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.

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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.

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As responsible citizens of Earth, we are obligated to nurture and sustain this planet. Eco-living in green, healthy homes is taking precedence these days over traditional building materials.

With a growing amount of education and technology in Eco-sustainable resources, many countries are leading the way towards a paradigm of green building and construction. In the world of home remodeling and landscaping, there are many things that should be taken into consideration.

There are many green, Eco-friendly materials that replace the need for asbestos and can reduce energy costs annually. The implementation of Eco-construction,  energy efficient solutions and energy reduction solutions has continued to play an important role in the transformation to a healthier and sustainable world.

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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.

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At the 11th annual Greenprints Conference and Trade show in Atlanta, Georgia this past Wednesday and Thursday, the overall message was loud and clear; building and retrofitting green is and will be the only way forward for commercial real estate and home owners.

As I made my way into a crowded conference room at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Atlanta, you could feel that finally, people are taking green seriously. This wasn’t a room full of tree hugging hippies and global warming activists preaching to save the planet, but a room full of professionals who are bringing a smarter way of living to a world that has up til now, quite frankly, lived vicariously through excess consumption.

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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.

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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.

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Changents is a truly innovative online platform where individuals and grass roots organizations can grow, nurture and expand their own mission for change and is uniquely suited to the task.

I first spoke with Changents co-founder Deron Triff last July for a post in TriplePundit.com called How to Be a Rock Star Agent of Change.

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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.”

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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.)

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Our sustainable future is only going to come with the full participation of the next generation, our children. Put the tools for learning about alternative energy and sustainable living in their hands with one of these fantastic science kits from Thames & Kosmos.

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Formed as a coalition of schools, Mid-Atlantic-based nonprofit organizations, and the USDA, the Small Farm Success Project is “dedicated to helping small and emerging farmers improve their financial success.” Project researchers keep raising that million-dollar question:  How does a small farmer committed to sustainability find success?

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Consider the gift of a green book this Holiday season.

Ecobrain, a green publishing company offers ebooks, the ideal green reading choice.  Ebooks can be instantly downloaded to your desktop. Ecobrain has a series of ebooks that make ideal reading for Ecopreneurs.

The Next Sustainability Wave: Building Boardroom Buy-in, by Bob Willard ($16.95)

This book provides a compelling business case emphasizing the importance of how sustainability is presented to corporate leaders. It applies effective selling techniques to reposition sustainability strategies as a means to achieving existing corporate ends, rather than as a separate priority to worry about. It sells sustainability as a solution, a business strategy, and a catalyst for business transformation.

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The guide is available for download in pdf format, and while it is designed for kids in a learning environment, there is something in there for everyone to learn from.

It’s graciously offered by the Center for Ecoliteracy which is dedicated to education for sustainable living. Their work is based on these four guiding principles:

Nature is our teacher

Sustainable living is rooted in a deep knowledge of place

Sustainability is a community practice

The real world is the optimal learning environment

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Integrating technology, physical science and the adventures of living on a remote island and building a house, Power House teaches children about harnessing the power of the sun, the wind, electrochemical and plant energy. Power House was developed by physicist Uwe Wandrey, and includes a 96 page manual, 70 different experiments, and 20 projects to build.

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When I think about sustainability, I’ve come to the conclusion it needs to be something that’s holistic and inclusive of both my life AND my career, livelihood, or, if you must, “job.” It doesn’t make much sustainability sense to have an energy efficient home, drive a Prius and eat vegetarian when many of us — like I once did — trudge off to an office building powered by a coal-fired power plant, help a company sell products or services that were likely to destroy the planet or exploit people, and drink free coffee that was neither organic nor Fair Trade certified. All this to “pay the bills.”

The following chart from our book ECOpreneuring is my wife and my stab at contrasting the mainstream approach of being an employee in a typical company versus the owner of an ecopreneurial “green business”, ideally family scaled and locally-based. After more than a decade of interviews and meetings with ecopreneurs across the U.S., it became increasingly clear that truly sustainable enterprises provide far more than financial renumeration for its owners. These ecopreneurial businesses had owners who blended a sustainable lifestyle and workstyle, often enhancing the environment, their communities and their own quality of life by how they operated their green business.

