that turns it on and off.
The following is an excerpt from the new book Red State Rebels: Tales of Grassroots Resistance in the Heartland, published this month by AK Press. To learn more about the book, please visit http://www.RedStateRebels.org.
For years, Sarah felt safe as she traveled about. She shielded herself from harm. She placed her faith in science. She listened to the advice of experts. She thought she had been careful with chemicals and creams. This wise woman knew not to trust recommendations without doing a thorough examination of evidence. After an avid assessment, Sarah avowed, "Sunscreens are good." Then one day, as she entered her home after being out and about, she saw what she had never imagined.
I’d like to invite everyone to take a journey with me over the next year and a half. It’s a farewell to our beloved farm, and the beginning of a new one. In the course of it, I hope to give y’all a glimpse into the real life of a farm and the practices of sustainable ranching. And I'll share a few pictures of our farm, including some adorable baby lambs, along the way.
My husband and I have a small, organic (not-certified) farm just outside of Austin, Texas. I bought this place after I graduated law school ten years ago. I’ll post about my transition from environmental attorney to farmer another day. For now, suffice to say that I am a student of holistic management and eco-agriculture.
I got into a discussion with my son today [who is in his mid twenties] about the real costs of oil and coal. Trying to put it into perspective, I realized one thing about the price of gas: we carp here about the price of gasoline and diesel, but in Europe they have been paying more for many years, as we know.
If one compares the price of gas and diesel and the rise in price, Europeans have seen almost exactly the same rise in price, about 3 dollars [maybe a little more] since 2000. We feel it more, because going from roughly $1 to $4 has a much bigger impact than going from roughly $6 to $9, as they have. Our price has quadrupled, while theirs has increased by half.
Europeans have partially worked in the real costs of using petroleum based products into their tax structure. They have socialized the costs of using petrochemicals; some use these funds to help alleviate the deleterious effects, others may not.
Corn ethanol and biofuels production has driven global food prices up 75%, triggering a global food crisis according to a secret World Bank report revealed by the London Guardian. The report was apparently kept secret to protect the United States which is most responsible for the diversion of food to fuel. The World Bank, released a report on Wednesday, July 2, on the jump in food prices without specifying the cause (PDF).
Food prices have accelerated sharply in 2008. Grain prices have more than doubled since January 2006, with over 60% of the rise in food prices occurring since January 2008 (Figure 1). Individual grain staple prices have increased even more, with monthly average wheat prices doubling since January 2006. Rice prices more than tripled between January and May 2008.
Call me an optimist. Coal is king, tar sands oil is booming, the arctic is melting, tropical cyclones keep setting new records, and my own city is still flooded. Yet, in these times, a revolution in both energy and electrified transportation is taking place right beneath our noses, and perhaps nowhere are we seeing the seeds of this being planted more than on the island of Oahu.
Read on to learn more about the world you may be leaving to your grandchildren and the role Hawaii's third largest island may play in bringing it about.
The NYT and WSL (paid) have both reported in the past week on the White House's efforts to bury an EPA analysis showing that cutting greenhouse gases would generate between $500 billion and $2 trillion in net benefits over the next three decades. This is another episode in a long and sad history of the Bush Administration -- ostensibly committed to cost-benefit analysis -- abusing or ignoring this tool to push through its agenda.
For example, under President Bush, the EPA supported the centerpiece of the long defunct Bush environmental plan – the "Clear Skies Act" – with a cost-benefit analysis that was roundly criticized for devaluing the lives of senior citizens, leading to unjustifiably weak caps on important air pollutants.
Thousands of firefighters from across California, and some from out of state, will be seeing fireworks tomorrow, but not the fun kind they would like to see. Nor will they have a chance to relax at BBQs or picnics with family and friends. That's because they will be on the front lines fighting the countless wildfires that continue to burn in various parts of California and other states, the biggest currently in the Big Sur area (Los Padres National Forest.)
