A hard rains a gonna fall

When madness become normal.   Here’s a story about how forest land is being turned into sand as far as the eye can see – have a look at the photos with the article; it’s about strip-mining forests to extract oil from sand in the soil: “Over the course of three days spent visiting reserves, band offices and the vast sand dunes left behind by the bitumen-scrubbers surrounding Fort McMurray, the Achuar confronted a reality that may one day be their own.... Read More

The Sustainable Communities Plan is on the web

Sydney City Council asked me to make a plan to make the whole suburb of Chippendale sustainable. It’s not just a plan for this suburb; it can be used to make any suburb sustainable – it’s free and you’re welcome to put it to work where you are. Now the Plan can be read on mobiles, kindles and is very easy to search, use and tweet.  Get it here: theplan.sustainablehouse.com… Enjoy. You can see some of the folks who support the Plan. Please sign the... Read More

Free Estimator for Solutions for Construction Pollution

Free Carbon Calculator   Here is a free estimator.  It’s an excel spreadsheet. Any developer, builder, designer, consultant, council or person may use it to estimate the pollution and impact caused by their project. Once you’ve estimated the impact the estimator suggests how you may offset the impact by investing in carbon farming and by turning food waste into soil. When we build projects we use water, energy, food and other resources.  We sometimes use more... Read More

Getting paid for solar credit

Today I phoned my electricity supplier, Origin, and asked them to pay me the credit due for the clean energy I’ve been selling them.   “Sure thing,” the Origin rep said on the phone, “Would you like that by cheque?”   “Yes”, I said.   “You should receive that in ten days.  Will there be anything else?”, she said.   So.  How about that?   When I put the system in in October 1996, some 15 years ago,... Read More

LED replacement lights for halogens

LumiSpot LS-DL04-7x1W Halogen downlights chew up energy and drive up your energy bill. An option for cutting your energy and electricity costs is to replace them with LED lights. For example, try the LED lights designed and sol by LumiSun, called, LumiSpot LS-DL04-7x1W. www.LumiSun.com… And the product brochure can be downloaded by taking the link at the top of this blog entry. May the LEDs be with you, Michael  Read More