What’s most striking from the above simplistic comparison is how the company approach seems rather disconnected from both the planet and the well-being of people as a whole. No wonder numerous studies keep finding that many employees are cynical, detached, unhappy, apathetic, and, some, downright angry.

What other aspects of an ecopreneurial life have you discovered that reveal the shortcomings of the highly touted company career in a global free market economy? In reality, there are far more ecopreneurs making the world a better place.

But I got thrown totally off track.  What I expected to be a calm, relaxing, reflective stroll beneath California oaks, turned into a passionate, ecstatic, breathless plunge into excesses the likes of which I hadn’t experienced in years.  It took my breath away, melted all self-control, and spun my world halfway round.

Oh, shame on you for thinking naughty thoughts.  It wasn’t the Adonis of the Litoral I encountered on the path (sorry gals… !)  It was an unassuming blackberry sprig.  Peeking out from the dried grasses along the edge of the path.  Winking at me in the sun.  I winked back, then looked around.  Is it legal to pick a blackberry here? I walked past it, choosing planetary well-being over my own base desires.  That’s probably the only blackberry sprig on this trail, and how awful would it be if I picked it rather than leave it for the birds or animals trying to earn an honest local living.

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The main realization I have come to is that Caroline and I seem to be focusing on different audiences in most of our posts. (Caroline, if you are reading this, please feel free to correct me if you disagree with what I say here!) That is, most of my posts feel more appropriate for and geared towards “beginners” in sustainable living…those folks who are taking their first steps on the path of Green. Having done a lot with various methods of sustainable living and environmentalism (as an “-ism”) so far, I have felt called to use my experiences along the path to help others with little or no experience.

At the same time, and by doing so, I have been most dedicated to celebrating all the things in nature that I believe are sacred…and that so often get overlooked, even by us environmentalists! It is easy to forget about the sacred things in nature that are all around us, wherever we happen to be, and it has been a joy for me to sing their praises with all my heart and voice.

Caroline seems to be focused a bit more on speaking directly to the more experienced members of the sustainability crowd. Her Sust Enable experience/experiment of living off the grid, in my mind at least, is largely something that people would look to in order to take the next step in adapting to a more completely sustainable lifestyle. These sorts of folks would be more acclimated to that lifestyle already and so ready to, and likely more successful with, inching closer to being 100% sustainable. (Of course, much of what Caroline shared is also relevant for beginners in green living, just as what I have written is useful for anyone at any stage. But her sort of life off the grid as a complete life experience seems to me more appropriate for the seasoned sustainabillies.)

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Special thanks to Jeff Strasburg for helping us indulge our imaginations in this series!  I’d also like to extend my gratitude to Justin for engaging me in this form.  It has been edifying to explore concepts about sustainability.  I hope that the readers of this “debate” have enjoyed the process as well, and I know I speak for Justin when I say: we welcome all comments!  This a dialog, a free exchange of ideas, so tell us yours and help to fuel the mutual inspiration.

(Author’s Note: I include the image above not only because, figuratively speaking, the “sun is setting” on our Sustainability dialog, but also because I will be travelling westward-ho! throughout the United States until the beginning of September.  My objective is to get some relief from my high-technology-based lifestyle right now, so the vacation will heavily consist of camping in national parks.  Therefore, I will blog if I am able to during this time, but if not… be prepared for both the Sust Enable episode debuts AND a bona fide blogging bonanza upon my return in early September.)

Without further ado,

Here are my final thoughts, in conclusion.

1) If you can learn to modify your life to be as close to environmental sustainability as possible, it is necessary that you proceed to do so. The human will is one of the most powerful–and dangerous–elements on the planet.  At first glance, it might feel like “too much” to give up using a flush toilet (just for an example).  But is it really?  Think about the idea.  Get familiar with it.  Picture what it would look like to use a composting toilet in your home.  Maybe start with a little one, to be used only sometimes.  Soon, the consequences may not seem all that daunting. There is always a choice. 

Don’t let your true identity and dreams for what the world could be become casualties of conforming.  You only have one life, so use it, in the most effective ways visible.  If many individuals decided that, deep in their hearts, ecocide felt wrong to them, that many persons when taken together comprise a mutiny against old, obsolete customs and beliefs.  Your little action today plays a role in a social revolution, of the “green” kind.

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