Tomorrow the firefighters my city will hold their annual pancake breakfast, a fundraiser for their firemen's fund. The breakfast is in conjunction with our county's big 4th of July parade, which attracts local dignitaries, service groups, and performances from the likes of {ugh} the Stanford "band".
With that inspiration, I'd like to hold a virtual "pancake breakfast" fundraiser for firefighters and other groups involved in helping fire victims.
Group Seeks Divine Intervention to Ease Oil Prices
(CNSNews.com) - As the price of oil continues to rise, the Pray at the Pump Movement has been holding prayer vigils at gas stations across the country. On Monday, founder Rocky Twyman decided to take his movement from Exxon and Shell stations straight to the steps of the Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington, D.C., hoping to encourage the oil-rich country to raise the amount of barrels they release each day from 200,000 to 1.2 million. Twyman, who is a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, spent the afternoon outside of the embassy praying and asking passersby to sign his petition for the release of more oil, which he hopes to deliver to the Saudi oil minister. Full Story
This should have about as much effect as the McSame Drain America First policy...
It seems unthinkable, but for the first time in human history, ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year.
The disappearance of the Arctic sea ice, making it possible to reach the Pole sailing in a boat through open water, would be one of the most dramatic – and worrying – examples of the impact of global warming on the planet. Scientists say the ice at 90 degrees north may well have melted away by the summer.
If you didn't see the Harry Reid "coal is making us sick" video yet, check it out - its only 30 seconds or so, but its definitely tapped into public sentiment, if over 360,000 hits on Youtube means anything.
It's not just penguins. Many species of birds are in decline in the U.S.
Some major population declines have been seen in northern pintail, greater scaup, boreal chickadee, common tern, loggerhead shrike, field sparrow, grasshopper sparrow, snow bunting, black-throated sparrow, lark sparrow, common grackle, American bittern, horned lark, little blue heron and ruffed grouse.
Of course, some species not listed and decling just as fast (though were not neccesarily as common to beginwith). Cerulean warblers, olive-sided flycatchers, whip-por-wills have seen major declines.
Last week's 1.75 billion dollar (perhaps now even $2.2 billion!) deal Florida Governor Charlie Crist offered to U.S. Sugar for its 187 million acres (nearly 300 sq. miles) was naturally greeted with much enthusiasm by environmentalists. After all, the Everglades has shrunk to just half of its original size, when Europeans first arrived on the Florida peninsula over 500 years ago, and here is a chance to finally reverse the course of development, and literally begin to release the "River of Grass" from the clutches of civilization. The apparent main benefit, being to reestablish the natural water supply of Lake Okeechobee with the Everglades to the south. However, a cursory analysis of this deal, while obviously a positive development for the Everglades future, reveals an even sweeter deal for agribusiness.
I've been engaged in several long diary discussions on peak oil and gas prices over the past few days and a recurrent theme is what can we DO about it. We feel incapable and despairing of getting train service or bus service in our particular locality, so what else can we do?
I teach sustainable living classes so I have some suggestions on the flip.... This is only my second diary so please be kind!
The poll released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center shows nearly half of those surveyed — or 47 percent — now rate energy exploration, drilling and building new power plants as the top priority, compared with 35 percent who believed that five months earlier.
The Pew poll, conducted in late June, showed the number of people who consider energy conservation as more important declined by 10 percentage points since February from a clear majority to 45 percent. People are now about evenly split on which is more important.
Tonight I and several others celebrated a friend's 82 birthday. Now I know most people would consider it unlikely that at age 82 a person might still be out there making a difference, but this person is, and she serves as an inspiration for me.
I first met Rosa in early 2004. At that time I was nearing age 44, nervously approaching public speaking in my first real community battle. Some of that I have diaried about in the past, but essentially the community battle was one that pitted those of us fighting against the then Governor of Florida, Jeb Bush.
My first introduction to Rosa was at a public meeting, where she went to the podium and literally gave a verbal tongue lashing to the same elected officials that I was still somewhat afraid of....
