Earthen floors are ancient. They were the predominant floor from the time people first built homes until the mid 1300s, and are still found today in many parts of the world.
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Time Flies
A Five Year Trend Towards Renewables They say that time flies when you’re having fun. If that’s true, then we’re having a ball, because it seems like only yesterday that the first issue of our Green Living Journal hit the streets of Portland in 2008. That’s right, we are five years old, we have published 360,000 copies of our Journal, and we are optimistic about the future because of the changes that have taken place in those five years. Optimistic? How can we, or anyone else, be optimistic, given the present state of affairs? With civilization on the brink of collapse, are we not all in the proverbial handbasket? Where…
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10 Things I Learned While Living Without Running Water
It is much easier than I thought to conserve resources. My wife and I recently endured fifteen days of living without running water while a new well was being drilled on our property. If I was a more conscientious blogger, I suppose I would have chronicled the experience daily, as it unfolded. But the truth is, I couldn’t spend much time at the keyboard during that period. Every time I stopped moving, I felt like Pig-Pen in the Peanuts cartoon, READ MORE
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Kickstart Eco-Friendly Health Habits
It’s hard to change lifestyle and dietary habits so we can be more energized and live longer. When we’re motivated, change can be easy and good habits can develop, especially if we’ve reached a point where our bad habits have become painful enough that we seek relief. Even if we’re motivated, we still need to overcome certain habits that can be difficult to alter. Here are some strategies that you can use to kickstart those healthy habits, all the while maintaining an eco-friendly body and environment: Meditate and Take Time off Meditation is designed to calm you down and center your energy so you are more aware, more at peace…
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Remotely Monitor Your Home Energy Use
Dial In Your Home’s Temperature from Anywhere Whether your home’s heating and cooling system runs on natural gas, coal, nuclear power, geothermal, wind, or solar, maximizing the system’s efficiency will benefit both you and the environment. Of course, there is plenty that we can do to our homes to control their climate more effectively: Improving insulation and eliminating gaps around doors and windows is a good place to start. The biggest factor in lowering heating and cooling bills, however, often boils down to our own behavior. Fortunately, technology is making the control of building temperature far easier than ever before, and a lot more fun! Remotely programmable thermostats are quickly…
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The Mysteries of Recycling Part III:
What does the future hold for recycling? Two words: zero waste. Or to be more explicit, the future of recycling will be a closed loop system where all discarded materials become resources for others to use. The growing population and the rising standard of living around the world will continue to put increasing demand on the finite resources of our planet.
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The Men Who Built America
Resource reality is setting in, and we are now aware that there are consequences to ignoring the effects that our lifestyle has on the environment.
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Sauna for Life – Sauna for Health !
Sometimes it is a simple wood-paneled room, with an electric heater and a thermometer on the wall, letting us know how hot it is. It may be at the gym, or fitness center, or maybe in your own home. Sometimes it will be a small freestanding building in a wooded glen with an authentic wood-burning heater. “It” is a sauna, and saunas bring different images to mind for different people. Saunas were largely unknown in this country before the 1950s, but have steadily become more popular as the source for both good times and therapeutic benefits. Pronounced “SOW-na”, it is a Finnish word that describes both the process of the…
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Artistic Sculpture in Unfired Earth – Earthen Hand Class
Artistic Sculpture in Unfired Earth – Sept 14th, 10am – 5pm – Portland, Oregon – $75 / day, classes (paid at least 1 week in advance). $30 or less materials/tools. This class explores the infinite artistic possibilities of unfired clay/sand/fiber mixtures. We will use pigments, and a wide variety of techniques to create vastly different effects. Learn how to make earthen plasters, paints, pigments, and construct skeletons to support the sculpture. Class size is limited to 6 people.
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A Platinum Home for the Golden Years
Part I: Planning Introduction In his book Reinventing Fire, Amory Lovins realistically shows how the U.S. could eliminate the burning of fossil fuels by 2050 using the technologies that are available today. A growing number of forward-thinking people are already moving towards a fossil-fuel free lifestyle by making use of photovoltaic panels, electric drive cars, super efficient homes, and by walking, bicycling and using other alternative transportation options. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), our homes and apartments accounted for 23% of the total energy consumed nationwide in 2010. The bulk of this energy is produced from the burning of fossil fuels, and its cost averaged out to…
