electromagnetic impulse

10:55am: *dies*

see more politics and fun!

5:50pm: new art!
This is a collograph by MFA student Bret Hanson, entitled Neither Here Nor There. Bret just graduated (last month). This piece was included in his MFA dissertation show, and at the opening reception, we discussed it for quite a while, because I fell madly in love with it. The aqueducts, the night sky, the shadow of our ancestors in both, the flickering allusion to stonehenge, portals, access to worlds beyond this world----i adore it.

i adore it so much that i spent the next two weeks figuring out how i could afford to buy it; i wanted that much to look at it every day. So then yesterday, he delighted me by coming into the office and giving it to me. A gift. for helping him with stuff over the last two and some years. which is my job. which i like to think i'm good at, but gifts of art go way above and beyond as a thank-you! especially art like this!

This crooked photo, taken under flourescent lighting with a flash, does not do the piece justice by half. You'll just have to come to my office and look at the real item! I hung it up right behind my desk. I kind of want to bring it home, but i can't think where we'd put it. ETA: Here is more of Bret's artwork.

2:48pm: Tree in need of good home
Anybody want a 15-gallon "fat boy" blue spruce? it's currently about 3.5' tall, 2.5' wide (approx), but it will grow up to be a big wide tree, with that sweet spruce smell. Holly is getting rid of it (it was a gift and she doesn't have a good place for it; it is in a big pot right now) and i promised I'd ask around. if you know somebody who might want it, we can communicate and i'll put Holly in touch with them.

1:34pm: notes on today
i hate voicemail. it's the most annoying thing ever. i feel harrassed by the little red light on my work phone. nobody should ever leave me voicemails at work. i'll never check them. and if i do, i won't call back. (that's not really true for my home phone, though one of my longest-lasting resistances to cell phones was that they force you to use voicemail instead of a nice, honest, answering machine.)


but i love summer. it's really really gorgeous out. it got up to 93˚ yesterday. beautiful. the heat is a benediction and balm. i walked out of my excessively-refrigerated (read: fucking freezing) office building yesterday into that heat, and i thought, i could die happy right now. this is perfect. and it only gets better from here.

until October, anyhow.

( growing food, a book review and some gardening notes )

1:12pm: book meme, ganked from changingone77

( 106 least-read books, according to teh intarwebs )

4:08pm: Public Service Announcement: context-free friending
if you've recently friended me, and have not left me a comment or dropped me an email saying who you are, and are someone i do not know in real life, please do not expect me to friend you back until i know who you are.

i'm glad to friend people that i might have something in common with, quite certainly including people i've had a good conversation with, but as is stated on my info page, i require context. i use this LJ to discuss a lot of aspects of my real life, and i require it to be a safe space, and i maintain it as such. it's rude to add people without saying hello.

if you are one of the several people who have recently friended me without providing such a context, feel free to leave a comment here and tell me who you are and what we might have in common that would suggest we should be friends. i'll screen comments here to keep everyone's identity private, since i'm chewing you all out in public.

if i have already friended you, then this is not addressed to you, and i apologize for the f-list spam.

4:42pm: a really good article
about rape, and men's behavior, and social norms and expectations

5:04pm: Why Bother? Michael Pollan on environmental ethics
( this article completely kicks ass )

5:37pm: ganked from nalidoll
( Britain is Repossessing the U.S.A. )

12:32pm: korith is right. Daylight savings needs to be replaced---by changing our work hours!
My Arizona-bred soul is pleased with the news. and would be more pleased if we would stop messing with the clocks twice a year. it costs me sleep, every time.

Daylight Saving Wastes Energy, Study Says
By Justin Lahart
February 27, 2008


For decades, conventional wisdom has held that daylight-saving time, which begins March 9, reduces energy use. But a unique situation in Indiana provides evidence challenging that view: Springing forward may actually waste energy.

