This is about lowering our speed limits when oil reaches a certain price per gallon. We really should drive at 55 when gas hits 6-bucks. The difference between driving 85 and 55 represents a tremendous savings of gas. Cutting speeds from 70 to 65 will save about a penny a mile. To 55 will save more. Cutting from 85 will save a whole great big chunk of change on your gas bill.
I recently read that driving 55 instead of 75 can save 20% or more on your mileage. But then we read a lot of things.
Maybe someone would test this out and report on your mileages...?
Years ago, when we had our first energy crisis in the 70's, there was legislation passed to mandate a 55 MPH speed limit. Perhaps you remember it? Back then President Carter tried to sell conservation and initiated the CAFE standards for cars. As well as putting solar panels on the White House. (Reagan threw them all out)
I do NOT favor passing laws requiring a 55 MPH speed limit. Here in Nevada we have often looong distances to travel. And our government mandates way too many things.
I will however sponsor or cosponsor legislation to fund research on these mileage savings, and to fund a public education effort to educate us all. Perhaps just a little bit of seed money on this issue can convince many citizens to slow down and save gas.
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<br>So, until we can rebuild our railroad system into something truly efficient that we can all use -- to transport goods, materials, and people -- and that covers the whole state, just try to leave a little earlier, drive 55, and save on your next fill-up.
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is certainly the least efficient means that we have to get from there to here. Yes, it saves time, but is enormously wasteful of fuel. As fuel becomes increasingly expensive, air travel will fall out of favor, especially for those who are not wealthy.
I predict that by this year s end, air travel in the US will be reduced by 30% or more.
We must build our railroad system and get used to communication electronically whenever possible. If we are to survive as a nation, this is a highest priority job. Air travel as we know it will soon be a thing of the past.

belong to we the people. They have been given/sold to private corporations who now have almost absolute permission to control our news and information. This is not right. This is not 1984.
Corporations now control our media, which influences our political bent, and thus elects those who favor the corporate media. Catch 22.
All public broadcasting, and all dealings of congress, executive and judicial branches must be available to all Americans, without the need for a TV subscriber box or satellite. This is imperative to the success of our America and the continuing education of our citizenry. We will give the airwaves back to the people. We must have access to global information, not just what the corporate media decide to serve us. An uninformed public is lost.

is an energy investment in the future. Someone once said it is solid electricity. I think it's petroleum/coal solidified. It takes incredible amounts of energy, especially electrical to produce this wondrous metal. Once that initial investment is made, it requires very little energy to make it change form. Aluminum is an energy investment, and is already paid for. Our trash piles are full of it. It will melt for casting at around 1400 degrees. Local solar furnaces might provide enough energy to smelt that aluminum, and with simple sand-casting can be made into usable tools and products. Good local business opportunities. It's time to figure out what we need, how to build it, and how to make the tools to build the future. No big deal, right?
Put your creative mind to work....
Also, pot metal (some kind of zinc compound) is another fine feedstock. It melts at even a lower temperature than aluminum, and in some cases is stronger.
Put your thinking cap on and be in touch...we have the materials and the knowledge to retool our world. We just need the will.

Don't use that antibiotic crap. It Is important for our immune systems to create antibodies to protect us. Minor germs will strengthen our systems. A major problem is that some germs are now mutating to ignore antibiotics. Use vodka to purify your hands, or instead, wash well. We don t need to be putting any more antibiotics and chemicals into downstream water supplies. The fish are getting stoned. Also see Vodka.

What a long strange trip it s been. In barely 100 years we ve gone from horses to mobile parking lots that are called our roadways. How many cars have you owned in your lifetime? Why have not we made transportation that would last us a lifetime? One car, energy efficient, practical, and lasting our whole lives. Impossible? Well yes, as long as if is fashionable and profitable for us to show off our imagined wealth by buying a new one every few years. Future generations will be amazed at how inefficiently we traveled. At what foolishness we succumbed to.
Now it is soon up to you, our youth, to try to figure out how to best deal with all these pending unaffordable vehicles. This is the feedstock for your futures. Put your genius and energies to work, to learn how to salvage these materials. The alternators can be re-used, the glass for greenhouses, car tops can make geodesic dome panels, rear ends and axles can be incorporated into windmills and waterwheels. Wires, lights, and 12V motors can be retrofitted. Batteries when cared for will last some time, and we will have to develop the tools to re-build and recreate aged batteries.
The average alternator will put out an incredible amount of energy with a driving source. Get together, link up your minds, share your research, experiment, create, build on this& . You can do it, and I have faith that you will.
As I have mentioned, there is a prototype of a 100 mpg hybrid vehicle here in Reno. I ve driven one. It works. It is a retrofit.
We can convert our cars to electric and hybrid. We may retool our autos, and use the IC engines as stationary generator/heaters. These can be mounted on stands at our homes, and run at optimum rpms to both create electric and supply space heating and hi-temp heating. Diesels are best. Nearly 75% of an engine s energy creates heat. The rest can be used mechanically. For example to create electric to both recharge your electric car, and add to the grid to power your house. The tremendous amount of heat created can be used for space heating (with suitable headers, high temperature heating, and water heating.) The energy in one gallon of gasoline -- is about the equivalent of four 1500 watt heaters running for an hour. And tho my math may be deficient, it is a lot of energy. In other words, to break this down, the amount of heat we generate in our cars, just getting to work and back, is probably enough to heat our homes and give us hot water. And more. We could probably recapture 50% of our cars lost energy as heat.
Reboot, retool, and rebuild.

are superior to fossil fuels in that they are carbon neutral and especially oxygen neutral. In my unscientific opinion, we have excess free oxygen to breathe in great part to the decay of the 'dinosaurs' anaerobically (without air). This liberated free oxygen. When it is all burned, that oxygen will fade away...kind of like us.
Also, bio fuels are not subject to depletion and continually rising prices, unlike oil and coal.
Particular care must be used, when selecting bio-diesel and bio-ethanol (moonshine) as an energy source. They must have a good EIEO, or Energy In/Energy Out ratio. If it takes over a gallon of oil/coal to create a gallon of bio-fuels, that is simply a lost cause. Kind of like the Hydrogen Economy. We cannot willy-nilly be herded into something that is not efficient.
To make ethanol out of corn seems to be a problem. The growing/harvesting/processing of the corn takes tremendous amounts of fossil fuel energy. Corn is extremely heavily fertilized, with components made of oil and natural gas. This fertilizer is currently killing the Gulf of Mexico from runoff. And, it seems a little obscene to be making gas for our clumsy cars while the world is starving. There's just something wrong with that.
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<br>I firmly believe that one un-named superior source of both diesel, and ethanol is industrial hemp.
Here are some of the benefits:
Drought tolerant
Requires minimal fertilizer-it's a weed.
Improves the soil
Can quickly help prevent flood runoff, and landslides.
Grows on marginal land, and improves it.
Can be converted easily into directly usable diesel.
Is less cancer-causing than oil -- can save on medical problems and expenses.
Oxygen and carbon neutral.
Requires no insecticides nor pesticides.
A source of good quality edible healthy oils and Omega oils and cooking oils.
Helps fight the war on drugs (its pollen ruins marijuana crops -- it dilutes pot potency)
Our nation's founders grew and used it productively.
Can make paper products, high quality long-lasting cloth.
Provides chemicals/paints/etc.
Is 7 times more efficient than trees in making biomass.
Fast growing and easily grown.
Purportedly helped us win World War II
Can theoretically use waste mine-water, marginal water to grow.
Absorbs more carbon than most plants.
Will produce clean burning charcoal and fuel
Contains all essential amino acids and fatty acids.
Has tremendous potential.
Unfortunately it's still illegal to grow, and our government will not even consider discussing its possible benefits. As long as it remains tied to a Schedule 1 drug, there will be no experimentation with this wonderful plant that God gave us. Perhaps it's time to re-think our unfounded national aversion to discussing hemp.
Ill thought out plans for national bio-fuels may prove to be more of a problem than a solution. Making alcohol from waste however, may be do-able by small groups or individuals. Perhaps we should change the ATF laws regarding our citizens ability to make alcohol. (see also Klebsiella Planticola)

TV is our circus, here s how to make your bread.
Bread is the staff of life. It is good if you grind your own grain(see solar grain grinders). If you cannot, store bought flour will suffice. You will need the following tools to do this: bowl for mixing, wooden spoon, flour, bread pans-optional, an oven, water, salt, yeast, gluten flour (optional), sugar/honey, oil, and time. Not Thyme.... I use a plastic mixing bowl. Rising yeast is responsive to temperatures, and plastic is somewhat of an insulator. Take 4 cups of flour, and mix it into 4 cups of heated water (not burning to the touch) and 2 full teaspoons of yeast. Stir thoroughly. Cover with a towel until doubled in bulk-(15/30 min.). Next, add 1/3 cup of oil, 4 more cups of flour premixed with 2 Tbs sugar, 1 full tsp. salt. Add 1/2 cup gluten to mix if available. Mix it all together until it is one clump. Pour this out onto a floured mixing board, and start kneading the dough. Press it over, turn it, press again, mix it up well for about 10 minutes. It will be sticky at first, but add more flour until it stops sticking to your hands. If you add too much flour, it will bake ok, but will be a heavier drier bread. You can feel when it becomes good dough, it feels alive.
Next coat both sides with a little oil, put back in bowl, cover with a cloth, and let rise in a warm place. When the dough has doubled again, then punch the center of it to release the gasses. Do this about 30 times. Now roll the dough into a cylinder (if using bread pans) cut into equal thirds, and place the dough into each pan, flattening it out. Let rise until doubled in bulk. If you are going to use bread pans, oil them with a stick of butter. Get all the corners. If you prefer to make round loaves, then get a large tin and pour a little cornmeal on it, a thin layer. This will keep the bread from sticking and burning. Bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes depending on your altitude and attitude. When it is done, you can rap on it with a finger and it should sound hollow. Remove from oven, release from pans, and set loaves in sideways to let them air out. When cool, eat the heel slathered in butter, and share with your friends. This bread will get mouldy within just a few days. It is natural and without preservatives. To store slice, place in plastic double bags and put in your freezer. Makes Most Excellent toast.
Making fresh bread is a sound idea. You can buy grain in bulk and save on costs of packaging, processing, refrigeration, lower transportation costs, provide community togetherness, and eat cheaply, freshly, and healthily. Talk to your neighbors about buying in bulk. Or visit your local Co-Op, such as Reno's at Wonder and Wells.

As an emergency temporary/semi-permanent insulating device, this is an excellent window insulator. In 1990 I owned a trailer that poured-in cold air from the windows. Bubble wrap fixed the problem and saved on my power bill. To use, cut a piece just larger than your window opening. Trim it to fit nicely, and to also cover any aluminum trim which leaks cold. Then spray or wipe a little water on the window, and smooth on the bubble material. You can immediately feel the difference. Nice features about this material are that it allows light through, and actually it is a rather pleasant diffused light which does give quite a bit of privacy. Also, the wrap can be quickly removed, just pull it off and store for later re-use. No idea how much energy this saves, but it did lower the power bill and make the home much more comfortable.

There is more to the world than maximizing next quarter's profits above projected.... It is time to retool.
As a business manager/owner you can quickly improve the quality of your employees lives and that of your company.
Schedule a 4-day workweek for your people. It will save them an immediate 20% in gas savings. It may allow you to extend your business hours. Link up with other nearby business to create a cooperative child care center for your employees. Then watch your call-in employee time drop, and employees will soon have more disposable income and be on time. Learn to cool your building by ventilating to the cool night air, rather than turn on the AC right away. Add a small evaporative cooler to cut down on unnecessary AC loading. Paint your roofs white. Employee naps after lunch have been shown to increase productivity. Buy your employees rugs for snooze time.
Whenever I go into a store the lights are on. Even in the daytime. That s crazy. Many devices exist to greatly eliminate electrical illumination. Solar heat tubes can be bought or especially made locally. Skylights work well. The initial investment will pay for itself in short order.
Make sure the bus line passes your business, and contribute to implementing mass transit. Be a real nice boss/owner and buy your folks bus passes.
Solar can be used in some businesses for drying purposes and other means.
Let s be innovative and show the world that we mean business.

A lot of folks hate clotheslines. Perhaps they think it devalues their property. Perhaps they don t like being reminded that under our clothing we are all naked. Who knows why, because they are an exceptional conservation tool, and an excellent way to get politically involved. This is a serious step in conservation and also allows for a change in mindset. A potential evolution in cultural thought.
And, if your housing association forbids them, then become a member of the board, or protest like hell until they change their minds. The former is better. The latter will probably work.
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<br>Cost per load electric dryer-$0.39, gas-$.30. Costs range between .$80 and $300 a year for dryers, and the cost of a clothesline will save you either 30 cents or 39 cents every load, and daily going up. Why not spend some nice quality time in the sun, hanging out your clothes to dry for free, and enjoying the ambience? Besides, most of us spend 90% of our times under a roof of some kind. Perhaps a little time outdoors in Nature might be cool. Wear a hat.

