Ecolonomic Life

Well, it is way to early in the morning, and I have already been awake for over two hours.  I just woke up from a sound sleep and could not go back to sleep.  Why you might ask?  Well, I had been dreaming about space travel, and as I suddenly woke up, I was immediately thinking about the incredible seminar I had attended last night in Fort Collins.  Joel Salatin, notorieous for his recent appearances in the movies Fresh and Food Inc.  was hosted by the Front Range Permaculture Institute at the Lincoln Center.  What a great experience.  This man has got it right!!!  He is the true ecolonomics expert of today. 

Here are just a few quotes from him that I think are cool:

• I am a Christian, Liberitarian, Environmentalist, Capitalist, lunatic.
• The industrial food system is cracking.
• May your pork be rose colored and your rain barrels be full.
• The measure of an open and free society is how it treats its non-conformists.
• Innovation has to be birthed at a prototype size.

This guy is as Randy Jackson would say – The Bomb.

You should google him – Joel Salatin – and check out many of the things he has done and that he promotes.  You will not be disappointed.

I am clearly very bad at using this cool tool.  I just spent over an hour composing a really neat post and then I went to publish it and spam, bam, thank you mam it was gone.  Vanished.  Off into space.  I editted it, I draft saved it about four times, I asked the web person for help several times, I previewed it , I editted it and then – poof it was gone.

Have you ever had this experience.  I know I am not alone.  Well sometimes that is also the case with things we do to be ecolonomic.  We try hard, we get help, we do all the right things and then poof what we do seems to be gone.  Well we have to get up off the carpet and try again.  That is what I am doing now – trying again.  I am bound and determined to work to make the planet better.  I will do it.  I will.  You can too!! Lets work together, and try and fail, and then do it again.  Talk with you later.  I need to go now and think about what I can do next to make the planet better.

IOE Meadow Hollow Greenhouse during our Fall Sustainability Event. Those tomatoes tasted great!!

Photo Credit - Suto Norbert: Dreamstime.com

When was the last time that you left the kitchen with every intention of returning and then getting distracted in another room of the house? Did you leave the lights on? When was the last time you left the front porch light on all night? When was the last time that you turned on all the lights in the living room, just to watch television? Did you ever stop to think that you were wasting energy? Well, today you will.

The moment you flip the light switch off, you are saving money. That means you save money by the hour, minute, even second. Every light bulb has a watt rating printed on its surface. This rating will tell you how much electricity the light bulb uses. A 60watt bulb uses 0.06 kilowatts per hour. If you can get into the habit of turning off those lights, you could save 10 to 20 percent of your electricity usage. (more…)

Photo Credit - http://www.everystockphoto.com/photo.php?imageId=993739

There is something very simple that can be done to save you money. There is something very simple that can be done to reduce climate change. There is something very simple that can be done. The only question is: are you willing to do it? My blog posts are going to help guide you into living a more sustainable and ecolonomic life with spending little to no money.

Today I’m going to discuss how to slay those nasty vampires sucking the life out of your house. You may not know you have them because they disguise themselves as friendly intruders. They are your appliances. Your appliances amount to 20% of your energy bill, but what’s worse is that 75% of the energy used by appliances is when they are not in use. The simple solution: unplug your appliances. (more…)

I feel it is time to give new life and meaning to this blog. I have been blogging for several months now, but, as many might have noticed, there was no clear or concise form to the blogs. They jumped from topic to topic and you as a reader may not have really understood what the whole theme of the blog was about.

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Understanding a simplified aquaponics system

Illustrated by Whitney Dorband

If you have wondered whether or not garbage patches, gyres, and trash vortexes exist in the oceans, read Ole Nielsen’s blog, OleLog.

North Pacific gyre source: OleLog

Nielsen reports: “Can you imagine what happens when marine garbage ends up in such a vortex? It will never leave it again, all plastic will circulate, new plastic come by and circulate. Ships continue dumping their garbage at sea, and you end up with the world’s biggest landfill in the Pacific Ocean.

“It has been given different names like the “Western and Eastern Pacific Garbage Patches”, sometimes collectively called the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch”, the “Pacific Trash Vortex”, or for short the “Plastic Vortex”. The garbage patches present numerous hazards to marine life, fishing and tourism. Plastic constitutes 90 percent of all trash floating in the world’s oceans. The Eastern Garbage Patch floats between Hawaii and California and is first and foremost a Pacific island of rubbish twice the size of Texas and created from six million tonnes of discarded plastic. In the peer review journal, Marine Pollution Bulletin, Charles Moore estimated the plastic mass in the Pacific Gyre to be six times that of plankton.

“In June (10 June to 25 July 2009) a high-seas mission departs from San Francisco to map and explore the Pacific Garbage Patch. Scientists and conservationists on the expedition will begin attempts to retrieve and recycle this ugly monument to throwaway living in the middle of the North Pacific. With a crew of 30, the expedition, supported by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Brita, the water company, will use unmanned aircraft and robotic surface explorers to map the extent and depth of the plastic continent while collecting 40 tonnes of the refuse for trial recycling.

“Bottle caps, plastic bags and polystyrene floating with tiny plastic chips, worn down by sunlight and waves, disintegrates into smaller pieces. Suspended under the surface, these tiny fragments are invisible to ships and satellites trying to map the plastic continent. The damage caused by these tiny fragments is more insidious than strangulation, entrapment and choking by larger plastic refuse. The fragments act as sponges for heavy metals and pollutants until mistaken for food by small fish. The toxins then become more concentrated as they move up the food chain through larger fish, birds and marine mammals.”

We hope posts such as the one above from Mr. Nielsen helps end such wasteful, polluting nonsense.

US driving habits contribute to the carbon footpint

It can’t be stressed enough the importance of reducing your carbon foot print, but the task can be daunting and if not undertaken correctly, overwhelming. I want to list some simple things that you can do to reduce that foot print, not break the budget (and even expand it), and relieve levels of stress.

First, let’s talk energy. You don’t need to run out and buy solar panels or wind turbines in order to save energy. There are many simple things that will help reduce the amount of energy that you use. Turn off the lights. It may seem too simple, but it helps. If you aren’t using the light or if you leave the room, flip the switch. If you aren’t pumping electricity to your house then the power plant supplying your electricity isn’t burning as much fossil fuels. Replace your light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs. They are a little more money, but they last longer and don’t use as much energy. Work with the least amount of light that you need. When you are on a laptop make sure you have it on the energy saving. This will reduce the amount of electricity it uses and will save the battery for longer use. Lastly, replace old appliances with ones that have an energy star rating. This is a little more costly, but you find a significant change in your utilities bills. (more…)

Dealerships are making deals on new cars when you bring your clunker in. Photo from mlive.com and by Katy Batdorff of The Grand Rapids Press

If you haven’t heard of the new government program CARS, then you must really be out of the loop. No worries though, because I am here to give you a little more insight. The Car Allowance Rebate System or CARS is a government funded and dealership operated program where people can take their cars into certain dealerships and get a $3,500 to $4,500 rebate if they trade in their gas guzzlers for a more fuel efficient vehicle. (more…)