I eat meat myself, and luckily I live in an agricultural area in Colorado where we can get local grass-fed beef, lamb, and even yak, as well as locally raised organic chicken.

And that’s what we eat when we eat meat, for the most part. I am not drawn to eat meat where the animals may have been treated inhumanely, fed corn, or fed dubious feeds.

So this book turned out to be right up my alley. As the Chelsea Green webpage about Meat says, “Simon Fairlie presents in-depth research in favor of small-scale, holistic, and integrated farming systems that include pastured, free-range livestock as the answer to the pro-meat or no-meat debate.

“George Monbiot, for example, a well-known environmental activist and supporter of veganism, has retracted his support for veganism after reading Meat. This is a life-changing book.”

The book, over 300 pages, is a very comprehensive and far-reaching work. Fairlie writes clearly and with a certain flair at times, but I did find that when I used the book for bedtime reading, I would soon nod off. So I read most of it during the day, sitting upright in a chair, enthusiastically reading snippets aloud to my husband whenever he came within earshot.

Fairlie addresses every hard issue that relates to farming meat animals. He is a farmer himself, and here he is exploring how Great Britain can feed its own people. So many of the examples are British that I think the book might have a smaller audience in the US. But really, anyone interested in issues of how the world can feed itself, and a complex and nuanced examination of the land-use arguments for and against veganism, vegetarianism, and meat-eating, will find food for thought in this book. If you click through to the Chelsea Green link above, you will see a long list of reviews of the book. I read several and was fascinated by how differently different people reacted to this book!

This article came from: Meat: A Benign Extravagance at SimpleGreenLiving.com..

I found a copy at one of the three public libraries I frequent, and have been working my way through it. It has inspired several blog posts I’ve written here. Diane MacEachern has done a massive amount of research, and the book is full of information, tips, websites, comments on how her family does things, and more.

Highly recommended! Click on the image to see more about the book at Amazon.

This article came from: Big Green Purse at SimpleGreenLiving.com..

I didn’t realize how bad it can be out there in the big world! Living in a remote small town and having a home business that rarely involves any kind of clients, Kelly and I are pretty insulated.

Powers begins with a section called “The Conundrum of the Connected Life,” which includes a hilarious and thought-provoking tale of his falling overboard from the family boat. No problem, he can swim, but his mobile phone died, taking with it a lot of stuff he had meant to back up.

Then there is a section on “philosphers of screens,” who turn out to be Plato, Seneca, Gutenberg, Shakespeare, Ben Franklin, Thoreau, and McLuhan.  After I read the first of these, I was hooked on finding out how Powers would tie these ancients in with our modern dilemmas. He did, very well. Socrates took a dim view of books? Why?

The last section talks about Disconnectopia. He, his wife, and his son turned off their internet connection for the weekends. They have a life! But how did they manage it?

I’m not prepared to go offline all weekend, but I am being more conscious of my computer time and the rest of my life. I had been thinking of getting a Blackberry but decided my plain old cellphone is just fine.

Related articles from Other Sites

• Faith And a Modern-Day Hamlet (online.wsj.com)
• Tom Morris: Interview With a Philosopher: Our Blackberries, I-Phones, Droids, and Souls. (huffingtonpost.com)
• Coping with Information Overload: Thoughts on Hamlet’s BlackBerry by William Powers (pff.org)
• To Connect or Not To Connect – That is the Question: How the State of Disconnectedness is a Possibility (customerthink.com)

This article came from: Hamlet’s Blackberry at SimpleGreenLiving.com..

Description
You’ve read the stories and watched the documentaries. So you’re convinced–burning fossil fuels leads to global climate change; supplies of fossil fuels are diminishing in quantity and increasing in price. You’ve fretted and worried, but still go through your day consuming some quantity of non-renewable fossil fuels to accomplish nearly every task (and you may not even realize it). You want to do something besides worry but you are unsure where to begin.

Read this book–then grab your handsaw, tape measure, and drill, and get started!

A life powered by the sun is waiting for you. Meant as a guide for renovating existing homes, this book gives you the hands-on knowledge necessary to kick the fossil fuel habit, with projects small and large listed by skill, time, cost, and energy saved.

For every aspect of your life currently powered by fossil fuels, we offer alternatives you can accomplish yourself to get started using renewable and sustainable sources of power.

Inspired by their own determination to wean themselves completely from fossil fuels, Rebekah and Stephen Hren provide a map for others interested in the path to producing all their own energy and living a fossil fuel-free life.

It shows first how to reduce energy consumption as much as possible, then how to retrofit an existing home in order to obtain all heating and cooling, all cooking and refrigeration, and all hot water and electricity from renewable sources.

