Ecobuilding Retreat
Over a long weekend the Northwest Ecobuilding Guild (NWEBG) held its member retreat, which is also open to non-members. If you have never heard about the NWEBG you are missing out on one the premier green building associations in the Northwest. And, it is not just building, but related areas as well, landscaping, design, manufacturers of green materials and more. According to their website “It is a community of builders, designers, suppliers, homeowners, and partners concerned with ecological building in the Pacific Northwest. The Guild empowers people through education to transform the built environment for long term sustainability.” have to […]
Zero Organic Kitchen Waste
In our kitchen we produce a fair amount of organic waste. When we make our smoothies there are peels and seeds. When we prepare for stir fries, there are always some cut offs. Be it the greens of carrots or beets, some wilted or brown leaves from salads. Sometimes we don’t use some veggies or fruits in time and they go a little bit moldy. Then there are tea bags or skins from nuts or the table flowers are passed their time. So, what to do with all this? Is there a way to make this waste into a resource? […]
Sustainable Smoothie (part 2)
Have you been enjoying smoothies recently? We are just past the peak of our fruit harvesting season – pears, plums and apples. In the previous post about smoothies, we posted several questions to consider, if wanting to have a healthy and although otherwise sustainable smoothie, a “green” smoothie. Not because of the color it might have, but in the sense of having considered ecological aspects for its whole life-cycle and its footprint. To which level of detail and level of interconnections to other elements in the chain of processes and events necessary to produce our smoothie one wants to take […]
Produce Bag Solution
Not so long ago I ran across information regarding plastic, specially in the form of grocery bags. The reports were about what types of chemicals plastics contain and what they do to our environment and our heath if ending up in water, how plastic bags go into the landfill and slowly disintegrate into smaller and smaller pieces, finally into particle sized aggregate penetrating groundwater. How much plastic is found in the oceans already, from whole bags to those tiny particles posing and threatening to fish and the whole maritime ecosystems. There was one research project that scooped up water and […]
Heating Tidbits
Where we live temperatures get low for winter and part of fall and spring and we can have lots of snow. So heating is needed. We have made sure our house is well insulated and has no leaks. The house is designed in a way to utilize some sun during the cold time of the year and not overheating in summer, but instead staying cool by using passive methods. We have the entry door on the West side, opening into a sort of entry/mud room, which provides another buffer to the outside temperatures. We can control the airflow from the […]
What is a Mail Chimp?
What is a Mail Chimp? You might wonder, why, as you find out below, I am writing about software, the internet and technology. Before I jump into this article’s topic, let me explain. I do think technology is playing such an enormous role in my live and many lives of people around the world and has such a huge impact that, if we can create truly green technology, the vision of creating a sustainable and green way of living will greatly benefit and maybe be really helpful in the transition towards that. One benefit for me is that it allows […]
Sustainable Smoothie (part 1)
I want to use a smoothie, to go through the sort of thinking when looking into the question about what sustainability is, what details are involved to call something green, in the sense of environmental, social and financial viability. This is not treated exhaustively. Just a little warm up. So lets dive into this, first with the bigger picture. There is so much diverse and contradictory information out there in regards to what is a good diet. I am not planning to add to that. I am not a nutritionist or food scientist, or anything like that. Reading keeps me […]
Gardening without Garden
It is fall, the day starts getting shorter, there are some chillier mornings and I saw the first dew on the windshields of cars. Fall is arrived, well at least in my neck of the woods. Harvesting some ears of corn in the garden today, makes me think of the great significance of this very enjoyable activity. Growing healthy food has many benefits and is an important task for our times. It has been said that the problems of the world can be solved through gardening. There are many facets to this aspect of thriving on green. First question that […]
Inspired by Green
Thrive On Green has the purpose to encourage on a large scale to take steps towards greener living by providing resources, information and support. Green lifestyle choices touch all areas of the human experience, from the kitchen spoon to the scientific laboratory, how we care for our children to growing our food and from our workplace to our meditation. To Thrive On Green is a way to live, give and enterprise that is caring and good for people, planet and, yes, profit, “green profit” that is! The word “green” stands for a way of living that is socially, financially and […]
