With the growing popularity of green/sustainable/renewable products and services, many offerings come up a bit short.  But for a small new urbanist community in Alberta Canada, the promise of free energy from the sun is coming true in a big way.  The Drake Landing Solar Community shares what amounts to a giant heat pump.  The […]

According to, donotmailus.org, a website advocating for a national registry similar to that of the National Do Not Call List:
More than 100,000,000,000 pieces of junk mail are delivered each year—that’s more than 800 pieces per household. In fact, junk mail in the United States accounts for one-third of all the mail delivered in the world.
Ummmm…. […]

Greetings from Monterey, CA. We’ve joined a group of teens in a leadership program out here and just today experienced the ultra back-scenes tour of the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Not only did we speak with researchers about the survival of the blue fin tuna, but were able to experience the huge tank from above, see […]

Alex T writes: ” I was excited to see that a few folks are carrying around copies of ‘Deep Economy’ By Bill McKibben in paperback this week. Excited because 9 months ago, a local book group headed up by my co-editor Allison Abdelnour read this book together. The discussions surrounding the ideas in […]

The following is a description of this Ted talk entitled, Thomas Barnett: The Pentagon’s new map for war and peace:
In this bracingly honest talk, international security strategist Thomas Barnett outlines a post-Cold War solution for the foundering U.S. military that is both sensible and breathtaking in its simplicity: Break it in two.
You can read Thomas […]

OK, so not really. But why are we so addicted to our clothes dryers?
According to ConsumerEnergy.org, “A dryer is typically the second-biggest electricity-using appliance after the refrigerator, costing about $85 to operate annually. Over its expected lifetime of 18 years, the average clothes dryer will cost you approximately $1,530 to operate.”
Especially in a very dry […]

With the usual influx of summer visitors in full swing, a typical conversation with folks from out of town will likely include talk of real estate: Prices, locations, new developments, old houses and the like are all par for the course. With several non-traditional developments in the works, the discussions between Buena Vista […]

Local Buena Vistan, Jessie Lewis, writes in A Family Journey on the Continental Divide Trail:
Have you ever done something that you thought was way out of your range of capability both physically and mentally and had it change your life? Have you ever spent time completely devoted to bettering yourself as a person? […]

One of this year’s many new acts for the Collegiate Peaks Music Festival is the Afropop band, Mohammed Alidu & The Bizung Family.
The band’s leader, Mohammed Alidu was born in Ghana into a lineage of talking drum chiefs known as the Bizung family. The talking drum, pictured at left, is a traditional West African drum […]

While record snowfall, an unseasonably cool spring and predictions for increased hurricanes this season encourage discussion about climate change, some communities need only look out their front door to see that things are different and changing fast. Residents in Scammon Bay, Alaska are meeting with neighboring communities to discuss what can be done to […]