I picked up a paper that discussed animal consumption ethics. Factory farming is a risky manufacturing process, yet we gobble prepared and nonlocal meats laced with perservatives every day. Wanna bet the runoff from those plants is pretty sour? Where does it go?

I am thinking of the chemical engineers who had eggs all over their faces when a woman who had sued their company for polluting her land found an “unknown” font of offpouring waste that inspectors just somehow missed. The burden is still on the tax payer to bring these firms to justice, who have doubtless secured the services of top notch consulting firms to keep their noses clean.

I sure hope none of the fish from those streams gets in my tuna. The toxic outpour was supposedly cleaned up, but how can a company be trusted wth two strikes already? I wonder sometimes if it will take the birth of a two headed baby linked directly to manufacturing toxins to make something happen.

There does not seem to be a legal deterrent strong enough to make such companies operate green. This begs the question, why are they allowed to stay in business? Should environmental standards be tightened? Grain fed beef and pork has a hidden price tag, an ugly one of animal cruelty. But even green and sustainable animal protein is a question mark.

Ethical eating should avoid toxic pesticides, hormones, and mass penned livestock swallowing food until judgement day. One look at any animal farming pen and you will feel queasy ordering beef or pork for days. Feedlot pneumonia from the animal standing in their own feces and urine makes the animals sick. Want fries with that?

I am noticing a powerful surge in local Freecycle listings and give and take on both sides. here is the entry so you can see how minute the item listings might be and how every thing passed on instead of binned saves landfill and creates a re-use opportunity instead of a consumer buy.

Tell the kids to source their projects materials online and the sky is the limit. That winter fort could be a-building. Moms, looking for quilting stuffs. Athletic equipment, just put out the offer. Someone could have what you want lying around and won’t know anyone wants it unless you post.

The smallest quantity can round out existing stores, springboard a new project, or get a creative mind thinking. Make sure to sign up for your local Freecycle newsletter and scan them daily. Share them at work. Who knows what will happen?

. 1  TAKEN: hp inkjet cartridges (burbank) From: bbussard

2.

WANTED: plywood – at least 4′ long (Burbank 91504) From: keemer@pacbell.net

3.

OFFER- Way to much to list (Burbank 91505) From: djsoulr08@ymail.com

4.

TAKEN: Jitterbug Phone, Hands Free Car Kit, Car Charger From: rtaugie777

5.

OFFER: Yuban Coffee (Eagle Rock/Glendale) From: Vintage_Pinup

6.

WANTED: Baby Proof Locks for Cabinets (Pasadena) From: lisa kloetzli

7.

OFFER: Misc vacuum cleaner bags From: Evelyn Hansen

8.

OFFER: Commercial Royal vacuum – 91202 From: Evelyn Hansen

9.

OFFER: 1 brown rooster [Burbank 91505] From: lucilaoneil

10.

OFFER: Real budgie eggs [Burbank 91501] From: aftra_sag

11.

OffEr: AIWA Karaoke machine- 91202 From: Evelyn Hansen

12.

TAKEN- Women’s 16-18 Clothing From: Chan

13.

TAKEN: 36″ Television AND Pioneer Speakers Burbank 91505 From: courtneythegreat

14.

WANTED: Cookie tins (Eaglerock) From: jaqact

15.

WANTED: Xmas Fabric scraps (Eaglerock) From: jaqact

16.

OFFER: JVC Compact component cd R/RW From: Evelyn Hansen

17.

OFFER: collection of news papers – Burbank From: jacewilson

18.

TAKEN: Tasco microscope From: Evelyn Hansen

19.

OFFER: 1.44MB 3.5″ floppy disks & 25-Pin, 10 ft cable – 91202 From: Evelyn Hansen

20.

RECEIVED: board game box (91206) From: ozziemopeediddy

21.

OFFER: Clarification = budgie eggs [Burbank] From: aftra_sag

22.

OFFER:   magazines – Burbank From: jacewilson

23.

