Green Options » Adam Williams

DOUBLEXPOSURE Photographers Exhibit Impacts of Climate Change

Adam Williams — Wed, 27 May 2009 23:45:51 +0000

Photographers have long held a useful key to effecting change.

Think of Ansel Adams and his influence on early 20th Century government leaders in the United States; he helped demonstrate the value of nature and the need for national parks.

Think of the Farm Security Administration photography effort of the 1930s, led by Roy Stryker (photographers included: Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Gordon Parks).

Now, think of DOUBLEXPOSURE, and the work of two photographers who are pairing work that “brings the viewer into panoramas of glaciers once grand but now receding. The compelling comparisons put into stark view the fact of melting glaciers.”

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Six Urban Farms, From U.S. Coast to Coast

Adam Williams — Wed, 20 May 2009 23:56:55 +0000

With spring bringing out the gardener in many of us — veteran, rookie and in between — my household has been expanding our growing. Last year, we had a couple of small vegetable plots that maybe totalled 15-20 square feet. Plus, we created a wildflower and native grass section that stretches to a slim 40 square feet.

This year, we have turned nearly half of our backyard — tiny as it is — into a vegetable garden, adding 125 square feet, or so. I built a wooden-pallet compost bin. And our front yard — yes, tiny front yard — is quickly becoming garden space, too (more flowers, native grasses and such). We’ll soon have a rain barrel. I’ve torn up a 50-foot stretch of sidewalk, and will replace it with a more drainage-friendly, more attractive solution. My wife also has started dozens of vegetable seedlings, which she is giving away for others’ gardens.

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LivinginPeace Project Offers Travel, Art, Green Education

Adam Williams — Wed, 20 May 2009 00:44:22 +0000

The LivinginPeace Project combines travel, art and education into a sustainable business model that is self-sufficient, energy efficient, environmentally responsible and socially empowering.

The project includes a backpackers’ hostel (www.rongobackpackers.com), a motel complex (www.karameamotels.com), a gallery (www.globalgypsy.com), a community radio station, permaculture farm and eco-tourism adventures. It is run by a group of dedicated, enthusiastic, positive volunteers from all over the world.

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St. Louis Pulls Plug on Pilot Recycling Program

Adam Williams — Wed, 20 May 2009 00:04:12 +0000

The City of St. Louis has pulled the dozens of 300-gallon recycling dumpsters it had placed in alleyways last March out of commission. Jill Hamilton, the city’s recycling program manager, said the program was never intended to be permanent.

Rather, it was considered a pilot program, serving about 3,200 of the city’s 147,000 households, to see if the economics could make a full, permanent effort viable. The answer is: apparently not. Or, at least, not right now.

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Shipping Containers Make Treeless ‘Tree House’ Tower

Adam Williams — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 23:47:44 +0000

German designer Lars Behrendt’s treeless “tree house” tower known as the Lotto Turm is a trip down a memory lane of sorts. The tower employs 55 shipping containers stacked in a seemingly whimsical, childhood block-buidling style that creates the fun, treehouse feeling for residential and office spaces. There is a courtyard and a shipping-container swimming pool, too. The work is proposed for construction in the center of Stuttgart, Germany.

Source: Treehouse by Design

SolarBee Circulates Lakes, Reservoirs with Sun Rays

Adam Williams — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 00:29:12 +0000

The SolarBee Long-Distance Circulator (LDC) is a solar-powered water mixer. One unit is reported to be able to stir 35 acres of fresh water, improving its quality by creating flow. It also can be used in waste water lagoons.

SolarBee’s LDC also is intended for use in storm water ponds for the primary purpose of blue-green algae bloom control, and claims a number of industrial uses for reservoirs and tanks.

Sources: ecofriend & SolarBee

» See also: discounts on solar panels in San Diego
» Disclaimer: Both 1BOG and GO Media (aka this blog) are owned by activism startup Virgance

Farmers’ Market & Bazaar in Need of Friends’ Support

Adam Williams — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 20:49:27 +0000

The Tower Grove Farmers’ Market and Bazaar in St. Louis is not only a community center piece, but a regional one. And the group is candidly joining a nation-wide line of community-minded organizations who are in economic straits and need support.

