Author Archives: thinkofitasanadventure

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About thinkofitasanadventure

My husband Peter and I attended a sustainability conference with Richard Heinberg of the Post Carbon Institute in 2010. We learned some hard truths about climate change that shook us to our core. We knew we needed to transition away from fossil fuels as soon as possible, for the sake of our children. We initiated a neighborhood Transition group (Transition Longfellow). It became the center of our lives. In 2019, we downsized and moved to a tiny rural village. It's a whole new way of life and we've got a lot more learning to do. We're choosing to continue to "think of it as an adventure."

Study Finds 10% of Newborns Around Lake Superior with High Mercury Levels

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The Minnesota Department of Health has released the findings of a two-year study of mercury levels in the blood of newborns along the shores of Lake Superior in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. The results?

Ten percent (10%) of newborns in Minnesota had unhealthy levels of mercury in their bloodstream. They had suffered environmental poisoning before they even had a chance to take a breath. (Three percent of Wisconsin newborns had unhealthy levels of mercury. None of the newborns in Michigan were affected.) Continue reading →

Study Finds 10% of Newborns Around Lake Superior with High Mercury Levels

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The Minnesota Department of Health has released the findings of a two-year study of mercury levels in the blood of newborns along the shores of Lake Superior in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. The results?

Ten percent (10%) of newborns in Minnesota had unhealthy levels of mercury in their bloodstream. They had suffered environmental poisoning before they even had a chance to take a breath. (Three percent of Wisconsin newborns had unhealthy levels of mercury. None of the newborns in Michigan were affected.) Continue reading →

2012 Sustainable Film Series

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The Minneapolis College of Art & Design and reDesign are sponsoring a series of sustainability movies this spring. Free and open to the public.

Be the Change Explores the motivations for, and the challenges and rewards of, trying to live more lightly.
Wed., Feb. 15, 7:00 p.m.

Living Lightly A 21st century family lives with the land and the season in a corner of New Brunswick, Canada.
Wednesday, March 21, 7:00 p.m.

Permaculture: A Quiet Revolution A documentary featuring leading permaculturists.
No date published yet

Urban Roots Follows the urban farming phenomenon in Detroit, a community forging a sustainable and prosperous future.
Wednesday, April 18th, 7:00 p.m.

Mark Your Calendar, Opportunities Galore

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I’m sorry so much time has gone by but a life change took all my attention for six months. Now I’m back on track and ready to o help you get on track for 2012. Here are some classes/events/talks you may want to get on your calendar.

ENERGY
Solar Hot Water 103
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Century College, 3300 Century Avenue N., White Bear Lake, MN 55110
$90.00 for members of MRES, $100.00 for non-members
A one-day introductory course for homeowners interested in learning how to design a solar hot water heating system. You will learn to evaluate solar site resource, when solar hot water is the right solution, the economics and incentives for solar hot water, and system design principles. Topics covered include system components, system sizing, solar thermal panels, storage tanks, heat exchangers and plumbing connections.

Build a Personal Solar Station
Thursday, March 22, 6:30-8:30 p.m.
At the Seward Co-op, brought to you by GoSolar!
$50/$45 members
The class will teach you how to build a Personal Solar Station that can be used in your home, cabin, or RV to run 12V kitchen appliances for cooking or lights for a shed. Learn the basics of solar energy and electricity. Solar kits will be offered during class.

Your Longfellow sustainability group (called Transition Longfellow) will be hosting a workshop to make a solar cooker in April of this year. Watch for more info.

CLIMATE CHANGE
HOLY TRINITY READING PROJECT
Holy Trinity Lutheran Church is doing a congregation book read of “Earth: Making Life on a Tough New Planet,” by Bill McKibben. Learn how climate change is/will affect both people and the planet and how we can begin to respond to and prepare for it. Book discussion is held in the Holy Trinity library at 9:55 am on Sunday, March 11. Books are available for sale at the church.

GARDENS/LOCAL FOOD
Community Garden Spring Resource Fair, organized by Gardening Matters
Saturday March 31st
Neighborhood House, 179 Robie Street, St. Paul, MN 55107
Donation
Connecting gardeners with resources, information and people for a successful 2012 growing season. Workshops on topics such as backyard chickens and beekeeping, food swaps and coops, addressing food justice at a local level, and composting options for community gardens. Keynote speaker is Karen Washington, an urban farmer and president of the New York City Community Garden Coalition and founding member of Black Urban Growers (BUGs). Karen has developed abandoned lots into successful community gardens and food initiatives. She will be sharing her work advocating for land permanence for community gardens and the power of working in a coalition to achieve common goals.

Urban Chicken 101 Lecture
Wednesday, April 4, 6:30-8:30
Seward Co-op
$12/$10 members
This class will cover everything you need to know to start up a small flock of chickens in your back yard, with an emphasis on coop design.

January Activities for Longfellow Sustainability Group

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January marks 1 year of sustainability for Peter and I. In January, we met with Sage and MarAnn to brainstorm the creation of the Longfellow sustainability group, which is now called Transition Longfellow. To celebrate a year of activities and fellowship, the group is planning a special event. EVERYONE is invited, but we’d particularly like to see you if you’ve been following us on Facebook, or if you attended a Saturday morning meeting or came to a movie night.

JANUARY 7 – Pancake Breakfast Celebration
9 to 11 am
Bethany Lutheran Church, 3900 36th Avenue S.
We’ll share what we’ve accomplished and what we’ve learned. We’ll talk about our plans for activities in 2012. And we’ll have a silent auction of hand-mad items. If you want to donate something, let me know. I’m handling the auction.