( Read more... )

3:46pm: Praise What Comes, by Jeanne Lohman
Praise What Comes

surprising as unplanned kisses, all you haven't deserved
of days and solitude, your body's immoderate good health
that lets you work in many kinds of weather. Praise

talk with just about anyone. And quiet intervals, books
that are your food and your hunger; nightfall and walks
before sleep. Praising these for practice, perhaps

you will come at last to praise grief and the wrongs
you never intended. At the end there may be no answers
and only a few very simple questions: did I love,

finish my task in the world? Learn at least one
of the many names of God? At the intersections,
the boundaries where one life began and another

ended, the jumping-off places between fear and
possibility, at the ragged edges of pain,
did I catch the smallest glimpse of the holy?

~ Jeanne Lohmann ~

5:12pm: photos from the work day
( We don't have photos of the After yet, but here are some wonderful Before and During photos from Saturday morning. )

11:34am: Urban Sustainability
Some really good points, and some that i disagree with. my annotations are in brackets. :)

Cities, peak oil, and sustainability
by Toby Hemenway


In mid-August I drove to a party in the country outside of Portland, Oregon. Twenty miles of freeway took me to a two-lane road that wound ten miles up steep forested hills and down through remote valleys. As the roads grew narrower and less traveled, I began to wonder how, if gas hits $5 or $10 a gallon, people and supplies will reach these isolated spots. What kind of post-oil vehicle will climb this hilly, winding road that quite literally goes nowhere--a converted truck run on home-made biodigested methane? Then, after I arrived at the secluded acreage, I questioned whether my hosts could really supply most of their own needs, just the two of them and their kids.

I think these isolated places will disappear the way that Roman outposts in Britain and Gaul did during the empire’s decline.

In a recent issue of this magazine (Permaculture Activist 54 p. 2, “Designing Beyond Disaster”) I wrote that when I moved to the country 11 years ago, I assumed that rural people use fewer resources than urbanites, but now that I’m back in the city I can see that isn’t true.

( urban vs rural survival in a post-oil world )

5:11pm: it's the method of creating them, not the biofuels themselves, but...
( Biofuels Deemed a Greenhouse Threat )

9:28am: wallstreet decides not to finance coal-fired power!
this is a major breakthrough!

Wall Street Shows Skepticism Over Coal: Banks Push Utilities To Plan for Impact Of Emissions Caps
By JEFFREY BALL
February 4, 2008

Three of Wall Street's biggest investment banks are set to announce today that they are imposing new environmental standards that will make it harder for companies to get financing to build coal-fired power plants in the U.S.

( coal's not green, no matter how you cut it, and Citigroup, JP Morgan, and Morgan Stanely all know it )


( Getting Plastic Out of Your Diet )

4:53pm: How to Set Up a Yurt

( How To Set Up a Yurt )

4:34pm: winter night

3:53pm: Everything Anybody Ever Asked About The Yurt
Thanks to crankles for the prompt to write this up!


( Detailed Q&A about Yurt construction, materials, methods & tools, with photos )

4:47pm: by popular demand...
( Photos of the Interior of the Yurt. )


i love living inside a circle.

5:38pm: Yurt! this time, photos.
Yurt Pics! and the whole deck, too.





( the spider's web )


Yurt!

7:13pm: *dies laughing*





Thank you, Dad!

4:58pm: an even better idea
http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1224/

Germany Requiring Renewable Energy for Every New Building

Buildings are responsible for about one-third of global energy use. But there are many ways to change that equation; strengthening building codes is one clear arena. In my community, for example, 20 years ago, the ceiling "R" (insulation level) requirement was R-13, today it is R-38 (though expert guidance is "at least R-45" and most of us who care about energy strive for above R-50). That sort of change leads to significant reductions in energy use.

Well, the German government has just announced new building codes that will change the landscape when it comes to distributed renewable power: Starting 1 January 2009, all new homes built in German will have to meet 14 percent of total energy consumption for heating and domestic hot water with renewable power.

