Archive for February, 2009

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Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow, by Elizabeth Lesser, is a book about how “suffering and crisis transform us, humble us, and bring out what matters most in life.” The quote is from a man in the book who was in a terrible accident and experienced much pain. It’s a very loving book, even as she tells heartbreaking stories of people coping with the loss of a child, their own illnesses, and more. Her own life is woven into the tales in a way that I really enjoyed, like getting to know someone.

I read it hoping for something that would help me come to terms with the rate of change in life, and the ways in which the environment is changing so fast: getting hotter in some places, getting so dry in so many parts of the American west that water for the future is a question mark.

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Earth4energy.com is a very hot website, hot in the sense that hundred of webmasters are promoting its $49.97 ebook with videos that states you can build your own home electrical system in your back yard for under $200. If you take a look, you’ll see it’s a page well designed to sell.

The page stops just short of saying that such a system will be adequate for all your energy needs and that you might even have so much power that you would be able to sell some back to your power company. I found that very startling, having had solar power myself.

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Can you save enough money or power to bother with by replacing your older appliances with newer energy-efficient versions? After all, no large appliances are all that cheap, so there will be your out-of-pocket cost right away. If you are starting from scratch and building a new home or doing a major remodel, then it makes sense to choose the most energy-efficient appliances you can. But what about for the rest of us? Read the rest of this entry »