Red State Green

I’ve been following a free online video series called The Crash Course, and I wanted to tell you about it:
The Crash Course seeks to provide you with a baseline understanding of the economy so that you can better appreciate the risks that we all face.
And boy, does it!
Now, I took Economics in college, so I [...]

Got the last bill today, so I can put up my stats. I think I forgot to write down when I got gas after the last month’s posting, because I don’t have it marked. I know it’s been several weeks since I got any.
In any case, here’s what I have:
Electricity: 4050 kWh (448% of national [...]

He wants us off oil.
Which is pretty surprising for an oil man:
The octogenarian oilman has a message for Americans and the two presidential candidates: Our dependence on imported oil is destroying the country. Pickens is serious about this–he’s spending $58 million and a chunk of his personal time to get the word out. “I’ve been [...]

Cause … the bills came!
Uh, yay.

Well, in any case, here’s what this month had to offer:
Gasoline: due to … not driving much, I used 7.5 gallons so far this month (for 4 people) — 4.6% of the US national average
Electric: 3207 kWh — 354.7%. Not a good month, and I don’t see the [...]

I cooked local leg of lamb in my solar oven. I put it in at around 11:30 am, rock hard frozen. At 4 pm it was done perfectly, using free energy and the house not heated at all.
I could get used to this

My son loves canned peaches, so when I saw the listing for peaches in the co-op,
(cue dreamy music)
I thought of beautiful jars filled with perfect golden slices, layered ever-so-nicely, rows upon rows in my pantry …

That’s not how it went today.
First, I had the idea to get the skins off by putting them in boiling [...]

Nine meals from anarchy – how Britain is facing a very real food crisis

…There might be 11 million gardeners in Britain, but your delicious summer peas won’t go far when your kids are hungry and the baked beans have run out….
I hope all of you have made steps to feed yourselves, and have more than [...]

I think last month, my calculations were off for the Riot.
Here’s what I got when doing them again (and we’ve had an excellent month):
This month –
Gasoline: 16.4 gal (for 4 people) – 10% of US average
Electricity: 1981 kWh – 219.1%
Water: 4230 gal (for 5 people) – 28.2%
Natural Gas: 8.2 Therms – 10%
For the year (which [...]

Remarks given to the Vestas Wind Technology Training Center, today, in Portland, Oregon.
The full text here.
Discuss.

I figured out the numbers for April (except the water bill’s not in yet) for the Riot for Austerity challenge, and I got a nice surprise!
Here’s the numbers we started out with back in June 2007:
Gasoline: 59% of the American national average
Electricity: 425% (multiple computers, TV’s, and lights on all the time, in an almost [...]

Take a look here …

This is one of the better conferences I’ve been to so far. They have five tracks (plus a kid’s track tomorrow) for each day. Today I picked the food/permaculture track.
But before that, today I fed and watered bunnies, made breakfast for three teenagers, got said teenagers to school, had to go home and change bunny [...]

Check it out over at http://oksustainability.org
The conference will be held in downtown Norman, Oklahoma, just south of Oklahoma City.
The theme for this year’s conference is “Red Dirt, Green Culture: Growing Sustainable Communities.” Keynote speakers will be Julie Frieder, environmental analyst for the Calvert Group mutual fund, and sustainable agriculture pioneer Joel Salatin. New to this [...]

If you’d like to understand more about what’s happening with oil, take a listen to an interview last month with Matthew Simmons, author of “Twilight in the Desert”, a book documenting the global oil situation:
Part One
Part Two
I found the interview very interesting and informative.

Sharon had this up over on her blog, and I love it. It encompasses why I “grow my own”.
You can be sure:

the food is fresh
it has no added chemicals
how it was handled (you know if you washed your hands!)
of what was used to fertilize it
it was picked ripe for best nutrition
you’ll have food for your [...]

I ran across this article the way I run across a lot of things, read a blog that links to another, that links to yet a third, which links to something really interesting.
This guy is anything but conservative, but you will enjoy this:
Symbol and essence
SUPER TUESDAY is over. Today is Non-Super Wednesday. And regardless [...]

Here’s an interesting article, even if it gets a bit weird at the end: The Waking-Up Syndrome
[...] While the sky may not be falling, this day-after-day onslaught of alarming news is making it more difficult simply to overlook the triple threat of environmental, climatic and economic concerns. It’s leaving many of us feeling like Alice [...]

There’s a better way to dress well!
I’ve just joined a great group called Wardrobe Refashion. Here’s a copy of the rules, and here’s the ‘pledge’. Basically, you don’t buy new clothes, you make them! Not only do you make them, but you remake all that stuff sitting in your closet that a) is out of [...]

Farmers start growing fruits and veggies in Greenland
This is pretty amazing. Before this all their fruits and (except for potatoes) all their vegetables were imported.

The year’s almost over!
Today I spent a little time getting ready for an ice storm that’s on its way. Hopefully it won’t be too bad. The last two meant a couple days stuck inside but we didn’t lose power or anything like some here did.
Here’s some links for the weekend:
“A crime against humanity”
It doesn’t get [...]