Man, it’s been a busy as heck couple of months. First, I’ve been busy with a brand new job, developing the web software of tomorrow, today.
Second, I just yesterday got back from mi luna de miel. What with that and helping with wedding planning, my life was purty dang busy.
Anyhoo, enough about me. What I bring to you today is a good video from TED Talks showing time lapse proof of extreme ice loss.
James Balog, a photographer, founded the Extreme Ice Survey to capture the changing glaciers by time-lapse photography and video. His goal is to show everyone visual proof of just how fast glaciers are melting.
Hot dang, it’s been nigh on a month since I last posted on here, back when perhaps the greatest human being of all time went to go join the Great Spirit in the Sky.
Anyhoo, some of you may be familiar with the Lorax, a fanciful creature who “speaks for the trees”, straight from the warped mind of Dr. Seuss, PhD. Here’s your chance to get a free PDF of an activity book featuring this true eco-hero.
Just CLICK ON THIS LINK to go and get your free copy of it! Go on, I won’t watch, honest I won’t.
Last, but not least, if you’ve got an attention span longer than mine, you may want to take a peek at this Lorax cartoon, which looks like it was made in the ’70s, based on my expert opinion.
Dang!! Back in college, me and some of my friends talked a lot about creating perpetual motion machines, and came up with all kinds of different designs. Eventually we decided it was impossible, and abandoned the idea.
But apparently some people did not give up, and recently the famous Alex Chiu announced that he had built a working perpetual motion machine. The only caveat is that it will not work on Earth — it needs the zero-gravity of outer space.
Still, this should revolutionize everything. Not since his immortality device has such an invention been unveiled to the world. Free, limitless energy should dramatically lower pollution and energy costs, and get rid of the need for gasoline and coal.
But enough idle chit-chat; let’s get this show on the road.
Organic Mess
Have you ever wanted to compost, but it just seemed too dang complicated? Then you’re in luck, for Talia has provided some tips on simple composting.
Neighbor Nancy shows y’all how to get some free vegetable seeds and how you can grow a ton in small containers. I’m about to go plant even more plants in old containers now.
TravelCat4 has some handy eco-tips for how to travel in an Earth-friendly manner. My favorite tip was the ‘grow a beard’ one; zero effort required, plus you get that rugged look that draws all the ladies in!
Beth Terry contemplates the pros and cons of recycling plastic into oil. I think it’s great that they’ve found a way to do this, but I do understand Ms. Beth’s concerns.
Ryan and Leslie help us visualize the huge number of plastic bottles used in the U.S. in just five minutes.
Alex has some easy ways to save car fuel, and it looks like he’s from England, talking about “tyres” and “boots”.
Dang, that about wraps it up for this Carnival. Thanks for all the submissions; hopefully I didn’t forget anyone or mess up a link. Until next time, this is EcoJoe, signing off.
Too often people yap on and on about “being green”, but can’t really back it up. I say it’s time to put your money where your mouth is. Don’t talk about it, be about it.
Welp, I took about five minutes out of my oh-so-hectic (unemployed for a week) schedule and picked up some trash from a creek behind my house. It took less time than that to fill up a bucket with a bunch of litter. I was flabbergasted.
I found all this in about 5 minutes. I was shocked that people had wastefully tossed this into the creek; the Sprite still tasted great, yet it had been littered.
Someone had even thrown a whole chair into the creek. I wrenched it out with the fury of a hundred bald eagles.
So everybody, I implore you, take just five minutes and pick up some litter. If everyone chips in a wee bit, it will make a big difference, and global warming will be reversed and dodos will come back to life.
Forilla though, if you do decide to help out and pick up some litter, and for some reason you feel it’s picture-worthy, let me know, and I’ll put up your pictures and salute you.
Halloween. The very name sends tears streaming down any Eco-Hero’s face as they contemplate the mass murder of millions of innocent pumpkins. But fret not. Out of this pumpkin massacre, some good can come. And that good is known as roasted pumpkin seeds and homemade pumpkin pie.
