Related posts:

1. Food for thought
2. Soon, you may have a choice – eat food OR drive a car
3. Food crisis will take hold before climate change, warns chief scientist

So how would you run a whole country without oil?

The bold plan for electric cars… is coming to country near you soon (or should that be not soon enough).

Fascinating, enlightening and though-provoking speech made at a TED conference by Shai Agassi about electric cars. He took apart the usual issues (physical and monetary) and developed a new way of thinking. It’s a way that reduces any countries dependency on oil dramatically and reduces vehicle-attributed carbon emissions to zero.

We need to get to zero emissions before the world ends

Related posts:

1. Heating in Electric Vehicles
2. Think City on the way
3. Ford’s wrong TH!NKing

Naturally, we are devastated with this news and are keen to hear of the treatment regime the hospital will put in place for her.

Although nothing is certain, we (and the doctors) are fairly sure they knew what caused the original cancer (all to do with an HRT treatment given in the 1970’s, but that’s another story).

Anyway, the point I’m getting to is that the tragic news has made me think about what in our modern world could be a contributing factor to cancer. Here I am sitting in front of a computer which operates on a WiFi network – is that safe? What about mobile phones, or even cordless handsets for the home phone – are they safe. What about the electromagnetic smog (EMF) that is emitted from virtually all electronic devices? Pesticides in food? Fast and/or processed foods? Off-gassing from paint and other man-made substances… the list could go on and on.

Yes, it’s an over-reaction to the present situation and you have to put it all into perspective, but it has made me think about my own mortality and things which could influence it!

Following on from those thoughts, I then went onto thinking about ‘working for a living’ and being a wage-slave. So many people have dreams that start when they retire, but with the UK government talking about changing retirement ages, I question what time or quality of life would someone have. I then came across a blog which shouted these sentiments right at me…

It looked like the start of people’s lives was their retirement- when they owned their own living space and had some free time. For me, retirement was too late. What if you could have a house in a few years, and live healthily during those years as well?

Eco House Film is a blog about an American couple and their son (Anna, Alex and Oden) who decided to jack in New York life and move to Sweden for a ‘better’ life. Some of their reasoning and thoughts resonate with me…

8 months ago we were living in New York, spending too much money on rent and living a lifestyle that was making us unhappy.

Alex. “I want to see if we can live independently, freely, in a self-sustaining manner.” Living in New York was unsustainable- for me and the world.I was paying too much rent, and paying it with my health and happiness.

If I wanted any peace and quiet, I needed to take the train for almost 2 hours. It felt like my lifestyle was environmentally and morally wrong. I started thinking about how people got to live independently, not worried about their job and not living in an unhealthy city where everyone seems unhappy.

It looked like the start of people’s lives was their retirement- when they owned their own living space and had some free time. For me, retirement was too late. What if you could have a house in a few years, and live healthily during those years as well?

Anna. I felt that my son’s and my life were out of balance. The longing for nature had grown stronger over the years, and every time I visited Sweden I thought of what it would be like to move back there. But I could only envision a life in an apartment, working 9-5 to pay for the mortgage, stressful pick-up at afterschool, food shopping and going to bed after dinner with a constant runny nose. And the dark and the cold. When I met Alex and he showed me the houses people built themselves for so little money, I saw the solution.

Oden. “I like being outside best, that’s where life is.” Since moving to Järna, Sweden, Oden had learned how to swim, ride a bicycle and take the bus to school by himself. He has never once wanted to move back to New York.

Check out more at www.ecohousefilm.com

Related posts:

1. The Backseat Environmentalist?
2. What does it mean to be Vegan?

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” By doing these things, men may find happiness and self-fulfillment.”

How appropriate.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Thoreau_cabin_statue_flickr.jpg

Related posts:

1. The Waterfall

No. 1 Glass bottles, collected from a dump, were included in the cob walls of this tiny house in Romania. The large south facing window was a gift from friends who had thermopane windows installed. The two smaller windows facing east and west are actually car windshields. The walls are finished with coloured clay, which gives a very beautiful effect. The house can be seen on the natural homes map here. This is the owner’s web site where you can read about green architecture and see a lovely collection of cob seats and other tiny houses by Casa Verde.

No. 2 This tiny cob house near Oxford, England, has been built almost exclusively from materials from the surrounding farm. The cob mud came from the site and the long straw for the thatch came from a few fields away. The poplar beams we planted eight years ago and the reclaimed floorboards and windows were donated by veg box scheme customers. Water comes from an old well and newly created spring. Apart from some additional straw and thatching pins it cost nothing to build, using no power tools. It’s owner and builder, Michael Buck, says it’s a lovely house to stay in and is often used by seasonal workers on the form. The house can be seen on the natural homes map here.

