After a few heart-sinking days where it seemed real healthcare reform was headed off the rails, there've been a few bright spots in the news just lately. I'm not an optimist, but I have to admit I'm beginning to feel—dare I say it?—cautiously optimistic. The American Medical Association is now "open" to a government-funded health insurance option. The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee (which counts among its members Vermont's own Bernie Sanders) has drafted a new bill that costs less than the last proposed plan, covers more people—about 97% of Americans—and ...
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Our Green CommunityNews CategoriesChelseaGreenTVDean Cycon, author of Javatrekker, at Bioneers '07
Dean Cycon's presentation at the Bioneers by the Bay Conference in 2007.
Green Tip of the Day
Bottles and JarsThe energy saved from recycling one glass bottle will operate a 100-watt light bulb for four hours. Try to buy reusable/refillable ones. Jars and bottles also have many reuses apart from recycling. Lids can be attached to the underside of shelves, and the jar can be screwed in having been filled with nails or screws, etc. Remember to remove the lids: if you mix metal and glass, the load could be rejected and sent to the landfill. The lids can go with the tins and cans. |
Times are tough, and chances are your local public library has been feeling the pain. Look, they were there for you in high school when you were broke and looking for the entire Michael Crichton backlist. They ... |
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Latest Community Blog Posts   Wall Street Still Near Full-Employment: How Can That Be?According to BLS statistics, 9.5 percent of the workforce is now unemployed. If we use more exacting data formulated by Leo Hindery, chair of the Smart Globalization Initiative at the New America Foundation, the effective jobless rate is 18.7 percent with more than 30 million of us out of work [...]  Neda Agha Soltan: The Face of a MovementTwenty-six year old Neda Agha Soltan’s face has become the face of the Iranian protest movement. She was an innocent Iranian student, standing on a side street close to the protesters, when a bullet struck her. The video of her collapsed bleeding body, and the posters of her forthright gaze [...]  The Raven: Mythical Creature, or Chicken Killer?Q: Is farming ever cut and dry? A: Only when you're haying. Apart from this dumb joke I made up, farming is not quite as simple as it sounds. I thought, for example, that raising my own meat would be easy. You know: just buy the little chicks, make sure they don't [...]  Farming in the City with Runoff from a Street© Brad Lancaster, Drops in a Bucket Blog, www.HarvestingRainwater.com. The following is one of my favorite water-harvesting stories. It comes from one of my mentors, Russ Buhrow, and has inspired me in much of my work. It is amazing what Russ produced with stormwater, something too many people consider to be [...]  Heck of a TownI was born in New York City. I can remember riding double-decker buses on top for a nickel, and when the Third Avenue subway through Yorkville was an elevated train. I had my first real job in New York (Wall Street), I worked in my first political campaign in New York, [...] stix 'n mud can make a hug A new charter school in Corvallis commissioned this mud project as the initial step in creating an "outdoor classroom." All 60 kids, K-5, participated in 2 days of playdough brainstorming and design, and six days of mud. Parents and neighbors contributed random prunings of willow, fruitwood, and forsythia that we [...] Do You Really Want Your Money Back?"Our company is not broken. The economy is broken." Linda Saloom, business operations manager at Saloon Furniture in Wichendon, Mass. Ms. Saloom knows all about the relationship between the financial sector and the real economy. The meltdown on Wall Street wrecked the economy, not the other way around. We suffered [...]  The Policy That Dare Not Speak Its NameI'm sure I'm not the only reader who noticed the juxtaposition of two front page stories in Sunday's New York Times dealing with health care. The first article cited a new Times-CBS poll showing that 72 percent of Americans favored a government run health plan comparable to Medicare, which would [...]  I (heart) pressure cookers. (With recipe.)Like levels of atmospheric carbon, my love for my pressure cooker is constantly increasing. My latest favorite discovery is FastCooking.ca's expansive list of pressure cooking times. What I like in particular is the fact that in the beans section, the list tells you how long it takes to cook beans [...] Obama's Financial Reforms: 5 Reasons Why They Are Likely to Fail"Speculators may do no harm as bubbles on a steady stream of enterprise. But the position is serious when enterprise becomes the bubble on a whirlpool of speculation. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be [...]  