ALSO this month

January 20 Movie Night
6:30 pm potluck, 7:15 movie
Bethany Lutheran Church, 3900 36th Avenue S.
The Real Dirt on Farmer John is a poignant and often hilarious look at an honest farmer’s struggle to keep his farm from foreclosure, and to save his family name. This movie is FREE and open to the public.

Speak Up! How To Talk About Climate Change

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Is there someone you’ve been wanting to talk to about climate change but you’re worried that you don’t have all the facts or won’t be able to answer their questions? Cool Planet is having a speaker training on Sunday, November 20, from 3 to 6 PM at  Macalester College, 1600 Grand Ave, St. Paul. Fee of $10-25  but no one will be turned away if they can’t pay. Register online or call 952-920-1547.

Dr. John Abraham from St. Thomas University will be talking about the science of climate change and then Dr. Christie Manning (Handbook of Sustainable Behavior) and Craig and Patricia Neal (Art of Convening) will talk about HOW TO TALK.  I haven’t met the Neals but I’ve heard Christie speak and what she’s got to say is very interesting.

I can’t make it on the 20th but if you go, I’d love to hear from you.

 

September Mini-Challenge: STUFF

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Trash Pickup Facilitates Endless Consumption

A friend of ours just came back from studying Spanish in Guatemala. One of the things that stood out for her (aside from chickens everywhere) was the fact that the community in which she lived did not have regular garbage pickup and therefore the things people bought stayed with them. No throwing away a pop bottle and having it disappear. Nope, it stayed on the ground where it was dropped.

If that was the case where we live, think about what the typical American neighborhood would look like. We’d all be living on a trash heap — OR

  • We would buy less
  • We would find a way to use that piece of refuse for another purpose
  • We would give things away and share
  • We would complain to manufacturers who over-package the products they sell us
  • We would ask our stores to carry more things in bulk so we didn’t have to buy the packaging
  • We would buy things locally rather than have them shipped from so far away, which is why it requires so much packaging
  • We’d try to make things ourselves so we didn’t have to deal with the waste

If you stop to think about it, garbage pickup is a way we hide the truth from ourselves about what we are really doing to the planet. It’s one of the luxuries that allow us to keep consuming.

Check out a few interesting pieces about waste:

 

Progress on Solar

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Solar Hot Air

Solar hot air panels going up

Made in Minnesota solar hot air panels

Wondering what we’ve been up to with our plans for solar? We’re moving full steam ahead to meet the Sept 15 deadline for project completion for the Make Mine Solar program.

We’ve installed two solar hot air panels on the south side of our house, which faces a street so we have very good sun exposure. The inside work — a blower fan enclosure — is being completed this weekend. We believe this system will heat the second floor more than sufficiently. We’ve been told to expect 85 degrees or more on sunny winter days and as we only heat our house to 55 degrees, that would be amazingly toasty.

In a few weeks, we’ll have the solar electric panels installed on the roof.  Unfortunately, Xcel Energy’s Solar Rewards program has run out of funds for 2011 and it’s unclear if we’ve made the cutoff. Our installer, Innovative Power Systems, thinks not.

That doesn’t mean we won’t get our rebate – we just Make Mine Solar solar hot air panelswon’t get it this year. We’ll get both the Xcel and the federal tax rebates next year.

What we’ll get this year is heat in our bedroom in December (yippee!) and – we hope – electricity flowing from our roof by October.

September Sustainability Events

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As summer winds down and Minnesotans try to fit EVERYTHING into our last month of warm days, September weekends get booked up fast. Here’s some events that should get on your calendar.

THIS Saturday, September 10 — Parade of Chicken Coops: 10:00AM  to  4:00PM. This is a self-guided tour of volunteers eager to show you how chickens fit with urban agriculture. Thinking of getting chickens? Egg|Plant Urban Farm Supply is a one-stop shop for urban chicken-keeping.   

NEXT Friday, September 16 — The Longfellow Sustainability Group Movie Night & Potluck: We’ll be showing “Power of Community, How Cuba Survived Peak Oil.” The U.S. embargo of Cuba and the downfall of the Soviet Union disrupted oil supplies to Cuba, causing massive disruption in systems of transportation, work and food production. People were going hungry. But this island nation showed tremendous character and caring in how it tackled the problem of forced “peak oil” and took care of its people. This is a really uplifting movie. Hope we see you there!

Moving Planet - Moving Beyond Fossil FuelsSaturday, September 24 – MN350 Rally: People around the globe are gathering on September 24 for Moving Planet – a worldwide rally to demand solutions to the climate crisis. In Minnesota, we’ll be meeting at the State Capital to tell our legislators it’s time to move beyond fossil fuels. Minnesotans are particularly vulnerable to the coming climate crisis because of our temperature extremes — more snow means more floods, more days over 100 degrees with high humidity could mean deaths from heat. We need action! (350 is the parts per million of carbon that scientists say is safe for our atmosphere. We’re at 394 – and going up.)

Sunday, September 25 — Tour of Minnesota’s first eco-friendly cemetery, Prairie Oaks: The tour begins at 3. Address is 8225 Argenta Train, Inver Grove Heights, MN. Call 612-250-2655 to learn more.

Saturday, October 1 — Solar Tour: It’s called a solar tour, but it includes other forms of renewable energy as well. This is a self-guided Tour of 50+ homes, businesses, and institutions that have incorporated renewable energy, from geothermal heat pumps to wind turbines to the many incarnations of solar energy.