Credit: Edkholer via flickr

Have any appliances that use “stand by mode”? You can often find these on televisions, stereos, computers and other electronice devices. When not in use these devices are designed to go into “stand by” mode, this way when you want to use them they can be instantly turned back on. Problem is they are still drawing power even when not in use.

According to the Green Party of Canada:

Standby power accounts for 10 per cent of US residential electricity consumption, or more than US$6 billion annually.  In 2004, “vampire power” consumed almost 130 million MWh – equal to the output of 36 power plants

The simplest method of dealing with these nasty devices is to keep them plugged into a power bar with a switch, when you want to use them just turn the switch on. For more information on vampire and what you can do about it follow the links below:

Article on vampire power at worldchanging.com
The Green Party of Canada on vampire power

Lester Brown

Lester Brown knows a thing or two about the challenges we face globally. To paraphrase the introduction to the presentation by Doug Fine, about Lester Brown Doug states “His (Lester Brown’s)  report and now book “Who will feed China?” Did what no threatened Olympic boycott could, it scared the countries leaders into changing policy.” The Washington Post called him “one of the world’s most influential thinkers”.

In this presentation Lester goes over some the of the most pressing challenges we face globally over the coming decades, what he outlines is alarming and enlightening. It would be easy to simply want to give up if you stopped listening after the first third of his presentation, but that would be a mistake. In his measured and carefully prepared manner Lester outlines what we can do to avoid some of these problems. It leaves you with a feeling that something can be done. But his most important point is saved for the end, Lester urges us all to get involved:

“Saving civilization is not a spectator sport we all need to get involved”

Listen to Lester’s presentation
The earth Policy Institute

Credit: Nick Andersen via Flickr

Going green can sound pretty intimidating, after all doesn’t living a lower impact lifestyle mean you have to install solar panels on your home and make drastic changes? Not necessarily, if you want to make changes for the better but are unsure where to start, here is a handy tool to get you on the path to being green.

Greenpeace has created a guide to recycled tissues you can print out and keep in your purse or wallet when shopping. With this guide you can make informed choices about the products you’re purchasing and their impact on the environment. Each brand is rated on three criteria:

• 100% recycled content
• At least 50% post-consumer recycled content
• Bleached without toxic chlorine compounds

Products that meet all three criteria above are recommended, products that meet two criteria can do better and products that meet one criteria are to be avoided.

Download the guide here

Credit: Aaron Escobar via Flickr

Global warming, what should have been an honest scientific discussion based on facts, has over time become a contentious debate. By now most people have accepted that global warming is real, but there are still those who believe the opposite is the case.

What happened to create this debate? Was it based on simple diverging scientific opinions? Or is there more going on here? This CBC documentary tries to get to the heard of the matter. What they discover is repeat pattern of another similar debate that happened years ago, when big tobacco was trying to convince the public smoking was safe. Many of the same scientists and companies who were involved in that debate have resurfaced and are applying the same approach to cast doubt on global warming.

Watch the Denial Machine documentary on CBC

Credit: Daniel Morrison via Flickr

The Assiniboine Park Conservatory will be holding their “Seedy Saturday” event coming up on March 7th. The event is free to attend, there will be workshops, a speaker series, tool swap and more. A friend who attended last year was able to take part in their seed exchange. Here’s a direct quote on how it works:

You just have to bring couple packets of seeds and drop them on a communal table.  This gives you the right to pick up packets of seeds that others have brought, many of which are quite interesting and new.

Might be a good way to get some rare or hard to find vegetables for your garden! Below is the press release from the Friends of the Assiniboine Park Conservatory:

The majority of Winnipeg residents may not consider March the beginning of
gardening season, but the Assiniboine Park Conservatory is working to change
that through their Seedy Saturday event.  This year the Assiniboine Park
Conservatory is hosting their annual Seedy Saturday on March 7 from 10-3.  Free to the public, this event includes a speaker series, a seed and tool swap,
hands-on workshops and over 15 vendors representing various garden and food based organizations.  Gardeners will not be the only ones interested in this event, assures Bonnie Tulloch from the Assiniboine Park Conservatory, “We try and include all aspects of gardening, incorporating everything from birdwatching to local food.  People can come here for more than just seeds; they can get locally made soaps, dried herbs, teas, honey, botanically inspired clothing, as well as information and resources on various sustainability
issues.”

