Blogs

An article in inhabitat.com describes the world's first molten salt solar plant, which just went online in Italy.  The plant uses molten salt to store heat from the sun; the heat is used to produce steam to drive a turbine that generates power much in the same way a hydro-electric plant does.  Because the molten salt has such high inertial heat, the plant can generate power around the clock.

The Back-to-School ritual that happens ever fall is one of those tides of consumption that periodically sweeps over us in our lives.  We can easily avoid the pit fall of clothing right now as our son is still young and having new trendy things is not important to him.  We are very proud of our little guy who gladly accepts cast-offs and thrift store clothes.  This may change when he gets nearer to his teenage years. 

Well, since my husband and I signed up to Riot 4 Austerity this year, we have been taking a close look at the 7 basic areas and their relationship to our life style.  We passed with flying colors in 5 areas.  The areas we found that we could really reduce our impact was driving and food.

Recently an article on incinerators came into my lap.

www.nytimes.com/2010/04/13/science/earth/13trash.html?pagewanted=1&th&em...

We are under 20 gallons per day per person.  The Riot4Austerity goal is 10 gallons per person per  day.  The almost 20 gallons we use includes some outdoor watering and some for my work as a costumer.  Textiles is a water intensive profession so we are proud to be as close as we are.

I know I have only lived here for 7 years which isnt long compared to some of the families who have been here for generations but I love it here and there are things I want for the community.

I want there to be no more building on San Bruno Mountain. End of story.

Earlier we talked about how to make your own rain barrel.  The rain barrel project was easy to do, and it was very exciting to see how quickly the barrels filled up when it rained.  Unfortunately, it was also a bit disappointing to see how quickly those sixty-five gallons of water were used up watering the yard when the rain stopped.  C

Recently we set up a TerraCycle collection program for my son's school. We collect certain items and for each item TerraCycle donates 2 cents to the school. Its a little money and great big feeling of happiness that our world is going to be a cleaner place.

For most of 2009 we kept a list of everything new we purchased. We called this the Red List because we happened to have a red pen that we used to record everything.

Rescue a beloved object.   Our son's favorite shirt had a very short life on account of it being a white shirt and his being 6 years old. He didn’t want to give it up. Mom found a second hand shirt, cut out the graphic and sewed it onto the front of the new shirt and presto! A new improved, larger, not-worn-out shirt.