Voluntary Blackouts?

I go to school and work in a large state university. Recently, a bunch of idealistic student banded together to form a sustainability group for our campus. Very much wanting to support them, I (literally) bought the t-shirt (organic American Apparel cotton, by the way--very soft!) and joined the facebook group asking me to vote "yes" for renewable energy during the student elections in 2 weeks. Yes, I have a facebook profile with 2 friends, okay? Anyway, For 50-cents per credit hour the campus can raise 645k per year to buy energy from "green" sources or buy the technology to create its own power.

Now, I'm not saying this is not a good idea. I just think that if we are really, truly going to get serious about conservation and making sacrifices for the sake of the planet, I think we need to start thinking a little more off the grid, as it were. We need to start thinking hard about the possibility of voluntary or prescribed blackouts.

Here's a link to an email call to action asking people to voluntarily turn off their electricity the first day of summer. In 2001. So, almost 6 years later, I'm thinking "I wonder if I can get everyone on my street to do a voluntary blackout for one night?" My street is pretty diverse and the range of answers would go from "you bet" to "you crazy?"

In 2006 the City of Waterloo posted a news release that hailed their own voluntary blackout in August a success.

What would a prescribed blackout look like? When would it take place and who would be exempted? We really need to think these issues through. People might freak and claim fascism is alive and afoot in the states but it's going to happen so we should get used to the idea. And if it doesn't happen on a voluntary basis it's going to be forced on us.

Dome home!

I live in a wacky place in North Central Florida which has a diverse community and a long and rich history of freaky-deaks. If the 1970's contributed nothing to our overall enjoyment of life in the new millenium (other than a seemingly endless retro parade of its fashions [please end already, it's been 15 years]), it has given us the dome home. I drive by one on the days I'm driving DJ to or from his preschool. I find it fascinating and hope to do a short video or photo entry about it very soon.

In the meantime, this was an ebay listing called "Unique Triple Dome Home" that ended in July 2006, just about the time I was starting AE.

I contacted the seller and asked for the photos. We'll see if he or she returns my email or thinks I'm just a wacko, which is probably a wise assumption.

I've been fascinated with dome homes for a long time. There is the Monolthic Dome Institute in Italy, Texas (the last bastion of hippiedome if you ask me) where they can make your dome home aspirations a reality. Their forums have things other than dome homes that Texans and Floridians would find interesting, such as The 'things crashing into stick houses' thread which I encourage you to view at your leisure.

Here is the original AE posting on alternative housing. I will be getting back to this subject very soon!

Update:
I just emailed Monolithic Dome Institute to let them know I blogged about them -- I think that's the first time I've ever done that. Oh, yeah, I also hit them up for one of their Monolithic Dome 2007 calendars. I don't think that's payola, is it? Nah!

My shamps is making me fat!

Okay, this really sucks. I know I made the resolution to be nicer to Ideal Bite in my entries about them, but now I'm actually reading it and taking stuff away from it to use in real life. This time I read something about how the parabens in things like shampoo can make you fat, not to mention dead from cancer (okay, there is a link but not direct evidence of the last). Even though the Ideal Biters have a dead link to studies on their entry about parabens I found a website which discusses the whole issue and an article on Medweb which also speaks all cool and science-y about it (you may have to sign up with Medweb in order to access the article, though, like I did).

Dish Guy

So close! The Old Man and I came so close to getting a portable dishwasher for our walk-in closet-sized kitchen. It was small, energy efficient, and water efficient. And, guess what? THEY DON'T MAKE IT ANYMORE! We attempted to buy it from Beast Buy and was initially able to get the order through online and then got an email a few days later regretting that they had to dash our hopes. Big-box bastards.
I'm stuck with my thread-bare joke "Do I have a dishwasher? I married him!" and the Old Man, well, he's stuck with some dirty dishes. He refers to being the only person in the household to do the dishes as "the dish guy." It stems from having all those lazy roommates (or being one yourself) who refuse to do the dishes, and the one person who finally gets fed up enough to dump the dishes in the bathtub (and I had a roommate who actually did that) gets promptly dubbed "dish guy" and is forever relegated to the ignominious household chore for the rest of the time they are in that particular living situation.
Anyway, I got this Ideal Bite tip the other day and by golly, it is actually something that I could use and did not turn lip up in sneer mode. And, quite confidentially, it has been a burning question for a long time -- how do you do dishes the old fashioned way? I mean, this sounds really dumb, but I have never washed dishes in a washtub or in a water-filled sink. I'm sure I waste gallons upon gallons of water doing a sinkful (canceling out any benefit from not bathing every day, I'm sure). But dang it, if those gals at Ideal Bite didn't give me the 4-1-1 on how do them like grandma. Here's the link to that tip.

Slingshot 2007 Organizer

Go out, quickly, to the independent bookseller/rekid shop/meeting hall in your neighborhood and get the new Slingshot organizer. I waited and got stuck with the small, saddle bound version -- not a bad thing in itself, but the larger, spiral-bound version allows for laying flat your life and spreading out.
I use it primarily as a little diary, to record milestones ("DJ burped loud and long today") or to make sure I'm on board with class assignments. Besides being pleasingly original to the eye, it also has little factoids to help you. For instance, Sunday, January 28th has 3 entries:
1945 the Naples Congress, first congress of the united trade union movement in liberated Italy
1961 Committee for Nonviolent Action demonstrates against nuclear-armed ships, Connecticut
1998 France: 200 members of the Farmers Confederation destroyed a warehouse of GE corn
Yay! Just like me and the Old Man tell DJ every day the 3 things to live a good life:

1. Stick it to the Man
2. Smash the syndicate
3. Bring down Mr. Big

I can't tell if I got Many Bricks, Many Windows red, Red Emma red, or Blood on Our Hands red. It's red and I promptly covered it with packing tape to keep it from shredding in the bowels of my slingpack. It's too awesome! Here's the website of the organization what produces this lovely addition to my backpack.

Convenient Truths: a green video contest

A one-two minute video about how you are padding lightly on the earth could win you some serious money for that super-duper composter you've been slavering over. Check it out on the Treehugger website. Thanks to "B" once again for the cool tip!