Green Options

It’s ironic I’m writing about windows while my yurt in the tropical rain forest of Hawaii is enduring the heaviest rainfall I’ve ever witnessed. The awnings are proving their worth well.

Why don’t I close the windows? Well, I’m getting there. It’s just that I don’t have a deck around my 3-foot elevated yurt and therefore a ladder is required. The picture tells the story.

Seems yurt manufacturers have been surveying customer comments. Good thing, as that’s how progressive changes occurred at the Colorado Yurt Company. They recently added a new design because customers relayed their preference to open their windows from inside.

This is good news for yurt dwellers without an exterior walking deck and with a raised platform. For those, it’s go outside with your ladder.

Fully Operable Windows is the new description in Colorado. It opens like a traditional home window with a crank. Each window is big enough to meet code requirements for egress. Made with a thermal pane and Low-E glass in a Doug fir frame. E-glass means low emissivity glass, a new technology for energy efficiency.

There should be no secrets among those who continue to prosper in mostly non-financial ways despite the challenging economic times.  These people live (and perhaps work) following the laws of nature more than the “laws of supply and demand” of the increasingly dysfunctional “free” and global marketplace.

Here’s how to thrive in the abundance of renewable energy, organic food and a more healthy and sustainable lifestyle. While not all frugality rules, this approach to living more sustainably does require some degree of curtailment, scaling down and living within our means.  It means using credit cards less and relying on community members or family more.  However, the result can be a rich life filled with health and well-being, friends and family, more time to do the things you love to do (imagine that!), a greater sense of purpose, and, my favorite, happiness.

Below are a few suggestions to get you started or continue your journey.  Please add some of your own in the comments.  Maybe some of the BIG banks or BIG government folks might take notice that a few ideas do not involve printing and spending trillions of dollars to “spur consumption.”

•  Powering the renewable energy revolution

Times couldn’t be better for installing your own renewable energy system or improving your energy efficiency of your home or business (or both!), depending on the state you live in.  The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 extended the Energy Policy Act of 2005. These new acts extend and expand the federal tax credits available for energy efficiency and renewable energy improvements made in 2009 and beyond.  There are numerous renewable energy cash-back incentives, tax credits and low interest loans that can help ease the transition from a fossil-fuel based economy to one that thrives on solar income.  Check out the Database for State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency (www.dsireusa.org) to see what’s available in your state.

Asbestos used to be highly regarded throughout the 20th century as an ideal building and construction material. Today, asbestos fibers can lead to the development of lung ailments and cancers.

For some people, The Nation’s Guide to the Nation by Richard Lingeman and the editors of The Nation could be mistaken for a guidebook for “Cultural Creatives,” we citizens living in America (and abroad) who deeply care about the environment and fellow humankind, where sustainable living is sensible living.  Edited by The Nation’s former executive editor, Richard Lingeman, one might even suspect that The Nation’s Guide to the Nation is a harbinger of the changes yet to come under the new Barack Obama administration, addressing climate change (finally), human rights and community.  It’s no coincidence that the pub date for the guide was Obama’s inauguration date.

“The Nation’s Guide to the Nation,” writes Victor Navasky and Katrina Vanden Heuvel in the book’s Introduction, “is for and about a community of committed, passionate people who have active consciences and a lively sense of social justice.”

This guide covers it all, revealing progressive film festivals to exploring the explosive growth of organic and slow food restaurants.  By what is included in the listing, the guide examines solutions to our energy crisis (not to mention financial crisis) in ways that do not involve transporting stuff around the world and burning lots of oil.  It logs in the latest collection of progressive (and some left-leaning) websites as well as locally owned bookstores that carry what many of the chain stores don’t.  All done with a touch of humor, when necessary.

Energy efficiency and green retrofitting lead the way at Greenprints Conference and Tradeshow in Atlanta, Georgia.

It’s almost been a year since we picked up our spring chicks- Henrietta and Dixie. In all honesty, we did have four Spring chicks but our dog Durgen, killed two of them (Fluffy and Lois). It was devastating to say the least.  We decided that two was our lucky number. Having chickens has been such an adventure. When you first get them as chicks they do require to be under a heat lamp for about 2-3 weeks until they get bigger and can face the temperature variations outside. They require a little heat, food (medicated), water, your attention and love. Just before they get bigger you want to teach them to perch so that they are accustomed to doing so when moved into the coop. All you need to do is add a piece of wood inside the box you’re using to house them; elevate it so that they learn to jump up and perch. It’s really that simple.

My husband built the coop and we reused as much material as we could to get it up. For instance, the door was leftover fencing material and some of the wood was from older jobs that didn’t require as much wood as expected. Building the coop didn’t take much time and before we knew it the chickens had there own place to live and roam. Besides the coop they need a nesting box which is where they’ll lay their eggs. Add straw to the nesting box and make it nice and comfy. Some people will put in a golf ball or alabaster eggs in the box so that the chickens get the idea that they should lay the eggs inside the box. We did not do this. Our chickens learned on their own. It took them a few weeks but they figured it out.

This just in, the city of San Francisco is having a hearing Monday that will decide if a resolution calling on California to create a Do Not Mail Registry will come before the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. A Do Not Mail Registry would give citizens the choice to stop receiving unwanted junk mail.

Can you imagine?

Because I’m so green I won’t be taking my private jet up to San Francisco, but I am extending an invitation to all you.

Changents provides the platform for Down2Earth and the City of Boston to promote the semi-finalists in the Pitch the City contest aimed at engaging the community to think up new ways to make Boston greener.

The small city of Lancaster, Texas has had a law on its books banning all chickens within the city limits, but for years it had gone unnoticed and unenforced, until recently.  That changed when a local resident found out that the previously unknown law would now be enforced citing anyone who kept chickens within the city limits.

Local food writer and sustainable living proponent Marye Audet, has kept a flock of 19 chickens on her 2 1/4 acre rural homestead for the last five years in a rural area of town, unaware that she was breaking the law by doing so.

“This is not about us living in a subdivision of $400,000.00 homes and being the Beverly Hillbillies.”

Living a low-impact, eco-friendly life often boils down to simplicity and sheer common sense. Just follow the old proverb “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle,” and you will be a long way towards minimizing your impact on the environment.

But sometimes consuming less and acting with a green heart still leaves much in the “gray area” of wastefulness and pollution. To help make your life at home as green as can be, Kim McKay and Jenny Bonnin compile 100 great eco-tips in True Green Home. Part of the National Geographic True Green series, True Green Home serves as an accessible introduction to the countless areas of your home that can be either eco-friends or eco-foes.

It is also a great “cheat sheet,” as the authors call it, by combining comprehensiveness with brevity and generality.1 That is, you get a lot of quick glimpses into where your home (or apartment) might be wasting resources and some basic steps you can take to reduce your environmental footprint. (Nearly every page has more space devoted to a photo than words.)