020 Emily Green on the Mow and Blow Landscape Paradigm

...dependent. She blogs at Chance of Rain. Writing in the Los Angeles Times in 2011 Emily says, What would you do if a neighbor came to you and asked, “For 20 minutes every week, may I turn on your vacuum cleaner, smoke detector and garbage disposal and run them all at once?” Holding that thought, consider if the neighbor added, “Ah, may I also blow noxious dust your way for those same 20 minutes?” Imagine that not just one neighbor on the street ask...

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“Urban Homesteading” belongs to us all

...teading” freely from now on out. Longtime readers may remember that back in 2011, the Dervaes Institute sent notices to a dozen or so organizations, informing them that they could no longer use the terms “urban homestead” and “urban homesteading” unless speaking about the work of the Dervaes Institute, as they had registered trademark on both terms. Beyond that, some people found their web pages or social media sites removed when their hosting ser...

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What we think about when we try not to think about global warming

...tlessly, for us to wake up and change our ways for the last 40 years. So in 2011 he gave up on us and wrote 2052: A Global Forecast for the Next 40 Years. It was not, as he said, a description of an attractive future. He’s a doomer’s doomer, yet in the introduction he says, “This book gave me back the hope I’d lost over forty years of futile struggle.” So, if Stoknes can help me, Brigitte and Jorgen, maybe he can help you, too. Stoknes is organiza...

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012 Damnation, Good Books and Listener Questions

...ut bread, weeds and fertilizer. We briefly mention our experiment in house cleaning inspired by a post on Apartment Therapy. Those damn dams! Go to the Damnation Website to watch the documentary trailer and find links to where you watch the whole movie. Via Youtube, a documentary on China’s massive Three Gorges dam. I didn’t mention it during the podcast, but I used to work at the Center for Land Use Interpretation. The CLUI did a show on towns su...

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Introducing #ArtShopaholism and #BiblioShopaholism

...ou bake some elaborate cookie/cake/ instead of cooking a healthy dinner or cleaning the house. #ArtShopaholism: Not actually making art but, instead, shopping and/or obsessing over art supplies. I’ve found drawing useful, but it’s a skill you have to practice in order to get any good at. To counter this I’m only allowing myself to draw with whatever crappy ballpoint pen I have on me. No thinking about, buying or obsessing over having the “right” p...

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