The Hrens also provide advice on renewable methods of transportation and home gardening, as poor choices about food and mobility often negate hard-won gains in the home.

Like many today, the Hrens felt they had a moral obligation to mitigate humankind’s contribution to the ravages of pollution, including global warming as a result of fossil fuel addiction. In this book, the Hrens offer practical approaches that fit into anyone’s budget, and can be done over time as a way to wean oneself from fossil fuel dependency.

The Carbon-Free Home: 36 Remodeling Projects to Help Kick the Fossil-Fuel Habit

This article came from: The Carbon-Free Home at SimpleGreenLiving.com..

Description

“The Human-Powered Home is a level-headed book which focuses on informing and entertaining. There is no utopian hyperbole, just useful facts and anecdotes that provide the foundation necessary to take appropriate action. Dean has produced an accessible primer for novices in the area of people power as well as a book that is thorough enough to benefit even experienced tinkerers. – Joel Gillespie, Momentum Magazine

“Tamara Dean, author of The Human Powered Home, doesn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea. Creating one’s own power is not an easy undertaking. But it can be very energizing. The bicycle is the real hero in the book. There are photos and descriptions of dozens of jury-rigged devices, built to do everything from wash clothes to make soap to power laptops. While it’s a thorough guide for confident do-it-yourselfers, the book also details how pedal and treadle power can make life-changing differences globally.” – Marsha Walton, Mother Nature Network

What if I could harness this energy? An unusual question for anyone putting in a long stint on a treadmill perhaps, yet human power is a very old, practical, and empowering alternative to fossil fuels. Replacing motors with muscles can be considered a political act—an act of self-sufficiency that gains you independence.

The Human-Powered Home is a one-of-a-kind compendium of human- powered devices gathered from a unique collection of experts. Enthusiasts point to the advantages of human power:

• Portable and available on-demand
• Close connection to the process or product offers more control
• Improved health and fitness
• The satisfaction of being able to make do with what is available

This book discusses the science and history of human power and examines the common elements of human-powered devices. It offers plans for making specific devices, grouped by area of use, and features dozens of individuals who share technical details and photos of their inventions.

For those who want to apply their own ingenuity, or for those who have never heard of human-powered machines, this book is an excellent reference. For those who are beginning to understand the importance of a life of reduced dependency on fossil fuels, this book could be a catalyst for change.

Tamara Dean is a technical and environmental writer who lives in Wisconsin, where she and her partner David human-power their grain mill, blender, coffee grinder, and assorted electrical gadgets.

The Human-Powered Home: Choosing Muscles Over Motors

This article came from: The Human-Powered Home: Choosing Muscles Over Motors at SimpleGreenLiving.com..

Description
Holy Cows and Hog Heaven is written by an honest-to-goodness-dirt-under-the-fingernails, optimistic clean good farmer. His goal is to:

* Empower food buyers to pursue positive alternatives to the industrialized food system.

* Bring clean food farmers and their patrons into a teamwork relationship.

* Marry the best of western technology with the soul of eastern ethics.

* Educate food buyers about productions.

* Create a food system that enhances nature’s ecology for future generations.

This article came from: Holy Cows And Hog Heaven: The Food Buyer’s Guide To Farm Friendly Food at SimpleGreenLiving.com..

With rising energy costs, homeowners are beginning to examine the energy efficiency of their own homes, asking questions about where energy comes from and how much it costs, how to choose new appliances and what options exist for renewable energy.

The Home Energy Diet answers all these questions and more while helping readers take control of their personal energy use and costs so they can save money, live more comfortably and help the environment. Energy auditor Paul Scheckel first explores energy literacy, and then describes how your home uses-and loses-energy you pay for via:

Electricity
Hot water
Heating and air conditioning
Windows, walls and insulation

The Home Energy Diet involves readers in learning about their own homes by: measuring, metering, investigating and considering habits related to household energy use; learning how to quantify energy consumption and cost and making informed decisions about cost-effective improvements and upgrades. The book explores the misunderstood concept of efficiency versus cost by comparing fuel costs and equipment choices, including the possibility of using renewable energy for meeting home energy needs. This authoritative guide makes efficiency fun through personal anecdotes and humorous “tales-from-the-basement” energy misadventures.

Since energy efficiency is an investment that offers returns greater than Wall Street, readers can earn several hundred dollars every year just by following the advice in this book. As a bonus, many of the energy-saving strategies described can make for improved indoor air quality and healthier, more comfortable homes.

Paul Scheckel is an energy auditor who has visited thousands of homes, educating people about energy efficiency, cost-effective improvements and indoor air quality. With a passion for efficiency and renewables, he walks the talk by living in a solar-powered house and driving a car powered by vegetable oil in his home state of Vermont.

