Arctic Circle Cartoons » sustainable

Low Impact Living Video

admin — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 08:31:47 +0000

The local council commissioned a series of videos about what individuals can do to help the environment and they are finally online. Yours truly was in a webisode about low impact living in a small flat.

The Greening of Pittsburgh

admin — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 15:32:29 +0000

I first visited Pittsburgh in 1991 and I liked it then, but it’s even better now. There are cool (no chain store) shopping/eating areas like The Strip and Southside and lots of bike lanes are going in. We happened to be there on World Environment Day and the boyf’s old buddy, Doug Millar introduced us to Lee Ferraro, the general manager at WYEP, which is noteworthy as the radio station is in one of the city’s greenest buildings.

Doug, Duncan and Lee in the studio at WYEP Pittsburgh

Much of the building used recycled (75% of the steel, recycled jeans as insulation…) or sustainable (wheatboard, fly-ash concrete) materials with low volatile organic compounds and a design that promotes a healthy working environment. The increased building costs were quickly offset by the low energy use of the building and it seems like a great place to work (you can open the windows, yay!)

It also plays great music.

Earthship to dock in Ceres

admin — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 21:05:48 +0000

One of the most uplifting environmental films we watch last year was “Garbage Warrior“, about Michael Reynolds mission to build low cost, carbon neutral, recycled and self-sustaining dwellings called ‘Earthships‘.

For 30 years New Mexico-based Reynolds and his green disciples have devoted their time to advancing the art of “Earthship Biotecture” by building self-sufficient, off-the-grid communities where design and function converge in eco-harmony.

When I learned that the first Australian Earthship was to be built at CERES (Centre for Education and Research in Environmental Strategies) in Melbourne, I went to the meeting to find out more. CERES is a fantastic site – they describe it best themselves here.

I did very quick sketches of attendees of the meeting as a memory jogger - I'm rubbish at remembering names

They plan to build an Earthship this year, so there’s lots to do, including raising funds for the 12 person team that they want to bring from Taos, New Mexico (apparently this is the only option – they don’t allow less than 12 people to facilitate an Earthship build). Let’s hope that they allow the interns to be Australia-based. I would love to get some hands on experience of building an Earthship.

The site has to have space for the build and a big earth bern and it has to face full sun

Measuring out a potential site for the Earthship

Aquaponics

admin — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 22:18:53 +0000

Oscar experiments with aquaponics

Oscar shows Ed his aquaponic fish

These strips are based on a report I read on Treehugger, which has a more recent article here

…there is a huge amount of interest in combining hydroponics with fish farming for a mutually beneficial partnership. Most notably Will Allen’s Growing Power team in Milwaukee have shown how aquaponics can produce a remarkable amount of high-quality protein and veggies on very limited urban land.