Seedy Saturdays have been popping up all over the country since the late
1980’s. The Assiniboine Park Conservatory started participating in the Seedy
Saturday movement back in 2001.  Many of the early Seedy Saturdays were
designed to create a space where seed savers could exchange heritage seeds with one another at no cost.  The purpose was to encourage more people to grow and save heritage seed varieties, so as to prevent them from going extinct.  Today, Seedy Saturdays often include a wider agenda that includes related sustainability issues.

The organizers of this year’s Seedy Saturday recommend getting there early if
you are planning on swapping seeds because gardeners are always eager to access new and exciting varieties.   The speaker series begins at 11 am with certified Horticultural Therapist Millie Richard, who will share her experience in this new and exciting field.  Julie Fine from Growing up Organics will discuss how her organization is increasing children’s access to organic food at 12 pm. At 1 pm David Hanson from Sage Garden Herbs and Karen Pearce from Assiniboine Park Conservatory will present on designing small scale ornamental and edible gardens.   The day will end with a hands-on seed starting workshop with the education staff at Assiniboine Park Conservatory.

www.friendsconservatory.com

My bread

Eating something you’ve made yourself just tastes better somehow, maybe it’s the satisfaction knowing that you created the food that’s on your plate. Whatever motivates you, be it eating local, eating organic or just because you like to make your own food; one thing is certain, fresh food you’ve either grown or prepared yourself is much better than anything you could purchase.

Recently I can across a recipe online to make bread, specifically it was called No Knead Bread. Now when I was a kid my dad made bread, it was a long arduous activity of kneading, putting it in a warm spot to rise, kneading again and so on and so forth. But this recipe is different, no kneading is involved so much of the hard work is removed. In fact preparing a loaf or bread took less than an hour of combined work, all you need is a little patience.

Released by a baker name Jim Lahey, in the New York Times the recipe took off with online baking groups. It became so popular you can now find variations of the recipe all over the internet. I’ve tried it myself a few times and I can attest it’s very simple. There are two key items, firs is time, you need to allow the dough to rise for about 18 hours. This eliminates the need for kneading. Second is to cook the bread inside a large (6 quart) casserole dish or pot with the cover on. Professional bakers have ovens that shoot steam at the bread while baking it, that’s what keeps the crust nice and thin. By baking a wet dough inside a pot you keep that high moisture content necessary for a light crackling crust.

The photo above is my first attempt at making the bread. I think I almost at the loaf in one sitting.

Here is the recipe and accompanying video, if you want to try other versions just search google for “no knead bread” and add the ingredient of your choice such as “100% whole wheat no knead bread”.

Happy eating!

Video talking about the process
Original recipe from the NYT

Farewell My Subaru

Farewell my Subaru: An Epic Adventure in Local Living, is a book that gives the reader the sense that change is possible, no matter the obstacle. And the reader could not have picked a better guide for this journey. Doug Fine is the kind of person that naturally finds the positive in the most difficult circumstances. You can feel his enthusiasm for his low impact lifestyle jump off the page. This energy empowers the reader, after a while you start thinking that installing a solar panel is something you could do too.

It’s a green living tale for those of us that aren’t Al Gore. Doug Fine strikes the reader as down to earth as they come, in his own words:

I started in Long Island, New York, growing up on concrete and Domino’s pizza. I didn’t see a real tomato probably until I was 18. I thought supermarket orange baseballs were what tomatoes were. I didn’t understand why anyone would eat solid pieces of wax. But I always wanted to camp out in the backyard, and knew that there was such a thing as an ecosystem.

Here’s the publisher’s summary:

In Farewell, My Subaru, Doug Fine vows to grow as much of his own food as he can, use only the sun to power his ‘Net surfing and sub-woofer, and consume little to no fossil fuel for an entire year — never mind that he’d never raised so much as a chicken or a bean. Or that he had no mechanical or electrician skills. Or that coyotes and mountain lions would like to treat his Funky Butte Ranch like a buffet line.

Beginning with a near-Biblical flood that makes Doug’s ranch in New Mexico resemble Noah’s Arc, and ending with a hilarious farewell to his beloved Subaru, Fine struggles at every turn with the contradictions and challenges of going green as his shopping list changes overnight from things like, “wasabi” and “pineapple juice” to “shotgun shells” and “goat syringes” (for the mischievous Pans he found on Craigslist).

Including practical resources for regular Americans who want to live greener and funny sidebars with facts you never imagined about the clean, local life, Farewell, My Surbaru is both a hilarious romp and an inspiring call to action; it’s a book for the reluctant environmentalist, the armchair traveler, and anyone who has ever wondered: do I really need that four dollar frappuccino from Kenya?

