Raise your glasses

Whisky for the Environment

Whisky fuels lots of things—rebellions, country and western songs, and Shane MacGowan, to name just a few. Now it’s going to power 9,000 homes in Scotland.
More specifically, whisky byproducts are going to power the homes, in the distillery-rich region of Speyside, by helping to fuel a local biomass energy plant.
“Waste products from around 16 of the area’s 50 distilleries will be used at the site, including well-known brands such as Glenlivet, Chivas Regal, Macallan, and Famous Grouse,” the Guardian reports.
Spent grains from the whisky distilling process, known as draff, will be burned along with wood to create electricity at the combined heat and power (CHP) plant. Another byproduct, a high-protein liquid residue called pot ale, will be made into a syrup for animal feed—which will be conveniently made at a plant next door.
The Scots aren’t the only whisky makers who are seriously thinking green. On this side of the pond (where we spell it with an “e,” thank you), fine bourbon whiskey distiller Maker’s Mark has made waves with its sustainability initiatives, which according to Inhabitat include biogas reuse, aggressive waste reduction, an on-site nature preserve, and a mostly local, no-GMO grain supply chain.

Need another reason to have a drink this weekend?
Well, it makes me smile knowing the White House has their own brew.

Former Marine Sgt. Dakota Meyer had requested to share a beer with the president before the ceremony, CBS reports.
The Honey Ale is the first beer brewed in the White House, but Obama is not the first president to take on the hobby, according to historians.
Thomas Jefferson and George Washington were brewing aficionados, but Jefferson never made beer at the White House, and Washington, of course, never lived there, White House curator Bill Allman told NPR.

Those are both enough reasons for me to raise my glass and have a drink.  Okay, so the weekend helps too.

Sustainable Eating

7 Ways to Cook Up a Sustainable Diet

...seven tips for happier (and healthier) eating, wherever you are planted.
1. Savor your food without distractions. Chew it not for "good digestion" but to enjoy the flavors. Don't read or write emails or watch a movie. You may actually notice when you are full and stop. Savoring alone could lead us to eat, spend, and waste less.
2. Cook with what's at hand. If it is in your fridge or on your shelves, count it as local. How much food do we waste simply because we forget we have it?
3. Become competent in your kitchen. Using hand tools rather than a food processor saves energy and sharpens new skills.
4. Adopt one farmer and stock up. Local food means that specific human beings did a lot of hard work with much love to bring good food to their communities. Pick someone who sells at the farmers market or to your local co-op or grocer. Go to their farm and buy food for your No Impact Week experiment. It's fun.
5. Invite someone to dinner. When we eat alone, we tend to wolf down our food. And families are so busy and distracted they often don't think to invite someone over for a meal. I learned that eating is an act of belonging, and we are not meant to be as anti-social as many of us have become. Cook a nice meal from your local supplies and enjoy conviviality.
6. Read the labels at your grocery store. Where do the 25 foods you most often buy originate? Is your olive oil simply distributed in California, or are those California-grown olives? Is your Napa wine really made with Napa grapes, or is it a blend? Is there information about the people who grew the food, packaged, or shipped it?
7. Start some alfalfa seed sprouts on your windowsill on day one. By the last day of the week, eat them.
Local tools, local farmers, local company, local sprouts--it's all part of your local food system.

One change I would make to this list...Instead of "Adopt one farmer" - become a farmer/gardener and grow your own.

Happy Birthday

Stress Free Gardens

A More Natural and Greener Way to Garden – Slow Gardening

In the pursuit of the perfect lawn and manicured, sometimes uniform shrubs and annuals, not to mention vegetables, could something be getting lost? Could we be gardening in an overly intense or pressured way? Diane Brandon is joined this week by Felder Rushing, a decades-long gardener who writes and speaks about gardening, who is also the author of Slow Gardening – A No-Stress Philosophy for All Senses and Seasons. Mr. Rushing’s approach could allow you to get the health benefits from contact with the earth, as well as the rewards of gardening, without feeling pressured. It should feed your enjoyment of gardening as well!

Listen to the broadcast here.