1/12/2007
Co-ops and chickencoops
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<br>Since the demise of the Washoe Zephyr Co-op years ago, it has been difficult to find those obscure foodstuffs we once accessed.
And while such wonderful stores as the Truckee Meadows Herbs have been the place to find some of those weird botanicals, we still do not have in our community a good co-op.
The good news is that there is one here, the bad news is that it is very small and struggling.
The Great Basin Community Food Cooperative can be found at 271 Wonder Street here in Reno. It is, conveniently, just across the street from Truckee Meadows Herbs, just up on Wonder Street off of Wells Ave. Their web address is www.greatbasin.coop, and this might be a worthwhile project for you to get involved in. Membership fees are $15 a year, and you can become a member, volunteer, or committee participant.
While they don't have a lot of space, and seem to be struggling right now, please be aware that you can help them grow.
Local Co-ops are advantageous in many ways. Besides providing access to locally grown foods, organics and other healthy consumables, co-ops do in fact lower our oil use. It was calculated that the average meal travels about 1500 miles to get onto your plate.
Also, co-ops do provide a sense of community. As you may know, in 1985, it was reported that the average American had 3 close intimate friends. Last year it was reported that that number is now down to two. Hmmm.
There is some controversy as to whether or not organic foods are more healthy than 'store' food. And, like such topics as Global Warming, there are two camps. The (usually) corporate voice is that there is absolutely no difference. The Green thought is that organics and natural foods are healthier for us all. It is possible that natural foods contain more essential trace elements than corporate foods. Certainly organics contain less preservatives and stabilizers -- elements of questionable value in some quarters -- and organics have a rigorous certification process.
Another great virtue of organics is 'what you see is what you get'. There are no hidden additives, genetically altered organisms, or other nasties in organic foods. And, while you pay a bit more for them, at least you can sleep soundly knowing that you ate the very best available.
Honesty in food labeling is lacking in America. We eat crap that has been irradiated, modified, additive-ised, and processed so severely, that surely lab rats would die being fed that diet.
Last year the US Congress considered passing the pure food act. This legislation negates sound food labeling, and requires the states to comply with federal standards for labeling the ingredients in our foods. Sadly, such good food standards as those reputedly enacted in California will no longer apply, and, the Federal standards are far inferior to real standards. Basically, we will no longer be allowed to know what is put into our foods.
(We don't now, anway...)
In a real world, human safety would supercede corporate profits, and shelf life.
However, since we are living on an experimental planet, anything goes, and thus the gold standard applies -- those with the gold make the standards. It is our choice as free humans to not buy dubious foodstuffs. And if enough of us refuse, then the corporate powers may suddenly find their bottom line is shrinking.
There is some conjecture that the health of our citizens may be linked to the purity of our foods. Tainted and polluted foods may not lead to healthy and strong bodies. Incomplete nutrition may lead to increased medical care and costs. It is possible that our food supply may be partially responsible for our outrageously expensive health care, health care which we as the only industrialized nation, do not have universal health coverage for.
Hmmmm.
So, there's some tidbits to ponder.
Change your diet, eat healthy, lower your health care costs.
In our highly advanced and tastefully hip society, we do not rely on locally produced foods.We demand overpackaged, sanitized comestibles, devoid of any freshness, and full of so many additives that our twinkies last for hundreds of years. Is this good food? Does it have the Chi that is able to sustain a helathy growing body?
Don't think so.
Case in point is our poultry industry. Chickens and eggs are mega-mass produced in prison-like factories, where steroids, antibiotics, and other unknown quantities are routinely fed to our fowl. They spend their whole lives in tiny dirty enclosures, with no exercise, fresh air or outdoors available to them. All so that Megabusiness can eke out that extra egg, or extra ounce of chicken breast.
Incidentally, a recent study showed that well over half of the chickens tested for consumption are contaminated with listeria.
But don't worry, listeria is killed with proper cooking, and now manufacturers are allowed to spray our foods with anti-listeria organisms, developed to give our foods a longer (and safer...?) shelflife.
And then, consider the esoteric possibility of Karma. Are we responsible for the suffering that we cause during our short lifespan here?
If you hurt someone do you owe a Karmic debt? If you unnecessarily hurt an animal, does that also apply?
When we buy an egg, or a chicken breast with questionable fatty tissue attached, and if these creatures were raised in suffering, do we have to repay that debt? Is that food less healthy than humanely raised foods?
Let's hope not.
Surely the rantings of this author may seem a bit over the top, but we must all fight against things which are not right in this world, and certainly unnecessary suffering of our foodstocks for the sake of profit rates pretty highly. Read "The Asphalt Jungle."
Where is PETA when we need them?
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<br>In the city of Reno, and many others, it is illegal for you to raise your own chickens and eggs. Fresh and healthy foods.
Why is that?
Of course, a rooster waking up the neighborhood at sunrise isn't going to make many points with the neighbors, but chickens can be raised without noisy roosters. Chickens will help keep the bugs out of your garden, provide wonderful fertilizer for your crops, and give you healthy foods, and even provide entertainment. A square yard of alfalfa can provide a pound of rabbit meat a year.
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<br>Perhaps this is something we can all work on. Why don't we hit up our city councils and county commissioners to allow the raising of chickens on our own properties?
This is something that we can do politically to improve our lives.
Just like the lack of personal political involvement to allow us to hang out our clothes on clotheslines in 'gated communities' and housing associations, the lack of outrage for sane solutions allows insanity to pervade our culture. Start a movement in your housing association. Get the neighbors to help change the by-laws to allow clotheslines. Tell the NIMBY's to go stuff it, clotheslines are certainly less obscene than clothes driers run from nasty coal power plants.
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<br>NNEMA is devoted to providing a public vehicle for those creative among us to express themselves. Do you know anything about raising poultry, animal husbandry, or forgotten technology?
Can and will you contribute your good inputs to this site so that we can all get a start on raising our own foods, healthy foods which will ensure our self reliance, sustainability and sanity? Our resources are not infinite, we live on a finite planet, and entropy is a harsh mistress.
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<br>Craig@nnema.org
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renofreepress@charter.net
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12/10/2006
Nevada's Coal Ambitions
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<br>An article in today's paper talked about our coal imports last year. It seems we weren't able to get enough to our power plants last annum and had to go out of country for some of our fuel.
Of course, this is not an indictment of our coal reserves (we have lots 'they' say...) but is an indication of our continual and continuing increase in the amount of energy we use.
Where is conservation?
It seems we cannot build rail systems fast enough to keep up with our new power plants.
And every new coal plant spews more and more CO2 and toxins out into our atmosphere. And we will have to build more rail systems just to keep up with this new demand for more coal.
Isn't it odd that with Nevada's new anti-smoking law, no one seems to get their panties in a bunch over the increased greenhouse gasses which seem to have a growth-life of their own. We won't tolerate the stench of tobacco, but willingly will build out of sight, out of mind filthy planet-busting fossil power plants, so we can have our lights on all night -- even when there is no-one there to see them.
Another fine NIMBY that we tolerate, or in this case it seems we prefer and embrace.
It is said that it takes 20 pounds of coal burned to give us an hour of watching TV. And most of us know that coal plants are around 70% inefficient. That is, it takes 100 lbs. of coal to give us 30 lbs. worth of power at our electrical boxes. The other 70 lbs. is lost as heat.
In a sane world, a sane society would be using that waste heat. Heat to warm houses and businesses, heat for industrial purposes.
But here in this land of plenty, we don't want the inconvenience of having to look at messy dirty coal smoke. We instead build them in the boonies to we don't have to see them. So that we can pretend they're not there at all.
What a world. What a world.
Oh my beautiful wickedness.
This corporate-corrupted world is not healthy for humans and other living creatures. It is the playground of the power seekers, the football field of financiers and other subhumans who care not for a clean and sustainable future, but only how fully they can fill their pockets.
We are indeed killing our planet, and our childrens' world.
And there is no letup in sight.
And they will keep filling their pockets, even as the air becomes too poisonous to breathe, the water too filthy to drink, and the land too barren to grow food.
This is what we have allowed to happen to our wonderful world, and there seems to be little brightness to hope for.
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<br>The early-toppers claim Peak oil has already topped. The late-toppers say that between now and 2010 will be our reckoning. And others think we may have another 15-20 years to prepare for the end of cheap oil.
Notice the words here, the end of cheap oil. Not the end of oil, that will probably never happen, but the end of cheap oil is essentially the end of our culture.
We must start now to change this craziness.
Every little thing we can do will help, but oddly, even if we do all we can it will not be enough. Or so say those in the know. Those who have written the books that we all should read.
Will we start in time?
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Coal is at best 30% efficient. Better than a car, but still sucks. Here's how it works: the power companies burn coal, to boil water, to make steam, to turn a turbine that makes electricity. This power is sent via electric transmission lines (losing energy) into our homes.
In many cases our houses have electric water heaters. Is that nuts? It would be more sane for us to burn our own coal in our own houses. Not only would it provide hot water, but we d recapture some of that lost 70% of heat to heat our domiciles, and perhaps even generate electric. What s that? Coal is a dirty fuel and will pollute our neighborhoods? Yes it sure is and does.

Please ponder this carefully for a few. Cows are ruminants. They have 7 stomachs. This unique digestive system allows them to eat grass. Few other animals can do that. They were designed that way -- either by God, or evolution, or God directing evolution. They were not made to eat high-protein grains, or other cows. The reason our food industry feeds cows corn (and other cows) is that it is a fast way to put a lot of weight on them. This is a good way to minimize time and maximize profit. However, after cows are fed hi-quality grains for any length of time, they get sick. Their stomachs were not designed to digest those foods. After they get sick they are fed medicines, antibiotics, etc. to keep them alive and gaining weight, and so that they can walk into the slaughterhouse. It is not ridiculous to assume that we, when eating them will also ingest those medicines. And who wants to eat sick cows? Corn fed cows are also detrimental energy-wise and health-wise. Corn represents a large expenditure of petroleum to make. It is another form of solid oil. Pastures are not oil. Heavily fertilized land is oil. Pastures are sunlight revealed.
The difference between oil (irreplaceable stored sunshine) and growing plants (annual, replaceable stored sunshine) is that the former is capital, and the latter is income. We cannot continue to use oil as income, it is capital and once gone, gone. Finally, some concern has been expressed over the quality of beef fed with grains. For example, the ratio of Omega 3 and Omega 6 oils is not the same as grass-fed beef.
This imbalance is reputed to cause obesity, heart attacks, diabetes, and contribute to our spiraling health care crisis. Please read the excellent book: The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan, Penguin Press, 2006. Your eyes may be forced wide open to our food problems.
Solutions: Demand and buy pasture-fed beef. Eat less beef, and instead have chicken or fish more often. Raise your own chickens. Your own rabbits. Plant that garden and fruit trees. Eat a more vegetarian diet. Soybeans are nearly the perfect plant food. Meat at one time was considered a side dish, and not our main course. Corn-fed beef is a media hype. High meat diets are media hype.

You can vote out a government, but you can t vote out a corporation. When we privatize all of our government functions, (as Bush is wont), then politics will be gone, protection will be gone, prosperity for the average citizen will be gone, and we will have no say in our futures.
Corporations exist (especially multi-nationals) specifically for the express purpose of increasing profits above projected.
The function of government, in my opinion, is to protect the people of our nation, and to improve the quality of all our lives. This includes protection from corporations. Especially predatory corporations.
If a corporation which pretends to be American houses itself offshore to evade paying full taxes, then they are not American companies. And they should be taxed to do business at a higher rate. The banking industry last year reportedly made over $17 billion in fees and penalties for overdrafts.