OFFER: Book: Tarantulas, The biggest Spiders [91202] From: Evelyn Hansen

24.

TAKEN: JVC stereo From: Evelyn Hansen

25.

OFFER: Mocasins – 91202 From: Evelyn Hansen

Most of our shopping decisions our built on nostalgia, brand loyalty, and consumer participation. But generic brands often have comparative nutritional value. In fact, stores generate generic brand products based on their ability to mimic that product quality without advertising printing and a big brand. Compare how many generic products are available with the things you buy most. Bringing less expensive food into the home and looking at packaging is only the start. Look for ways to get informed about ecologically sound products and ethical industrial practices of the manufacturers you buy from the most.

A few years ago the small plates movement started up in restaurants that emphasized more quality, less mass in dining. This filtered down to home dining. Working with recipes to make dishes more appealing instead of depending on the layered oversupply of heavy proteins and sauces, starches and empty calories. Empty calories is a concept many people struggle with because their buying decisions are motivated by the planning of one meal or series of recipes.

Empty calories are those with no nutritive value and little redeeming caloric utility. Overbalanced snack foods are so salty and fattening the trace amounts of spare nutrition involved are negligible. Fast foods are leaded down with fats in the sauce and from the cooking and to the shelf life ingredients shipped across the country. Sweets with layered types of sugars and concentrated candy trims have little nutritive value. Just baking something using half the sugar and none of the artificial syrups and additives now common in commercial sweets is suggested.

Contrast this method of consumption with bulk purchase of sale frozen vegetables and cheap canned goods. Look for no salt options. Try keep the freezer filled with options that don’t negatively drive down the nutritive value of any meal. The more processed an item is, likely the less green it is. Look at the stuff that piles up in your refigerator and pantry unsued. Search the Internet for recipes to suit.

Now, how can that be green? Most advice columns solemnly prate that turnig the thermostat down can save winter fuel costs. But turning the thermostat WAY down is a mistake. This adds a power surcharge to the cost of doing business that is unnecessary. And it makes customers uncomfortable and patrons ill.

Three places I surveyed, a library, a fastfood restaurant, and an MTA bus all had their air conditioners cranked up. One problem: The weather outside is the mid-50’s of November. People were getting sick right left and center. Why this policy?

Consumers need to be just as vocal about this overchilling as they are about organically and ethically sourced products. The cost of those electric HVAC sprockets gets added into the menu, more’s the pity. Here I thought businesses shaved costs wherever they could.

I realized at the fast food restaurant the staff was actively discouraging late night walk in business by setting up the chairs for closing 3 hours before their posted closing time. I once saw a group of people walk in around 11 pm, and the place looked so closed down they asked the staff if they were still open.

Clearly the staff was engineering the cold to retard eat-in customers. The staff hosted visits from their families and kids in pajamas, and the families fully expected to be able to hang out. I’d hate to tbe the owner of that McDonald’s.

The library was a different story. To claim there was a “centralized system” when people complained about the cold arctic chill was disingenuous. I suggest they contact “central” and tell them it’s winter. This from a city government, by the way, that prides itself on green policies.

The bus powering the AC on was a case of pure carelessness. The driver was new and supposedly had no idea that passengers didn’t want icy gusts of air directed at them when it 53 degrees outside. Not understanding English, the third time I asked him to turn down the AC his supervisor translated into Spanish and he turned it off.

Sometimes all you have to do is ask.

1. Hold Heater ‘Office Hours”

Turning the thermostat down to 68 degrees is wonderful, if the whole family doesn’t get sick and start missing school and work. Get the family used to “office hours”, a set time each evening and morning when the heater is on and everything can get done.

Do chores, make lunches, switch laundry, iron clothes, fix dinner, clean rooms, and get bathed. The rest of the evening can pass in comfort without overextending natural immune system resources in the chill. As office hours for the heater draw to a close, withdraw the family into an inner shell of one heated room.