Heating is a fruitful space for renewable power, especially in new construction, as this can rely on solar thermal heating especially associated with radiant heating systems (whether in radiators or in the floors/walls). Thus, solar hot water systems can easily beat the 14 percent target. In Vermont, a rough corollary for Germany, one can meet 50 percent of home hot water requirements with solar hot water with "excellent architectural flexibility." And the financial payoff for that solar hot water will be relatively quick (dependent on fuel prices, installation cost, etc., perhaps 5-8 years).

Heating buildings is about 40 percent of total German energy consumption with just six percent of that renewable power today. The overall target for 2020 is 14 percent. Thus, starting in 2010, older buildings will require renovation to bring renewable contribution to their heating to at least ten percent.

As per the Renewable Energy reporting, there are a number of things going on with this bill that will help spark action:

* Fines of up to 500,000 Euros ($700,000) for failing to meet these requirements;
* $350 million Euros / year in subsidies for helping homeowners install renewable energy systems (including solar and wood stoves)
* Home energy ratings will be introduced in 2008, which will create a favorable public statement for more efficient buildings.
* Baden-Wurttemberg already has a law requiring new buildings provide 20 percent of their heating and hot water requirements from renewable sources.
* There is an associated effort to improve home energy efficiency with, for example, increased insulation.

The German government estimates that 1960s homes use four times the energy for heating than a modern, energy-efficient home.

The bill is estimated to have an annual cost across the economy of 31 billion euros per year. But, the 36 billion euros per year in lower bills for coal, oil, and gas will offset this without considering other benefits (such as reduced pollution, reduced requirements to move that coal, oil, gas, etc).

12:25pm: best idea i've seen in a while
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22896334-2,00.html

*************************************************

A West Australian medical expert wants families to pay a $5000-plus "baby levy" at birth and an annual carbon tax of up to $800 a child.

Writing in today's Medical Journal of Australia, Associate Professor Barry Walters said every couple with more than two children should be taxed to pay for enough trees to offset the carbon emissions generated over each child's lifetime.

Professor Walters, clinical associate professor of obstetric medicine at the University of Western Australia and the King Edward Memorial Hospital in Perth, called for condoms and "greenhouse-friendly" services such as sterilization procedures to earn carbon credits.

And he implied the Federal Government should ditch the $4133 baby bonus and consider population controls like those in China and India.

Professor Walters said the average annual carbon dioxide emission by an Australian individual was about 17 metric tons, including energy use.

"Every newborn baby in Australia represents a potent source of greenhouse gas emissions for an average of 80 years, not by breathing but by the profligate consumption of resources typical of our society," he wrote.

"Far from showering financial booty on new mothers and rewarding greenhouse-unfriendly behaviour, a 'baby levy' in the form of a carbon tax should apply, in line with the 'polluter pays' principle."

Australian Family Association spokeswoman Angela Conway said it was ridiculous to blame babies for global warming.

"I think self-important professors with silly ideas should have to pay carbon tax for all the hot air they create," she said. "There's masses of evidence to say that child-rich families have much lower resource consumption per head than other styles of households.

But the plan won praise from high-profile doctor Garry Egger. "One must wonder why population control is spoken of today only in whispers," he wrote in an MJA response article.

3:23pm: craft fair
The ASUNM Craft Fair is going on, today, tomorrow & friday, 11-7 (except friday, 10-6) in the Student Union Ballroom at UNM.

They have absurd amounts of jewelry this year, an astonishing variety of it. and knitted things, and ornaments and ceramics and glass things and candles and cards and artwork and soaps and massage oil. no musical instrument makers this year, somehow. i missed Ingrid with her flutes & didjes, and i hope she comes later and just somehow wasn't set up yet--i was there pretty soon after they opened, as i dropped by on my lunch break today.

it's full of temptation, all the same. turquoise earrings and copper hair clips and Jesse's always-tempting always-gorgeous jewelry (korith, have you seen his tree of life pendant with stones at the sepheroth? it's quite striking). Diana's there, too, and we talked a while, and then i ran into Wendeleh. if i needed more dishes, i'd be tempted by a lovely set of black and red crackle-glazed bowls.

hmmmm.