Let's talk disasters.
There are some over which we have no control. The sun going nova, a giant killer meteor from outer space, space aliens (as opposed to illegal), nuclear war, volcanos, or even ultra-conservatives running our government.
There are some things over which we have little control. The dam at Stampede Reservoir collapsing due to an earthquake, and flooding Washoe County. If you're in the path of that wall of water, there's not much you can do. However if you're not in that path, a little preparedness might be wise, or at least prudent.
And then there are the things we can prepare for. A collapse of the economy, an interrrupted supply of oil, Global Heating coming on in fury. A fire in your neighborhood. Whatever.
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<br>The things required for our survival appear to be in this order: atmospheric pressure, air to breathe, a narrow temperature range, water, food, and light.
If we suddenly lose our atmosphere, well, we'll all explode quickly and no big deal. Not a lot can be done about that.
If we lose breathable air, then it'll be slower. We can only hoard so many tanks of oxygen, so that is not a practical solution to this dilemma. We can however do some things to stop the quality of the air from degrading further. In Nevada, we can oppose the new $4.7 billion coal power plant to be built in Eastern Nevada. Incidentally, you may ask, why is it being built out there, when it will need rail, water, and electric transmission lines built first? The dirty little rumor is that is will be a dirty little plant, and being built there negates the need for higher air quality standards. Something to work on?
Water will be a growing problem. Not only clean drinking water, but for other things like washing, growing our food, etc.
You should have a stash of clean water in your emergency kit. Consider a gallon per day per person. Consider a bottle of chlorine bleach to purify water that you must disinfect in the field (or a bottle of vodka?). Consider a small solar still. I built one with a piece of glass and a black plastic mortar mixing tray. It put out about a quart of distilled water a day in good sunlight. A solar oven will disinfect a couple of gallons a day, or more. But anyway, this site is for you to input YOUR preparedness plans. Let us work together, and share our ideas.
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<br>Do you know how to turn off your gas/electric/water services if there is a disaster?
Does all of your family know how to do that, and your neighbors?
Do you have a pre-arranged meeting place for your family? Is it on high ground? Do you have a secondary meeting place farther away?
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<br>It's a darned good thing we're problem solving creatures, because we surely do have a lot of problems.
Are you worried about the economy, and your retirement program? My personal feelings are that within 5 years, very few of us will have any retirement tools. Basing your life on pie in the sky future money or support when you get older or injured may be a tragic mistake.
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<br>As Donald Rumsfeld said once, there are things we know we know, things we know we don't know, and things we don't know we don't know.
But he forgot to finish that thought. There are things we don't know we know. We don't know when we are going to run out of cheap oil, but we know we will. We don't know how soon Global Warming is going to effect our crop raising capabilities, but we know it will. Most of us know that, some of us are in denial....
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As a grandfather and concerned citizen, of all the threats facing our civilization, I consider Peak Oil to be the gravest. We are absolutely dependent on cheap energy to fuel our society.
You really should read some of the books available from this site. "The Long Emergency", "The Empty Tank", and "Plan B" are essential reading for anyone of conscience. They are very important, and help answer that question of the things we don't know we know.
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<br>It's time to triage. Plain and simple.
Regarding Peak Oil, there are two camps. One is the late toppers, who think we will have enough time and advance warning to prepare alternatives to cheap energy. Let's hope so.
The other camp, the early toppers, believe that it will come upon us suddenly, without warning. One scenario is that terrorists take out the Saudi oil fields and infrastructure. Another is that some type of natural disaster happens which cuts off our flow.
The late toppers' world will be kind of like the movie, Soylent Green.
The early toppers' world will be more like Mad Max meets the Donner Party. As I've said repeatedly, magic elves do not mysteriously restock our supermarkets, it's all done by oil.
Let me point out that we will never run out of oil. We will run out of cheap oil. Have you thought about $10 a gallon gas? How will our culture sustain itself at $150, or more a barrel oil?
Read those books.
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<br>NNEMA is all about survival techniques. (Hu)Man(kind) is a tool using creature. Even better, we are tool makers. We excell at that, using our brains instead of our claws and teeth.
Let's all of us, collectively, create and maintain a survival tool. One where we can share our ideas. And while we don't have to adhere to and embrace every bolt and nut of this endeavor, certainly there are many sane things we can all do to lessen our impact on the future generations.
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<br>This is a big task. It requires much organization and thought.
It will benefit us all, present and future, in myriad ways: freedomwise, energy wise, monetarily, and with minor adjustments to our quality of life.
From soybeans, to electric bicycles, to lifeboats, to satellite cities, to wherever our imaginations take us, there we will go.
While you may eat meat, and dismiss vegetarianism, it is certainly more efficient to eat less or no meat, and save. Save not only healthwise (less heart attacks, cholesterol, OVERWEIGHT, etc.), but budgetwise (16lbs of soybeans make 1 of beef- Two week's worth of supper versus one day's dinner...go figure?)
And, for those of you who eat a lot of meat, consider that 1 square meter of your yard growing alfalfa will produce a pound of rabbit meat a year. Or consider that in Caracas, the government is assisting those in the barrios to grow 1-meter gardens which will produce up to 28 lbs. of tomatoes a year, or over 200 heads of cabbage.
Instead, in America, our Caesar salad often travels over 1500 miles to our table. Fresh and tasty!
Those of us living in the first world are going to have a much harder time adapting to POP than those living lower on the 'food chain' economically.
POP suggests that we've got a lot harder to fall, and that most of our time will be spent trying to get food. Manual labor will come in force again as oil gets more and more expensive.
If we have the insight to prepare for this eventuality, before oil becomes too expensive, then life will be much finer.
If we don't.
It won't.
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<br>Here's a concept, which includes neighborhoods. Get your friends to go in with you on a grain grinder. I bought one several years ago, and it allows me to make FRESH breads, cereal grains (good toasted), and different flours for kitchen use. As I write this, I am in the NNEMAvehicle#1, heating it with presto-logs and scrap wood, toasting the following grains for breakfast: barley, whole wheat, rice, and sesame and Amaranth. Amaranth is what sustained the central Americans through much of their culture.. (Amaranth might really be the seed corn of the future...the seed to square foot ratio is pretty awesome.)
I'm making a lot of extra to share with friends. Also, tonight I'm putting on 2 cups of soybeans to make soymilk with tomorrow. The toasted cereal cooked in sweetened soymilk makes a most excellent breakfast. AND it is fresh. The Chi is there, since the grains were living shortly before eating. Most of the stuff you get in the supermarket has little Chi.
I guess it's all about quality of life.
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<br>How about lessening our transportation costs?
I've certainly bored you to death with exploits on the trusty gas-saving moped. At 90 miles per gallon, it paid for itself after 4,000 miles. And, since I sold my car years ago, I do ride it all seasons. In the winter when it snows, I just drive slower and put my feet out. Sure, I fall down once in awhile, but I get back up and keep going. No biggie.
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<br>Do you have a bicycle? Perhaps you don't ride it much because it's too much exercise? Well, visit your local bike shop and ask them to order you a electric retrofit kit. At $350, and only a few pennies per charge, if you use it much at all it should pay for itself in short order. And even quicker when gas prices rise. The electric bike has a reputed gasoline equivalent of 1000 MPG. That's pretty hard to beat.
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Straddling the Anwar Fence. Ouch.
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<br>It is estimated that the Anwar area contains about 10 billion barrels of oil. Some loudly and gleefully proclaim Anwar will supply us all with cheap gas for another 200 years. Let's look at some numbers. In America, where we use 1/4 of the world's oil, we gobble up 20 million barrels a day. If we used Anwar at that rate, it will provide just about 500 days of fuel for our country. That's hardly 200 years.
Another point to consider is Anwar Peaking. The first half of an oil field's reserves are pretty easy to get. Often internal pressure forces the stuff above ground. The second half is much harder to get, and generally of inferior quality. So, realistically, we could have 250 days of reasonably cheap oil, and then another 250 of expensive and harder to get fuel.
Now Anwar, and other areas will take about 8 to 10 years to get online, according to reports.
No matter what we do, this is not a source that will be available tomorrow, or this year, or next year.
Since global fuel use is increasing daily, and we here will not drive 55, or demand our traffic flow system gets fixed, or quit building suburbs 30 miles away from cities, I don't see a lot of hope. Doing these things might even remove the need for drilling in protected areas, but it doesn't look like we're ready to consider conservation measures.
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<br>Our attitude seems to be: "You'll take away my SUV when you pry my cold dead toes from around the accelerator."
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<br>I would consider voting to lift the ban on exploring for domestic oil in pristine areas if and only if:
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<br>1. It is undeniably and absolutely essential to maintaining service and foods to Americans, and that we have a serious national dialogue about it.
2. We do NOT draw from our strategic oil reserves, except in times of Dire national emergencies,
3. We implement a strong and realistic national plan specifically for an interruption in oil supply and put those plans in place nationally and locally,
4. We start immediate rebuilding of our once-efficient railroad systems, We truck our big rig diesel freight haulers on rail whenever possible. Rail is so much cheaper than big trucks, and will allow the drivers to snooze and save enormously on diesel fuel costs.
5. We institute an immediate crash program to fix our ineffectual and broken traffic flow,
6. We tax gas hog vehicles, and cars designed solely for high horsepower and acceleration. Why build a car that does 140 out the door, when legal speed limits are far less?
7. An equal amount of capital is put into alternative energy,
8. We discuss lowering the national speed limit to 55. An unpopular stance, but would you rather be hungry or speed really fast to the next stoplight?
9. We stop the huge tax breaks and write-offs to the oil companies,
10. We plug the loopholes which allow speculative traders, commodities brokers, and hedge fund operators from artificially driving up the price of oil, raise margin requirements, and put some real teeth into regulating our financial markets.
11. We empower and enable the innovative thinkers among us, who are working on reasonable and real, EV Hybrids, instead of focusing on boondoggles like the Phoenix hybrid car which may never happen.
12. We allow our farmers to grow industrial hemp for supplemental bio-diesel, and cellulosic bio-fuels, and renewable bio-mass.
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<br>Advocating drilling for oil in our protected lands is a bad position for a Green like me, and I will inevitably draw the ire and fire of my fellows and a lot of negativity. But, if the choice is between drawing new domestic oil, and letting our culture collapse, I must in good conscience follow the former. As, I think, should all reasoning people.
If we have the national will to institute all of the above, then perhaps it is time to meagerly and sparingly use new oil. And to use it to great and maximum advantage.
If however, we continue to fuel our fossil folly, at current limits, then, I object and protest.
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<br>The fault here lies not with the conservationists who want to save this oil for the future and not use it all up. The fault lies with our past 100 years of development of the automobile by big industry, and our refusal to pressure them into building highly efficient cars. (Read "Internal Combustion -- How corporations and governments addicted the world to oil and derailed the alternatives", by Edwin Black)
By our mindlessly listening to the advertising industry which cons us into believing that new fast cars are really sexy, and that if we don't have one we'll be socially unacceptable, and won't get laid.
Our cars currently get just about the same mileage or less than Henry Ford's early cars. We have made no significant improvement in mileage, and have totally ignored and ridiculed President Carter's attempts to get CAFE standards implemented, and his other warnings about our energy use and calls for conservation.
What a shame.
If we all realized just how desperately dependent on cheap energy we are, then surely we would be working on solutions at all levels. The daily food we all eat is almost entirely due to cheap oil reserves. Our whole society is, and perhaps we are now entering the faze of realizing that. Especially with such high gas prices. American ingenuity, are you still out there?
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<br>Cheap oil affects all facets of our lives. We've got a long hot summer ahead, and a possibly even worse cold dark winter coming quickly. Is your house heated by natural gas? If so, will your heater work if the electric goes out? Most systems rely on electric to turn the air fans, and even allow the gas to ignite. If there's no electric, you won't have heat.
Perhaps it is time to find this out before freezing winter gets here.
If you are courageous enough, here is a little experiment you can do.
On your next day off, go outside and turn off the main power switch to your electric box. Leave it off for 24 hours. This will give you some idea of how much we need our cheap energy infrastructure, and how vital our power system is to the running of our America. Sitting in the dark may give you a clue on how addicted we are.
I use electric here only as an example covering just one facet of our energy requirements. Because our grid is also dependent on cheap oil, one way or another. Everything is interconnected, and one missing piece (e.g. cheap oil) may eventually bring the whole system tumbling down.
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<br>So I'm straddling the Anwar fence. It is uncomfortable, and a no-win situation. It's poking me in the bottom and is sharp. But at least I'm not ignoring it and pretending that everything will be ok, and that capitalism is going to save us all.
Everything is NOT ok.
Nature has big sharp pointy teeth, and will bite us all without exception.
To think otherwise is suicidal and foolish.
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<br>We are motorized lemmings, rapidly driving toward the cliff.
Good luck.
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Why is it that the smartest and most educated of us (school personnel and students) cannot figure out how to provide free education for us all? If they cannot, then surely no one can. All levels of education, up to graduate school should be available for all -- free, Universities must become self sufficient. This is a call to arms, a challenge to our educational systems to make it happen.
I walked 4 miles each way to school (uphill both ways), and certainly got the cardiac functioning well. We used to have physical education daily. We ate somewhat nutritious lunches, and did not have cola machines and candy machines at every corner. We weren t quite as overweight. Our schools did not just teach us how to pass No Child Left Behind expensive profitable corporate tests, but taught us to think, research, and explore.
It is time to teach technical expertise. Time to challenge our youth to live up to their possibilities, instead of just getting by.
My most memorable and exciting education was being involved in the Experimental College at UNR many decades ago. The university fronted us students enough seed money to allow us to design and teach our own curriculums. It was exciting and innovative. We covered subjects that were broadly diverse.
Let s let our children reach their highest level; to excel and pursue those topics that excite them. To encourage and energize them. Where are the classes on agriculture, animal husbandry, tool making and tool use, electronics repair, retrofitting, proper nutrition, what a credit card application really means, good and honest fair journalism, heavy math and sciences, how to drive properly and safely, and most importantly, how and where to find information? Are they out there?
Task #1 -- figure out how to be self sufficient, and then figure out how to generate revenue to fund universal education for us all.
Let s open our schools after hours as community centers and classes. Let s make our buildings energy efficient. Let s squirrel away enough resources to allow and encourage experimental learning.
And let s let our kids learn the joy (?) of walking to school in fresh air and sun instead of just buckling them up to go just a few blocks or more.
And if we do not have the will to make this happen, then it is up to our children to take matters into their own hands and create without our help their own futures. And their children s . Good luck and Godspeed.

Do a little on-line searching and look for electric bicycles &/or conversion kits for same. For about $400 you can buy a kit for your bicycle. They can get up to 20 mph with a range of 20 miles. That is without pedaling. If you pedal, then of course your range is unlimited. EB s are nice for those long uphill rides, and getting away quickly from stoplights. Some kits come complete with new front wheels with motors built in. You just change wheels, tie up the throttle, fasten on the battery pack and off you go. You can recharge when you get home or at work.
Electric bikes can get the equivalent of 1000 miles per gallon of gas.
A bicycle is the most efficient means of human transportation, and uses little energy to make compared with other transportation. Electric bikes are even better.

were conjointly pursued by Ford and Edison in the early 1900's. They saw some of the dangers of petroleum, perhaps. It didn't happen, bummer. Even after Ford started mass production, he worked toward the electric vehicle, and reputedly consider regenerative industrial hemp oil as a fuel. (As did the inventor of the Diesel engine.) There are quite a few good books out on the early EV s.
I have a few in my lending library. Drop a line.

