Earth Ninjas

DISCLAIMER: No live trees were hurt in the filming of this teaser.

Posted: January 4th, 2012
at 9:02pm


Categories: landscapes,my ninjas please!

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Net Energy Positive Passive House

The Passive House in the Woods in Hudson Wisconsin officially clocked a net-energy positive meter reading in 2011.

What does that mean?

In short, it made more energy than it consumed. While we predicted this with our energy models, we found and learned through monitoring that some equipment and appliances use more energy than assumed. On the flip side, user behavior plays a major role as well and can effectively lower energy consumption over the predicted model. (Source)

Posted: January 4th, 2012
at 3:51am


Categories: fo' real?,my ninjas please!,passive solar,sustainable architecture

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Ghost Town Ecoaldeas

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It’s a utopian fantasy- discover a ghost town and rebuild it in line with your ideals-, but in Spain where there are nearly 3000 abandoned villages (most dating back to the Middle Ages), some big dreamers have spent the past 3 decades doing just that.

There are now a few dozen “ecoaldeas” – ecovillages – in Spain, most build from the ashes of former Medieval towns. One of the first towns to be rediscovered was a tiny hamlet in the mountains of northern Navarra.

It was rediscovered in 1980 by a group of people living nearby who had lost their goats and “when they found their goats, they found Lakabe”, explains Mauge Cañada, one of the early pioneers in the repopulation of the town.

The new inhabitants were all urbanites with no knowledge of country life so no one expected them to stay long. At first, the homes weren’t habitable so they lived 14 in a large room. Slowly they began to rebuild the homes and the gardens.

When they first began to rebuild, there was no road up to the town so horses were used to carry construction materials up the mountain. There was no electricity either so they lived with candles and oil lamps.

After a few years, they erected a windmill by hand, carrying the iron structure up the hill themselves. “Even though it seems tough and in some ways it was, but you realize you’re not as limited as you think,” says Mauge. “There are a lot of things people think they can’t do without a lot of money and there’s never been money here.”

In the early years, they generated income by selling some of their harvest and working odd jobs like using their newfound construction experience to rebuild roofs outside town. Later they rebuilt the village bakery and sold bread to the outside world.

Their organic sourdough breads now sell so well that today they can get by without looking for work outside town, but it helps that they keep their costs at a minimum as a way of life. “There’s an austerity that’s part of the desire of people who come here,” explains Mauge. “There’s not a desire for consumption to consume. We try to live with what there is.”

Today, the town generates all its own energy with the windmill, solar panels and a water turbine. It also has a wait list of people who’d like to move in, but Mauge says the answer is not for people to join what they have created, but to try to emulate them somewhere else.

“If you set your mind to it and there’s a group of people who want to do it, physically they can do it, economically they can do it. What right now is more difficult is being willing to suffer hardship or difficulties or… these days people have a lot of trouble living in situations of shortage or what is seen as shortage but it isn’t.” (Source)

Posted: January 3rd, 2012
at 8:54pm


Categories: agriculture,fo' real?,green living,my ninjas please!,solar,sustainable architecture,wind

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Greening Peru’s Mountainside

Posted: December 18th, 2011
at 2:47pm


Categories: agriculture,geo-politics,green living

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Ethnopolitical Garbage

Located below is an article about the politics of the placement of waste transfer stations. Residents of Boston may also be familiar with this issues as one of the smallest poor neighborhoods, Roxbury, is home to a few of the largest waste transfer stations in the area. Surrounding, more affluent neighborhoods largely have none. Anyway, read on.

A great read from Motherboard on the politics of garbage placement:

In New York, as everywhere else, one neighborhood’s trash is often another neighborhood’s terror. And that other neighborhood tends be poorer. Garbage from the well-to-do Upper East Side, for instance, now ends up being sent to mostly poor neighborhoods in outer boroughs. At these places, of course, its easier for other trucks, or train cars or barges, to take it even farther away, to points south (In 2001, Mayor Giuliani closed Fresh Kills, once the world”s largest landfill, on Staten Island, a predominantly white community). And these places also make it easier to build garbage stations without the hassle of the legal battles or political campaigns often wielded by wealthier neighborhoods. [...continue reading...]

Posted: December 18th, 2011
at 9:02am


Categories: geo-politics,recycling/trash

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The East African Solar Entrepreneurs

A couple hours drive on a dusty road outside of the southern town of Masaka, Uganda, you’ll find Musubiro Village. Miles from the closest electricity grid, there is little hope of government power coming this way anytime soon.

In Musubiro, like so many other villages across Africa, the main source of light is kerosene- which is not only expensive, but has a myriad of negative health side affects, and the risk that always comes when you mix open flames and straw thatched roof dwellings. Typically, the day’s chores are done, children’s studying is over, and small shops are closed when the sun goes down at 7:30 p.m.

Not anymore.

Barefoot Power, a for-profit social enterprise operating across East Africa, has built a network of “Solar Entrepreneurs” who are responsible for bringing solar lighting to towns and villages like Musubiro all across Uganda. Their products, ranging from the extremely popular “Firefly Mobile”, a small 1.5 watt panel with 12 small LED lights and a phone charger, or their full “Village Kits” that can provide lighting to an entire house, are making solar power affordable and accessible to those at the base of the economic pyramid. The small solar panels are portable and once charged, act like a battery.

Barefoot Power currently has 160 Solar Entrepreneurs operating all over Uganda, and an extensive distribution network which makes its products available to customers across Kenya, Tanzania, India, and several other parts of the world. (Source)

Posted: December 17th, 2011
at 6:58pm


Categories: batteries,clean businesses,green living,green thumb jobs,solar,sustainable architecture

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Fracking Hell: The Untold Story

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An original investigative report by Earth Focus and UK’s Ecologist Film Unit looks at the risks of natural gas development in the Marcellus Shale. From toxic chemicals in drinking water to unregulated interstate dumping of potentially radioactive waste that experts fear can contaminate water supplies in major population centers including New York City, are the health consequences worth the economic gains? link

Posted: December 13th, 2011
at 3:11pm


Categories: natural gas,uh oh,water

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Pacific Aurora

Posted: November 19th, 2011
at 10:56pm


Categories: space

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Green Smoothie Monster

The Green Smoothie Monster recipe is below, for more check out Green Smoothies here.

4 leaves kale, stems removed
4 leaves chard, stems removed
½ bunch fresh parsley
1 leaf aloe vera
½ bunch dandelion greens
3 pears
1 banana
3 cups water
Yields 2 quarts

Posted: November 15th, 2011
at 12:26am


Categories: DIY Green,food,organic

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Ecology Fund – Plant a Tree

Save land that is critical habitat and preserved wilderness…with a click of the mouse you can protect up to 86 square feet a day!

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