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A sign of the times – but one that may be welcome from the digitally connected among us – is this smart terrarium concept by designer Samuel Wilkinson.

Called the “Biome”, the beautiful flora terrarium is controlled exclusively (climate, water level and nutrients) via your iPad or other smartphone device. Wilkinson told MocoLogo that the idea “promotes ‘digital downtime’ by finding an alternative use for smartphones and encouraging their owners to consider a slower life. The control and nurturing of a real mini eco-system takes patience and care, contrasting with the immediacy of messaging or tweeting that is so characteristic of the smartphone generation.”

Biome was developed for a recent exhibition titled “Slow Tech – Designs for Digital Downtime”. There’s no word yet on if the Biome or its companion app will ever see the light of day as a real product. More info here.

Click to embiggen…

Via Root Simple

Students from SUNY-ESF will be taking over Groovy Green next week.  Get the perspective of the future environmental leaders of America (and places beyond).

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Come back and see us next week, starting Thursday 11/18/10 and see what they have to say.

ED: the dog ate my homework.  Check back next week!

I’ve had the humbling experience of undergoing ankle surgery about 2 months ago.  As a father of a near-two year old, and a husband, it has been extremely difficult to shift from the role of a provider and equal member of the household to a person initially very dependent on others.

My family and friends have been very supportive, and where we still needed some help, we were able to find babysitters, someone to help clean, and someone to do the annual fall clean-up.

I’ve progressed  over the last month from a doped-up, leg-elevated, impression in my couch to a semi-functioning member of my family and society.  I’m back to work, and trying to catch up on my PhD studies.  Still, its a big challenge to hop from place to place, and occasionally catch a ride in a wheelchair during longer outings.  Let’s just say that I’ve had plenty of time to think.

This experience has made me appreciate the small battles, triumphs, and failures that millions of disabled Americans face each day.  I’ll never take for granted: a stand-up shower, shaving, or brushing my teeth (among other things) again.  Another thing that I appreciate is how much more difficult it is to live up to one’s ideals (especially about environmental issues), when one is struggling to fulfill their basic daily needs independently, or is dependent on others for assistance.  I’ll admit now that paper plates made a quick return to our household after I was laid up.

In some ways, my environmental impact was drastically reduced.  I didn’t start driving for about a month after my surgery.  No hot showers for the first two weeks, and now, since they are a huge pain in the butt, only every couple of days.  Less eating out, less travel to visit relatives.  Less coffee too (though I am back on that bandwagon).  Being homebound slashed our driving and travel expenses and the accompanying energy consumption and emissions.

On the other hand, more meals of convenience (Digiorno’s pizza isn’t half-bad), less recycling, less peak-oil preps.  Did I mention paper plates?  More TV, more internet.  More lights burning during the day.  Switching my programmable thermostat basically to the “on” position.

How can you ask your wife, who has done so much for you over the past 8 weeks to, “oh by the way can you put the Halloween pumpkins in the compost pile instead of the garbage?”  You don’t.  You curse your misfortune while still counting your remaining blessings.  You learn not to sweat the small stuff.  You learn to become much more humble and more appreciative.  And form lists in your head about all of the things that you’re going to do just as soon as you get off the damn crutches!

You also learn that forced reductions in energy consumption and environmental impact are not nearly as fulfilling as those made voluntarily (I commiserate with the recently laid-off employees, who must feel the same). The result is the same, but the motivations very different.

The last thing I’ll carp about is the trapped feeling and lack of contact with fresh air, the sun, and nature in general.  Not being able to get out and experience the beautiful fall colors and crisp air did a number on my psyche.  I relished two trips out – one to get pumpkins, the other to a county park – where my best friend dutifully pushed me in a borrowed wheelchair through the woods at dusk.

Can a one-legged man stay green?  The answer is sure.  Given all of the above, I’ve probably had less of a net impact on the environment than before the surgery.  But it’s been a tough slog.

