Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
-Fukushima nuclear disaster: PM at the time feared Japan would collapse
-Fukushima disaster: it’s not over yet
-Switch from nuclear power would cost Japan $280 bln-Greenpeace
-UK joins laser nuclear fusion project
-Thorium advocates launch pressure group
-Blast at French Nuclear Site Is Said to Kill 1 Person
How many times have you heard it: if we could tap into the energy embedded in our copious waste streams, we could usher in a new era of energy independence—freeing ourselves of the need to support oppressive regimes who happen to sit atop the bulk of the oil reserves in the world. In fact, these sorts of claims are abundant enough to give the impression that we have a cornucopia of fresh (and sometimes not so fresh) energy solutions to pursue if we got really serious. This is a hasty and dangerous conclusion, so in this case, waste makes haste.
Why don’t all of us country people (and I’m thinking especially of the imaginative and innovative readers of this blog) amuse ourselves by designing, and perhaps even building, the MOST COMFORTABLE OUTHOUSE IN THE WORLD. I am talking about an outhouse that even the Queen of England would die to have in her backyard. Can you imagine how we could change our cultural attitude toward shit with a photo of the Queen seated on her plush satin-covered outhouse throne, with a shining little cut glass chandelier overhead, surrounded by richly brocaded interior walls and exterior walls of beautiful soapstone?
Most people who follow renewable energy have heard of biogas by now, yet the origins and uses of biogas remain mysterious to many.
Have you ever wondered why we poop in fresh water? In Part 2 of an interview author Carol Steinfeld, we talk more in-depth about human waste as a resource. Carol, co-author of The Composting Toilet System Book and Reusing the Resource: Adventures in Ecological Wastewater Recycling, shares her extensive knowledge about human waste management practices around the globe, how to clear human waste of possible pathogens, and different waste-composting systems for the home.
Very few soils have a perfect balance of minerals. As a result, their fertility is limited and the crops grown on them cannot provide all the nutrients people need. As people can get food from elsewhere at present, these local deficiencies do not matter too much. However, if the option of filling one’s plate from all over the world disappears, human health will likely decline unless the missing minerals are applied over the next few years.
Have you ever wondered why we poop in fresh water? In this interview author Carol Steinfeld, of Ecowater Projects, talks about human waste as a resource. Carol, co-author of The Composting Toilet System Book and Reusing the Resource: Adventures in Ecological Wastewater Recycling, shares her extensive knowledge about human waste management practices around the globe, innovative ways of re-using this neglected and often taboo material, and discusses why peeing outside might be a good idea.
While recently shoveling aged horse manure around the berry vines on my small organic farm to fertilize them, which gives me great pleasure, I thought about what I have learned about the community of the land by farming over the last two decades.
Neither an economist nor a formally trained scholar, Dmitry Orlov is perhaps best described in his own words, as “more of an eyewitness” to the phenomenon on which he writes. He’s a Russian émigré who saw the Soviet Union fall firsthand and has been drawing on this experience in warning of the coming U.S. collapse. He came to fame five years ago with a smash-hit Internet article that won him a loyal following and a subsequent book deal. The book, Reinventing Collapse, is now in its second edition—and regardless of how well it holds up to scholarly scrutiny, it’s admirable in its wit and prodigious street smarts.
Waste is an obsolete concept: the future is one without waste where materials will circulate through our economy rather than entering as raw materials at one end and being dumped into landfill at the other. his conception of the economy as circular is due to Kenneth Boulding, a leading figure in the development of a green approach to economics…
Danish director Michael Madsen’s ‘Into Eternity’ masterfully debunks industry claims that nuclear power is ‘clean’ energy. And its deadpan Nordic style and lush cinematography is hauntingly beautiful, creating a meditative mood on the deeply troubling topic of nuclear waste. English and Finnish with subtitles. 75 minutes.
Julian Cribb, Principal of Julian Cribb and Associates presentation on what are the future challenges to our food system at the National Sustainable Food Summit in Melbourne Australia on 5-6 April, 2011.