2. Get on the Road

If your family is headed into town or home after dark, expand the window of time spent away from home. If you’re expending the resources for gas anyway, pull out homework at the coffee shop or do your email after dinner at a friend’s house.

Shared space with humans involved creates heat at no cost. Park the car inside a parking garage or lot, garaged if possible, inside a “nest” of other cars so the mall trip home doesn’t chill the kids. Heating the car to go 15 minutes means the family dashes into the freezing house, while the nylon and plastic inside the car gives up heat to the atmosphere.

3. Talk to the Manager

Many public venues like restaurants, movie theaters, and libraries talk about “centralized systems” when individuals ask to turn the freezing AC off. It can be just laziness on the janitorial or managerial staff to switch the settings to a seasonal temperature. At 11:00 pm at night in an empty franchise restaurant, the AC doesn’t need to churn at the same speed it would on a 100 degree day. Some staff “condition” the public to go away by cranking up the AC.

Make a complaint to the owner if the policy does not change. Heating a grill and manning a staff of people for a dining room costs money. The owner may not even know. A fast food franchise that houses a dozen people in six hours is a tip off. If the staff is “closing” one part of the restaurant early, find out if the heating is still directed at that part of the place.

4. Conserve Transitions

Sometimes people feel more cold than others. This is usually because their bodies have undergone temperature changes at varying degrees of rapidity during that day. The body’s resistance wears down over time. If the kids need to take showers right when they get home and the house is cold, have one parent run inside and run the bath while the kids stay in the (still) warm car. Muffle up in wraps, scarfs and gloves before going outside and losing heat, then putting them on. Use car warm-up time to text work, communicate chores or dinner instructions, or review shopping notes or errand plans. Kids who stayed at the bus stop for extended cold times or played outside at school should stay in.

5. Have a Strip Off

Get a handle on the heat envelope for your home by setting up an improved framework of weather stripping. Your home will heat quicker and stay warm longer. How to tell if your home has leaks? Turn on an electric blanket at various parts of the house, for equal parts of time. Timing the clicks at the same temperature, record on a piece of paper or clipboard where the clicks come fastest and how far the blanket is from the window. Look at indoor traffic patterns. If guests avoid one bathroom, pause in the kitchen to unwrap instead of the mud room, and nobody every wants to eat in the living room, there’s a reason.

6. Stay Above C Level

Vitamin C was made to preserve human health. With proper hydration, the biologic formula for energy creation requires these acids to make energy and help the body work properly. Starts the kids and adults on a dose of Vitamin C well before bedtime and in the morning before school. A vitamin supplement powder mix can go in their backpacks to be mixed with water bottles at school or during a break. Keep vitamin C candies in the pockets of coats and inside purses and backpacks. Replacing a candy habit with a Vitamin C habit in winter could stave off an ugly head cold.

7. Storm the Vents

Storm vent and air drains create volumes of latent air that must be heated whenever the HVAC goes on. These are infamous heat leaks. Find a way to close off these volumes by stuffing them with oxygen-resistant material or fireproof blockage. Blocking storm vents can safeguard wet weather by safeguarding the home from winter mold formation. Don’t drive up your heating bill keeping empty ducts warm and toasty. If this can’t be done, line walls outside these ducts with heat conducting furniture that can absorb and distribute heat and keep the home warmer. Heat does not love a vacuum.

8. Stuff up the basement and attic

That pristine empty attic you show off to neighbors? It’s eating heat. The sparely organized basement? It’s a death chute of cold iciness. If you have plastic storage boxes resistant to possible leaks fill up the basement and attic with blockage for drafts. Empty attics in winter fill up with the heat rising from the rest of the house. Then the heat goes…nowhere. Through roofing slats or leaks, the heater keeps churning away. Hint: setting the heater to 68 degrees won’t help if you have massive leakage or a severely flawed heat envelope in your home.