—-

For those of you who know someone who is disabled – a family member, friend, neighbor – try to remember to drop off a nice home cooked meal (local ingredients and organic, if that is your thing – but any home-cooked food is better than out of a box), offer to take out their recycling, run some errands for them as long as you’re going to be out and about anyways, and if you can, just stop by on a nice sunny day and take them outside and sit in the warm sun and fresh air.  You’ll never know how much they’ll appreciate it.

Groovy Green is a phoenix rising from the proverbial ashes compost heap…

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(image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/toonz)

Cleveland’s City Council recently passed a $2.5 million measure to bring RFID-equipped recycling bins to 25,000 homes over the course of the next year. Hey, nothing like encouraging a little green behavior. But this one carries a catch:

The chips will allow city workers to monitor how often residents roll carts to the curb for collection. If a chip show a recyclable cart hasn’t been brought to the curb in weeks, a trash supervisor will sort through the trash for recyclables.

Trash carts containing more than 10 percent recyclable material could lead to a $100 fine, according to Waste Collection Commissioner Ronnie Owens.

Yikes. I mean, everyone should be recycling, but is imposing a sort of “Big Brother” technology necessary? I can see this as being yet another controversial (and wildly blown-out-of-proportion) example of “environmental liberalism” interfering in the lives of people. Why not just fine someone if they don’t have a recycling bin out and full next to their garbage? And do we really need trash supervisors spending time looking for recyclables in our garbage?

I’m firmly on the side of wanting more composting and recycling in this country, but something like this just seems a bit imposing. There’s got to be a better way to convince people to recycle.

I’ve been on the lookout for new environmental blogs.  La Vida Locavore is so good, it got this lazy blogger off his duff to give her a shot out and a link.

Go check the blog out, especially the series on her recent trip to Cuba

Groovy Green readers, any other good blog/website suggestions?

What follows is something I posted in September of 2008. The US presidential campaign was building up steam and I was sick and tired of hearing ‘Drill Baby Drill.’ It made me ill because of the stupidity of the entire argument. I wrote,

Even when production is pumping at full capacity, additional offshore drilling facilities would amount to about 200,000 barrels per day (bpd). The US currently uses 21 million bpd. This does not take into account the increase in oil consumption necessary to continue to grow our economy[during the time it would take to get the drills up and drilling]. The bottom line is that additional offshore drilling will provide 1.2% of the oil we use every day if we don’t increase consumption and we’re willing to wait 20 years.

So now Obama has opened up most of the east coast among other areas for oil exploration.

The Democrats are pretending to have been betrayed, the Republicans are saying he didn’t go far enough and the environmentalists are mad as hell.

The truth is that this was a beautiful political move. President Obama gave his Democratic base ammunition for the upcoming election and took steps towards soothing the sting of those opposed to “health care” reform on the right. Sure there are factions within the Democratic party who are oppose to more offshore drilling but fewer than five Democrats will actually vote against their Democratic candidates this November because the President opened up more offshore areas for oil exploration. Instead those candidates will be able to say, “Look, we’re trying to become more energy independent by opening up areas previously off limits and the Republicans aren’t going along with us. We’re willing to try what the Republicans have been asking us for years.” I’m not sure if those political bullets will hit their targets but hey, it’s something.

The real genius of this move lies in the fact that the Republicans have been saying for ever and ever that we could solve this energy problem if those wacky environmentally conservative Democrats would just open up more offshore areas for drilling. It’s total bullshit of course, as you’ll read below but they’ve gotten away with it because average Americans don’t know the facts. Obama has now taken that sound bite away from them. And as an added bonus if the Republicans do speak out against this they will be branded even more deeply as the Party of No.

I’m guessing the environmentalists who are upset about this don’t understand the facts. Little if any of the oil in these new areas will ever be pumped out of the seafloor. It’s too costly. We won’t be able to afford it. There is no real threat to the environment here because it’s highly unlikely that any substantial new drilling in these areas will ever take place.

This is political theater, nothing more. Grab a bag of popcorn and be amused.

