mind body planet

It’s a bit late in the season to be talking about this now but I was wondering what I wanted to talk about today and for inspiration I looked at the fire going in our fireplace here at home. We bought a cord of wood about a month ago and we have been heating our house in this way for the season thus far. Though we have an oil heating system in the basement that kicks on when the temperature gets too low, we have been pretty steady in our efforts to keep our waste down and our house warm and comfortable. Though we have been pretty good about our heating situation, it could be much better than it is for relatively cheap. The only problem is the time it would take to create such a piping system for our house knowing that we will be moving out in the next few years. 

When it comes to heating your place when you are in college this is the common dilemma if you are concerned with keeping bills and waste low. For us the next step would not be to create such a piping system for our house but it would be to find a wood stove that would fit in to our fireplace. The efficiency of regular fireplaces like we have is pretty low. Most of the radiant heat. which is exactly what fireplaces are used for, is released right up the chimney with the smoke and embers. With a wood burning stove you get all of the surface area of the fire right in the house and then you can pipe that around the house if you know how to do it. For people out there with electric or only oil heat, the best thing I would have to say for you is that you really just need to look at your priorities because you may not need to walk around in your underwear all winter if you want to keep the bills low. It may just be sweater weather inside and out. 

If I had it my way though I probably wouldn’t use anything like this if it were my ow house that I have built i the future. I would most predominantly use something like geothermal heat, which is collected from underground pockets of heat like those that fuel hot springs. I would also utilize solar energy for the pumps and if needed, and probably for cathartic reasons, I would have a wood stove just because I love them. Even with sustainability in mind I still have to think of my sanity and there is very few things that stick out in my mind as better for the soul in the winter than sitting by a hot fire. 

This week we got a big mix of what seems to be extremely troubling news about the financial state of the country and the world at large. Some pretty big actions have been taken by some of the biggest investment banks and the government to try and salvage the economy and the structure of our society at this point. I have been trying my best to simply ignore the things that I have been hearing because there is nothing I can do about it. All that the people down here on the bottom can really do is hope that everything works out in the end and try to keep going without the comfort we held before.

One of the way that I am doing this is by looking at a lesser known story from earlier in the week. This week GM unveiled their new electric car called the Volt. They held their little press conference and showed off the vehicle. I am sure that everyone who left that day with their corporate gifts in hand was happy to see the newest model, but sharing a question that I am also having around this story. What is the price for such a car?

GM showed off their new car as the latest in a long line of electric designs that has put this one at the fore. In terms of the marketability of this vehicle I think that they surely kept that in mind when designing it. We all have see the Toyota Prius, I love it, out there on the road and thought about how funny the design of the body is. It doesn’t look to me to be that aerodynamic and for many the fact that it is not what could be called stylish would shoot it right out of the pool of new cars they’d buy. The Volt ont the other hand is designed to be the most aerodynamic car GM has ever built thus making it look and handle like a sportscar of old. This sort of contradicts what we would think of when we imagine a hybrid or fully electric car but they have pulled it off here.  GM has also managed to create a product that those who car about environmental initiative can feel happy about. The battery life on this one is around forty miles and then the gasoline engine kicks in to keep the battery charged for hundreds more. It is also only about four cents a mile on avaerage to drive and charge this little baby up for around eight hours a night.

All in all I think that GM has made a winner here. I just hope that they don’t stop here and they move all the way in to the future with this design and they don’t kill it with the price.

MindBodyPlanet 23

It is the duty of the youngest generations of us to be idealistic and driven to change those things we see around us which give us pause. In my life there are plenty of things that force me out of my own little comfortable bubble and make me want to cry sometimes. When I find these inexplicable occurrences I choose not to ever hide my face and run away. These are lessons given to us from some higher power to make us open our eyes. 

You may be wondering why I have gotten myself all worked up and on this soap box. Well i am standing up here because I am now part of a little campus group that hopefully will turn in to something of a movement. We are a group of students for social change and we understand that as a group we must be committed to the betterment of social justice and living everywhere. We have structured ourselves much in the way of Amnesty international in our written guide, but we want to take a more active role in the social causes and how to change them. Where amnesty would be campaigning against the leader of a country who commits genocide, we would do the that but we would also look at the reasons buried under the genocide. 

One of our biggest committed issues is that of climate change. As you all know it is quite an intricate and divisive kind of issue in the country and around the world, and we want to take a big bite out of it. Our group has a greta liberal leaning in our stance on these issues and so we also wish to spread our word through dialogue. We have set up some speaking events as well as debates to try and bring more people in to the fold. At these events we will of course be giving out promotional gifts to help get our namer around. As with any group even promotional pens can turn your garage project in to Microsoft simply by landing them in the right hands. Through these meetings and discussions we want to not only further our own agenda, but try to bridge the political gaps that keep these issues in a dead lock. IF we as students can achieve even a few minor successes I think we can act as an inspiration or even a driving force behind some real change in the places where it really makes a difference. 

Mind Body Plant 21

I know we are all hearing various things about the current presidential race on every issue you can imagine. Every day it seems that there is some new issue being brought up and some big time speech being made on the issue. I will go ahead and just say that I am personally affiliated with the Obama campaign and there are just a couple of reasons for that. One of them being his stance on the issues of those who are oppressed, his views on rising costs of health care and health insurance, and the other thing is his stance on global warming. His policies and views on the issue are quite progressive and it seems to me that he is the only one of the candidates so far that has been fully committed to actually looking and working toward some kind of a solution to this complex and impending issue.