No. 3 This is an earthbag hobbit house built by Earth Hands and Houses. It featured in the UK’s Permaculture Magazine No.44 Summer 2005. A good web site to learn about earthbag building is Kelly Hart’s Earthbag Blog. This Earthbag house is a small retreat with a fireplace and enough space for two. It is wonderfully cool in the hot Polish summers. It was built by volunteers (including one Polish giant) in a leisurely 3 months but it must be said, earthbag building is hard work so having a friendly Polish giant along to help is a good idea. It cost 2,000 GBP. The house can be seen on the natural homes map here and on Earth Hands and Houses web site.

No. 4 This house has got to be one of the most recognised natural homes in the World of Natural building. The story goes… “Take one baby, a toddler and a building site. Mix well with a generous helping of mud, combine with 6 weeks of solid Welsh rain whilst living under canvas. Do this in candle light without a bathroom or electricity for three months. Chuck in living with your father for good measure. Top with an assortment of large slugs. The result a hand crafted home of beauty, warmth and health for about 3,000 GBP”. The house can be seen on the natural homes map here. You can read more about this wonderful house at simondale.net

No. 5 is a 36m2 straw bale house built in Estonia. It’s partly Nebraskan in style with something from light weight frame and something from traditional post and beam construction methods and a few compromises thrown in for good luck. For every foundation post there is also a timber post to carry the load of the roof. There’s lots of advice and pictures to see on the web site at savikodu.pri.ee. The house can be seen on the natural homes map here.

No. 6 This house was built by Andre de Bouter of lamaisonenpaille.com. The house has a keetu roof, that’s palm leaves on a wooden structure, a 16m2 loft to create extra living space, and a 8m2 balcony so the occupants can sleep under the stars during the hot summer months. No water or electricity, but candle light and a solar lamp. You can find the house on the natural homes map in India here and there are lots more pictures of the house and it’s construction on the Dutch straw bale web sitestrobouw.nl

No. 7 This is one of the many beautiful houses at Cae Mabon. It’s a celtic roundhouse built by Eric Maddern, a story teller and song writer, in Wales. It’s the second version of the house, reconstructed in 2002 after the original was lost to a fire. It stands beside a small barn built by Dafydd Hughes. The house can be seen on the natural homes map where, if you use the satellite view, you can see the round thatched roof.

No. 8 We may never have discovered this house if it weren’t for ‘Big Brother’. This is the famous house built by Tony Wrench and for many years stood invisible in the Welsh hills. It’s commonly referred to as ‘That Round House’. It is an ecohome of wood frame, cobwood (or cordwood to the US and Canadians) and recycled window walls, straw-insulated turf roof; with solar power and wind turbine for electricity, compost toilet and reed beds for grey water. The house can’t be seen on the natural homes map because it’s too well hidden but take a look anyway. Tony’s web site is thatroundhouse.info. Tony has written a wonderful book well worth the read. Try a cordwood building workshop.

No. 9 Kostas Kontomanos from cob.gr has built this wonderful small cob house in Greece on the isle of Lesvos. It was built during a ten day cob workshop on the island in 2009. All the materials used were collected within 200 meters of the building. The municipality which hosted project will use the building as a clay museum and environmental education centre. This really tiny house is here on the natural homes map. There are lots more pictures and other project on Kostas’ web site This tiny house is the 3rd set of pictures on this page.

No. 10 This isn’t really a house but a straw bale garden room built for Which Magazine’s Climate Garden just outside London. It’s an African style design with a Serpentine, or crinkle-crankle, wall beside it for growing fruit. It was built by volunteers with no previous straw bale building experience. The project was run by Chris ‘Chug’ Tugby. The roof is a traditional English thatch. The walls are designed and pargeted by Inna Savitskaya of greenhamlet.com. The house can be seen on the natural homes map here and on chug’s web site strawbale-building.co.uk

Related posts:

1. Cob Cottage at Cae Mabon

The plates are great – we use them almost every day to eat our dinner off. They stand the test of time and probably look better as they get used and abused. They keep food warmer as they are more insulating than ceramic plates and are very tactile to hold/use. Apart from a twice yearly oiling (I use Walnut Oil), they can take all the abuse you can throw at them – just don’t leave them soaking in water for too long.