Original post from September 2008…

I won’t go so far as to say I’m against lifting the ban on drilling for oil off the east coast of the United States of America. I say that because the only reason the idea is being bandied about is that the last two Republican presidents were oil tycoons and that party is desperate to reframe the rise in the price of gasoline as the fault of the Democrats. Perhaps Democrats should agree to lift the ban and when the price of gas doesn’t go down, Republicans will be left without that political punch to throw.

Having said that, I am not in favor of lifting the offshore drilling ban because drilling for oil off the east coast of the U.S. is stupid. Here’s why.

The USGS says there are 17.8 billion barrels of undiscovered recoverable resources(read Unproven Reserves) in waters currently off limits to exploration. The EIA says production couldn’t really get started until 2017 and wouldn’t be fully ramped up for another 15 years until about 2030. Remember the U.S. uses more than 7 billion barrels a year. Great, there might be two and a half more years worth of oil. Even if we could start pumping at full capacity today when my daughter is 2 ½, she’ll be 5 when all that oil is used up.

Even when production is pumping at full capacity, additional offshore drilling facilities would amount to about 200,000 barrels per day (bpd). The US currently uses 21 million bpd. This does not take into account the increase in oil consumption necessary to continue to grow our economy. The bottom line is that additional offshore drilling will provide 1.2% of the oil we use every day if we don’t increase consumption and we’re willing to wait 20 years.

Oh and if the oil companies don’t sell that oil to other countries. Remember, we currently export about 1.5 million barrels of oil from the US every day. There is no guarantee that big oil will even keep this measly 200,000 bpd in the US.

And don’t forget the hurricanes.

Notice I didn’t even mention the possible environmental catastrophes or the hit tourism might take if lounging at the beach starts to include a beautiful view of the flare from a drilling rig.

Offshore oil is politicians playing the blame game and that’s all it is. The sad part is that a majority of Americans are falling for it while their leaders, Republicans and Democrats alike, continue to refuse to act appropriately.

If you want a quick test of whether or not a politican understands energy issues ask her if she’d like to see the cost of gasoline go down. If she says yes, she doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about.

[ed note: the following post is written by Alison Bayne.  Check out her blog at alisonbayne.blogspot.com]

The Book of Rubbish Ideas is anything but rubbish. It is FULL of excellent tips to help eco-newbies and hard-core Greens see rubbish as a resource, cut down on waste, and save time, money and resources as a result.

Don’t be put off by the quirky cover; author, Tracey Smith, a contented downshifter, aims to take the freaky out of eco, and her book is accessible, practical and positive. There’s no holier-than-thou attitude to reusable nappies, washable sanpro and chicken-keeping; we are encouraged to ditch the guilt for what we are not doing and start feeling good about what we are doing.

Tracey takes you on a tour through the average family home, from bedroom and bathroom through to the kitchen and out into the garden, including the Usually Male Domain of shed and garage, which so often get missed out where decluttering’s concerned.

Tracey’s project boxes at the end of each chapter include creating an art/craft box for your very own Make Do And Mend moments, a luscious His & Hers body scrub for a sticky night in, and (back down to earth) how to clean all sorts of household items – from grubby grout to wooden chopping boards – without using chemicals. Her practical advice is backed up with case studies from every day folk who are making their personal contribution to waste reduction through their own downshifting initiatives, and there are contributions from several celebrity greens, such as Wayne Hemmingway and Kim Wilde.

But this is more than a book of eco tips. It also helps readers get politically active and involved in environmental issues, by providing templates for letters to supermarkets, local schools and political representatives. There’s even an invite to send to your friends when hosting a Clothes Swap Party. So not only can you make changes within your own home, you can take steps to affect the wider world. The resources section is thorough and will have you hooked to the internet for days – there are websites, organisations and eco-products galore and a bibliography that is bound to fill up your amazon wishlist. One person’s rubbish may be another person’s treasure, but The Book of Rubbish Ideas is a gem for everyone.

[ed note: also check out the Book of Rubbish Ideas blog]