One could say, and perhaps correctly, that ALL the energy we use is in one way or another solar. The tides are caused by the moon which may be a spin-off of our planet, which is a spin-off of...the sun. The earth's residual heat (geothermal) is the remnants of that heat which came with us when we separated from...the sun. And other cosmic forces. All the oil, natural gas, coal and wood we use is the result of photosynthesis.
The sun produces about one horsepower of heat per perpendicular meter of the earth's surface.
The blunt truth is that we need renewable resources in our daily lives. The sun will last us for millions of years. It shines without fail. How long will our carbon fuels last? We just don t know.
Our fatal flaw is that we ve build our whole society on cheap oil.
It is time to actively pursue solar air heaters, community power plants, methane generators, evaporative air coolers, innovation, conservation, and sane community development.
Our last real energy bill missed by 1 vote. How did our District 2 representative vote on that? Nevada s governor is supporting plans to build coal plants in Eastern Nevada. I truly believe that it would be far more energy efficient for us to burn coal in our own homes, and recapture the lost heat energy instead of losing it to cooling towers. And, while it would be noticeable air pollution, to pretend that there is no pollution from coal plants is pretty slow.
The price tag, latest I ve heard is going to be about $4 billion. This does not include a $900 million investor bonus which sounds pretty shady.
The Truckee Meadows Water Association produces, with its hydroelectric generators along the Truckee river, about 8 megawatts of electric power. This is nearly enough to power all of our water pumping requirements. I have been told that there is probably another 6 Megawatts available between Sparks and Fernley. Something to ponder.
Energy is our Achilles heel.
Ugly is a nation facing Peak Oil with no dialogue on how to fix it.
Coal and Oil are suicide technologies.

1/10/2007
NNEMALog
Fast Cars and Fat Fido.
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<br>This week several notable events were reported.
We now have a pill for our fat pets. Yes, we can continue to overfeed our pudgy little home-critters, and then give them a slimming pill.
That's right, no guilt now for corpulent canines. Of course, the side effects are loose stools, vomiting, and internal digestive problems. Small price to pay.
The poor and chronically hungry on this planet will surely cheer this astounding development.
Also in the news were the latest big happenings in the auto world. New models were trotted out, and highly touted were the virtues of our newest cars.
Higher performance, sleeker styling, better built, and oh, yes, one small mention of fuel economy. A very small mention.
But then, why should Detroit listen to our clamor for fuel efficient vehicles, their gas hogs are selling like crazy overseas.
The Chinese love opulent SUV's and surely the clever thinking on our automakers minds is to subvert their economy by conning them into consuming like America does. Consume, consume, bigger and bigger.
This ploy has certainly worked on us, and now we are the largest debtor country.
We fell for the hype, and hopefully the Chinese will, too.
And when they all also are in debt because of overconsumption, then, aha, a new age will begin.
Where will China look to then for cheap labor?
You got it, the U.S. of A.
Full circle, the jobs will come home like pigeons to roost.
Very clever these Capitalists, it seems they do have our welfare in mind after all....
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<br>An article in "BackHome" magazine, Nov/Dec 2006 talks about the energy required to move our cars. The sidebar on P. 29 tells us that the original Volkswagon Microbus came with a 25 HP engine. While this was enough to move it down the road at 60 MPH, the "needs" of American buyers dictated a more powerful, faster 45 HP engine. The author also talks about just how much power it takes to move a small car on our asphalt jungles.
A Honda Civic requires 1.7 HP to move at 20 MPH. At 60 MPH it goes up to 16 HP, and to rocket down the road at 80 takes 35 HP.
Also, you may note that to travel up a 7% grade at 60 requires only 25% more HP, or 20 HP total.
Doesn't seem like a lot of energy to get us from here to there.
Why then do our cars come with engines that develop hundreds of horsepower?
One can guess that the "needs" of American drivers dictate that we must be able to motivate from zero to 60 in under 7 seconds.
Because, by gosh, someone else may beat us to that next red light. Gotta be the first one there, otherwise we'll be stuck in 'traffic'.
Someone surely has made a study of how much of our lives are lost to sitting in traffic, and it's got to be horrific. Probably millions of lost man-hours sitting at red lights. Bucky Fuller once remarked that at any one time in America there are a million cars waiting at traffic lights.
So is the problem that our traffic flow sucks, or is it that our car craziness is to blame? Probably both.
Could it be that our 'needs' are really artificial?
Perhaps this quest for acceleration is boosted by clever advertisers, convincing us that we are incomplete and unworthy if we don't have the fastest car on the block?
As one car company boasted in their commercials, "You really can have it all..."(if you buy our car).
And if we don't have the latest, sleekest, sexiest car, then we're not with it, and we probably won't get laid.
They slyly intimate to us, that if we buy their car, we can have sex with the very most beautiful people, and they will love us eternally, regardless of our faults. And if we don't then we will be destined to a life of drudgery and dullness, scorned and shunned by all.
So remember, next time you're stuck in traffic, all you have to do to have a real life is buy their product, spend years paying it off, and then magically the roadways will be bereft of traffic, and you'll be the only one on the road, free to zoom around impossible mountain curves, and stop on a dime.
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<br>NNEMA is our feeble attempt to add a voice of sanity to our nutso world. We must raise the issue of the correlation between unnecessary acceleration and fossil fuel depletion. And regardless of our conservation efforts, remember, the Chinese are getting sucked into our consumptive habits. And we have a whole new country being acclimatized to bigger, better, faster, sleeker, and sexier.
Will an attitude change by Americans make a difference? Will the world still long to be like us if we embrace smaller, cleaner vehicles with truly better gas mileage? Will we suddenly become 'uncool', and not be the trendsetters for the planet?
Who cares?
If America suddenly advocated sanity, the world would surely see the wisdom in it.
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<br>So what can we do?
Make that next new car a fuel efficient one. Tell your local car dealers you don't care how sexy the car is, you want good mileage. Write a letter or email the American manufacturers, and insist on economy over aesthetics.
Start carpools in your neighborhoods, see if your neighbor needs anything at the store when you go.
Instead of making 20 trips a day around town, try to hit all those stops in one journey.
Instead of getting that car which goes from 0 to 60 in 7 seconds, buy a lesser powered (more economical) steed. And who cares if you're second or third in line at that stoplight?
Flip off a Humvee next time you see one. Gross consumption is unseemly.
Drive 55 whenever it's safe to do so. You'll save a bundle on gas, and significantly reduce your chance of death or injury in an accident.
And if you're a Reno NNEMA-ite, call and write to your city council, and insist that they fix our traffic flow.
Not next year, not the year after, but urge them to fix it now.
This will save us all bundles of money, allow better gas mileage, and probably cut down on road rage, monday morning heart attacks, and eventually make us a more civilized civilization.
Walk to that convenience store 3 blocks away when the weather's nice instead of driving.
Next time you fill up, check you tire pressure, and add air if they need it. This will get you better gas mileage.
Talk to your employer about saving fuel and money by incorporating a 4-day workweek. This is an immediate savings of 20% on gas and transportation costs.
And finally, send in your good ideas on how to conserve and be more sane.
End log.
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Yeah, yeah, you can save the world by buying fluorescent lights.
Not.
You can save the world by growing a garden, minimizing your light/energy requirements, and learning serious conservation techniques.
I don't think that fluorescents are all they're said to be. They are heavier, probably more energy-intensive to make and transport, don't last quite as long as touted, NOBODY disposes of them properly (mercury in our landfills -- even for Nevada that's too much, the Mercury capital of the nation). We go through a lot of fluorescents where I work. They should be disposed of properly, as per the warnings on the package. The number for hazardous disposal is 800-601-9007. A web site for the same is www.lamprecycle.org., and others. Do a search.
According to their site, there were almost 700 million mercury bulbs disposed of last year. Only about 23% of them are being recycled. Surprisingly, businesses, which use most of them (78%) do the most recycling. They recycle about 29% of the lights disposed, and households only recycle 2%. Hmmm.
The cost of recycling this mercury should be built into the manufacturer’s, sellers costs. But then, it’ll only get passed on to us in the end.
When LED's finally develop a good light, and drop in cost --and they are real close -- then we'll have saner lighting.
And when our businesses and homes install solar tubes and skylights for free natural daytime illumination, we will have made another giant step.
In the end, fluorescents are probably better than incandescents. They will save money on your monthly power bill, but are not the ‘cure‘ for our electric consumption.
In the end, they ARE better than incandescent, and quite a bit cheaper to run.
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We may just well be facing an imminent food crisis. Weather changes are messing with our national farming (the corn crop this year is late because of cold weather and too much moisture on the ground), droughts and flooding may exacerbate our crop yield, petroleum based fertilizers are becoming more expensive, and also fuel costs for mechanized farming are going through the roof, as well as getting stuff to market.
Oddly, it has been suggested that the average person urinates enough nutrients to fertilize enough corn to feed them for the year. And yet we are stuck on artificial fertilizers. (see Klebsiella planticola). Instead we flush all our crap into our water supply, polluting our rivers, raising nitrogen levels, and getting into our underground reservoirs.
Let’s repeal the pure Food Act and enforce our right to be apprised of Frankenfoods, additives, pesticides, hormones, chemicals, radiation, etc.
A more vegetarian diet is healthy, makes you wealthy, and wise.
We once had in our country a good stock of foods and grains for times of future famine. Now our reserves are woefully depleted, and if we face a year or two of bad crops and failures, then watch out.
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<br>Follows is from truthout
And to read more articles on the Environment, please visit the t r u t h o u t environment page.
Go to Original
Exposed: The Great GM Crops Myth
By Geoffrey Lean
The Independent UK
Sunday 20 April 2008
Major new study shows that modified soya produces 10 per cent less food than its conventional equivalent.
Genetic modification actually cuts the productivity of crops, an authoritative new study shows, undermining repeated claims that a switch to the controversial technology is needed to solve the growing world food crisis.
The study - carried out over the past three years at the University of Kansas in the US grain belt - has found that GM soya produces about 10 per cent less food than its conventional equivalent, contradicting assertions by advocates of the technology that it increases yields.
Professor Barney Gordon, of the university's department of agronomy, said he started the research - reported in the journal Better Crops - because many farmers who had changed over to the GM crop had "noticed that yields are not as high as expected even under optimal conditions". He added: "People were asking the question 'how come I don't get as high a yield as I used to?'"
He grew a Monsanto GM soybean and an almost identical conventional variety in the same field. The modified crop produced only 70 bushels of grain per acre, compared with 77 bushels from the non-GM one.
The GM crop - engineered to resist Monsanto's own weedkiller, Roundup - recovered only when he added extra manganese, leading to suggestions that the modification hindered the crop's take-up of the essential element from the soil. Even with the addition it brought the GM soya's yield to equal that of the conventional one, rather than surpassing it.
The new study confirms earlier research at the University of Nebraska, which found that another Monsanto GM soya produced 6 per cent less than its closest conventional relative, and 11 per cent less than the best non-GM soya available.
The Nebraska study suggested that two factors are at work. First, it takes time to modify a plant and, while this is being done, better conventional ones are being developed. This is acknowledged even by the fervently pro-GM US Department of Agriculture, which has admitted that the time lag could lead to a "decrease" in yields.
But the fact that GM crops did worse than their near-identical non-GM counterparts suggest that a second factor is also at work, and that the very process of modification depresses productivity. The new Kansas study both confirms this and suggests how it is happening.
A similar situation seems to have happened with GM cotton in the US, where the total US crop declined even as GM technology took over.
Monsanto said yesterday that it was surprised by the extent of the decline found by the Kansas study, but not by the fact that the yields had dropped. It said that the soya had not been engineered to increase yields, and that it was now developing one that would.
Critics doubt whether the company will achieve this, saying that it requires more complex modification. And Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington - and who was one of the first to predict the current food crisis - said that the physiology of plants was now reaching the limits of the productivity that could be achieved.
A former champion crop grower himself, he drew the comparison with human runners. Since Roger Bannister ran the first four-minute mile more than 50 years ago, the best time has improved only modestly . "Despite all the advances in training, no one contemplates a three-minute mile."
Last week the biggest study of its kind ever conducted - the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development - concluded that GM was not the answer to world hunger.
Professor Bob Watson, the director of the study and chief scientist at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when asked if GM could solve world hunger, said: "The simple answer is no."
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Don’t claim to be a great gardener. But I like to grow things. My seed catalog arrived and I’ve ordered and received some seeds. I am avoiding hybrid seeds, as I have my doubts about their ability to faithfully reproduce. Hybrids lack the ability to breed true for any length of generations. Thus you have to buy new hybrid seeds every year. Open pollinated or non-hybrids will reproduce their lineage faithfully. Think about making your own compost piles. Buy local produce. Use your paper shredder waste as mulch for your garden and plants. Put fruit trees in your yard. Experiment with indoor container winter gardening. While you may not have enough land to fully feed yourself, certainly you have enough to make a contribution to your food supply, and the ability to put fresh, wholesome, non-chemical vege-tables on your table.You may be surprised and the number of grains and seeds in your local markets that will grow.
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Now just how are we supposed to do that? Oh, wait, the oil companies are going to solve the problem. At least they tell us that on all their commercials…. And, please note that the oil companies are spending 100’s of millions of $ on a new campaign to convince us that they, too are unfair victims, and only have our best interests at heart. Oh, and get ready for them to slam the ‘environmentalists for interfering with free capitalism and causing our high gas prices. Our government it seems is unable to work on this, and at best they spend hours and hours of debate, while nothing is getting done. Do not rely on your current government to solve these problems. It is up to us all to each disentangle ourselves from this massive mess we find ourselves in. This page will soon post several tools you can build to help supplement your heating and energy costs.
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is like aluminum. It is an investment in the future. It is energy expended, and needs salvaging. Glass is one of the most monumental discoveries of our time. It is stupendous!
A substance which allows one form of energy (light from the sun) from passing, but prevents another (heat from the sun) from escaping. Wow. The ancient Romans used glass (the wealthy ones) to trap heat in their homes in winter.
Every bit of glass going into the landfill is a terrible waste. We must actively recycle and re-use this energy intensive substance.

