One year in 40 seconds from Eirik Solheim on Vimeo.
Eirik Solheim made this video in his backyard throughout the year. The ambient sounds are also recorded in his backyard. Have a nice look back at the seasons.
Happy New Year!
Times are tough – money is hard to come by – and winter is roaring it’s head. How about something for nothing? SCREAM to be GREEN doesn’t do giveaways very often, but I think this is a great one. We’re giving away a one year subscription to YES! Magazine. Just look at the covers above and see their commitment to the environment and sustainability! Sustainability, climate change (with Bill McKibben no less), locavores, oil, water battles, etc. Cozy up in a warm blanket with this gem of a magazine. Did I mention that YES! is printed on 100% post consumer waste recycled paper? It is.
From their FAQ:
What is YES! magazine all about?
We focus on a different topic each quarter, each one on opportunities for social change toward a more just, sustainable, and compassionate world. Recent issues have focused on redefining the “good life,” great urban places, preserving and reclaiming water resources, rethinking elderhood, finding alternatives to oil dependence.
Here is an example of some of the great material available in Yes! Magazine.
“Christmas With No Presents?”
by Colin Beavan, No Impact Man
“No Impact Man,” Colin Beavan, suspected the holidays would be just as merry without all the stuff — and he was right! Beavan and his small family have committed to living a no-net-environmental-impact lifestyle in the middle of New York City, and blogs about the adventure at NoImpactMan.com. Here he shares his very merry Christmas story — minus the stuff.
Related stories in the Sustainable Happiness issue:
* “Be Happy Anyway”
by Sarah van Gelder and Doug Pibel
The economic boom didn’t bring us (or the planet) happiness. So maybe there’s an upside to the downturn.
* “10 Things Science Says Will Make You Happy”
by Jen Angel
In the last few years, psychologists and researchers have been digging up hard data on a question previously left to philosophers: What makes us happy? Here are 10 scientifically proven strategies for getting happy.
* “Happiness Test”
by Stephen Post and Mike McCullough
Researchers say thankful people tend to be happy people. YES! offers this test to find out your gratitude score.
The rules are simple. Leave a comment by 11:59PM CST, December 12, 2008 and one random lucky winner will be picked to receive a one year subscription to Yes! Magazine. If you read Yes! Magazine, we’d love to hear from you, too – enter the contest and let us know what you think.
Also – I encourage you all to follow Yes! Magazine on Twitter, too. You can follow me, too – I’d love the company.
Another one from the vaults…
It’s Not Easy Being Green with Lena Horne
The King Who Wasted Paper
Love The Ocean
My lovely wife sent this to me. She was an Electric Company fan – me, not so much.
and just for fun…enjoy The Ladybug Picnic!
on global warming…
on the Kyoto Protocol
on renewable energy (ignore the bottled water)
on public tranportation
Summer floodin’ had me a blast
Summer floodin’ happened so fast
Scientists say the dead zone at the delta of the Mississippi River has reached over 8,000 square miles. The heavy summer flooding has brought all kinds of fertilizer and pesticides down river from Iowa and the rest of the corn belt. Corn is a dirty crop and has an outreach far beyond its overly fertilized soil. Check out the documentary, King Corn. We wrote about it a few months ago and it has a lot of info on the affect corn has on the ecosystem. Since corn farmers generally aren’t rotating crops, they have to soak the fields with ammonia and fertilizer to get the crop to grow year-after-year. This is leaving this huge dead zone. The lack of oxygen is killing all of the wildlife and the entire ecosystem. Watch more at this CNN video below.
Did I not mention this yesterday? Well – I happened to be reading through the NeoCon magazine and never thought about how I had access to all of the speakers, etc. This one totally slipped past me. Robert F Kennedy Jr, the son of Bobby Kennedy and the well-known environmentalist was speaking at NeoCon. I looked through the book and initially thought I missed it – nope – 8am, Tuesday June 10th. I’m in.
