I just passed 10,000 miles in my Chevy Bolt EV. In a nutshell, the car has been absolutely wonderful. I get in it, drive it, and plug it into the charger in my garage at the end of the day. Owning this electric car is downright boring; it just works. Driving it is an absolute […]
Saving Our Planet Earth, One Lazy Step at a Time
I like to think of myself as an ecologically concerned citizen but, to tell the truth, I’m too lazy to do it “right.” I don’t compost (and I don’t garden). I didn’t recycle until it was convenient. I should probably be more focused on eating locally grown food and fewer high carbon footprint animals. But […]
Where You Get Your News Affects Global Warming
What you read might make the earth warmer. To be more precise, what you read will have an impact on the laws that your government passes to regulate business and environmental concerns. Public support for fixing the problems causing climate change is plummeting while scientific consensus about the problems and solutions is coalescing. The “big […]
Opt Out of Paper Phone Books
I don’t know how well it works (yet) but I just used the National Yellow Pages Consumer Choice & Opt-Out Site to decline all five of the big books that have been delivered to our doorstep annually. Several years ago, we cut the cord and terminated our AT&T home phone service, switching to a VOIP […]
Innovative Transportation Ideas
Gas prices jumped again: $3.89 today and I know that Missouri’s prices are lower than many. I should count myself lucky; I work from home so I burn a lot less gas than most of my friends. I struggle to hang onto that warm, fuzzy feeling when I fill up my plane, though. The last […]
Out of fashion: Green lawns
If you have a lawn, check out Out of fashion: Green lawns at USA Today.
Beautiful Chemical-Free Lawn
My venture into natural lawn care has produced a beautiful lawn, far exceeding my expectations. Let me tell you what I have done and then relate a funny (but true) story from Wednesday evening. I had a soil analysis performed by the University of Missouri extension and, while waiting for the results, I applied some […]
Recycling Without Trucks or Gasoline
We have several “tufts” of tall-grass around the edge of our patio. Last year, I tried letting it go au naturel, which is a technical term meaning: I let it be and didn’t tend it at all. I didn’t like that. It looked scraggly pretty much all the time. So this year, I went back […]
My Lawn, Naturally
I’ve got over 7,300 square feet of grass outside my house. Who knew? Not me, that’s for sure! Yesterday, I picked up a bag of Concern Weed Prevention Plus from Worm’s Way in Olivette, MO. I did that because, almost a year ago, our lawn care company stopped showing up to care for our lawn. […]
Paper or Plastic?
Scorpio (Oct. 24 – Nov. 21) You will receive word today that you are eligible to win a million dollars in prizes. It will be from a magazine trying to get you to subscribe, and you’re just dumb enough to think you’ve got a chance to win. You’re a really slow learner. July 12, 1974 […]
Poisoning People with Old Electronics
This article in Slashdot about the electronic trash that we create hit home. I cannot think of a good way to paraphrase it so here is the whole thing: Every day, Americans toss out more than 350,000 cell phones and 130,000 computers, making electronic waste the fastest-growing part of the US garbage stream. A lot […]
Laptop Battery Myth
Infoworld published 10 power-saving myths debunked. I admit that I assumed this myth was true. Myth No. 7: Notebook batteries just wear out. There’s not much you can do to make them last longer. Fact: Many laptops with nickel-cadmium batteries come with a battery-reconditioning utility that drains the battery fully, then brings it back to […]
Celebrate Earth Day
It’s Earth Day so celebrate. Go and get yourself a glass of clear, cool, refreshing water. Sip and savor the cool wetness as it trickles back along your tongue. Do your teeth feel cold, too? Take a deep gulp. Ahhhhh. That satisfies, doesn’t it? Now celebrate again because you didn’t pay $0.79 for that privilege; […]
How Many Lightbulbs Does it Take to Change the World?
What if you could save money and do good by just changing a lightbulb? You can. Compact fluorescents emit the same light as classic incandescents but use 75% or 80% less electricity. What that means is that if every one of 110 million American households bought just one ice-cream-cone bulb, took it home, and screwed […]
Whooping Crane Chicks Return to the Midwest
The whooping crane has been in serious trouble for a long, long time. The situation is so dire that several groups of people, including the Whooping Crane Eastern Parntership, have taken to hand raising them and teaching them to migrate by leading them with ultralight aircraft. Yes… you read that right. These folks fly ultralight […]
Open Minds
Patrick Moore, one of the founders of Greenpeace, has an interesting editorial in the Washington Post titled Going Nuclear. He begins, In the early 1970s when I helped found Greenpeace, I believed that nuclear energy was synonymous with nuclear holocaust…. Thirty years on, my views have changed, and the rest of the environmental movement needs […]
Mazda Plans Dual-Fuel Car in Japan
I have always liked the looks of the Mazda RX-8 but lamented the lack of a convertible roof. Now I have another reason to like the car. One of these days, I might have to buy one. FOXNews.com: Mazda Plans Dual-Fuel Car in Japan Mazda said the RX-8 Hydrogen RE, based on its popular RX-8 […]
Transitioning to Greener Fuels
If only we could stop using fossil fuels, polution levels would plummet, colicky babies would be cured, my Husky dog would shed less, and world peace would prevail. Hydrogen, solar power and electricity offer tantalizing alternatives to gasoline, natural gas, and coal. There are lots of problems with switching to hydrogen, including the cost of […]
Double the Cost of Trash
I’ll admit it. I throw away stuff that could be recycled. Actually, I throw away lots of stuff that could be recycled. I do it because I’m lazy and cheap. Whew! It feels good to get that off my chest. I suspect that there are many, many other people like me who simply find it […]
Grizzly-sized Catfish Caught in Thailand
Thanks to Slashdot for this story, Grizzly-sized Catfish Caught in Thailand, about a 646 pound catfish that has been caught in Thailand. Here is the original story, at National Geographic. I wonder if the fisherman was noodling for it. 😛