9. Use the Cheapest Heat, smartly.

Doing the math the cost of heat help in winter. How much taking a bath cost? When electric heating and fan lighting for the shower is added in, how much is a shower? Does running an electric stove for three hours with the oven on cost more or less than turning on a gas heater for the same amount of time? If heating a few turkey roasting pans of water to fill a bathtub doesn’t cost additional when using the oven or stove, then the shower run for a shower’s length of time into the commingled water should be a savings, except the individual gets a real bath.

10. Install window fasteners for Window Shields

I am sure there is a product somewhere that fits this description but I have not seen it. Measure your window bay or sash area, paying particular attention to depth. Form a square upholstery pillow using these dimensions, and stuff it with re-use sponge foam, polystyrene boards, or whatever can be found. if the pillow size doesn’t present itself in any material, make a soft frame out of dowels or yardsticks and fill with “warm” clean clothing, like flannels or wools.

Use a vinyl or leatherette on the interior house side for easy cleaning. For inset windows create a hanging frame with velcro fasteners in removable adhesive to position in place. Not only will the home be warmer before you even turn the heater on, but heat retention will skyrocket.

Petropolitics aside, the broad desert spans of Nevada could be soaking up solar energy in record waves. The old saying what happens in Las Vegas stays in Vegas is never more untrue than in the waste disposal analysis and energy consumption of this desert oasis of sustainability reason.

Green is hardly the word conjured up in a context of Las Vegas, unless the symbol is one of money. All thise  lights cost money, and resources. Las Vegas is the defining city gestalt of the phrase “when crowded meets flat”.

Petrodollars and Communist  governments don’t drive Vegas, consumerism does. When the travel market falls flat and no more piggy bank home mortgage bucks can b wrung from the piggy bank HELOC, what will happen to the towers of Las Vegas?

And the artifically sustained areas that have grown up between Las Vegas and its environs have little industry, most subsist on an ecology of gambling. Eben the hospitality arm is supported by the mainstay one armed bandits andindoor  fields of felt. China not so much.

China’s growth has effected manhole shortage in Chicago due to manhole pilfering for smelting overseas. Scotland missed so many manholes ina  few days they termed in the “Great Drain Robbery”.

This twisted helixical pair of gambing and entertainment/hospitality are as far from organic and local consumption of goods and services as is humanly possible. Runaway growth has elft Las Vegas a tourist deluxe destination in a lingering recession era with bankruptcy, foreclosure headlines and bank and stock failure the daily headlines.

Frankly,with online gambling it’s unlikely that a desert trip to the versus former tumbleweed capital is a true destination of most people next to beaches and tropical islands.

Friedman describes the Venetian casino in Macau, which needed 20,000 construction workers and 3 meter sheets of gold leaf. Macau is owned by China, a nation of near-starving people living well below the poverty level in the billions. Birth rates and death rates are so out of balance a proscription against more than one or two children is legally enforced.

That’s why the casinos throw in so many incentives. These are  encouragements to watch a 50 foot Jumbotron inside a brightly lit casino full of machines while the sun shines outside.

The ecology of capitalism that is Las Vegas has an ethical undertow contrary to sustainable living. Most of what is spent in Las Vegas has little real monetary return. Gamblinf, recreation, entertainment, dining, these things are high priced consumerism at its worst.

Truss Built Home

Now is the time when everyone wants to get the bills lowered and the food budget raised. Just one problem: in a sustainable household the math doesn’t alway meet in the middle. Here are some ways to change that.

How many have you accomplished?

 1. Lay down the Rug

Lay down the law on high heating bills by getting a leg up on winter time foundation freezing. Lay down an insulating layer or carpet and a tough and densely worked carpet over that. If the shade doesn’t match Ralph Lauren or Martha Stewart, who cares? They are not paying your heating bills.

Extra fibers between feet and freezing ground or cellar air insulates living spaces. This prevents winter circulation problems, existing circulation problems worsening and some diseases. People forget about the floor and wonder why their heat envelope wastes away.