Farewell My Subaru is available Amazon, or if you prefer to lower your cabon footprint order from Eco-Libris, a portion of the book sale goes towards planting new trees.

Official webpage page for the book
Video promoting the book (Doug is great in this)
Eco-Libris link for purchase
Treehugger.com interviews Doug Fine

Credit: Valcent Inc.

While most of the headlines relating to Biofuel have been saved for Corn Based ethanol, other technologies have slowly been developing in the background. Corn based ethanol had it’s moment in the sun, but some serious questions are beginning to emerge whether it’s a truly sustainable crop to process into fuel.

First and foremost is the amount of land needed to produce enough fuel so that Corn could replace conventional oil. Simply put there’s not enough crop land in the united states to meet even half of today’s fuel needs for the US alone. So if corn isn’t a viable alternative, what is?

While a few other alternatives have potential such as switch grass and Rapeseed each of these have their drawbacks as well. However algae holds much potential, firs it only requires 1-2% of the current crop land in the US to produce half of the current US fuel needs. Second algae requires little fertilizer (another oil based product) and pesticides. Third algae is among the fastest growing plants in the world, and about 50 percent of it’s weight is oil. That lipid oil can be used to make biodiesel for cars, trucks, and airplanes.

To ilustrate the potential output from algae to oil here is a quote from the CNN article mentioned below.

Kertz said he can produce about 100,000 gallons of algae oil a year per acre, compared to about 30 gallons per acre from corn; 50 gallons from soybeans.

The biggest drawback is that algae is one of the least mature technologies, however with time and progress it could become a replacement fuel.

Article from the Seattle PI on Algea compared to other biofuels
CNN article on a company making break throughs in algea fuel production
Video from Valcent the company spotlighted in the CNN article
Chart comparing Biofuels

Credit: MonkeySimon via Flickr

Bisphenol A, by now most of us have heard about this chemical in the news. On one hand we are told it’s amongst the worst chemicals in use today and yet on the other hand some say it’s completely safe. What’s the real story? Are we really as safe as the chemical manufacturers would lead us to believe?

Fast Company has published a candid look at Bisphenol A trying to determine what is the real story behind this enigmatic chemical. What they reported has implications that reach far beyond Bisphenol A, it exposes how the chemical companies produce and certify their products for human use. And the battle between special interest groups on both sides of the health debate. Here’s are two excerpts from the article:

Surely you’ve heard about BPA by now. It’s everywhere. Some 7 billion pounds of it were produced in 2007. It’s in adhesives, dental fillings, and the linings of food and drink cans. It’s a building block for polycarbonate, a near-shatterproof plastic used in cell phones, computers, eyeglasses, drinking bottles, medical devices, and CDs and DVDs…

To some degree, the BPA controversy is a story about a scientific dispute. But even more, it’s about a battle to protect a multibillion-dollar market from regulation. In the United States, industrial chemicals are presumed safe until proven otherwise. As a result, the vast majority of the 80,000 chemicals registered to be used in products have never undergone a government safety review. Companies are left largely to police themselves.

Read the full article here on Fast Company.com

Credit: ^Berd via Flickr

Many of you reading this will be aware of Peak Oil, however if you’ve never heard of the term I decided to post this primer on what Peak Oil is and why it matters to you. Like global warming it has it’s believers and non-believers, but either way what is in deniable is the very existence of “modern” society due to a non-renewable resource.

Just about everything we buy and consume is made of oil, other than the obvious fuel, the very keyboard I type on is a plastic derivative of oil, fertilizers that grow our food are oil based and so on and so on…

To be honest oil has given humans the ability to progress beyond our wildest dreams. With oil we’ve increased global food production and have been able to house, feed and clothe a population explosion the likes history has never seen. But what if this precious substance was beginning a slow downward crawl? It’s not when we run completely out of oil that’s a concern, it’s when we run out of enough oil to function that’s the problem. Say goodbye to blueberries in January.

Whether you believe in peak oil or not, one fact everyone agrees on, oil is non-renewable. Eventually we will run out, it’s a matter of when, not if. If we know about this problem why are we not developing alternatives today? (some are but more on that later) Why leave this problem for our children, or our children’s children?

Many people may look at today’s dropping oil prices and think this is a non issue. However in my opinion this is a temporary situation due to a lessening of demand as people try to economize. Once the recession passes you’ll again see $80+ a barrel oil.

For now read on and make up your own mind.

Article that gives a general overview of Peak Oil.
Article about Hubbert’s Peak and Peak Oil in depth