About a year ago, though some connection or other, I came across a website for a guy called ‘Robin Wood‘ (no really, that’s his name). He lives in Derbyshire and uses a foot-powered lathe to make wooden plates and bowls. The type that really intrigued me was called a ‘porringer’ – best described as a sort of breakfast or desert bowl with wings! The bowl is turned with an extended lip, most of which is then axed off to leave the ‘wings’ which form perfect handles, meaning you can hold the bowl in one hand on the base and your thumb resting on one of the wings to counter balance it.

The Poringer, hand made by Robin Wood

A porringer became top of my birthday present list, and as you can see above, I love eating my morning porridge from it!

To see how a bowl is fashioned by hand (and foot) from a solid block of green wood is fascinating to say the least – take a look at Robin making one in this YouTube video:

Robin has both an excellent website and separate blog, in which he has become a bit of a one-man superhero, campaigning to save and promote traditional crafts. The result of his efforts (and I’m sure many other people efforts too) is the formation of the ‘Heritage Crafts Association‘.

The Heritage Crafts Association is the advocacy body for traditional heritage crafts. Working in partnership with Government and key agencies, it provides a focus for craftspeople, groups, societies and guilds, as well as individuals who care about the loss of traditional crafts skills, and works towards a healthy and sustainable framework for the future.

Please visit their website and support them – so many traditional crafts are in danger of disappearing, yet in a world with an uncertain future, possibly with less or no oil, means we will need the knowledge of these crafts more than ever before.

Links:

Robin Wood – main website

Robin Wood’s Blog

Tony Wrench’s Roundhouse

Heritage Crafts Association

Related posts:

1. Where does the wood for wood burning stoves come from?

Thinking that this could be an interesting talk, I recorded it on my second-hand (ebay bargain) minidisc recorder and have finally got round to editing it and uploading it for everyone to enjoy as a PodCast!

The talk has some funny moments, but mostly conveys the sheer horror and terror of being in Iraq after the USA invaded and the subsequent insurgency that took place.

What strikes me is the calmness that someone can talk about the bombs, death, loosing friends etc in an ‘everyday’ fashion – it’s just so hard to comprehend, but I guess you had to be there to have the slightest idea of what it was really like. I think most westerners just haven’t got a clue what’s going on or the conditions that people were living under. What emotional problems are these people going to have to deal with in the future?

Amongst all the death and devastation though she found love. She met and fell in love with an Iranian guy – Wegdy, whose day job was at a hotel (he spoke English), but the rest of time was spent helping local kids get off drugs (tranquilisers, glue etc) – not something I expected to hear about in Iraq.

The audio recording is just over 35 minutes long – Helen showed some video clips too, but the sound was very poor so I had to cut that section out.

There are some photo’s of Helen’s photos (sorry about the quality). The one of the kids with the US soldier is interesting – the soldier had written a message on the card which he made the kids hold – it reads “Lcpl Boudreaux killed my dad and he knocked up my sister”

Related posts:

1. What does it mean to be Vegan?

I know someone who distributes wood-burning stoves here in the UK. Over the past six months, they have had a surge of interest and sales due in the main part to the rising price of gas, and partly because burning wood in a proper wood-burning stove is seen as environmentally ‘right on’.

Orion Stove from ACR Heat Products

In theory, burning wood in an efficient manner should only release CO2 equivalent to the amount the tree absorbed during it’s growth, and wood is a renewable and potentially sustainable resource, unlike gas or coal. However there are other factors which can affect the efficiency and environmental credentials of a wood burner.

It’s really key that the wood is ’seasoned’ (ie dried) so the moisture content is low, otherwise steam is generated which can affect the burning process, resulting in a lot of soot (which can dangerously clog up chimneys/flue). Burning wood in an open fire is also much less efficient than burning it in a properly designed wood-stove, where the airflow is controlled and a process called ’secondary burning’ can take place, which greatly reduces the amount of smoke and fumes emitted.

So if you have a wood-burning stove or fireplace, where do you get your wood from? You might be extremely lucky and have your own woodland which can be sustainably harvested or coppiced to provide your fuel, or maybe you pay someone to deliver wood (seasoned or otherwise). However, the recent increased demand for firewood in the UK has led to an big rise in the price consumers pay, particularly for pre-seasoned wood.

To my utter dismay, I have learned that some companies are now drying fresh, unseasoned firewood in large, specially made ovens (I presume these are natural gas powered), in a bid to short circuit the natural drying process which normally takes a year or more. Whilst I appreciate that if you have just purchased a stove, you would be keen to use it and may not have built up a stock pile of seasoned fire wood, but this is so environmentally unfriendly – it’s like using double the amount of resources!