Extra carpet means another emergency insulation in case of power outage. Heat can stay in longer and heat conducting humans moving about will create heat and form a cocoon. For chores this will help as well. Warm feet will work better, since heat travels upward. Cold feet starts a chill that extends upward.

2. Utilize Bath Heat in Zones

A warm bath or steaming shower in winter is the ultimate luxury, especially in falling snow or freezing rain weather climates. This can form a pocket of heat in the area immediately around the bathroom on all sides.

Make sure heat doesn’t travel fruitlessly through air ducts to expire. Block up expanses of single windows and skylights. Have other family members use the warm bathroom for their bath instead of starting the bathroom warmup on a separate occasion later on.

Insulate a circle of heat in a zone around the bathroom so bathers aren’t lingering in the hot water for the heat alone. Homework time or chores can be done to maximise heat distribution. If kids are getting tucked into bed, it’s a great time for one of the shared walls with a bathroom to get heated.

3. Go old-school with Heating Bricks

Ever walk out of someone’s drafty house where everyone shivered and out  into the cozy garage, where the laundry machines and bright lights kept the garage comfortable?

 Transit the heat away from shelves and storage bins and where humans are. One way is using heating bricks or blankets. If you steadily remove heated bricks from a warm garage into a cool bedroom, the house will share warmth that otherwise goes to waste.

Think about the heat in your car’s hood when you arrive home. You’ve paid for the gas to heat that engine, and the hood will just evaporate the heat into the unpopulated garage. Ventilation is key. Trap heat so that it helps the house when garage or bonus rooms get heated and lit.

Keep hot items inside the oven in spare spaces when roasting meats or cooking at high temperatures. Simply moving an assortment of heated metal to the bedroom will make it more comfortable in 15 minutes to go to bed.

Or…you could lay down some insulated blankets and return for them in about 15 minutes. Lining the living room windows and carpeting the doors just made the family room 5 degrees warmer, free. Keeping large rooms warm is easier than heating cold ones.

InnerWear:

If kids can hang out inside in their outdoor wear, then they do not have adequate protection. The minimum standard of outerwear protection should be ten degrees cooler than current conditions. Extended periods of outdoor exposure should make kids cold, not frostbitten. Coming inside means less foot sole protection and more freedom of movement for relaxation and rest. If you plan on turning down the thermostat to save heat costs, make sure the kids have adequate slippers, bathrobes, and even finger gloves if they sleep in overly cool attic or exposed wall rooms. Exposed walls to the coldest outdoor extremes can get a sudden frost, shocking sleepers inside.

5. Fort Beddy Bye

Make sure the bed is an oasis of warmth, or kids won’t want to go to bed. Instruct them patiently and make sure they know how to adjust heater controls. Make heat-safing bedtime bedrooms part of the nightly routine. Shut windows and adjust vents.

Teach kids how to stuff flannel clothing into duvet covers to add extra warmth and how to keep hands and heads covered during sleep to conserve heat. Set electric blankets on low, but not so low kids can’t get frustrated and switch it up. Keep vitamin C on hand in plentiful supply.

 The dream is alive, Obama is in the White House.  But the big ticket fixtures dim the halo a little bit.

Conspicuous consumption is evidenced spending almost $5K on a children’s lamp. I would like to see a catalog per state of recycled items such as this chandelier, coming in at well below the $4800 mark.

Then government and state officials could endorse recycled manufactured goods made in their own state with more information and choice than retail catalogs. I am almost sure this chandelier was not shipped or transported locally.

That is a LOT of money for one item, especially in a home not expecially hurting for practical light sources I would have thought that particular single family home, the white house, had enough leftover luminescence.

$4800 is a month’s supply of food for about 500 people or more. That’s a month’s rent on a building that could shelter 1500 people. I think a better idea might have been to get donations or buy from real grassroots organizations, not pricey catalogues.