Understanding that there are many worthy groups asking for assistance these days, the one that organizes the Tower Grove market is asking, in particular, for those who already value what it creates in the St. Louis region — shoppers and friends who stop by, even just twice a season — to consider stepping forward. The support can be monetary or otherwise.

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EPA Announces $600 MM in Stimulus to Clean-up 50 of Most Polluted Sites

Adam Williams — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 16:59:05 +0000

Fifty hazardous waste sites in 28 states are to get $582 million in stimulus money, the United States Environmental Protection Agency announced this week. The cash injection is a boon for clean-up efforts, according to the New York Times.

For around half of those sites, the money is helping continue clean-up efforts that have languished or ceased since last year, due to economics.

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Backdoor Harvest Lends Hands, Know-How for Urban Farming

Adam Williams — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 22:47:44 +0000

There’s been plenty of recent talk in the media about “recession gardens.” I’ve kind of thought that urban gardening was just a good, wholesome way of healthy living.

Here in St. Louis, Backdoor Harvest seems to agree. And that’s fantastic news for me — and novice gardeners like me — because I’ve got almost no idea what I’m doing when I start digging into my yard.

Lucky me, my wife, who knows a little more than I do about plunging seeds and such into our tiny backyard plot, enjoys doing the research to figure these things out. Even luckier for us, Backdoor Harvest is hanging its open-for-business shingle in the coming days, just to help urban growers, even ones as inexperienced as in the Williams household.

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Missouri Sewer District Rain Barrel Sale a ‘Success’

Adam Williams — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 18:55:06 +0000

The Missouri Sewer District (MSD) reports success in its rain barrel sale, which ended April 3. I’d posted here at ecolocalizer about the sale last week.

As a thoughtful follow-up, Debbie Johnson in the Public Information department for MSD left a comment for that initial posting, updating readers on the program’s status. Here is that information:

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Missouri Offers Green Tax Holiday — Apr. 19-25

Adam Williams — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 18:35:08 +0000

Being a Missourian, it is particularly nice to see this Midwestern, conservative state step up to the green plate at times. Recently, a Missouri tax holiday was announced for the purchase of energy-efficient home appliances.</

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported:

From April 19-25, the state is waving its 4.225 percent sales tax on washing machines, refrigerators, freezers, dishwashers, water heaters, furnaces and air conditioners if the new appliance is Energy Star-certified. Nine counties and just over 50 cities also are waving their sales taxes for the week.

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St. Louis Sewer District Sells Rain Barrels Through APRIL 3

Adam Williams — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 22:22:43 +0000

The Metropolitan Sewer District (MSD) in St. Louis, Mo., is selling rain barrels through 5 p.m. on April 3.

As of the end-of-business on Thursday more than 1,000 barrels had been ordered, according to the office personnel handling the orders. A news story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch laid out the general information this way:

The Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District is offering its customers the opportunity to help take the burden off those creeks — and its storm water system — by purchasing 55-gallon rain barrels to collect and store rainwater that would otherwise flow into a storm drain.
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Blockbuster Video Dropbox Makes Liberian Oven

Adam Williams — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 22:01:43 +0000

As it has been said, necessity is the mother of invention. In this case, that invention is reportedly a tasty-cake baking oven in Liberia, Africa.

As described on afrigadget.com, by Luca Varaschini:

I passed some time with the ladies while they were preparing western-style food for everyone: rice, beef stake, pasta and potato salad. Then they started stirring what would have to be two cakes for the dessert, and I started wondering how they’d be able to bake them, since the only cooking apparels in the big warehouse were these coal pits on the ground.
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Green Toys Inc. Turns Milk Jugs into…Green Toys

Adam Williams — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 23:27:39 +0000

Green Toys Inc. makes ….. (drum roll) …….. green toys. Okay, you had to see that coming (for the second time). But what that means is that their toys, such as the above pictured recycling truck (12″ x 6.25″ x 7″) — and a dump truck, sand box set, jump rope and more — are primarily made of recycled milk jugs.

According to Green Toys Inc.’s Web site, it starts like this:

We use recycled milk containers as the main ingredient in creating our toys. Yes, the exact plastic milk jugs that you and your family drink from every day. When you finish your milk and toss the container in the recycling bin, these milk containers are collected at your curb by a local recycling company, who then sorts them from all the other types of plastic. Next, the milk containers are reprocessed into super clean fresh plastic. For you plastic geeks, the plastic material we use is called high-density polyethylene (or HDPE). This material is considered one of the safest, cleanest plastics around.