Opinions are like elbows, we all have a couple of them. As a non-scientist, but semi-informed layman, I believe that climate change is caused by excess global warming. Excess global warming is caused by often wasteful human activities- especially the burning of fossil fuels. Granted, volcanoes, methane from cows, and the sun are also factors, BUT to assume that the copious burning of fossil fuels does not add to our heat-load is pretty silly. Sixty million gallons of petroleum burned every day is a horrendous amount of heat calories. As is the tons and tons of coal used in the majority of our power plants. It is documented that our cities are in fact 'heat islands', and it is probably because they generate a lot of, well, heat! Climate Change means just that, change. CC does not necessarily mean the overall climate will get hotter. It may even cause major global cooling, and some suspect (myself included) may bring on a new Ice Age. We just don't know. Climate change will cause catastrophic weather events such as droughts, floods, fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, ice storms, decreased crop production, heat waves, increased insect damage, more disease and epidemics, etc. While energy-company funded scientists clamor that CC is just an illusion, or is caused by the sun, it appears a responsible majority of unbiased scientists feel that climate change is real and serious. Until there is consensus on the causes of warming, let us not be distracted from the issue at hand. The issue is that the climate is changing, and very rapidly. Let us not get lost on who is responsible, or how or why or when. We must address what to do about it, not who made it happen. Let's see the forest and the trees and instead use our still considerable remaining energies to fixing the problems.
In my opinion, here is how it will play out. Hotter, record-breaking summers. Colder, record-breaking winters. Spring and autumn will virtually disappear, lasting only weeks. Weekly or bi-monthly temperature oscillations may get extreme. Each year the temperatures will continue to break records. The tremendous change in seasonal temperatures will tax our systems to the breaking point. Tremendous winds will rip out much of our infrastructure and buildings. Our economic and industrial ventures will suffer even more. In the end, ice will once again cover much of our world.
Climate change is, in my opinion, the third greatest threat to humanity. The second is Peak Oil and the collapse of our culture. The first is Global Thermonuclear War.
But then, I may be wrong. I hope so.
You may still think that human activities have no effect on our climate. Please, quit using Fox News as your sole source of information.
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If you have a little spare bread, consider talking with your neighbors and friends about conjointly buying a grain grinder. They'll run you over a hundred bucks, but split between several families it won't cost you too much. With a grinder (electric and manual attachments) you will be able to grind fresh living whole-wheats and other grains, make simple healthy cereals, pastries and breads, and possibly nut butters. With the price of grains rising higher and higher, it will be a very thrifty move to buy grains in bulk. This will not only save some money, but if you bake as you need it, there will be less need for refrigeration and that can lower our energy use. By adjusting the coarseness of the grind, you can make tasty whole grain breakfast cereals. I&rsquo;ve ground and mixed, wheat, brown rice, barley and other grains. Some of the whole grains are much tastier if you toast them first, especially brown rice. They are easily toasted in a solar box oven. To make cereal, use 1 part of ground grain per 4 parts of water. Add a little salt, boil gently for about 10-12 minutes, squirt in a little honey to taste, and add a pat of butter before you pour your half and half milk onto it. OOOO goood.

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In addition to a national Oil Reserve, we also need a national Grain Reserve. This will help stifle rapid food inflation and pay farmers a decent price for their goods, but will also provide us with an emergency edible reserve of quality food.
And, like the oil reserve, should be carefully guarded and ONLY used in dire emergency. At one time we supposedly had a couple-year supply of grains. The latest I’ve heard is that it’s down to about 6 months. Scary.
We are a society of some 400 million people who mostly are reliant on good weather, cheap fertilizers, cheap oil, and solvent farmers to get our daily food to our supermarkets. Imagine a break in the chain that provides us with these things we take for granted. I don't want to imagine that.

We're the only first-world country without universal health care. Cuba has more comprehensive care. No more Pharma subsidies. No more Pharma advertising for prescription drugs, Why should we pay for their advertising? Don't ask your doctor, he/she already knows... I will sponsor legislation making it illegal to advertise for prescription drugs. We need an end to subsidies and an end to Pharma companies using taxpayer funded research to produce their exclusive and patented drugs. Our government must be allowed to bid on prescriptions. We must prosecute theft, over billing and fraud by our medical ‘insurance‘ companies. Let’s get into stress reduction which is purportedly responsible for over 50% of our dis-ease. The Federal government must stop prosecuting those who provide Medicinal Marijuana to sick people. Let us buy drugs from out of country, where they are cheaper. I’d rather have drugs of slightly inferior quality than no drugs at all.
According to Newsweek, side effects from prescription drugs are now the 4th leading cause of death in the United States.
Research suggests that 80 cents of every dollar spent on health care pays for private health insurance, profits, paperwork, and bureaucracy. We could save $350 Billion by eliminating the profit motive and moving to a single payer Universal health care system.
It costs Medicare 3% for administration costs, yet private insurance eats up 30%.
We must take the profit out of medical care. We need health care, not health insurance. Time to eliminate the un-necessary and very expensive middle-man.
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On May 08, 2008 an initiative petition was filed with the Secretary of the State of Nevada for the purpose of allowing the DRI (Desert Research Institute) to research Hemp as a source of biomass for energy. This petition and its originator can be accessed via www.myspace.com/hemppetition, or email at hemp petition@yahoo.com
It needs 59,000 signatures of Nevada registered voters by November 11th. It’s time to get out the clipboard, download the petition and hit the streets. Please help support this effort, and you can help financially by donating to Industrial Hemp for Fuel & Farming Inc. at your local US Bank, 140 Vassar Street in Reno.
Yes, this is another item for your list of things to do to create a better world. Please help.
This effort is not affiliated with my campaign, however I fully support it.
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We need HSR from Bordertown through to Topaz Lake. Between Truckee and Fallon/Yerington. And eventually to Elko and East. We need it from the North, through Tonopah and southward. To the Eastern borders. It will be expensive but will provide jobs, radically extreme energy and transportation savings, cheaper freight, minimal upkeep, less taxes, etc. Rail gets 400+ miles per gallon for one ton of transport. Wow. Third only to the electric bicycle, and busses. Our highway system is overdue for a meltdown. We cannot afford to repave our asphalt continually or constantly, nor the taxes that entails. And once it starts to disintegrate, it will do so quickly and irreparably.
Light rail and pneumatic tubes are our gifts to the future.
Rail is the key. We once knew how to do it. We MAY have the resources left to rebuild this marvelous system.
This will be part of my 'Pork' legislation.
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Growth hormones and other chemicals are a routine part of our food supply. Our beef, chickens, eggs, cheese and milk have hormones in them. The food industry is not required to label them. In fact, they are fighting to prevent non-hormone foods from advertising that fact. It is no wonder that our children seem to be maturing physically faster than we did. They have more hormones, thanks to fast food. It is unknown how this will effect our future adults. There has not been time to allow for proper testing, and these additives have been included under strong pressure from the food industry.

Are machines which hold promise for the future. At one time solar hot air engines were being built to pump out the mines in the west. Solar engines have run devices from pumps to printing presses. And it is possible that they are more manufacturable than internal combustion. We need to research and build Stirling, and other hot air engines, as well as research obscure items like the Tesla Turbine, flywheels and other novel devices. Along with drastic conservation techniques, these may provide a future path to sustainability and fulfilling lives for us all.
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When it’s winter, and your house is subjected to blustery winds, and sub-zero temperatures, it takes a lot of BTU’s to keep warm. Your power bill tells all. If it’s below zero with wind chill, then you have to heat to 70 degrees. Nearly half of our energy use is in heating and cooling and lighting our buildings.
If, on the other hand, your house were built underground, your mean surrounding temperature is about 50 degrees. It makes more sense to heat a house from 50 than it does from zero.
Underground, earth-sheltered, and bermed buildings make a lot of sense in a crazy world. As do hay bale and hempbale homes. These should be our thrust.
When I grew up in Sparks the northern hills were beautiful. Now they are filled with endless icky boxes that are grossly inefficient, and wasteful. We could have build those houses into the hills, artfully, unobtrusively, and efficiently.
But we didn’t. Shall we continue with the ecological disasters we still build, or can we all work toward enabling the crafty construction of sane abodes? We certainly should do this. Will we do this?
Additional advantages to undergrounds are that they are quiet, require less upkeep and maintenance, probably require less firefighting infrastructure, are less subject to firestorms and conflagrations, could conceivably lower your insurance premiums, they’re unobtrusive, and finally, are more of a protection from Weapons of Mass Destruction which may come at us from terrorists, the Chinese, the Russians, the French, the English, the Pakistanis, the Israelis, or other WMD possessors.
Existing housing cannot be abandoned, but must be retrofitted, and perhaps eventually the materials can be reused for undergrounds.
Other great tools are Haybale and Hempbale structures. Made from non-exotic locally available materials, they are super-Insulated and do not nearly contribute to our carbon load.
Underground houses built from used tires are an especial way to kill 2 birds with one stone.
We must also consider plumbing and water concerns.
We will eliminate or downsize our water disposal and water use requirements. I am absolutely convinced that we can provide for the domestic disposal of our liquid and sewage wastes using solar hot air evaporators and anaerobic digesters as are commonly found in India. Then perhaps we can quit flushing our wastes into our clean water supplies.
What is left from evaporators will be a powdery sterile substance which can be used on our small lawns, trees, and above ground-bearing vegetables.
This will allow the reduction or elimination of expensive sewer piping. Once a year you can shovel out the desiccated crap and spread it around your acreage.
Another good concept is to build facing South. The ancient Greeks and Romans built entire cities planned on a southern axis. With overhangs, they were cooler in summer and warmer in winter.
To build an efficient solar house: insulate it like a thermos bottle and have windows facing South. The Earth is a pretty darned good thermos bottle.
All new buildings should be LEEDS approved.
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Real retrofittable hybrids are almost here. They’re not being built by the big boys, with hundreds of millions to sink into elitist toys like the Phoenix car, or electric truck assists. They are being painfully crafted by local people. I have driven a locally made retrofit hybrid/electric car. It was an amazing experience. The creator has sunk all his disposable wealth and time over the last 4 years to make this vehicle. Now he is broke. No one is interested. He is $50,000 short of making this a reality for us all, and I want to help get him and those wonderful creators like him the funds to finish their good works. Where is the help for our honest and hard working brilliant minds, whose efforts will retool our planet? Vested interests and corporations have sucked up the gravy for far too long. It is time to help and fund our wonderful creative American spirit again, and to foster those great minds and talents among us who tirelessly work to improve all our lives.