I have heard people speak of Obama throwing money around to solve problems and using checkbook economics to solve issues in Washington DC, and this had an unhappy resonance for me with this purchase report.

 The current elements of manufacturing can’t really be supported with $4800 lamp shopping. In this economy, is there any shortage of lamp vendors who would have sold him a lamp like that for one tenth the price?

The purchase of a recycled chandelier should drive feelings of re-using throwaway or current resources. But catalog shopping in this price range does not wear the re-use feel so many Freecycle good carry.

Somehow I don’t think Martin Luther King would be proud of black or white  people going hungry while two kids enjoyed the luminescent glow of a $4800 chandelier. Doesn’t the White House have an attic? It makes me even more sad if this item is simply destined for an Obama Library exhibit.

I bet there are five people in this country who would have made the most amazing chandelier anyone ever saw for a fifth of that money. Think about how creative an entirely green and re-use refurbishment of the girls’ rooms could have been. That would have been walking the walk.

Obama is still a  freshman President, and although the American public seems to be enjoying a Depression, Barack Obama is hardly Daddy Warbucks. But for a green choice, this one makes me see red.

Recycle and Re-use Your Inner pumpkin (flesh) and make these delicious post Halloween cuisine items.
***
Using leftover or canned pumpkin and applesauce instead of oil, this fat-free vegan pumpkin bread recipe has plenty of flavor, fall spices and moisture, but without the added fat and calories.

Bake in re-used vegetable cans for baking. Spread your vegan pumpkin bread with vegan cream cheese, or turn it into a low-fat vegetarian pumpkin bread stuffing.

Ingredients:
•1 cup canned or cooked and pureed pumpkin
•1/2 cup cinnamon applesauce
•1 1/2 cups sugar
•1/2 cup water
•Ener-G egg replacer for 2 eggs
•1 2/3 cups flour
•1/2 tsp baking powder
•1 tsp baking soda
•1/2 tsp nutmeg
•1/4 tsp ginger
Preparation:
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a 9 inch bread pan.
Whisk together the sugar, pumpkin, applesauce, water and egg replacer and set aside. In a separate bowl, combine the remaining dry ingredients.

Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, stirring well to combine. Pour into prepared pan, and sprinkle a bit of extra sugar and spices on top if desired (optional).

Bake for about one hour, or until a toothpick inserted in the pumpkin bread comes out clean. Serve your pumpkin bread warm with vegan margarine or non-dairy cream cheese.

Makes 8 fat-free slices. Nutritional information:
Calories: 258
Total Fat: 0.4g
Cholesterol: 0mg
Sodium: 306mg
Total Carbohydrates: 61.7g
Dietary Fiber 1.7g

***
GINGER PUMPKIN BISQUE

2 tablespoons olive oil
3/4 cup chopped shallots
1/2 cup chopped onion
2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
4 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup apple cider
1 (15- or 16-ounce) can pumpkin
1/3 cup pure maple syrup
2 bay leaves
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme, crushed
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 cup half-and-half or whipping cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Whipping cream (optional)
Fresh thyme (optional)

In a 3-quart saucepan heat oil over medium heat. Add the shallots,
onion, and ginger; cook until tender. Stir in the flour. Carefully
add the chicken broth and cider all at once. Cook and stir over
medium heat until thickened and bubbly. Stir in the pumpkin, maple
syrup, bay leaves, dried thyme, cinnamon, pepper, and cloves.
Bring to boiling; reduce heat. Simmer, covered, for 20 minutes.

Remove from heat. Discard bay leaves. Cool slightly. Pour one-fourth
to one-third of mixture into a blender container or food processor
bowl.

Cover and blend or process until smooth. Pour into a bowl.
Repeat with remaining mixture until all is processed. Return the
mixture to the saucepan. Stir in the 1 cup half-and-half or whipping
cream and the vanilla. Heat through, but do not boil. Ladle into soup bowls.

If desired, swirl a little whipping cream into each serving; garnish with fresh thyme. Makes 8 to 10 servings.