Here are some folks, organizations, even businesses and governments that seem to be trying to nudge the Cosmos in the same direction as I am. Please suggest others:
Pop Diesel (Formerly Albuquerque Alternative Energies)
(The folks who helped me convert my ROAT — Ridiculously Oversized American Truck — to vegetable oil-power):
www.abqaltenergies.com
Am I Going to be the Prodigal Subaru Son?
If I want to drive a Japanese vehicle on VegOil or its algae successor: Subaru’s coming out with a diesel, supposedly in the U.S. by 2011.
I just met Jay Kimball, who does team work exercises with companies to show how they can be sustainable and successful. He’s at www.8020vision.com.
Ready to Wean From the Grid?
Nick Rosen, the man behind the excellent Web venue Off-Grid.net, also has a book, entitled,How to Live Off Grid you might want to check out.
WELL: Willits Economic Localization
Residents of a town in Northern California decided local living was the way to go. What a model. http://www.willitseconomiclocalization.org/
Rent Solar Energy Equipment
http://renu.citizenre.com/index.php?c=1175857991
So Many Are People Reducing Consumption — Here’s Another Couple
My New Mexico “neighbors” Mikey and Wendy are classic “part of the solution” people. Mikey has a techie mind and has designed an automatic temp sensor for Vegetable-oil vehicles so they know when to convert from regular fuel to grease (if this happens to early after starting a cold engine, the grease is as solid as a Green Bay Packer’s fan’s arteries). Mikey and Wendy also run a green hotel and all around work at eliminating the clutch at the oil teat.
A non-profit dedicated to sustainable mining practices, including gold mining without mercury leaching. It’s called, understandably enough,The Institute for Sustainable Mining.
Famine-Ravaged Zambia Refuses Genetically Modified Food
(This is five year old news but the story continues to fascinate me):
http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,,2-11-1447_1545602,00.html
Organic Beekeepers Report No Losses While Conventional Operations Report Massive Colony Losses
http://bushfarms.com/bees.htm
What to Do About Those Dang Plastic Water Bottles
http://www.lifewithoutplastic.com/
There’s a move on to re-authorize federal tax credits for solar equipment in the U.S.
This is a page sponsored by the solar manufacturer’s trade group, but somehow that seems not so disturbing because their lifetime profits cumulatively have about seven fewer zeros than Exxon/Mobil’s, Shell’s, BP’s or Chevron’s just last quarter.
http://capwiz.com/re-action/issues/alert/?alertid=9328091
Equiterre
Some people are called to design clothing. Others to study the life cycle of millipedes. My friend Laure got out of college and helped start this organization, whose premise is, “Your wallet decides whether the future is full of Wal-Marts or local shops, whether fair trade or un-fair trade dominates, whether future generations breathe clean air or poison.”
http://www.equiterre.org/en/
The Girl with the Roller Skate Jams
My longtime colleague Rene Gutel is just an inveterate journalist. You can tell when a vocation is someone’s calling. This is her fun blog, with links to her reporting from Arizona and Alaska. She’s not explicitly about sustainability (not yet), but she “gets” just about every issue she covers, and is a fun, energetic, kind person to boot.
http://therollerskatejams.blogspot.com/
The NoirBettie Duo
Nice people writing delightfully weird and or/stunningly funny, often familial things. My friends Will and Annika’s exceptional blogs. I could say more here, but their spaces will either make you want to call the police or have kids, respectively. They are “green” to me in that, in the way they go through life, they are part of the proverbial Solution. OK, so they live in the Big City, but they Vespa their way through traffic.
Some Wilderness Trip Outfitters in New Mexico
Beats traffic jams:
http://www.gilabackcountryservices.com and
http://www.wildbynaturetours.com/
Hi Doug,
My boss, Brad Thorton, University Mechanical Contarctors, Phoenix AZ, received a copy of your “Farewell my Subary” book at ACE. I picked it up in the company’s lending library and read it.
There was a lot that I could relate to having property just east of the El Moro national monument even though I don’t live there yet. My Fox news addicted Survivalist neighbors, Walmart in Grants and my Not so high maintenance girl friend that I left behind in West Hollywood who said, “You’re not dragging me out to the middle of no where!”
My goal is to live off the grid on the James Ranch someday. I’m delayed due to the implosion in the housing market where most of my wealth was invested.
Being in the mechanical/plumbing industry I wanted to share with you that what you need for your solar batch heater is a tempering valve.
Tempering valves mix hot and cold water together to limit the outlet temperature. They can be set at different temperatures. They come in different sizes. The big ones for large buildings are expensive–but for your house you should be able to get one for less than $200.00. It will extend the amount of usable hot water that you have to use and prevent you from scalding yourself. You may have figured this out already.
Have you seen the Otherpower website. It is worth checking out if you don’t know about it.