Of course when you look at all of the facts of global warming and the things that have come out of the scientific community, you can validate just about any view you want to. There are as many scientists with their own models for the future out there as there are viewpoints on the issue. Though the consensus is that there is an issue and that global warming is a human caused phenomenon at this point more so that a natural cycle, the effects of that influence are the murky area. Many people believe that we are standing on the doorstep of a catastrophic failure of all of the earth’s systems. Other believe that this is just a normal cycle of the weather on this planet. Then there are the shades in between.

I personally lean a lot farther towards the side of a catastrophic problem looming on the horizon. I think that we have seen enough powerful storms and pollution related problems, that even if the warming is not what does it, the destruction of food systems and ecosystem are what will. We as a species have taken advantage of this planet and turned it on it’s ear. We have lived for much too long and changed too many things to say that we have no power to stop what is going on. Business can adapt, people can change their habits, and society can learn to function without all of its waste. I think I am just one of many right now saying the same thing. This all part of the pendulum swinging the other direction. We had the industrial revolution a hundred and fifty years ago, now we have to have the green revolution today. If we do not make the right decisions here and now, our children may suffer, and theirs may never have a planet to live on.

Ithaca Farmer’s Market(2)

Yesterday I was talking to you all about the farmer’s market, or trying to at least, here in Ithaca, New York. The main farmer’s market here is held every Saturday in the morning until around two or three when everyone starts to really thin out and go home with their produce and things. I got a chance to go to the market here for the first time yesterday and I must tell you that it made our markets here look kind of funny and like small children trying to do something greater than their means. Though our own local markets are doing well on their own, I can only hope that with the current developments in the minds of people around this country, that the organization and sense of community at home will grow.

After our chores in the morning, which today included picking the melons that were ripe and the beans that were so crispy, we had piled in to the vehicles. Off down the road in our veggie cars, we drove through downtown Ithaca and on to the market. When we pulled n to the parking lot there were almost no spaces left anywhere. When we finally got two they were not in sight of each other. The first thing that I noticed about this market was that it had it’s own building. This was not like back home where it is a converted parking lot or a street that has been closed for a few hours. No this was a huge wooden structure with a big farmer’s market sign on the front. It looked like it could have been a nice sized strip mall if it were all closed up and made of concrete or something.

The farmer’s market was just amazing on the inside. There were booths for everything. It would be like if you were to gather up all of the various vendors from around our town’s markets and put them in one place, then add another twenty or thirty unique booths. I got lunch at this organic Cambodian booth and I bought enough local Organic produce to fill up my big cooler on wheels. The thing that blew me away the most though above all else about this market was that it as a whole was devoted and committed to being a no waste market. At each entrance there were two cans for waste. One bin was for compost and one bin was for recyclables and there was a sign over each one showing what should go inside of them. Then there was a small can just for coffee cup lids which are a unique type of recyclable plastic. I mean this was like a conservationist’s dream. I certainly recommend that all of you out there take time and check this market out.

Ithaca Farmer’s Market

Good evening all. I am back at the computer tonight after a long and wonderful day here in Ithaca. If you didn’t read form yesterday, I got here two nights ago to an intentional community that my friends are a part of. I’m staying here until the 23^rd so I may have lots of different things to tell you about. Expect plenty of inspired entries since I am surrounded by a very amazing community of people. Today our itinerary was basically just one item. I wanted more than anything to see the famous Ithaca farmer’s market.

This morning there were some chores to get done before we could do anything else. I was more than happy to help out with some tasks since I want to eventually live in a community like this and because I am staying here for free. My task for the morning was to collect up the eggs that had been laid in the hours before we got up. So around seven I went out in to the yard between the garden and the woods where there is some flat grass and I collected about thirty eggs. These chickens are grass fed and totally free range so their eggs are significantly larger and of better quality than normal eggs that you would find in any supermarket. There were no duck eggs but we had plenty of eggs for my friend Jamie to make her amazing eggs Ranchero. She made them with onions, green peppers, and garlic from the garden as well as salsa that another housemate made this morning.

After breakfast we all pilled in to the car which is another topic which I might need to discuss at length. My friends Jamie and McKenzie who used to live here in town before they graduated, bought a new car about a year ago. The car they found on Craigslist and it was like a dream come true. It was a 2000 Volkswagen Jetta that had been converted to run on vegetable oil. Every week they used to pick up oil from shops around town and then just filter it at night in their back yard. Then they simply pour the oil in their car and go. They go through a tank of gas about once every month or so when they have been driving a lot. This summer though they have only put in one tank of gas and just a lot of vegetable oil. The van that the others took is also powered by vegetable oil and they actually converted it here themselves at the house when they all moved here. The process I hear is not hard if you have a mechanic on hand and so I think that this is where we should be moving if we want to really becoming independent of oil consumption.

I just realized I have made a bit of a mistake and took too much time going off on my little veggie oil tangent and I have run out of time for the day. I will continue this story tomorrow and maybe I will have some new things to talk about as well and keep me from the topic even longer.