I'm putting a Caribbean composting toilet on the back burner. Why? The problem started when my well-meaning North American contact for this project told me she read the book, Three…
Ah, the glamorous life of an eco-entrepreneur. Today, I argued with my shipper, DSV Air & Sea via email about a $200 storage fee I incurred because they claim they…
Canadian writer Douglas Coupland reminds us that the current torrent of change means there’s no going back—at least not to the U.S. middle class tableau of the past 50 years. Goodbye middle class. Rural suburbs. Technology emerging at a digestible pace. Assured economic upswings.
What will the next 10 years look like? This question reminds me of an NSF-sponsored city visioning project, Sustainable Lowell 2020, for which I was hired to write 4 scenarios for the future, ranging from ultra-high-tech to urban homesteading. (More on that later.) (*A Nantucket sleighride, in case you haven’t heard it, was a term used by whalers when their boat was pulled through the waves by a harpooned whale, sometimes for miles, before it tired and could be further hooked and taken to the ship.)
The iconic writer reveals the shape of things to come, with 45 tips for survival and a matching glossary of the new words you’ll need to talk about your messed-up future. A PBS show about asthma reported that kids exposed to animal manure have lower incidences of asthma. The key agent appears to be "endotoxins" in manure. It might be that…
TV commercial: A couple is reviewing their budget on a computer. He lists her expenses that could be cut: Pilates class, etc. She lists his in response. You can see…
The World Toilet Organization declared Nov. 19 "The Big Squat" to draw attention to the lack of toilets in the world and the attendant disease transmission. Here's the Web site.…
Check out this story of two couples complaining about the whoosh sound of wind turbines recently installed on Vinalhaven, an island off Maine (click on headline): For Those Near, the Miserable Hum of Clean Energy
I love the 345 reader comments that follow the article. They run the gamut of opinions, but most suggest the buzz of local clean energy is a tolerable and necessary cost. I also like this use of the newspaper as a forum for input. (Two of my favorite comments are at the end of this post.)
In July, I sat under these turbines for an afternoon. They emitted a low machine hum and a breezy whoosh. ‘Hard to believe they can be heard half a mile away, but I can imagine it’s a new background vibration. Perhaps these complainers are lobbying for a settlement check or a home buyout by the electric cooperative (a few nearby homes were purchased before the project was installed).
Here’s a link to my photos of my afternoon at Vinalhaven’s wind turbines. Photos