The toys are made in California. The packaging is also green. They also contain no traceable amounts of Phthalates or BPA, and are free of lead.

There’s a ‘World’s Largest, Most Opulent Green Mansion?’ Acqua Liana Says, ‘Yes’

Adam Williams — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 00:09:48 +0000

Frank McKinney, known as the real estate “artist,” according to his Web site, has built a 15,000-square-foot “eco-mansion.” Is that possible? I am not sure whether to look in awe at all the sleek green that money can buy, or to recoil from the notion that 15,000 feet of excess is environmentally friendly.

Photos of the inside and outside of this $29 million Florida mansion are as wild for their “Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous” vibe, as for anything else. McKinney calls the property Acqua Liana, and has more plans in the works:

(He) will soon commence another masterpiece, “Crystalina,” a $30 million green home reflecting South Pacific influences.

He has designed and obtained permits for the world’s most magnificent oceanfront spec home with a 9-figure price tag, that’s right, Mr. McKinney’s new creation, The Manalapan Residence, will carry a price tag of over $135 million.
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Nobel Peace Prize Winner Desmond Tutu Supports Earth Hour

Adam Williams — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 19:40:26 +0000

Archbishop Desmond Tutu is getting behind the symbolic call for global action against climate change that is Earth Hour. From 8:30-9:30 p.m. (local time) on Saturday, March 28, major swaths of urbanized Earth will go dark in the name of unity.

All anyone has to do is sit, relax, socialize. Maybe in the dark, maybe by candle light. Whatever. It’s a World Wildlife Fund-led global party that may just offer city-dwellers the stars above, a rarely viewable pleasure for sure.

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Centex Raises Bar for Energy-Efficient Homebuilding

Adam Williams — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 17:50:46 +0000

Dallas-based Centex Corporation has rolled-out a green line of home development in St. Louis, building new homes with its Centex Energy Advantage designs.

The homes the company has begun building in the St. Louis metro area are considered as much as 40 percent more efficient than the typical 10-year-old home.

In a region of the United States looked upon as flyover land, usually implying it’s behind the times, Centex is claiming to be the first national homebuilder to install energy monitors in every home it builds, going forward.

The other standard features of the Energy Advantage package, as listed by Centex, are:

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Solar Panels Break Barrier, Slipping Below $1 per watt

Adam Williams — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 00:45:56 +0000

The manufacturing costs of solar power — or at least for thin-film photovoltaic panels — have broken below a golden benchmark, as reported by Popular Mechanics: $1 per watt.

First Solar, based in Tempe, Ariz., has brought the costs down to $0.98 per watt. The company says that further cost reductions will be achieved as technological and manufacturing process potentials are reached.

But things are not all rosy since reaching this milestone of sorts. Popular Mechanics reported:

Despite the buck-per-watt announcement, First Solar’s share price plummeted more than 20 percent on Wednesday, thanks to warnings from CEO Mike Ahearn about the effect of the credit crisis on potential solar customers—as much as 10 to 15 percent of current orders might default. He recently told analysts in a conference call that “as good as things look for the mid-term and beyond, the short-term outlook for the solar industry in our view has never looked more difficult.”

What Vegetables Can Urban Gardeners Grow on a Fire Escape?

Adam Williams — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 00:36:01 +0000

Urban food growing is not a new concept, but in recent years it has, perhaps, enjoyed a resurgence in popularity. As people look for lifestyles that return to basics — local, reasonably self-reliant, organic — many are picking up a seed packet and a trowel.

But what defines “urban” when it comes to farming, homesteading, gardening?

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Dervaes Family and Other Urban Homesteaders Remind Us of What We Can Accomplish

Adam Williams — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 20:59:58 +0000

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Spring is coming. In the Midwest, as in the other currently cold areas of the United States, that makes a difference.

As I think about expanding my own, as of yet, modest urban food and plant growing efforts, it’s a massive inspiration to review the work of the Dervaes family in Pasadena, Calif.

The family has popped up here and there on sustainablog.org in the past several months. You can listen to GreenTalk Radio host Sean Daily’s conversation with them, or read about the family’s 100-Foot Diet Challenge, as posted by sustainablogger Brian Baughan last month.

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