Homemade Pumpkin Pie
Let us begin with the pumpkin pie recipe. Now I’m not talking about pumpkins from a can, or frozen pre-made pumpkin pies. No. I’m talkin’ ’bout some made-from-scratch, down-home, honest-to-goodness, homemade pumpkin pie. Pumpkin Pie Ingredients
1 cup sugar
1.5 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons nutmeg
one half teaspoon ground ginger
4 large eggs
3 cups stewed pumpkin, mashed
12oz of evaporated milk
Here’s whatchu do:
* Find a pumpkin (a jack o’ lantern will do). After appropriately mourning its brutal death, collect all the parts that were cut out (eyes, nose, mouth, the works).
* Skin these pumpkin pieces, and cut them into “manageable chunk” size.
* Boil these in a microwave or on the stove until you can easily push a fork through them.
* Mash up the boiled pumpkin.
* Add condensed milk, sugar, eggs, and spices.
* Dump it all into a pie crust (filling to about 1/4″ below the top).
* Bake at 425 F for 15 minutes, then bake for about 50 minutes at 350. You can tell it’s done if you stick a knife in it and it comes out pretty clean.
* Let cool on rack
* Eat the delicious pie made from the flesh of the defenseless pumpkins, or you can wrap it up using some reused foil from a restaurant, like so:
Roasted Pumpkin Seeds
* When you clean out a pumpkin to make a jack-o-lantern, save the seeds.
* Rinse the seeds, removing any of that orange, stringy mess.
* Add a wee bit o’ oil, some salt, and any other flavors you want (hot sauce, honey, curry).
* Bake at 275 degrees for 10-20 minutes (until they’re golden brown), stirring the seeds when they’re halfway done.
* Congratulations, you have now made a delicious and nutritious snack from the guts of a freshly killed pumpkin. I hope you’re proud of yourself.
These are great ways to use every part of the pumpkin, much like the Indians (these Indians, not these) used every part of the buffalo. Let me know if y’all know any other good pumpkin recipes. Thankee kindly. Also, it is not too late to enter the free giveaway contest!! Click here for some details.
This morning outside my work it was about 70 degrees and sunny. The weather was quite literally TOO good. So we turned off our air conditioning and opened the windows to air out the office. As the cool outside air came rushing in, my brain gears started turning, and I wondered to myself, “Self, if every house in the U.S. of A. turned off their A/C and opened their windows whenever the weather was nice outside, how much money and electricity would that save?”
Okay, stay with me. According to the OFFICIAL ENERGY INFORMATION ADMINISTRATION, in 2005 there were about 93.3 million American houses with air conditioning. So let’s figure that those houses are in places that have nice weather (65-80 degrees) about 20% of the time, or 70 days each year.
That means that if all those houses turned off their air conditioning on those days and opened their windows to let in the fresh air, then: 400 kwh per house * 93.3 million houses = 37.2 billion kilowatthours saved!! That equals out to savings of over $3.5 billion each year! Ay chi wa wa.
Of course, the actual amount of nice days could vary, but still, if everyone did this whenever the temperature was nice outside, we’d be saving billions of kilowatthours. Dang, crazy.
So next time you’re at work or at home, and the weather is nice, instead of cranking on the ol’ air conditioning and wasting energy and money, why not just open the windows and let some fresh air in? You’ll be saving money and electricity while getting some fresh air in your cave.
Dang!! Back in college, me and some of my friends talked a lot about creating perpetual motion machines, and came up with all kinds of different designs. Eventually we decided it was impossible, and abandoned the idea.
This morning outside my work it was about 70 degrees and sunny. The weather was quite literally TOO good. So we turned off our air conditioning and opened the windows to air out the office. As the cool outside air came rushing in, my brain gears started turning, and I wondered to myself, “Self, if every house in the U.S. of A. turned off their A/C and opened their windows whenever the weather was nice outside, how much money and electricity would that save?”