I got up early to catch the 6:34am train into the office – which happens to be directly across the Chicago river from the Merchandise Mart, home of NeoCon. I got to work in time to pickup my credentials and drop off my laptop. I ran over to the Mart and waited for an elevator. I got in and took the elevator up – the operator informs me that it only went to the 11th floor – I had to get to 14. I exited at 11 and found my way to the 14th floor. I got out and looked around and said “WTF?” The hallway was empty – devoid of life – just shops with Christmas items – weird. It’s now 8am and I look in the program again. Oh shit! It’s at the Holiday Inn Merchandise Mart – connected, but in a different building. I’m not waiting 10min for an elevator again, so I ran down 14 floors of stairs, across the street and made it to the correct venue. Phew – I made it. Guess what – the 8am program didn’t start until 8:25am. A lot of running around for nothing.
If you’ve never heard Robert F Kennedy Jr speak, he has what I can only describe as a type of speech imediment – like he’s gasping for air. He started out a little groggy, but once his words are rolling, he’s fine. I only bring this up because I was a little worried that the speech would lack something. In retrospect, he could have been speaking German and I’d have been fine tuned to every last umlaut. I guess in my case, he was speaking to the choir.
I’m not a big fan of politics – never have been – but it is important to stay in touch with the world. With the latest administration, it’s impossible not to speak about or speak up about, rather, the political landscape. Kennedy made the point that Americans can tell you what color underwear that Lindsey Lohan is wearing, but can’t tell you much, if anything, about what is happening in the world (if you’re keeping score at home, the correct answer is, Lindsey doesn’t wear underwear). I think his quote was, “we’re the most entertained and least informed society anywhere.” People need to get out from under their rock which is general American media which is controlled by about 5 different companies.
Kennedy went over so many facts about the current administration that I had no idea about. He calls out all of these folks who are supporting environmental endeavors in the Bush administration as “former” lobbyists for bad people. I put “former” in quotes because many of these people – when they leave their posts, they go back to where they came from. They go back to the coal and oil companies.
I can’t do any of his speech justice, so I’d suggest taking some time and watching it for yourself. Some of these video clips are pretty much exactly the same speech I heard.
How the media fails us:
Here is a speech that is very similar to the speech he gave today:
Please excuse my diarrhea of the brain while I ponder and pander.
Who is smarter – the human or nature? I’m talking about the modern, civilized cultures. You may remember the movie from the 80′s called “The God’s Must Be Crazy.” There is a particular part of that movie where then introduce the western culture and compare it to the aboriginal culture. The aborigine adapts to his environment. The aborigine protects nature and lives in harmony with nature. The modern human adapts his environment to suit his needs. What is the measure of wealth here?
We are habit forming creatures who are seeking comfort and something bigger and better all the time. I think that might be the problem. Rarely are we satisfied with life. If you’re not always striving for what society deems as a better life (mostly material goods and thoughts), you are then somehow a bad person. There is no way you could really be happy. The book, The Paradox of Choice talks about this phenomenon. Sometimes enough should be enough. There comes a time when there is too much choice because we chasing pipe dreams of what life should be. I think this is why chain restaurants like Chipotle and Potbelly’s thrive, actually. They have 10 menu items. This is what you get. It’s quick (which ties into our culture). It tastes good. Finally, there is very little choice. There is little room to always second guess your choice (I’m sure many still do, however).
This brings me back to my first question. Are we as modern civilized humans smarter than nature because we change the environment to suit our needs? Or is the aborigine (with little carbon footprint, mind you) the smarter human? Can we out-think nature? We obviously try all the time. Personally, I feel that we have a lot to learn from nature. For instance – did you ever notice that leaves aren’t dusty and dirty? Most leaves have microscopic bumps on them and the dirt teaters on the top – rain comes and washes away the dirt easily. The lotus leaf is the main one that is usually referenced - a paint company makes exterior paint that mimics this.
Think about a bird. A bird finds a mate. The bird then builds a nest and lays eggs. Can the bird survive in a nest made out of toxic materials? Will the eggs hatch and produce healthy “children” in this nest filled with chemicals and “un-natural” materials? Will the offspring of the offspring survive or will nature lose in this toxic world? I’m betting on the latter. Is this the same world we’re bringing our children into? Is it the world we were brought into?