Fall Garden

It's Not Too Late to Plant a Fall Garden! What to Plant in Your Region Now

Northeast

• Arugula

• Carrots

• Lettuce

• Mache

• Mustard Greens

• Radishes

• Spinach

• Turnips

Check, check....all except the mache.
And mustn't forget the beets, chard, kale and tomatillos that are going to be feeding me for a while.

I can slow down on weeding?

Why Encouraging Weeds May Be Good Farming

When I posted an awesome tour of my old permaculture teacher's urban allotment, I was reminded of his seemingly chaotic yet decidedly sensible approach to weeding. Rather than seeking to eradicate weeds from his site—an objective that was at best incredibly labor or chemical intensive, if not downright impossible—he instead chose to encourage weeds that had some beneficial properties. Those might be wild edibles, or they may be nitrogen fixers, or plants with particular benefits in terms of biodiversity. The idea, then, was to edit rather than control—and to encourage a community of plants that was both productive and more-or-less self sustaining.
This video is a classic example of that approach. By observing her fields and the life-cycles of both the main farm crops, and the weeds that inevitably accompany them, Helen Atthowe of Veganic Permaculture is able to identify penny cress as a plant that does not compete with her main crops, and also attracts beneficial insects. So while she weeds selectively and takes out plants that cause more disruption, she lets penny cress thrive and spread—in the hope that it will crowd out some of the competition and ultimately reduce the need for weeding or other interventions.

I knew there was a raeson that I am so remiss in weeding the garden. I knew I wanted the purslane growing because of my salads but now I have a great reason to let more of those weeds grow on and on and on...

Chuck being Green

Prince Charles Warns of Human Extinction

In his first speech as the head of the Worldwide Wildlife Fund UK, Prince Charles warned of a mass human extinction if dramatic steps aren't taken to reduce the world's consumption of natural resources. According to an article in The Telegraph, the Prince of Wales said, somewhat jokingly, that he too was an endangered species.
The Telegraph reports that Prince Charles didn't mince words when describing the state of the environment and how the planet as we know it is entering a mass extinction that could only be matched but that of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
He also commented that the triple threat of climate change, rainforest destruction, and dwindling fish stocks make this a "crucial moment" for the organization and the movement.

High fives to the Prince for his stand. He is the butt of so many jokes but the guy is okay by me. From this speech to his organic garden he is leading the way. Wonder what Queen Mum thinks about climate change?

This guy is leading the pack?

Rick Perry: Just because global warming is a ‘fact’ doesn’t mean it’s real

In last night's debate, Perry offered the following extremely convincing argument against global warming: Not all scientists believe in it, I am pretty sure. I can't name any scientist who doesn't, but then, I can't name any scientists at all. Even if they do say it's a fact, that doesn't mean it's true. Because Galileo. Hey, Galileo! He's a scientist who probably didn't believe in global warming! QED.

THIS IS BARELY EVEN AN EXAGGERATION. Here's an actual quote: "The idea that we would put American's economy at jeopardy [sic] based on scientific theory that's not settled yet [sic] to me is just, is nonsense. Just because you have a group of scientists that's stood up and said 'here is the fact,' Galileo got outvoted for a spell." See, my way was much easier to understand!

Scary isn't it?   In a sick way I hope he wins the Repub nomination.  Need some laughs during the next election.

The Koch Boys are at it again

Koch brothers compare Obama to Saddam Hussein, declare 2012 will be ‘war’

A complete audio transcript of the Koch brothers' annual super-secret gathering of hard-right bazillionaires just leaked, and it's full of all the usual invective you'd expect to hear out of America's favorite pro-business libertarian climate change deniers.
The Koch brothers are apparently really getting into their supervillain roles. Not only did they lay out their evil plan to their minions (sort of), but they had all kinds of elaborate security in their lair. Measures taken to prevent a leak like this were almost comically over-the-top, including outward-facing speakers blasting static in order to fool remote eavesdroppers.
Charles Koch opened the meeting by comparing president Obama to Saddam Hussein, and then asserted that the 2012 elections will be "the mother of all wars."
One of the biggest applause lines of the evening came from Fox News analyst and retired New Jersey Superior Court Judge Andrew P. Napolitano, who said that the second amendment was created to ensure "the right to shoot at the government if it is taken over by tyrants."
So, there you have it: Obama is a tyrant, and the constitution preserves our right to shoot at tyrannical governments. Nothing to see here.

