Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage | Sustainable Community Living | Intentional Community Living

Sustainable Community Living
Dancing Rabbit is an ecovillage and intentional community set amid the hills and prairies of rural northeastern Missouri. Our goal is to live ecologically sustainable and socially rewarding lives, and to share the skills and ideas behind that lifestyle.

Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage | Sustainable Community Living | Intentional Community Living

Dystopia: Fuel-Hungry Pirates Steal Used Cooking Oil to Run Their Cars

Dystopia: Fuel-Hungry Pirates Steal Used Cooking Oil to Run Their Cars: "Restaurants across the United States are reporting that thieves are stealing their used cooking oil, turning it into black-market biodiesel made in garage distilleries. In many cities where biodiesel fuel is popular, restaurants can earn up to $1.25 per gallon of the used stuff. Oil pirates, however, are rarely looking to make a buck. They are just whipping up biodiesel for their own uses, cutting out middlemen who go through a complicated certification process with the Environmental Protection Agency in order to distill the fuel from oil."

N. Texan Builds Car That Costs $7 For Every 300 Miles - Community Events News Story - KXAS | Dallas

N. Texan Builds Car That Costs $7 For Every 300 Miles - Community Events News Story - KXAS | Dallas:

"David Murray may drive the quietest car in North Texas, powered only by a small electric motor, and not creating any emissions.

'The most common question I get is, ‘Is this an electric car?’ and then they're like, 'Is it a hybrid?’ Nope, it's a real electric (car),' Murray said.

When his car is low on fuel, Murray simply plugs the power cord into the nearest outlet.

'Yeah, just plug it in here. Just a regular old extension cord,' Murray said.

The self-described computer geek from Kennedale bought the 1993 Eagle Talon from a junkyard for just $750.

'First thing I did when I got the car home was pull the engine out,' Murray said.

He then spent about $4,000 more to convert the gas-guzzler to run on electricity alone, doing all the work himself in his garage at home.

'I bought the electric motor and I was like well, I gotta figure out a way to couple it together with the original transmission,” he said.

The car can hit 55 mph, driving right past the high prices at gas stations.

'I hear people complain about them at work all the time. I just grin,' he said.

Murray spends just $7 per month on electricity to charge the batteries -- enough to go about 300 miles.

'I don't even look at the"

From Dr. Mercola:
As food shortages and hunger crises loom on the horizon, I found Pollan’s speech -- and the ideas it represents -- to be a ray of hope. There is a reason why Joel Salatin, the farmer mentioned in the video, can easily call his farm Polyface “beyond organic.”

“We are in the redemption business,” it says on the farm’s homepage. “Healing the land, healing the food, healing the economy, and healing the culture.”

What a breath of fresh air.

Contrast that to the plague of modern agriculture, whose factory farms are among the worst polluters in the United States, and it’s easy to see how the future of our land and food supply lies in people who are willing to embrace the principles of permaculture.

What is Permaculture?
The Permaculture Institute puts it quite well. They define permaculture as an “ecological design system for sustainability in all aspects of human endeavor.”

The word itself comes from “permanent agriculture” and “permanent culture,” and at its foundation is developing agricultural and other systems that are interconnected and dependent on one another. In other words, they mimic the natural ecologies found in nature. The focus is not on any one element of the system, rather the focus is on the relationships between animals, plants, insects, soil, water and habitat -- and how to use these relationships to create synergistic, self-supporting ecosystems.

“Though the problems of the world are increasingly more complex, the solutions remain embarrassingly simple,” said Bill Mollison, co-founder of the world-wide permaculture movement. And I couldn’t agree more.

What is Needed is a Return to Nature
Those of you who are new to the natural health scene may find it surprising that the modern food system is in danger of collapsing. The food system began its dramatic decline the second the world turned away from the farming practices of our ancestors, and began to attempt to outdo nature with technology.