Klebsiella Planticola
This is about the scariest thing I’ve ever read. It is several pages long, but important to read. As pulled from a webpage on the internet:
The Gene-Altered Monster That Almost Got Away
The Deadly Genetically Engineered Bacteria that Almost Got Away: A Cautionary Talle
Web Note: In the early 1990s a European genetic engineering company was preparing to field test and then commercialize on a major scale a genetically engineered soil bacteria called Klebsiella planticola. The bacteria had been tested--as it turns out in a careless and very unscientific manner--by scientists working for the biotech industry and was believed to be safe for the environment.
Fortunately a team of independent scientists, headed by Dr. Elaine Ingham of Oregon State University, decided to run their own tests on the gene-altered Klebsiella planticola.
What they discovered was not only startling, but terrifying-- the biotech industry had created a biological monster--a genetically engineered microorganism that would kill all terrestrial plants.
After Ingham's expose, of course the gene-altered Klebsiella planticola was never commercialized.
But as Ingham points out, the lack of pre-market safety testing of other genetically altered organisms virtually guarantees that future biological monsters will be released into the environment.
Moreover it's not only genetic engineering that poses a mortal threat to our soil ecology, the soil food web, as Ingham calls it. Chemical-intensive agriculture is slowly but surely poisoning our soil and our drinking water as well.
This article orginally appeared in the Green Party publication Synthesis/Regeneration 18 (Winter 1999)
Ecological Balance and Biological Integrity
Good Intentions and Engineering Organisms that Kill Wheat by Elaine Ingham, Oregon State University <www.soilfoodweb.com>
A genetically engineered Klebsiella-planticola had devastating effects on wheat plants while in the same kind of units, same incubator, the parent bacteria did not result in the death of the wheat plants.
Consider that the parent species of bacteria grows in the root systems of every plant that has been assessed for Klebsiella's presence. The bacterium also grows on and decomposes plant litter material. It is a very common soil organism. It is a fairly aggressive soil organism that lives on exudates produced by the roots of every plant that grows in soil. This bacterium was chosen for those very reasons to be engineered: aggressive growth on plant residues.
Field burning of plant residues to prevent disease is a serious cause of air pollution throughout the US. In Oregon, people have been killed because the cloud from burning fields drifted across the highways and caused massive multi-car crashes. A different way was needed to get rid of crop residues. If we had an organism that could decompose the plant material and produce alcohol from it; then we'd have a win-win situation. A sellable product and get rid of plant residues without burning. We could add it to gasoline. We could cook with it. We could drink grass wine-although whether that would taste very good is anyone's guess. Regardless, there are many uses for alcohol.
So, genes were taken out of another bacterium, and put into Klebsiella-planticola in the right place to result in alcohol production. Once that was done, the plan was to rake the plant residue from the fields, gather it into containers, and allow it to be decomposed by Klebsiella-planticola. But, Klebsiella would produce alcohol, which it normally does not do. The alcohol production would be performed in a bucket in the barn. But what would you do with the sludge left at the bottom of the bucket once the plant material was decomposed? Think about a wine barrel or beer barrel after the wine or beer has been produced? There is a good thick layer of sludge left at the bottom. After Klebsiella-planticola has decomposed plant material, the sludge left at the bottom would be high in nitrogen and phosphorus and sulfur and magnesium and calcium-all of those materials that make a perfectly wonderful fertilizer. This material could be spread as a fertilizer then, and there wouldn't be a waste product in this system at all. A win-win-win situation.
But my colleagues and I asked the question: What is the effect of the sludge when put on fields? Would it contain live Klebsiella-planticola engineered to produce alcohol? Yes, it would. Once the sludge was spread it onto fields in the form of fertilizer, would the Klebsiella-planticola get into root systems? Would it have an effect on ecological balance; on the biological integrity of the ecosystem; or on the agricultural soil that the fertilizer would be spread on?
One of the experiments that Michael Holmes did for his Ph.D. work was to bring typical agricultural soil into the lab, sieve it so it was nice and uniform, and place it in small containers. We tested it to make sure it had not lost any of the typical soil organisms, and indeed, we found a very typical soil food web present in the soil. We divided up the soil into pint-size Mason jars, added a sterile wheat seedling in every jar, and made certain that each jar was the same as all the jars.
Into a third of the jars we just added water. Into another third of the jars, the not-engineered Klebsiella-planticola, the parent organism, was added. Into a final third of the jars, the genetically engineered microorganism was added.
The wheat plants grew quite well in the Mason jars in the laboratory incubator, until about a week after we started the experiment. We came into the laboratory one morning, opened up the incubator and went, "Oh my God, some of the plants are dead. What's gone wrong? What did we do wrong?" We started removing the Mason jars from the incubator. When we were done splitting up the Mason jars, we found that every one of the genetically engineered plants in the Mason jars was dead. Wheat with the parent bacterium, the normal bacterium, was alive and growing well. Wheat plants in the water-only treatment were alive and growing well.
From that experiment, we might suspect that there's a problem with this genetically engineered microorganism. The logical extrapolation from this experiment is to suggest that it is possible to make a genetically engineered microorganism that would kill all terrestrial plants. Since Klebsiella-planticola is in the root system of all terrestrial plants, presumably all terrestrial plants would be at risk.
So what does Klebsiella-planticola do in root systems? The parent bacterium makes a slime layer that helps it stick to the plant's roots. The engineered bacterium makes about 17 parts per million alcohol. What is the level of alcohol that is toxic to roots? About one part per million. The engineered bacterium makes the plants drunk, and kills them.
But I am not trying to say that all genetically engineered organisms are technological terrors. What I am saying is that we have to test each and every genetically engineered organism and make sure that it really does not have unexpected, unpredicted effects.
They have to be tested in something that approximates a real world situation. I've worked with folks in the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and I know the tests the EPA performs on organisms. They often begin their tests with "sterile soil." But if it's sterile, then it's not really soil. Soil implies living organisms present. If you use "sterile soil" and add a genetically engineered organism to that sterile material, are you likely to see the effects of that organism on the way nutrients are cycled, or on the other organisms in that system? No, you're not likely to. So it's probably no surprise that no ecological effects are found when they test genetically engineered organisms in sterile soil. They really need to put together testing systems, which assess the effects of the test organism on all of the organisms present in soil.
What do we mean, organism-wise, when we talk about soil? Agricultural soil should have 600 million bacteria in a teaspoon. There should be approximately three miles of fungal hyphae in a teaspoon of soil. There should be 10,000 protozoa and 20 to 30 beneficial nematodes in a teaspoon of soil. No root-feeding nematodes. If there are root feeding nematodes, that's an indicator of a sick soil.
There should be roughly 200,000 microarthropods in a square meter of soil to a 10-inch depth. All these organisms should be there in a healthy soil. If those conditions are present in an agricultural soil, there will be adequate disease suppression so that it is not necessary to apply fungicides, bactericides, or nematicides. There should be 40 to 80% of the root system of the plants colonized by mycorrhizal fungi, which will protect those roots against disease.
What happens when you apply the most fungicides and pesticides to soil? In every single case where we have looked at foodweb effects of pesticides, there are non-target organism effects, and usually very detrimental effects. The sets of beneficial organisms that suppress disease are reduced. Organisms that cycle nitrogen from plant-not-available forms into plant-available forms are killed. Organisms that retain nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfur, magnesium, calcium, etc. are killed. Organisms that retain nutrients in the soil are killed. Once retention is destroyed, where do those nutrients go? They end up in our drinking water; or end up in our ground water. You and I as taxpayers have to pay in order to clean up that water so we can drink it.
Wouldn't it be much wiser to keep those organisms present in the soil so those nutrients would be retained and become available to the next crop of plants instead of ending up in our drinking water where we have to pay in order to have clean drinking water? How do you do that? You get the organisms back into the soil. If you grow the proper number and types of bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes and microarthropods, mycorrhizal fungi in the root systems of the plants, you can do away with pesticides. It's been done. We can reduce significantly the amount of fertilizer that goes into that soil. In experiments that have been done all over the country, all over the world, inorganic fertilizer inputs have been reduced, or are not added at all, without reduction in plant growth. Where green manure or legumes are not available, approximately 40 pounds of nitrogen fertilizer, once every four years, are still necessary.
Let's talk about why today's conventional agricultural systems require such massive inputs of pesticides and fertilizers. When a healthy soil is first plowed out of native grassland, for example, the disease-suppressive bacteria and fungi, protozoa and nematodes are present. For the first 5 to 15 years after plowing native grassland you don't have to use any pesticides. No fertilizers are required because there is natural nutrient cycling, natural nitrogen retention, and disease suppression. As you plow that soil, you start to kill the beneficial organisms, you lose the organic matter, and you lose the food to feed the beneficial organisms. After about 10 to 15 years, if you're not adding back adequate plant residue to feed those organisms, you lose them, and start having significant disease problems. Then you either leave that land and farm elsewhere, or in the US, we used fertilizers to keep yields high. As more and more of the organisms were killed by the salt effect of the fertilizers, and the constant plowing mined out more and more of the organic matter, starving the beneficial organisms to death, disease became a serious problem. And we started using more and more pesticide to knock the disease back.
In California, around 1955, those disease problems became so severe that they thought they would lose agricultural production. So the University of California came up with a better way to kill those disease-causing organisms. It's called methyl bromide. This chemical kills disease-causing organisms-but it also kills everything else. There is very little natural disease suppression going on in agricultural soils in California.
How many organisms are left in strawberry fields that have been methyl-bromided 2 to 3 times a year for the last 14 years? There are no microarthropods left. There are no beneficial nematodes left; only root feeding nematodes. And there is nobody to control root-feeding nematodes in those soils. How many protozoa are left in that soil? None. You cannot cycle nutrients. There is nobody home to make nitrogen plant-available. So what do you have to do? You have to add fertilizer. We force ourselves to have to add fertilizer. We have no other choice if you're going to grow those plants in those soils.
How many fungi do you have left in that soil? No beneficial fungi-they're all disease-causing. How many bacteria are left? All are gone, except for 100 per gram of soil. We should have 600 million per teaspoon in that soil; we have 100 left. There is nothing left to retain nitrogen in those soils, nothing. So you apply fertilizer. What happens to the fertilizer? Whatever fertilizer contacts the roots of the plants is indeed taken up; the rest of it flushes through the soil into the ground water, into the river. Take Santa Maria River in California as an example. This land has had methyl bromide applied 2 to 3 times a year for the last 14 years or more. Fertilizer is applied as sidedress when strawberries are planted. About two weeks later, the river goes up to around 150 parts per million nitrates. What is the toxic level for nitrate for humans? Ten parts per million nitrates is what the EPA tells us. It used to be three parts million but that evel was increased. Can you drink that water in the river in the Santa Maria valley? Not unless you'd want to die. You would destroy your kidneys pretty fast if you drank that water. It is high in nitrate. It is so toxic that you can't even put that water back on the plants. The high nitrate burns the plants.
We have a simple solution for this problem. Get the right kind of organisms, the right numbers of organisms, back in the soil and let them start performing their functions again. Put food for the organisms back into the soil; put the organisms back into the soil. It's that simple. Send us your soil samples and we can tell you whether you have that food web in your soil.
How are you going to fix that set of organisms it if you don't have a healthy foodweb? We can help you with that question. We can indeed move towards that time when we really don't need pesticides anymore; where you only apply fertilizer once every four years and in very small amounts. We can move to a sustainable agriculture. It takes time and effort, but it is possible.
This article is adapted from the presentation the author gave on July 18, 1998 at the First Grassroots Gathering on Biodevastation: Genetic Engineering.
See also: Holmes, M.T., Ingham, E.R., Doyle, J.D., & Hendricks, C.W. (1998). Effects of Klebsiella-planticola SDF20 on soil biota and wheat growth in sandy soil. Applied Soil Ecology, 326, 1-12.
Copy posted at: http://www.purefood.org/ge/klebsiella.cfm
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<br>Review of article by Union of Concerned Scientists
"Effects of Klebsiella planticola on soil biota and wheat growth in sandy soil."
M.T. Holmes et al.,
Applied Soil Ecology 326:1-12, 1998
A recent report in Applied Soil Ecology illustrates the unexpected ways in which environmental release of genetically engineered microorganisms might cause widespread ecological damage. The core experimental finding is that the addition of a genetically engineered bacterium, Klebsiella planticola (SDF 20), to a small microcosm consisting of wheat plants and sandy soils kills the plants, while the addition of the non-engineered parent, Klebsiella planticola (SDF 15), does not.
Klebsiella (SDF 20) is a lactose-fermenting acterium engineered to produce increased ethanol concentrations in fermentors that convert agricultural wastes to ethanol. The system (developed in Germany) envisioned the disposal of fermentation residues, including the engineered bacteria, as an organic soil amendment. The report that the engineered bacteria cause plant death raised the possibility that soil amendments would kill or impair crops in the fields where they were used and, further, that, once released and established, the Klebsiella could not be eliminated.
The paper explored but failed to nail down the mechanism of plant killing. Whatever the mechanism, the research suggests that engineered microorganisms can have far reaching, potentially devastating, effects.
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11/28/2006
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<br>Let there be light.
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<br>While this site has a tendency to take pot-shots at the wealthy, this ire is not totally directed to the wealthy, rather it is to the greedy.
One can be wealthy and not greedy. One can also be poor and greedy.
There are many kinds of wealth. There is discovered wealth, invented wealth, inherited wealth, and surely other means.
This is directed to those of us who haughtily claim that their riches are the result of their hard work. And whether or not this hard work included ruthlessness and taking advantage of others, the real conclusion here is that your wealth is a result of the hard work of our whole society. Those who build and maintain our infrastructure, those whose work has made it possible for you to acquire your wealth are just as responsible and deserving of it as you are. For without this infrastructure, this golden playland of opportunity created by us all, you would not have been able to gain these riches.
An excellent book, "Global Survival" edited by Laszlo and Seidel, suggests that part of the blinders on us is the belief that money buys happiness. We are spending our environmental capital and not living off the interest as we should be, while under the delusion that more and more consumption are necessary for us to be happy. Not so, says David Myers in chapter 7, "The simple, stubborn fact is that the Earth cannot indefinitely support our present consumption, much less the expected increase in consumption. For our species to survive and flourish, some things must change."
With an expected doubling of our global population in the next 40 years, and no sign of lessening of energy use, we may be very hard pressed to keep the boat from sinking in the next few short decades.
Mr. Myers' chapter clearly points out that it is not how rich one is, but rather how fulfilling life is that is the real source of happiness.
Soaring wealth and shrinking spirit is as he calls it the "American Paradox."
Yet those who market to us our newer and newer luxuries claim that without economic growth, the world will end.
No no no and No.
The world will end if we do not curb our consumption.
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<br>Enough bashing of the economically enhanced, let's talk tools.
Surely you have a flashlight somewhere in the house for those infrequent power outages.
Ours probably has dead batteries, go figure.
In an emergency, it is nice to have a good light source, no matter how small, and the problem of dead batteries is of some concern.
In a functioning world, we merely have to go to the local convenience store and get new batteries.
In a malfunctioning world it may be a lot less simple, especially if the world malfunctions long-term.
We do have new tools to use thanks to our technical planet.
The LED flashlights now available have several advantages. LED's practically last forever, and also they use much less juice to run.
Rechargable batteries are good for many hundreds of recharges. And, while the voltage of a rechargable is typically less than that of an alkaline, (1.2Volts as compared with 1.5) the light they give out is nearly as bright as alkalines. Not too much difference. They work.
Also, solar battery chargers have been available for many years now. A standard solar recharger can fill up 4 batteries in between 8 and 10 hours.
The average disposable battery uses 40 times the energy to make as we get out of it. Not so with rechargables.
Rechargables are much more green, sustainable, and make sense, especially for emergency lighting.
A pocket sized 9-bulb LED flashlight will cost about $7. 8 rechargable batteries will run you about $8 to $10. A pocket sized solar battery charger will cost somewhere around $15. So, for less than $40, you can add to your survival kit a good, reliable, rechargable, long lasting source of illumination for those times when the power goes out, or you find yourself in the boonies, looking for wood in the dark to start a fire. Pretty darned handy, and fairly earth-friendly.
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<br>For those of us who don't have the bread to lay out to get a rechargable system, those nice aluminum Mag-type small flashlights will work with LED bulbs instead of those fancy, expensive krypton-type ones which seem to burn out every time you put in new batteries. Buy a white LED bulb from your local electronics store, and if you cut the leads to about1/3 inch, they will plug in directly into the bulb socket (plug). Of course, if the light does not come on, then you probably have the leads reversed. Take out the LED and plug it in the other way. You may have to drill out the reflector, also, because the LED is just slightly larger than the standard bulb. Also, it doesn't hurt to slightly crimp the ends of the leads to ensure good contact into the socket.
This works reasonably well, and makes a servicable light, even tho' it's not extraordinarily bright. Good enough in a pinch.

