Center of the Drum

This is a parabolic solar cooker at a Permaculture homestead in central Vermont. It is turned away from the sun in the photo, but rotate it 180 degrees and aim it at the Sun and within minutes, rice is cooking, onions are sizzling, and lunch is almost ready! There are different kinds of solar cookers and many are easy to make and even easier to use. These are saving lives in deforested regions and awakening people to the many uses of the free energy of the Sun.
Click Here for the Solar Cooking Archive

Follow the link below to find out about biodiesel, supplies and instructions for making it, kits to run your diesel engine on recycled cooking oil and more.

Click here!

Here’s the solar panel I recently mounted on the roof. It produces 100+ watts at 12 volts. The wires run through a waterproof gasket into the vehicle and down to the charge controller:

The charge controller takes the electricity from the panel on the roof, charges the batteries and sends the current to the fuse block where I connect everything I need to power; lights, vents, speakers, refrigerator and 12 volt sockets for charging batteries and running anything else. There’s also a small inverter that converts the 12v DC to 120v AC so I can run the juicer or other house-current appliances. I use 2 sealed deep cycle batteries. I can add another panel for faster recharging or an additional battery so that I can go for longer periods without sun.

I just finished putting together an hour-long video with Ross Gelbspan and John Seed speaking about aspects of climate change that don’t usually get discussed. They addressed a group of concerned humans at an event organized by Earthlands in central MA in the spring of ‘06.

Earthlands website

In this video, we hear details about the politics and profits behind the pollution, things we can do as individuals and communities, and ways to stay grounded when learning about and working to solve such a massive issue.

You can purchase DVD copies from the Rainforest Information Centre website. All donations go back into fantastic grassroots projects to protect and rehabilitate some of the world’s last wild places. You can also watch the video here:

Rainforest Information Centre website

This is a map of the nuclear power reactor sites in the US. This map only shows power generation plants, not research, testing, waste storage or weapons facilities:

Click here to watch a crazy animated timeline of the history of nukes in the US

Now… imagine all of the nuclear power plants around the world being decommissioned! The air space above them would be off limits to aircraft for safety/security reasons.

Large horizontal wind turbines, using kites and cables, could produce as much electricity as the nukes they replaced! The technology is here and small models are being tested. Here are some links to read more about this cool idea:

KiteGen Website

Wired Article

Treehugger Article

John Seed is back in North America for the Climate Roadshow! I picked him up in Ottawa, Ontario 7 days ago and we headed north and west, deep into an expanse of endless pine forest.

The week began with a 2 day workshop in Pembroke. About 35 people attended. It was a diverse crew; activists, scientists, Permaculture farmers, one totally amazing kid, and other local folks.

On Monday morning, John spoke to a group of about 50 high school students. Before the presentation, the students began by looking at the labels to see where their shirts were made. Then they marked a giant round map of the world with push-pins. Most of the shirts were manufactured in southern Asia and Central America. It was a lead off to discussions about corporate globalization and the human rights and ecological impacts of ‘free trade.’

John speaking at the Freeway Coffee House in Hamilton, Ontario

Since then, we have been doing presentations in a different town each evening, followed by a weekend workshop in a location central to the previous week’s events. We utilize experiential group processes to explore the cosmological, social, spiritual and emotional aspects of living an awake and engaged life in this time of great suffering and change.

After the presentation and videos, we engage in discussions and networking sessions. John is passionately encouraging people to start ‘Climate Study Action Groups’ in towns where there isn’t a group specifically focused on the climate issue. He says, “The single most important thing to do is to start with a small group of like-minded people and reach out to your immediate community.”

Here’s a video that gives an idea of what the evening presentations were all about.

There are video clips from Ross Gelbspan, Al Gore & Vandana Shiva. John reacts to the footage and speaks in detail about some of the things that were not covered in ‘An Inconvenient Truth.’ He addresses some of the problems that arise from rushing into solutions without thinking them through.

One example he gives is the European Union’s effort to encourage a switch to biofuels, sparking the Palm industry to expand into the wilderness of Borneo, burning and destroying huge areas of ancient tropical forests to clear the way for Palm oil plantations, releasing massive amounts of CO2 and driving the Orangutan closer to the brink of extinction.

Oil palm plantations in and around Tanjung Puting National Park in Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo.

Here are some links to good articles about this issue.

Click here

Click here

Click here

Click here

Last November, I traveled north, from San Francisco to Portland, with my buddy Larry. We were on a fact-finding mission for a new 2 year program, the University of the Wild. We visited program centers, research facilities, colleges and intentional communities. After events and visits with groups throughout the Bay Area, up into Mendocino and Humbolt counties, we reached the northern-most stretch of the California coastline.

That evening, in Arcata, California, about 200 people gathered for a celebration of local food and music. The instructions went out with the word-of-mouth invitation; come to a Bioregional Potluck! Every ingredient of every dish had to be grown and produced within 200 miles of the town, even the spices! All ingredients were wriiten on cards and placed in front of the dish. Other information was included, including the sources (farms, co-ops, gardens, etc.) from which the ingredients were procured, as well as the methods of preparation.

It was an omnivorous gathering, but that night, we were all ‘localvores!’

The goal was to highlight the amazing diversity of locally grown food and the ability to manifest self-reliance in food production and distribution. The plan in Arcata is to continue this kind of gathering, once a month, reducing the radius until all foods come from the immediate biological region, or Bioregion.

In the US, an item of food travels an average of 1500 miles from the place where it is grown to the place where it is purchased and consumed! Some of the positives of buying organic products can be negated by the distance and method with which the food is transported. Also factoring into the ‘food miles’ concept is the distance the consumer travels to increasingly centralized marketplaces. Many towns are losing their small stores in the downtown regions to the giant mega-stores, out of reach of pedestrians and bicycles.

Foods shipped long distances often require constant refrigeration and heavy packaging. Here are some links with more info on this subject:

food miles article #1

food miles article #2

University of the Wild website

After the climate roadshow wrapped up, I rolled down to Moonshadow at SVI in Tennessee. We had a few days to prepare for our week at Bonnaroo. Our m.o. is to get there 3 or 4 days before the 100,000 attendees arrive. We have a 20 x 20 foot tent in ‘PlanetRoo,’ the activism zone that festival-goers pass through to get from the peripheral camping zones to the 6 music stages.

Our crew of 23 began assembling a strawbale wall with two arches. It was covered in cob, a mixture of clay, sand, straw, water, and earth. It’s a lot like adobe, but the addition of the straw adds strength. There are structures made of cob all over the world. The most famous might be the houses in Devon, England, some of which are over 1000 years old.

Bonnaroo is insane! It’s dusty and hot and dry and flat and loud and nutty. The only way to not hear many bands at once is to get close to one of the stages. It goes all day and night for over 72 hours. This was my second time at the festival.

While most of our gang worked on the construction of the wall, 4 of us prepared a 45 minute set to perform each day on the Solar Stage.

The wall was a big attraction. We continued adding finishing touches as the festival got under way. That allowed people to come and watch the cob building process, ask questions and even get their hands and feet in the mud!

It was one of the coolest spots at the festival. The organic shapes and special artistic touches inspired people to come check it out and ask questions…

click to see more images of Bonnaroo