Sell Your Crap, Pay Off Your Debt, And Do What You Love! This Makes It All Possible!

Photo Credit: Minim Micro Homes

By Jeff Roberts 

(Collective Evolution) There’s something strange happening around the globe… but it’s awesome!

Lifestyles and needs are changing, and consequently, our houses are shrinking. The tiny house movement has blown up in the past few years, shifting the traditional North American housing models towards a more practical, finance-friendly blueprint. The movement is garnering attention from people fed up with the current consumerist/utility-based lifestyle which has placed millions of people in debt. Now, the idea of living your dream is no longer a cliché.

The typical American home is around 2600 square feet, while the typical small or tiny house is around 100-400 square feet. These tiny houses come in all shapes, sizes and forms, focusing on smaller spaces and simplified living. Jay Shafer, tiny house advocate and founder of Four Lights Tiny House Company, says that, unlike sprawling houses, tiny houses demand that their dwellers downsize to the essentials. Shafer states that tiny houses are undiluted reflections of the people who live in them.

DIY Convection Heater Warms Room for Pennies a Day

With a few readily available (and economical) supplies, you too can have an inexpensive convection heater. All you need are the following supplies:

-Tea light candles 

-A metal loaf pan 

-Two clay pots
-Glazed tiles

-Matches

Have a look at the following video and learn more about this ingenious method.

Could Micro-Algae Free America From Foreign Wars, Debt and Environmental Destruction? ‘Green Crude Oil’ and ‘Living Buildings’ May Hold the Secret to Liberation

Next time you notice green slime growing in a pool or pond, take a second look. Incredibly, that bit of algae could be the secret to solving our war related financial difficulties and environmental troubles. As an incredible source of alternative energy, algae is used in a variety of innovative ways. Two outstanding examples include an office building utilizing a bioadaptive facade to produce energy as well as an American company that employs the power behind this tiny organism to manufacture biofuel.

Saving the Planet, One Meal at a Time

By Chris Hedges

Numbered footnotes, with hyperlinks, appear at the end of this article.

My attitude toward becoming a vegan was similar to Augustine’s attitude toward becoming celibate—“God grant me abstinence, but not yet.” But with animal agriculture as the leading cause of species extinction, water pollution, ocean dead zones and habitat destruction², and with the death spiral of the ecosystem ever more pronounced, becoming vegan is the most important and direct change we can immediately make to save the planet and its species. It is one that my wife—who was the engine behind our family’s shift—and I have made.

Ecocapsule Promises Independent Off-Grid Micro-Living

(Gizmag) Bratislava's Nice Architects has revealed some renders and preliminary details concerning its Ecocapsule: a micro-shelter that operates off-grid and promises impressive sustainable technology including solar power, rainwater collection and filtration, and wind power. The firm will unveil a prototype later this month and plans to make it available for sale later this year.

Solar Cooking 101: Harnessing The Sun For Health, Wealth And A Clean Environment

Cooking with the sun is not only eco-friendly, it also contributes to better tasting, more nutritious food. Preparing food in this way encourages energy independence for both developing countries and industrialized nations alike. In areas of the world where disease is on the rise and fuel is in short supply, economical sun cookers are a workable solution.

Launch A Revolution From Your Backyard With An Mini Eco-Farm

From edible landscaping to biointensive gardening, Americans around the nation are discovering the financial beauty of creating practical solutions to our food woes. Beyond the dangers of GMO's and industrial farming, a basic fact remains: food costs are skyrocketing. Savvy individuals are recognizing the value in growing their own food to ensure nutritious, organic, and cost-effective produce. A revolution is quietly gaining momentum in backyards across America that resists dangerous farming practices, nutritionally depleted produce and increasingly restrictive governmental control over our food supply.

Encourage Prosperity, Alleviate Famine And Heal The Environment With Hemp

Hemp. Just the word conjures images of the Drug Enforcement Administration and political battles. But industrial hemp is a far cry from marijuana and contains almost zero THC. An ancient crop, hemp has served humanity since 2000 BCE -- providing fibers for cloth and rope, building materials and paper. It's also an incredible source of food. Even the American founding fathers recognized the brilliance of hemp and cultivated it actively on their own land. Hemp is remarkably versatile and Eco-friendly with many modern applications for fuel, automobile fabrication, toxic waste removal and concrete manufacturing.

Sign The Petition To Stop Killing the Environment and Our Health With Plastic

Every single piece of plastic that has ever been created since the 19th century is still somewhere on the planet today and it’s wreaking havoc with the environment and our health. 

The Biodegradable Credit Card That Fights Climate Change

(Take Part) Would you feel less guilty about whipping out your credit card if you knew buying stuff could help save the planet from climate change? Especially if that piece of plastic was biodegradable?

Here’s your chance to find out.

Slash Your Organic Food Bill By Almost 90% With This One Simple Method

As the economy continues to limp along, many are experiencing a belt-tightening effect on their budgets. Unfortunately, this often results in choosing conventional foodstuffs over organic in an effort to save money. But this doesn't have to be the case. A recent study has found that we needn't sacrifice healthy food during times of economic hardship -- instead, we can use a straightforward strategy to purchase organic fare without the hefty price tag.

Plastic Costs the Environment $75 Billion Each Year, Report Says

Consumer goods companies are costing the environment $75 billion per year through their use of plastics, revealed a report released last week.

"Valuing plastic", the report from the Plastic Disclosure Project, the U.N. Environment Programme and natural capital analysts Trucost, evaluates the environmental and social impact of plastics used by businesses. It assesses the financial cost to companies were they to be financially responsible for their plastics usage.