12/3/2006
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<br>Lifeboats?
In a sane world, one fantasy is that we all realize the terrible threat we face with declining energy supplies, and all pull together to make it right. To make it sustainable.
Not to say necessarily that we do not live in a sane world, but really, we do not.
We, especially as Americans, the major consumers, are not ready to hear about a lessening of our consumption.
It flies in the face of sales.
Of volume, of profitability, of capitalism.
We are not ready to hear that conservation is a good and desirable thing. The corporate model is that conservation is not profitable.
Yet those of us who read intermittently, do know that conservation is indeed profitable.
Unfortunately, our culture is dominated by the business of selling more and more goodies, and our credit card companies do not believe in prudent spending, they encourage in many ways to spend more and more.
While this author had great hopes at one time for a re-awakening in our civilization, that hope is dimming.
We will not be ready to give up our toys until it is too late.
When the power system starts its intermittent and acceleratingly frequent blackouts and brownouts, when gas gets up to and over $5 a gallon, and when our economic system finally takes the big hit, then perhaps we will see some common sense. When our beloved internet starts misfiring and our servers and desktops start rebooting because of power fluctuations, then we will be ready.
Perhaps.
One thrust of this NNEMA site was to get our neighborhoods together and functioning before the blackouts.
The idea of individuals and small groups creating 'lifeboats' was not seen as an answer to our future problems.
But maybe it's time to think these thoughts.
Perhaps we should consider lifeboats.
The rest of the world wants to be like us, to consume like us, to use it up like us.
Don't blame them, advertising is very powerful and highly refined.
We certainly have been suckers for it.
And many of us still think that unlimited growth, crazy, unsound, wasteful growth is necessary for a 'healthy' economy. They think that all we have to do is make more and consume more and everything will be ok.
And they're certainly not shy about telling us that.
Lifeboats and Noah's Arc.
Maybe it's time.
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Say, this webpage is getting a bit strange, even for me.
But, why not be educational, express positions, and even try to be entertaining...?
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<br>Music and song
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<br>Energy In Equals Energy Out. This is the mantra of our fossil fuel economy.
EI=EO
EI E EO
Can you say that? E I E E O?
If so, here’s a little song for you.
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<br>“Old Monsanto had a farm,
EIEEO
And on this farm they grew Modified corn,
EIEEO
With a GM here, and a GM there, here a G there an M, everywhere a G and M,
Old Monsanto had a farm,
EIEEO
And with this corn they fed some cows,
EIEEO,
These cows ate corn and then got sick
(cows were designed to eat grass, not high protein grains)
EIEEO
Sick cows get drugs and medicines,
(so that they can walk into the slaughterhouses)
EIEEO
We eat those drugs and medicines,
EIEEO.
With a sick cow here, and a corn crop there, here a G there an M, everywhere a medicine,
Old Monsanto had a farm,
EIEEO
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<br>(feel free to add your own stanzas...)

means ‘Not In My Back Yard. People, often speculative homeowners, object to new technology which they wrongly think may devalue their house worth. They also think windmills are unsightly.
What is unsightly are our mobile parking lots (AKA our highway system) with thousands of cars standing at red lights. Ugly is a lot of things but not windmills.
The word for the day should be PIMBY, which means Put It in My Back Yard! Farmers in the Midwest are reportedly making $5,000 an acre leasing land for wind farms.
Go PIMBY, no NIMBY.
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Stands for Nevada Neighborhood Emergency Management Association. I have my doubts about FEMA so it's time for NNEMA.
It is good to be prepared for emergencies. Especially ones you can see coming. We can’t do much about a giant meteor hitting Earth, but we can prepare for Peak Oil, conflagrations, earthquakes and other nasties.
You should start an emergency kit for yourself. One that you can easily grab on the way out the door, and one for each member of your family.
My basic kit is a large cooking pan, 5 lbs. each of rice and dry beans (soybeans are best), a couple of gallons of water and a lighter. The average person can survive weeks without food, and 10 lbs. of dry goods will keep you comfy for quite a few more weeks. Your major concern will be to get clean water. Like the half of the world doesn't have now. If you boil your water, then most pathogens can be killed.
Also throw in a space blanket. For freezing and wet weather, it may give you an edge, and include a handy portable supply of warm clothing.
I have an article I wrote last year on an emergency kit which I will post later as a Plog on this site.
Think about starting your own NNEMA chapter.
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NNEMA Lending Library
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Following is a list of some of the books available through our Reno NNEMA library. There are a lot of books yet to be posted on gardening, and finding natural plant foods and medicines, but they will come with time. If you would like to add your library of good books so that others can borrow and learn from them, please get the list and send it to us. We don't know just how getting these books out is going to work. Years ago at UNR, some good folks had a similar lending system, and they lost a lot of books. So, one possibility to protect against this dilution is to ask for a returnable deposit for books borrowed. This deposit would be returned as books are returned. This way it costs no one to read, but insures somewhat against loss to the library. If you have a better idea or way, please respond.
Hopefully we can get all the books into a database or spreadsheet eventually, and it will facilitate the growing of the library.
It is important, and increasingly so in the future, to have access to 'old knowledge'. Hard copy old knowledge. To share knowledge.
This library may not fly, but at least it's worth a shot.
To borrow any book, please write & we'll figure out how to connect.
To add your books, please write & we'll figure out how to connect.
Thanks,
CB
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<br>
Energy-related, and Peak Oil related books:

Approaching Free Energy Rodale Press editors 1982-116P. Rodale Press NA Alternative energy, houses
Biodiesel, Basics and beyond William H. Kemp 2006, 588P Aztext Press 0-9733233-3-7 biodiesel energy
Big Coal The Dirty Secret Behind America's Energy Future Jeff Goodell 2006-324P. Houghton Mifflin 0-618-31940-9 Coal Energy
Biodiesel Growing a New Energy Economy Greg Pahl 2005-281P. Chelsea Green Publishing 1-931498-65-2 biodiesel energy
California Under Corporate Rule Peter Camejo 2006-261P. Transcontinental Printing NA California Politics
Charging Ahead John J. Berger 1998-398P. University of California Press 0-520-21614-8 Renewable Energy
Consumer's Guide to Effective Environmental Choices Union of Concerned Scientists 1999-292P. Three Rivers Press 0-609-80281-X Green Products
Cooking with the Sun B. and D. Halacy 1992-114P. Morning Sun Press 0-9629069-2-1 Solar Cookery
Diet for a Dead Planet Christopher Cook 2006-326P. The New Press 978-1-59558-84-9 Food Industry
Direct Use of the Sun's Energy Farrington Daniels 1972-374P. Yale University Press 0-300-399-4 Solar Energy
Energy at the Crossroads Vaclav Smil 2005-427P. MIT Press 0-262-19492-9 Energy Policy
Energy & Problems of a Technical Society Kraushaar & Ristinen 1993-488P. Wiley & Sons 0-471-57310-8 Power Resources
Energy Switch Morris, Craig 2006-209P. New Society Publishers 0-86571-559-9 Renewable future
Facing Starvation Lennard Bickel 1974-376P. Reader's Digest Press 0-88349-15-3 Hunger
Food Not Bombs Butler & McHenry 2000-105P. See Sharp Press 1-884365-21-3 Food Relief, US
Fueling the Future heintzman & Solomon 2005-406P. Anansi Press 0-88784-724-2 Fuel
George Washington Carver Rackham Holt 1944-342P. Doubleday NA Biography
Global Survival-The challenge... E.Lazlo, P. Seidel, EDS 2006-290P. SelectBooks, Inc. 1-59079-104-5 Sustainability
Greenhouse Christianson, Gale E. 1999-305P. Walker and Co. 0-8027-1346-7 Global warming
Harnessing the Wind for Home Energy McGuigan, Dermot 1978-134P. Garden Way Publishing 0-88266-117-5 Wind power
Ideas and Integrities R. Buckminster Fuller 1969-318P. Collier Books 63-11571 Future Design
Internal Combustion How corporations... Edwin Black 2006-408P. St. Martin's Press 978-0-312-35907-2 History, power resources
It's the Crude, Dude Linda McQuaig 2006-369P. St. Martin's Press 0-312-36006-1 Oil Addiction
Kicking the Carbon Habit William Sweet 2006-256P. Columbia University Press 0-231-13710-9 Global Warming, renewables
May All Be Fed John Robbins 1992-415P. Wm. Morrow & Co. 0-688-11625-6 Food Habits
Moment in the Sun R. & L. Tienow 1967-365P. Ballantine Books 67-16535 Early Ecology
Nuclear Power:The Unviable Option John J. Berger 1979-381P. Dell 0-440-35994-5 nuclear power
Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth R. Buckminster Fuller 1972-127P. Pocket Books 671-78046-8 Environmentalism
Plan B 2.0 Lester R. Brown 2006-365P. W.W.Norton & Co. 0-393-6162-0 Solutions
Power Down Richard Heinberg 2004-208P. New Society Publishers 0-86571-510-6 Future Options
Preparing for the Twenty First Century Paul Kennedy 1994-428P. Vintage Books 0-679-74705-2 Future vision
Small is Beautiful Schumacher, E.F. 1975-305P. Harper & Row 0-6-80352-5 Buddhist Economics
Solar Revolution Travis Bradford 2006-237P. MIT Press 0-262-2604-X Solar Energy
The Empty Tank Jeremy Leggett 2005-236P. Random House 1-4000-6527-5 Peak Oil Crisis
The End of Fossil Energy John G. Howe 2005-163P. McIntire Publishing 0-9743404-3-X Energy
The Good Fight Ralph Nader 2004-294P. Regan Books 0-6-75604-7 Politics
The Heat is On Ross Gelbspan 1998-278P. Perseus Books 0-7382-25-5 Global Warming
The Long Emergency James H. Kunstler 2006-325P. Grove Press 0-8021-4249-4 Must Read
Windpower Principles N.G.Calvert 1979-122P. Halsted Press 0-470-26867-0 Wind Energy