You know, this makes O's cave-ins not so bad.  If the boys despise him so much, how mad can I really be at O?

It's all a punishment from above

Hurricane, Earthquake Comments 'A Metaphor'

Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) on Sunday changed her explanation for her controversial statement about Hurricane Irene and the earthquake that rocked the East Coast.
Last week, Bachmann seemed to suggest to a crowd in Florida that the natural disasters were messages from God warning politicians to take heed of small-government conservatives.
"I don't know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We've had an earthquake; we've had a hurricane. He said, 'Are you going to start listening to me here?'" Bachmann told the crowd.
Bachmann dismissed the controversy over the remark the next day, calling her line a joke. "Of course, I was being humorous when I said that. It would be absurd to think it was anything else," she said.
When asked about the statement in an interview on CBS's "Face the Nation" on Sunday, however, Bachmann shifted her tone somewhat, calling the statement a "metaphor."
"Obviously, I was speaking metaphorically," she told host Bob Schieffer. "That was clear to the audience. It was clear to me."

Wonder if she thinks the Texas wildfires are from the gods.
Wait - if the intensity of the weather is being increased by climate change - and intense weather is from god - and man is a cause of climate change - then man is God!!

Tell Your Boss - Part Deux

Obama halts tighter smog rule, citing 'regulatory burdens'

Citing the financial burden in a struggling economy and after Republican protests, President Barack Obama on Friday ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to shelve a proposal to tighten smog standards.

Well I guess Joe hadn't spoken to the Boss - or Boss just didn't care.

Shades of Atwood

Image via WikipediaLab Grown Meat Just 6 Months Away, Scientists Say

It's long been an electrifying possibility: Red meat without the environmental drawbacks. Meat without animal cruelty. Meat without industrial scale cattle ranches, without the vast drain on resources required to raise millions of cows. Meat without the forestland razed for grazing room, without the methane emissions.
In an attempt to bring about such a world, researchers have been diligently pursuing laboratory-grown meat for years. Supermarkets are in line to sell it. And evidently, a breakthrough is near: some scientists speculate that we might see the first lab-grown sausage arrive in just six months. Six months after that, a lab-burger.
And that claim is being made by of the field's leading researchers, including Mark Post, of Maastricht University in the Netherlands. The New Scientist reports that "Post has experimented mainly with pig cells and has recently developed a way to grow muscle under lab conditions - by feeding pig stem cells with horse fetal serum. He has produced muscle-like strips, each 2.5 centimetres long and 0.7 centimetres wide."

Yum?  I don't think so.

Tell Your Boss

Biden Warns Against Abandoning Clean Energy

The United States can't lead the world in the 21st century with its current energy policy, Vice President Joe Biden told alternative technology supporters Tuesday at a clean energy summit in Las Vegas.


The nation is already trailing China and Germany in green technology, Biden said. It will trade its dependence on foreign oil for a dependence on foreign clean energy technology if its leaders don't act to help fledging green researchers and businesses, he said.

Joe, tell you boss to not compromise and back down.

Praise the Tater

Potatoes, especially purple, may help lower blood pressure

A small, pilot study suggests that a couple of servings of potatoes per day can lower blood pressure as much as oatmeal without causing weight gain, researchers said. Joe Vinson, a professor of chemistry at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania, analyzed 18 patients who ate six to eight small purple potatoes twice daily for a month and found their systolic and diastolic blood pressures (the top and bottom numbers in a blood pressure reading) dropped by 3.5 and 4.3 percent, respectively.

Vinson pointed out that potatoes can be a healthy food when they're not in the form of French fries or chips, or covered in high-fat toppings such as cheese and sour cream. Purple ones, in particular, have high amounts of antioxidants, although red-skinned or white potatoes may have similar effects, he said.

I knew there were more reasons why I planted taters besides great taste.