This Girl Has Produced Less Trash in Two Years Than Most Do In One Day

Photo Credit: Minds.com

(Minds) Imagine, city living where you don't produce waste.  Lauren Singer imagined it, and over the last two years has produced only a mason jar of waste.

As an environmental studies major at NYU, Lauren was aghast when, day after day, another student in her class would bring in plastic cups, plates and forks and throw them away.  One day, after being particularly annoyed, she went home and opened her refrigerator to realize she, too, had plastic packaging problems.  Pretty much everything she had in her refrigerator was in plastic containers.  She WAS that girl.

At that moment, she made a decision.  She would no longer produce waste.

This "zero-waste" supermarket got rid of all food packaging

(Salon) Forget plastic bag bans. Berlin is now home to a supermarket that’s gotten rid of all disposable packaging. Original Unverpackt (“Original Unpackaged”), which opened Saturday, is more of a shop, to be exact, but its 350-some products — including from fruits, vegetables, dry grains and pourable liquids like yogurt, lotion and shampoo — are dispensed into refillable containers. (Some liquids come in bottles with deposits on them, which is already standard in Germany).

12 ways to rid the planet of GMOs and Monsanto’s Roundup

(Eat Local Grown) It is now blatantly obvious that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are nothing more than patented Pesticide Delivery Systems (PDS) designed to increase sales of poisonous agrochemicals such as Roundup, glufosinate, Bt, 2,4 D and neonicotinoids. To claim that GMOs are perfectly safe is equivalent to saying that pesticides, herbicides and fungicides—systemically laced at ever-higher levels into GMO-tainted human food and animal feed—are perfectly safe. And to make matters worse, hundreds of millions of pounds of Monsanto’s Roundup, the most widely used herbicide in the world, are now routinely sprayed on 160 different crops, just before harvest, including wheat, potatoes, oats, canola, flax, peas and dried beans. In other words, just about every non-organic item in your supermarket, or every item on your restaurant menu (bread, potatoes, meat, milk) is now tainted with Roundup.

Nuclear power keeps the corporates in charge. No wonder it's conservatives' preferred solution to climate change

(The Guardian) Nuclear power keeps the corporates in charge. No wonder it's conservatives' preferred solution to climate change

“I have no theological objection” to nuclear power, Tony Abbott said on 1 December, responding to Julie Bishop’s relaunch of the right’s preferred “solution” to global warming this week.

Abbott’s choice of words is fascinating. On the face of it he’s suggesting that opposing nuclear power is a faith-based, rather than rational, view. But it is the right’s consistent promotion of a technology that has been shown repeatedly to be too slow, too costly and too risky (see, for instance, here and here) that is underpinned by several right wing articles of faith.

Britain’s first ‘Bio-Bus’ powered entirely by human and food waste takes to the streets

(The Guardian) Britain’s first ‘poo bus’ will take to the road on Thursday, powered entirely by human and food waste.

The 40-seat “Bio-Bus” runs on biomethane gas, generated through the treatment of sewage and food waste. It can travel up to 186 miles on one tank of gas, which takes the annual waste of around five people to produce.

The bus is run by Bath Bus Company and will transport passengers between Bath and Bristol Airport.

Bolivia grants legal rights to Mother Earth

(Earth We Are One) Law of Mother Earth sees Bolivia pilot new social and economic model based on protection of and respect for nature.

Bolivia is to become the first country in the world to give nature comprehensive legal rights in an effort to halt climate change and the exploitation of the natural world, and to improve quality of life for the Bolivian people.

Developed by grassroots social groups and agreed by politicians, the Law of Mother Earth recognises the rights of all living things, giving the natural world equal status to human beings.

15 year old girl creates power generating water filter

By John Vibes

Last week, True Activist published a story about a 15 year old who invented a shoe insole that creates electricity while you walk.  His device was a submission for this year’s “Google Science Fair” which features a number of brilliant inventions, many of which were created by teenagers and young children.

Another finalist in this year’s contest is 17-year-old Cynthia Sin Nga Lam from Australia, who also has an invention that creates electricity.  Her invention is a water purification system that does not require an external power source, but actually creates electricity of its own.

Her device, which she calls a Portable Photocatalytic Electricity Generation and Water Purification Unit, or H2Pro for short, produces both clean energy and fresh water at the same time.

She hopes that one day her invention can be used to bring water and electricity to people in remote, poverty stricken areas who are currently struggling to find access to these basic amenities.
Cynthia explained in her application that “The entire process only needs titania and light — no additional power source is required. However, hydrogen production is generally low since photoexcited electrons tend to fall back to the hole (i.e. photoinduced electron-hole combination.) Fortunately, it can be overcome by adding reductants, while some organic pollutants serve such purpose. Hence, I propose to combine the two mechanisms together to enhance the yield and lower the cost of hydrogen generation, meanwhile efficient water purification can also be achieved.”

Luci inflatable solar lantern: eco-friendly, zero emissions and affordable—what more can you ask for?

(The Grommet) Luci is an inflatable, affordable, solar lantern that generates continuous light with zero emissions anywhere on earth independent of the grid; it can be charged under direct sunlight or cloudy skies (as well as incandescent light).

As easy to use as it is to deflate and stow, Luci’s durable, waterproof design makes it ideal for everything from boating and camping to outdoor entertaining, and power outages. In fact, lack of electricity was the inspiration for the idea. MPOWERD was co-founded by Jacques-Philippe Piverger, John Salzinger and Jason Alan Snyder. Principal inventor Jason Alan Snyder worked hand in hand with John Salzinger to develop the Luci lantern after an earthquake in 2010 left thousands without power in Haiti. Now, MPOWERD is on a mission to illuminate the lives of people who live in energy poverty all over the world.