I am not even clear in my own head what I am trying to communicate here. I’m obviously a bit frustrated. We can’t change the past, but we can make positive strides towards improving the future. I hate this euphemism, but, yes – changing a light bulb can make a difference. Using healthy, clean, safe products can make a difference. Buying local and organic food can make a difference. Drying your clothes outside can make a difference. Raising our children with these values passes this on to other generations. These kids need to learn that life shouldn’t be about materialism. That’s all they’re taught from birth, though.
Someone I heard speak recently put it into a context that many of us can relate to. In the 70′s and even early 80′s, it wasn’t uncommon to see someone chuck a bag of fast-food trash (with the Styrofoam Big Mac container) out the window of a moving care. Littering was almost accepted. Since then, there have been a ton PSA’s and people generally look at litterers as something that is bad (give a hoot, don’t pollute). We have the power to start that chain reaction now./ Green doesn’t have to be a fad. I hope when my children are my age, they won’t have to teach anyone to “go green.” Green will be normal – it will be unthinkable to do it another way. Of course, this assumption provides that there are resources available and not 10billion industrialized people in this world.
There is no way we can look out for and take care of our future generations. We can only take care of the container they will be born into.
The Gods Must Be Crazy : The civilized man part starts at 5:35
A 16 year old kid named Daniel Burd in Ontario set out to create a science project for the Canada-wide Science Fair. He wondered – if plastic bags eventually do degrade after 1,000 years – what makes them eventually degrade? If we can figure that out, we can probably make them degrade faster – short of using plasma gassification.
Turns out that Daniel is wise beyond his years and is $30,000 richer for it. He tried to isolate which microbes actually degrade the plastic. After a lot of experimentation and weighing, etc, he figures that he can degrade a bag in as little as 90 days.
See – the children ARE our future 
I encourage you to read the entire article at the link below.
Source: The Blue Marble, The Record
PS – Special thanks to Mr Doyle for the reference
In most parts of the country, you don’t have to worry about freezing anymore. It’s time to break out the rain barrels! I actually put mine out several weeks ago. There is a lot of rain this time of year and your barrels will fill up amazingly fast. My water is just sitting there waiting for the new flowers that need some love.
Why have a rain barrel? I have one because I wanted to build a project and I wanted to harvest rain water. It’s not entirely because I’m cheap – part of it is definitely the standard answer – because I can. The less water going into our storm sewers, the better – back to the earth, baby.
There are a few options on rain barrels – buy one or make one yourself. It all depends on the look you’re going for. For me, I made my own. After doing some research, I found that the best recommended barrel material is food-grade plastic. I called up a Coca-Cola bottling plant nearby and they happily gave me as many barrles as I wanted. I could only fit two in the car and I thought that was a good starting point. If you really wanted them to be prettier, you could paint them with some Krylon plastic paint (it’s made for childrens outdoor plastic toys, etc) – but I can’t really recommend spray paint on a green site, right?
Last year, I only hooked up one barrel. That seemed to be pretty sufficient for our watering needs, but since I had the other barrel just staring at me, I decided to daisy chain them together. So right now, I have two 55gal barrels on my deck – about 2 feet above the ground with spigots coming off of them.
Basic setup:
My Setup
When barrel one fills up, it spills over into barrel two. When barrel two is full, there is no where for the water to go, so it exits from the overflow flexible hose. The barrels are elevated about two feet which is plenty of gravity to water pretty much anything I need.
One big question everyone asks is regarding mosquitoes. Yes, they can be an issue with an open-ended rain barrel. You want to make sure your barrel is as tight as possible or has screen prevening mosquitoes from getting to the water in the first place. If they can’t get in, they can’t lay eggs. Maybe you inherited barrels that have open holes. In this case there are a few options. Instead of contaminating the water with some chemicals, try adding a little veggie oil. The oil will create a barrier at the top of the water and not let the eggs break through. Another option is adding some cider vinegar to the water. This will kill anything that has hatched and deter moquitoes from visiting to lay more eggs.
