Group items tagged

Ultimate Green Buildings

Great website. Thanks for sharing!

Biotecture at its best! Green Buildings which can be constructed in any part of the world and designed to meet and exceed existing building codes. Earthships provide electricity, potable water, contained sewage treatment and sustainable food production for every building.

Great techie Gardening Gadgets and "5 best gardening apps"

This is a great website to research Bills etc. This particular Bill is a bill to protect farmers from large biotech companies like Monsanto. A similar Bill has been put forward 2 additional times but all three have not made it past committee review.

As a family we have built many houses and structures with COB and Straw Bale. I thought that this was a great video on the community aspect of building with COB. Not so fond of the oversized straw bale house built with conventional construction but I understand their idea of taking baby steps to converting the building code inspectors. Hope you enjoy watching!

This is a crucial time for people to rethink how we meet our needs today to help to ensure a desirable future for following generations. Local government officials must play their part in reinventing our institutions to help communities and residents stay healthy and whole. This is because we have entered an era where human generated pressures on the natural world are unprecedented and threaten our current way of life. A few examples include depletion of non-renewable resources - 65% of U.S. oil is gone and the world is at or past peak oil; insufficient drinking water for two thirds of the world's population; consumption of land and loss of topsoil at unsustainable rates; projected loss of 90% of the world's fisheries by 2048; extinction of a distinct species of plant or animal, on average, every 20 minutes (qualifying the present period as one of the six great periods of mass extinction in the history of Earth1); and the presence of 250 persistent toxic chemicals not known before 1945, many of which are now found in human tissues.

This a link to a sort of trade journal for environmental business issues. I found the video section to be the most interesting. Also some great articles.

This is a great website to access links to other publications on sustainable agriculture. The Database is packed with information and links, along with the webinars and videos. I also like the addition of current event postings, keeps you up to date to agro events.

great blog from a first-hand source!

This is a great website packed with tips and useful information about sustainable living, gardening, alternative energy sources, harvesting rainwater, helping people affected by natural disasters etc. It is a shop where you can buy things that will aid you in your sustainable endeavors but the blog section is FULL of useful information and tips. There is even a blog on weening children off of video games! The GUIDES section is also full of amazing tips, even eco boating and ways to get out and play in nature. I love this site, hope you enjoy it as well.

This is such a cool website that is packed with information about how to make choices in our every day lives that effect our environment in positive ways. There is a section called "The Card" that leads you to some links to print out a free card that is packed full of great information about buying choices and transportation etc. and it is easy to use when you are out and about. Most of the tips do not involve large expenditures, they are very simple and easy to implement. I like this site because it provides information about how everyone can make simple, inexpensive positive changes.

This a sort of cool site, that gives great video demos of new green apps, for our devices. I especially like the GasHog app, since I drive an old truck. Also interesting apps on how to find local farmers markets in your area.

This is a very cool site, that focuses on Sustainable Design. Great stories and photos of amazing projects from around the world, that convert old buildings into new living spaces, new home designs using interesting materials (check out the article of Love Nests) and also articles on sustainable building designs for the future.

This is a great group of designers and builders who have been helping build housing for those affected my catastropic events, such as the Haiti earthquake and Hurricane Katrina.

This a great guide if you want to learn about sustainable green building practices

This is new information for me. I did not realize the great strides China has been making towards a cleaner environment using renewable resources. They are utilizing wind, solar, hydropower and more and have become one of the fastest countries to instill change. This is interesting, considering the largest amount of energy consumed currently is through the use of coal. Since 2005 they have reduced the percentage of GH gases by 750 million tons..

CISA is a great website to find local food through farmers' markets, farms, farm stands, and CSA's. You can also view upcoming local events and recipes featuring farm fresh food. Here is the link for Amherst local farms through CISA http://www.farmfresh.org/?sortby=&zip=01002

"The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) is an alliance of grassroots organizations that advocates for federal policy reform to advance the sustainability of agriculture, food systems, natural resources, and rural communities." *This is a great resource for grants!

I utilized this program in my design work at Northeast Solar. What I really like about this application is 1. It's free and 2. You can share you Templates with the world. Oh, and 3. You have access to all the Free Templates from the World! Some great person shared a template (Template = a design package including tools, data, configurations, that you can utilize in the sketch up world) that I can use in unison with Google Earth, to design, plan, measure, size, and then show, what Solar electric (PV) opportunity they have for their building. It was really useful. SketchUp is 3D modeling software that's easy to learn and incredibly fun to use. Download SketchUp today for free and get started drawing in 3D.

Some great tips on planting a non-GMO garden...

Here is an article on trench composting I thought the group might enjoy. My wife and I have reduced our waste to about one small kitchen bag a week by composting our kitchen scraps.

Hi. That is a great idea. Saves the plant from drying out. I will do that for my garden. Funny I was reading about Africa a remote area where this happen. A university sent someone out here to help solve a issue for these people to have some kind of heat source like gas. Long story short you take all the food scraps throw them into a blender and dump in in a 50 gallon drum. Does this for a bout a week. Have another 50 gallon drum ready empty. This guy ran a gas line off the barrels into the house. It produce enough methane to cook and heat the house as long you keep dumping scraps into the barrel.