First Time Gardeners: It's Not Too LateA lot of folks have started vegetable gardens this year for the first time. In this economy, many people are out of work or trying to cut their living expenses. We also face a difficult future with major resource limitations on the horizon: peak oil, peak phosphorus, climate change, droughts, [...] A Critical Fork in the Road: Bail Out the Rich or Help the Working ClassRecently, I shared the stage with Leo Hindery, Managing Partner of InterMedia Partners, at a forum on the economic crisis organized by A New Way Forward. The organizers had warned me to be ready to do battle with this media mogul who was CEO of TCI and AT&T Broadband, founded [...] Left Out in EuropeThe European left, such as it is, got clobbered in the recent elections for the European parliament. In the next parliament, center-right parties will have almost twice as many seats as social democrats. Of left parties, only the Greens gained slightly. Far-right nationalistic parties picked up strength. This should hardly [...] Wall Street Reboots as Main Street Gets the Boot"Hedge Funds Rebound, Gaining 5% in a Month" (NYT June 8, 2009) "Long-Term Unemployment Rate Hits Record" (NYT June 5, 2009) What's wrong with this picture? How can hedge funds have a banner month of May (a 60 percent annualized return) while unemployment hits 9.4 percent? In fact it's even worse than that. [...] The American Economy Is Getting Back to Normal, and That's No Green ShootLes Leopold, author of The Looting of America, has been blogging over at Huffington Post. I edited his book and he and I have a good relationship, and we've been keeping in touch a lot hashing out ideas (and punctuation) as he continues researching and explaining the economic situation. Inspired [...] I Don't Want To Burn My Bra, But AAARGH!This weekend I sat on the sidelines of the men's soccer game. It was a big deal, and many people were there, young and old--despite the fact that it's a pick-up league in a small town. I went sheepishly, in my dorky tie-dyed t-shirt and muck boots, to cheer my [...] Vermont ATV Policy Headed in Wrong Direction The Douglas administration has proposed a rule change that would permit All Terrain Vehicles (ATVs) to travel on state lands — parks, forests, and wildlife management areas. These lands are now closed to ATVs, as are federal lands in Vermont like the Green Mountain National Forest.Ironically this proposal to open [...] Here come the compost copsWell, I hate to say "I told you so," but take a look at my last post on 'peak phosphorus and a duty to compost.' Here come the compost cops and it's about time! Yesterday, the city of San Francisco instituted the nation's toughest recycling law, which includes mandatory collection [...] Fantasies of Green ShootsThere is a huge reality gap between the happy talk about green shoots, banks passing stress tests, the rise in unemployment slowing -- and what's happening out in the real economy, especially if you take a close look at banking and housing, ground zero of the economic crisis. Credit remains [...]  Small Things, Big SmilesAs I was walking to my office, I started to think about all the small "Gaia-gifts" that make me smile. Here is my top ten, and why I picked them. 1-Monarch Caterpillars: because they remind me that transformation is possible 2-Walking sticks (the bugs): because Gaia's craftiness is cool 3-Bees:because they remind me [...]  Pregnant In A Texas Lock UpBeing pregnant in a Texas lock up can be hell. So it shouldn’t be surprising that the practice of shackling women during childbirth and recovery is still done in some Texas jails even though the United States Bureau of Prisons has banned the practice. Texas jails are able to use [...] Jumping bricks, or: inside out oven building I built this oven for a local CSA farmstand restaurant (gathering together farm). We held a public workshop; folks came to make mud and learn and we built the basic oven in a weekend. BUT! (and this was my fault for not watching more closely), the dome came out a [...]  Conservatives Are Waging a War on Empathy -- We Can't Let Them WinThe Sotomayor nomination has given radical conservatives new life. They have launched an attack that is nominally aimed at Judge Sotomayor. But it is really a coordinated stealth attack -- on President Obama's central vision, on progressive thought itself, and on Republicans who might stray from the conservative hard line.There [...] Gingrich and Limbaugh: Poor Privileged White Men Grappling with SotomayorThe cries of distress about "identity politics" which have issued from Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh over the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court make me almost feel sorry for them. Poor privileged white men. Their stranglehold on power is slowly being loosened. Strangely, they have lost sight of [...] |
Submitted by dpacheco on July 3, 2009 11:20 AM
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Submitted by makennagoodman on July 2, 2009 11:20 PM
To celebrate the 4th of July, we encourage you to savor. This means to delicately notice every moment, every bite of summer salad, every s'more. If you're planning to gather around a bonfire, watch the fireworks, or go to bed early with a loved one—savor it! There's nothing more important in life than the small, luscious moments. What better way to exert your independence than to appreciate the subtleties of a three-day weekend, or a fresh meal.