11:18am: cleaning up oil spills with hair
Hair and mushrooms create a recipe for cleaning up oily beaches
San Francisco Chronicle


A group of guerrilla volunteers is cleaning oil from San Francisco's beaches using an unorthodox, albeit totally organic, method: human hair and mushrooms.

Using mats made of hair, they are absorbing the droplets of oil that have washed ashore since a cargo ship rammed the base of a Bay Bridge tower last week, spilling 58,000 gallons of fuel.

Hair, which naturally absorbs oil from air and water, acts as a perfect sponge, said Lisa Gautier of San Francisco, who provided 1,000 hair mats. They are about the size of a doormat, tightly woven with dark hair,
and feel somewhat like an S.O.S pad.

While the mats may not be the obvious choice among hazardous waste experts, they hit San Francisco's green chord: More than 700 volunteers have tried them in recent days. Organizers hope their success will inspire more ecological responses to toxic waste removal.

Gautier had 1,000 of them on hand because she runs a nonprofit, Matter of Trust, which matches donations from businesses with needy nonprofits. She collects human hair from Bay Area salons and sends it to Georgia to be woven into mats, which she then gives to the San Francisco Department of the Environment to absorb used motor oil.

Once the mats are soaked with black gunk, oyster mushrooms will take over, growing on the mats and absorbing the oil.

National mushroom expert Paul Stamets was in town the weekend after the spill for the Green Festival, heard of Gautier's work and donated $10,000 worth of oyster mushrooms to harvest on the oily hair mats.

Gautier said the mushrooms will absorb the oil within 12 weeks, Gautier said, turning the hair mats into nontoxic compost.

"You make it like a lasagna," Gautier said. "You layer the oily hair mats with mushrooms and straw, turn it in six weeks, and by 12 weeks you have good soil."

The soil may not be good enough to grow carrots but is certainly good enough to use for landscaping along roads, she said.

The Environmental Protection Agency caught wind of the hair brigade and is giving the volunteers four-hour classes to certify them to clean up oil, Gautier said.

Cole Hardware provided discount white Tyvex protection suits, and city workers from the Department of the Environment pitched in the 800 hair mats they had on hand.

On Tuesday, volunteers used the mats and white plastic forks to gingerly lift tiny oil blobs from the sand at Ocean Beach.

"It's interesting how when we are challenged, we become more inventive," said volunteer David Hirtz, who lives nearby and is a member of the Neighborhood Emergency Response Team run through the San Francisco Fire Department.

"Instead of yelling and complaining and blaming, you are doing something about it," he said.

By Tuesday afternoon, piles of garbage bags full of the used hair mats were sitting on Ocean Beach. Gautier says they will be placed in bins until she can locate a place to make one huge pile and sprinkle in the mushrooms. She's tried to contact people from the O'Brien's Group, hired by the ship owner to do cleanup with skimmers, to ask them to take the pile, but so far hasn't gotten a response.

The Coast Guard, which in the first days after the spill turned hundreds of volunteers away from the beaches due to safety concerns, was not delighted when informed of the latest eco-volunteer effort.

"I live in San Francisco, too, and I understand wanting to clean the beach in a way that's good for the environment, but this stuff is toxic, and people who are not trained shouldn't touch it," said Coast Guard Petty Officer Mariana O'Leary.

Gautier said nearly all the people using hair mats have since been trained. Even so, she ran out of hair mats Tuesday.

She's been talking with a company in China that makes industrial-sized hair mats about getting more shipped to San Francisco. Gautier said she can even have large sea booms made by stuffing hair into nylon stockings.

"This can completely revolutionize oil spill cleanup," she said, reaching down with a mat to soak up a glob on Ocean Beach.

Two barefoot joggers passed by.

"That's amazing," Gautier said. "Haven't they heard it's dangerous out here?"