The Home Energy Diet: How to Save Money by Making Your House Energy-Smart

This article came from: The Home Energy Diet at SimpleGreenLiving.com..

Description

This revised edition of The Renewable Energy Handbook focuses on the unique requirements of off-grid living as well as using “green” energy for homeowners who remain connected to the electrical utility. The book contains chapters on:

• Energy efficiency and economics
• Home heating and cooling and domestic water heating
• Photovoltaic, wind, and micro-hydro energy generation
• Battery selection and inverters
• Backup power, wireless communications, etc.

It includes comprehensive specifications for many of the products available in the market today.

Whether you are just curious or an industry expert, this handbook will show you how to stretch your energy dollars (doing much more with less) while powering your home with renewable energy. And, unlike fossil fuels or nuclear energy, renewable energy frees you from worry about dumping today’s pollution on tomorrow’s children.

Since its release in 2003, The Renewable Energy Handbook has been a top-selling technology book and is recognized as the best in its field.

This edition has been fully revised for 2010 and beyond. It has been increased in size to an easy-to-read 8 x 10 inch format, and it is augmented with hundreds of illustrations, line drawings, photographs, and appendices.

Author/engineer William H. Kemp is a leading expert in renewable energy technologies. He and his wife designed and built their own off-grid home, which has all the standard middle-class creature comforts while using no fossil-fuel energy. The author showcases an assortment of homes, including his own, to demonstrate real-world application of the technologies.

The Renewable Energy Handbook, Revised Edition: The Updated Comprehensive Guide to Renewable Energy and Independent Living

This article came from: The Renewable Energy Handbook at SimpleGreenLiving.com..

Description
It’s time to “green” that cleaning routine! Millions of Americans are replacing harsh chemical cleansers with ecofriendly alternatives. Unfortunately, most commercial green cleaners are expensive, and they often come with dubious environmental claims.

Effective, nontoxic alternatives can be mixed up easily from kitchen staples — baking soda, vinegar, lemon juice, herbs, and borax — plus a handful of easy-to-find essential oils. In the second edition of The Naturally Clean Home, Karyn Siegel-Maier offers 150 all-natural recipes for cleaning every area of the home — from bathrooms to bedding, and from carpets to cabinetry.

Siegel-Maier, a writer specializing in complementary therapies whose work is featured in such publications as Mother Earth News and Natural Living Today, presents quick recipes for cleansers that are nontoxic, biodegradable, and freshsmelling. Formulas are so simple that even a novice can make them, yet they are as effective as the commercial options. Best of all, these recipes are much less expensive than commercial cleaners; most can be made for mere pennies per use.

With the second edition of this popular book comes a host of hard-working new recipes, including Rosemary-Geranium Floor Wipes for electrostatic floor mops, Thyme to Make Your Own Carpet Steamer, Weekend Warrior Wicker Wash, Telephone Dirty Talk Tamer, Clear the Air Room Spritzer, and Lavender Lift Automatic Dishwasher Soap.

Siegel-Maier also offers recipes for outdoor spaces — like Shoo-Fly Shake to keep flies away from your backyard barbecue — and covers areas less commonly considered in the cleaning routine: garden, houseplants, computer, even the septic tank!

Whether scrubbing or scouring, degreasing or dusting, The Naturally Clean Home makes it fun to mix up chemical-free products that are easy on home and planet!

The Naturally Clean Home

This article came from: The Naturally Clean Home at SimpleGreenLiving.com..

Beth Greer had been living what she considered a healthy lifestyle when a medical crisis prompted her to reevaluate everything—from the food she ate to the personal-care products she used and the environment she lived in.

Now, in Super Natural Home, she shows the alarming extent of the dangerous chemicals we unwittingly expose ourselves to every day.

As she did in her own life, she invites readers to put their lives under a microscope—to scrutinize what Americans put in and on their bodies and bring into their homes—and to make personal choices that will enable them to “live clean” in a toxic world.

The straightforward, solutions-based approach of Super Natural Home—complete with quizzes to help identify and correct potential toxic hot zones—speaks directly to what environment-conscious consumers really need: ultra-practical advice on what they can do right now to limit exposure to the poisons that are endangering them and their children.

At a time when impeccable scientific research points to an alarming correlation between common chemical compounds and cancers, allergies, psychiatric disorders, and birth defects, among other serious health concerns, Super Natural Home gives consumers the tools to start protecting themselves and their families.

Super Natural Home: Improve Your Health, Home, and Planet–One Room at a Time

This article came from: Super Natural Home: Improve Your Health, Home, and Planet–One Room at a Time at SimpleGreenLiving.com..