Now, producing food on a massive scale at the lowest price possible has taken precedence over obeying the laws of nature. The system is pushing natural systems and organisms to their limit, forcing living creatures to function as machines.

Of course, “whatever we may gain in industrial efficiency, we sacrifice in biological resilience,” Michael Pollan pointed out in Our Decrepit Food Factories.

Soon, the animals, and consequently your food supply, become unhealthy. The honeybees begin to get sick and die off. The bacteria prove that they can outwit man-made antibiotics, and create super-versions of themselves.

And as nature has shown us many times before, when you take away one part of this integrated, living system, things begin to crumble.

You may be wondering what you can do about all of this. Well, short of starting your own sustainable farm (which you can do on a small-scale in your own backyard), you can steer clear of foods that come from factory farms, and instead support sustainable agriculture movements in your area.

You can also stay informed and help to spread the word about the problems with the modern food system. Michael Pollan, for those of you who don’t know, is a New York Times author who has written extensively on this topic. He wrote the brilliant article about the perils of factory-farmed beef back in 2002, and he also published the book Omnivore's Dilemma in 2006, which is an excellent starting point for anyone interested in the future of food.

NY Times - Chasing Utopia, Family Imagines No Possessions

The New York Times profiles a visionary family:

Like many other young couples, Aimee and Jeff Harris spent the first years of their marriage eagerly accumulating stuff: cars, furniture, clothes, appliances and, after a son and a daughter came along, toys, toys, toys.

Now they are trying to get rid of it all, down to their fancy wedding bands. Chasing a utopian vision of a self-sustaining life on the land as partisans of a movement some call voluntary simplicity, they are donating virtually all their possessions to charity and hitting the road at the end of May.

My family has no plans to travel this far down the path of simplicity, but we are working to rid our home of excess clutter. When we need inspiration, we'll turn to the Harris blog:

Why are we doing this?

Because we have a dream. A dream of a better life and a better world. A dream of a reality where people get what they need... where all people have a right and the ability! to live within their natural state: Health, Freedom and Joy! A world where we truly use our minds and our bodies to their fullest intended abilities and really, truly, enrich our souls!

Earth Policy Institute

"The purpose of the Earth Policy Institute is to provide a vision of what a sustainable economy will look like and a plan for how to get from here to there."

As a librarian, I'm excited to see that their methods include the distribution of free information. For instance, they've made books such as Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization by Lester Brown available for download. I haven't had a chance to dig too deeply into the book, but I can already see that it's going to be an interesting and relevant read:

In agriculture we often look at how climate affects the food supply but not at how what we eat affects climate. While we understand rather well the link between climate change and the fuel efficiency of the cars we buy, we do not have a comparable understanding of the climate effect of various dietary options. Gidon Eshel and Pamela A. Martin of the University of Chicago have addressed this issue. They begin by noting that the energy used in the food economy to provide the typical American diet and that used for personal transportation are roughly the same. In fact, the range between the more and less carbon-intensive transportation options and dietary options is each about 4 to 1. With cars, the Toyota Prius, a gas-electric hybrid, uses scarcely one fourth as much fuel as a Chevrolet Suburban SUV. Similarly with diets, a plant-based diet requires roughly one fourth as much energy as a diet rich in red meat. Shifting from a diet rich in red meat to a plant-based diet cuts greenhouse gas emissions as much as shifting from a Suburban SUV to a Prius.

Of course, this kind of thinking makes the Motor City uncomfortable. (In Eco-Economy: Building an Economy for the Earth, Brown defines "the manufacture of internal combustion engines" as a "sunset industry.") But it's the kind of thinking Detroit will need in order to move forward into a sustainable future.

One World Everybody Eats

One World Everybody Eats

This is another restaurant that is doing more of a community project rather than a restaurant ... actually they are set up now as a non-profit (they started for profit) and call themselves a "community kitchen". I really like that term. They even have a guide to starting your own community kitchen which doesn't talk about legalities specifically, but does give some good information about how they organize the daily operations.