You might as well sod the wood and be burning natural gas as you are depleting precious fossil-fuels, as well as adding CO2 into the atmosphere, both at the drying stage and then again at the wood burning stage. How backward is that?

In case you are unsure which woods are best for burning, and how long they need seasoning, I found this old passage on the net somewhere (sorry, can’t remember where I came across it)…

Oaken logs if dry and old,
Keep away the winter’s cold;
Poplar gives a bitter smoke
Fills your eyes and makes you choke;
Elm wood burns like graveyard mould
Even the very flames are cold;
Apple wood will scent the room
Pear wood smells as flowers in bloom;
But ash wood wet and ash wood dry
A King to warm his slippers by.

Beech wood fires burn bright and clear
If the logs be kept for a year;
Chestnut’s only good they say,
If for years, ’tis stored away.
Birch and firwoods burn too fast
Blaze too bright and do not last;
But ash wood green and ash wood brown
Are fit for a Queen with a golden crown!

So where do you get your firewood from?

Photo credit: ACR Heating Products

Related posts:

1. B&Q – Credit where it’s due
2. Sustainable cement is like vegetarian meatballs

David Korten

David Korten, a psychologist, presents a different view on economics, specifically in relation to ‘Peak Oil’ (ie the fact that oil production has or is about to peak, and from this point onwards oil will become increasingly more expensive).

I watched a short film clip of Korten, taken from a new movie called Blind Spot (all about Peak Oil) and found his view interesting to say the least. Here’s a transcript of the excerpt:

There’s no way we’re going to fix this mess by adjustments at the margin.

This is about a fundamental rethinking of what it means to be human. A fundamental rethinking of our relationships with one another, our institutions, our culture.

And it means exposing and penetrating the stories of empire that keep us locked in to this system, that create a kind of cultural trance that say this is just, this is right, it’s the only way it can be.

So all our economic stories about economic growth, about you need wealthy investors to grow the economy, that you shouldn’t have welfare programs because they just coddle lazy people, all our stories about money – money is wealth, people who are making money are creating wealth so therefore they own it. This is all clouding the reality that economic growth is all about rich people expropriating the property of poor people and turning it into garbage to make money for rich people.

If you’re interested in the effect that consumption of goods has on the environment and other people, do check out Annie Leonard’s ‘Story of Stuff‘.

More information:

www.blindspotdoc.com
www.davidkorten.org
www.storyofstuff.com

Related posts:

1. Peak Oil is almost here says Shell
2. Food crisis will take hold before climate change, warns chief scientist
3. Coal-Obsessed China Fuels Global Warming

If you’re anything like me, do you walk through the lanes, pathways and woods and see the lush green growth that nature has provided, and wonder what plants you can eat or might be useful in some other way? The answer comes in the form of this handy and inexpensive downloadable guide that you can print yourself – The Handy Foraging Companion and Hedgerow Herbal from ‘Judy of the Woods‘.

Just £3.95  

This latest version of The Handy Foraging Companion And Hedgerow Herbal comes in a portable post card size. The downloadable and easy to print feature-laden guide contains a list of over 350 edible plants in a handy format, as well as detailed illustrated profiles on over 50 common edible plants of Britain and Northern Europe.

I purchased the previous version of this guide about 9 months ago and can confirm that it is totally packed full of useful information. The only gripe I had was that printing it double-sided took a little bit of working out, but the current version is designed as postcard-sized and single-sided – so much easier. -Martin

Whether you forage on a leisurely weekend walk, want to know if that weed in the garden has some use, or want to prepare for a potential survival situation, this guide is one of the handiest reference books on foraging. It is designed for quick access to all the essential information you want at your fingertips. No more wading through long text to find the facts you are looking for.

 Click on the above image for a larger version

This unique, compact guide packs a lot of information into a small space:

• list of over 350 plants with basic information on edible parts (colour coded for quick reference), how to consume, and caution notes
• an illustrated directory of over 50 plants with guide to identification, culinary, medicinal and other uses
• month by month chart to check availability of those plants featured in the directory
• stay safe with caution notes including warning features to look out for
• glossary of medicinal terms with brief list of wild plants, which may be used for home treatment or first aid in the wild
• general information on plant parts, collecting and preparation, including a way to extract protein from grass and other leaves (indispensable for extreme survival situations)
• key to colour coding and other information for quick reference
• find plants by botanical or English name

For more information and to download a test sheet click here or you can click the button below to purchase directly.

Just £3.95

No related posts.