Deirdre Heekin and Caleb Barber, chef couple of the acclaimed Osteria Pane e Salute Restaurant, ...
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Submitted by dpacheco on July 2, 2009 11:19 AM
Les Leopold, author of The Looting of America: How Wall Street's Game of Fantasy Finance Destroyed Our Jobs, Pensions, and Prosperity—and What We Can Do About It, talks to WRRL's Errol Louis about the financial crisis, and how thirty years of deregulation and a dangerous casino culture on Wall Street caused the mess we're in today.
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Submitted by dpacheco on July 2, 2009 05:04 AM
"That's the one I want. I want one of those." That's the reaction a coworker had when I showed him pictures of a Scottish Highland cow. Can you blame him? They're adorable. They look like muppets! Of course, their über-cuteness isn't the only reason to prefer these woolly cattle over your factory-farmed variety Holstein. In Sweden, grass-fed Highland cattle are being bred for meat because, 1) they're better able to withstand the chilly climate, and 2) there's evidence that they produce significantly less methane than confined cows, as well as actually providing a
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Submitted by dpacheco on July 1, 2009 11:03 PM
Who's getting rich off cap and trade? I won't keep you in suspense: it's Wall Street fat cats Goldman Sachs. With a h/t to Crooks and Liars, Matt Taibbi explains:
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Submitted by makennagoodman on July 1, 2009 05:02 PM
In The Graduate, starring Dustin Hoffman, the future was plastics. Well, that may have been true in the 60s. In 2009, however, the future is in food. Young people all over the world these days are choosing the farm over the hi-rise office life, and with good reason. With the current economic climate in mind--what looks more sustainable to you?
Just do it. Become a farmer. And for those who think farming is cows and chickens, hay wagons and piles of poop: think again. While that is true in certain cases--it's not ...
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Submitted by dpacheco on July 1, 2009 11:01 AM
The outdated and complicated laws regarding rainwater catchment in Colorado are set to expire soon, allowing savvy rainwater harvesters to do what comes naturally. Rather than using up energy to pump water up from the ground while letting rainwater evaporate before it gets near any stream, rainwater catchment systems allow homeowners to harness nature's bounty. Waste not, want not. From the New York Times:
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Submitted by makennagoodman on July 1, 2009 05:01 AM
What you don't know, won't kill you. Or at least that's what the FDA seems to be saying when it comes to toxic plastic.
Bisphenol A (BPA), a highly toxic chemical and plastic additive, "makes plastic more rigid and unbreakable," according to Mark Schapiro, author of Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What's at Stake for American Power. This includes those ultra-durable Nalgene water bottles that became so popular in recent years. Their never-break heroicness comes at a huge cost. In fact, Schapiro adds, "BPA has been linked to ...
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