Tools
Accurate Tool Work Goodrich & Stanley 1908-217P. Lindsay Publications(reprint) 0-917914-82-1 Metalworking
Advanced Metalworking Projects Hanes, Hal 1987-76P. Lindsay Publications 0-917914-68-6 Tool making
Bob Villa's Toolbox Vila, Bob 1993-232P. William Morrow & Co. 0-688-11735-X Tool using
Care and Operation of a Lathe Sherldon Machine Co. 1942-103P. Lindsay Publications(reprint) 1-55918-105-2 Lathe work
Casting & Forming Processes in Manufacturing Campbell, J.S. Jr. 1950-536P. McGraw-Hill NA Metalworking
Charcoal Foundry (making) Gingery, D.J. 1983-80P. Gingery Publishing 1-878087-2 Tool making
Charcoal Kiln (making) Olson and Hicock 1946-30P Lindsay Publications(reprint) 1-55918-106-X Tool making
Civil Engineer's Pocketbook Trautwine, John C. 1908-1079P. John Wiley & Sons NA Reference
Complete Book of Sand Casting Ammen, C.W. 1979-238P. Tab Books 0-8306-1043-X Tool making
Design & Building the Sheet Metal Brake Gingery, D.J. 1985-52P. Gingery Publishing 0-9604330-6-6 Tool making
Dividing Head & Deluxe Accessories(building) Gingery, D.J. 1982-158P. Gingery Publishing 0-9604330-5-8 Tool making
Do It Yourself Vacuum Forming Walsh, D.E. 1994-125P. Vacuum Form NA Tool making
Drill Press (building your own) Gingery, David J. 1982-128P. Lindsay Publications 0-9604330-4-X Metalworking, toolmaking
English and American Toolbuilders Roe, J.R. 1926-315P. McGraw-Hill NA Tool makers, history
Extractve Metallurgy Newton, Joseph 1966-532P. John Wiley and Sons 59-14124 Metallurgy
Forge Craft Crowe, C.P. 1913-175P. Lindsay Publications(reprint) 1-55918-108-7 Tool making
Forge Practice Bacon, J.L. 1912-279P. John Wiley & Sons NA Metalworking
Forging Handbook Naujoks & Fabel 1939-630P. American Society for Metals NA Metalworking, forging
Formula Book, The Stark, Norman 1979-209P. Andrews & McMeel, Inc. 0-8362-63004 Formulas
Gadgeteer's Goldmine McComb, Gordon 1990-406P. Tab Books 0-8306-3360-X Electronics Projects
Getting the Most Out of Your Lathe Brown, Sam 1935-48P. Delta Manufacturing Co. NA Metalworking, lathes
Hand or Simple Turning Holtzapffel, J.J. 1881-592P Dover (reprint) 0-486-26428-9 Lathe working
Handbook for Drillers Cleveland Company 1989-46P. Lindsay Publications(reprint) 1-55918-5-6 Metalworking, drills
How to Cast Small Metal & Rubber Parts Cannon, W.A. 1986-168P. Tab Books 0-8306-414-6 Tool using
How to Design & Build Centrifugal Fans.... Gingery, D.J. 1987-112P. Lindsay Publications 0-917914-60-0 Tool making
How to Run a Lathe O'Brien, J.J., M.W. 1942-128P. South Bend Lathe Works NA Lathe working
How to Sharpen Craftsman Handbook 1969-32P. Sears, Roebuck & Co. NA Tool using
Inventions...of Nikola Tesla Martin, Thomas C. 1992-496P. Barnes & Noble 0-88029-812-X Tesla
Jigs, Fixtures, & Shop Furniture Engler, Nick 1989-122P. Rodale Press 0-87857-839-0 Woodworking
Lathe and Planer Tools Kaup, Stabel, Hayden 1908-40P. Lindsay Publications(reprint) NA Tool using
Magneto Magnetizer (building) Gingery, David J. 1994-36P. David Gingery 1-878087-15-0 Tool making
Making & Modifying Machines Fine Woodworking EDS. 1986-106P. Taunton Press 0-918804-43-4 Woodworking
Manual of Formulas Wailes, Raymond B. 1932-250P. Lindsay Publications(reprint) 1-55918-36-6 Formulas
Melting and Casting Aluminum Anderson, R.J. 1925 Lindsay Publications(reprint) 0-917914-59-7 Tool making
Metal Cutting Bandsaw (building) Wimberley, David 1985-23P. Lindsay Publicaitons NA Tool making
Metal Lathe (building) Gingery, D.J. 1980-128P. Gingery Publishing 0-9604330-1-5 Tool making
Metal Projects Book 3 Walker, John R. 1977-96P. Goodheart-Willcox Co. 0-87006-238-1 Tool making
Metalcraft for Amateurs Manzoni, Peter 1935-136P. Beacon Press NA Metalworking
Metal Shaper (building) Gingery, D.J. 1982-144P. Gingery Publishing 0-9604330-2-3 Tool making
Metal Working Hasluck, P.N. 1907-760P. Lindsay Publications(reprint) 1-55918-126-5 Tool making
Milling Machine (building) Gingery, D.J. 1984-160P. Gingery Publishing 1-878987-3-7 Tool making
Model Making Yates, R.F. 1925-428P. Lindsay Publications(reprint) 0-917914-32-5 Lost technology
Modern Metalworking Walker, John R. 1976 Goodheart-Willcox Co. 0-87006-212-3 Metalworking
Nikola Tesla Martin, Thomas C. 1894-496P. Lindsay Publications(reprint) 0-917914-90-2 Tesla
Old Time Mechanics Leonard, W.S. 1919-15P. Lindsay Publications(reprint) NA Metalworking, surface plate
Ornamental Turning Walshaw, T.D. 1994-208P. Argus Books 1-85486-108-5 Lathe work
Plastic Injection Molding Gingery, Vincent R. 1997-127P. Gingery Publishing 1-878087-19-3 Tool making
Practical Wood Pattern Making Hall, J. R. 1943-188P. Lindsay Publications(reprint) 1-55918-109-5 Metal casting, molds
Primary Batteries Carhart, Henry S. 1891-193P. Lindsay Publications(reprint) 1-55918-53-6 Electric, batteries
Principles & Practice of Ornamental Turning Holtzapffel, J.J. 1894-656P. Dover (reprint) 0-486-26567-6 Lathe work
Procedures in Experimental Physics Strong, John 1986-642P. Lindsay Publications(reprint) 0-917914-56-2 Lost technology
Prop Builder's Molding & casting Handbook James, Thurston 1989-236P. Betterway Books 1-55870-128-1 building stage props
Running and Engine Lathe Colvin, F.H. 1941-117P. Lindsay Publications(reprint) 0-917914-70-8 Lathe work
Secrets of Green-Sand Casting I.C.S. 1906 Lindsay Publications(reprint) 0-917914-8-2 Lost technology
Shop Theory, Henry Ford Tradeschool Ford Tradeschool 1943-267P. McGraw-Hill NA Tool using
Static Electricity Pepper, J.H. 1998 Lindsay Publications(reprint) 0-917914-78-3 Electricity experiments
Slip Roll Machine (building) Gingery, Vincent R. 1993-40P. Vince Gingery 1-878087-14-2 Tool making
Soldering & Brazing Yates, Raymond F. 1925-90P. Lindsay Publications(reprint) 1-55918-97-8 Metalworking, soldering
Thermit Welding Process Hart, R.N. 1914 Lindsay Publications(reprint) NA Tool using
Universal Coil Winding Machine (building) Gingery, David J. 1991-24P. David Gingery NA Tool making
Welding Principles and Practice Horwitz, Henry 1979-780P. Houghton-Mifflin 0-395-24473-0 Metalworking, welding
Wood Pattern-Making McCaslin, H.J. 1923-296P. Maple Press NA Metalworking
Working Sheet Metal Gingery, David J. 1993-90P. Lindsay Publications 1-878087-13-4 Metalworking





Engines
Introduction to Stirling Engines Senft, J.R. 1993-80P. Moriya Press NA Stirling Engines
Making Stirling Engines Ross, Andy 1993-60P. R & J Bardon Printing NA Stirling Engines
Principles of the Diesel Engine Morrison, L.H. 1938-216P. Diesel Publications, Inc. NA Diesel engines
Stirling Cycle Engine (building) Gingery, David J. 1990-76P. David Gingery 1-878087-9-6 Stirling Engines, building
Stirling Engine Manual Rizzo, James G. 1995-183P. Cambden Miniature Steam Svcs. 0-9519367-3-5 Stirling Engines





Foods, Health, Gardening, Cooking
Adventures in Sourdough Cooking & Baking Wilford, C.D. 1977-210P. Gold Rush Sourdough Co. 0-912936-0-2 Cooking
Art of Fine Baking Peck, Paula 1969-303P. Pocket Books 671-75355-X Cooking
Back To Eden Kloss, Jethro 1939-671P. Longview Publishing NA Food, Health
Bean Cookbook Aughenbaugh, Anna 1991-126P. Starlite Publications 0-9625869-0-0 Cooking
Beard on Bread Beard, James 1744 Borzoi Books 0-394-47345-0 Cooking
Charcoal Thrash & Thrash 1988-108P. NewLifestyle Books NA Health
Complete Baking Day, Martha 2002-512P. Hermes House NA Cooking
Complete Book of Breads Clayton, Bernard 1995-748P. Simon & Schuster 0-684-81174-X Cooking, Breads
Complete Book of Minerals for Health Rodale & Staff 1972-786P Rodale Books 87596-39-1 Health
Cure for All Diseases Clark, H.R. 1995-604P. New Century Press 1-890035-1-7 Health
Fine Food from the Pressure Cooker Kuhn, Heinrich 1980-80P. Centre Culinaire NA Cooking, Pressure
Garlic, the Healing Herb Simons, Paul 1986-96P. Thorsons Publishing 0-7225-1427-1 Health, garlic
Greene on Greens & Grains Greene, Bert 1988-847P. Tess Press 1-57912-132-2 Cooking
Healing Miracles from Macrobiotics Kohler & Kohler 1981-290P. Parker Publishing NA Diet therapy
Herbs for Health Prevention Magazine 1984-46P. Rodale Press NA Health, Herbs
Madame Wu's Art of Chinese Cooking Wu, Sylvia 1975-264P. Bantam Books NA Cooking, Chinese
Miracle Medicine Foods Adams, Rex 1977-230P. Parker Publishing Co. 0-13-585463-6 Health
Natural Way of Farming Fukuoka, M. 1985-273P. Japan Publishing 0-87040-613-2 Farming, gardening
Nutrition Almanac Kirschmann, J.D. 1979-279P. McGraw-Hill 0-7-34848-0 Health
Oats, Peas, Beans & Barley Cookbook Cotrell, E.Y. 1974-271P. Woodbridge Press 0-912800-7-0 Cooking
Organic Gardening Rodale, J.I. 1955-224P. Rodale Books 55-8409(LC#) Gardening
Pressure Cooking is Pleasure Cooking Phillips, Patricia 1984-232P. Johnson Press NA Cooking
Tassajara Bread Book Brown, E.E. 1970-146P. Shambhala Publications 0-87773-25-3 Cooking, Breads
There is a Cure for Arthritis Airola, P.O. 1980-200P. Parker Publishing Co. 68-25346(LC#) Health
Vegetarian Alternative Sussman, Vic 1978-286P. Rodale Press 0-87857-227-9 Cooking, vegetarian
Vegetarian Epicure Thomas, Anna 1972-305P. Vintage Books 0-394-71784-8 Cooking, vegetarian
Vegetarian Gourmet Cookery Hooker, Alan 1970-192P. 101 Productions NA Cooking, vegetarian
Vegetariana Atlas, Nava 1984-196P. Dial Press 0-385-27910-8 Cooking, vegetarian
Your Body's Many Cries For Water Batmanghelidj, F., MD 2001-186P. Global Health Solutions 0-9629942-3-5 Health



Misc,
Capitalism for Beginners Lekachman & Van Loon 1981-174P. Pantheon Books 0-394-73863-2 Economics
Critical Thinking Moore & Parker 1986-578P. Mayfield Publishing 1-55934-836-4 Thinking
Economics Explained Heilbroner & Thurow 1998-240P. Touchstone Books 0-684-84641-1 Economics
Fourth Turning Strauss & Howe 1997-382P. Broadway Books 0-553-6682-X Prophecy
Green Politics Spretnak & Capra 1986-255P. Bear & Co. 0-939680-28-9 Politics
Green Rage Manes, C. 1990-291P. Little, Brown & Co. 0-316-54532-5 Environmentalism
Handbook of Practical Politics Van Riper, Paul 1967-257P. Harper & Row 67-10799(LC#) Politics
Handy Politics Answer Book Misiroglu, Gina 2003-606P. Visible Ink Press 1-57859-206-2 Politics
Leader of the Future Hesselbein, Goldsmith, et. 1996-319P. Jossey-Bass Publishers 0-7897-935-1 Leadership
Legislative Labyrinth Dwyre and Farrar-Myers 2001-291P. CQ Press 1-56802-568-8 Politics
Urantia Book Unknown 1955-2097P. Urantia Foundation 0-911560-2-5 Esoteric knowledge
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I absolutely support and endorse Nuclear Fusion. Our largest existing fusion reactor is about 93 million miles away. The energy is there, it’s free, it’s almost eternal: let’s use it! Fission nuclear power, on the other hand, is dangerous, very expensive, has long-lived wastes, and a myriad of other safety and disposal problems. And, reportedly, our reserves of Uranium may only last for another 50 years -- if that.
No fission nukes. More fusion nukes. Fission power should only be the last resort of a truly desperate civilization. I don’t think we’re quite there yet.
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Is costing us about $90 billion a year in extra medical costs. It is also affecting our culture. It creates loss of esteem, and less inclination to socialize. These are enormous costs far beyond monetary. We are becoming a nation of shut-ins, with little social desire. Instead we watch TV and it scares us so much that we don’t want to socialize with our fellows. And even more TV makes us less inclined to be with our peers. And round it goes….There are several books out which suggest that High Fructose Corn Syrup as found in our soft drinks, makes it very hard to lose weight. Also, corn-fed beef has the same purported inclination. If you are overweight, and dieting doesn’t help, try kicking sodas and fatty meats for awhile. Keep at it, we all want you healthy, and socializing with us.
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I will call for the creation of an Office of Forgotten Technology. This will provide a clearinghouse and workshops for the resurrection of old and newly developing alternatives. A master list of discoveries, inventions, and knowledge that will enable us to pool and build. I have a very large and wonderful library of forgotten technologies. Surely you do, too. Let’s share these resources, and make them available. We must do this block by block, city by city, until our state has these gifts to our collective knowledge.
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Hillary Clinton and others have proposed using our strategic oil reserves to help lessen the high cost of gas.
NO NO NO!!! Never! Our reserves are our last and only line of defense if there is a sudden interruption in oil.
The only time we should ever use our reserves is AFTER we have put in place a reasonable and sane emergency program for the possibility of oil unavailability. FEMA has no clue on what to do about this possibility. And if we do have in place plans for sudden oil interruptions, then why has not our government educated us on this? We need to create an Emergency Interruption Plan, and educate ourselves, and get the tools and materials in place in the event of this possibility.

1/1/2007
Site is open.
<br>
<br>Welcome to NNEMA.
We don't know where this is going, but here is a potential direction, and some hopes for it:
To establish a community-wide lending library. This library will include fine old books on forgotten technology, and current writings on such topics as Peak Oil, Global Warming, food technologies, solar and other subjects.
To help spread an awareness of the impending dangers of the burning up of our one-shot endowment of fossil fuels, and to promote conservation techniques in our daily lives. Additionally to put pressure on our political institutions and business to pay attention to the importance of true sustainability.
To encourage the formation of neighborhood NNEMA groups.
To catalog local resources, such as a listing of city-wide fruit trees, locally grown produce, and dairy, etc.
To initiate dialog on potential harmful effects of food additives and biohazardous genetic engineering, loss of topsoil, and dangers of factory-farmed monoculture.
To encourge local gardening, composting, and real recycling and re-use.
To promote the use of local co-ops, and boycott overpackaged and insane merchandising.
To develop (with your input) a comprehensive emergency checklist.
To help bring together people of like minds so that we can work collectively and together on our myriad projects.
To foster youth involvement in changing the future from a mythical throw-away one to one which is environmentally sane.
To explore the myriad scenarios of the unravelling of Peak Oil and the end of cheap energy, and develop means to combat this inevitable happening.
To link up with others who are interested in creating lifeboats, both inter-city and out of city.
To show that it is possible to live a fulfilled life without giving up high technology, nor lessening the quality of life by changing to a lower level of consumption.
Put on your thinking cap and get out your notepad.
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<br>The lending library data-base is being built, and the initial grouping should be put up on this site shortly. Also, we will then figure out a mechanism for getting these books out to you.
Until we de-bug and test the email system and other systems, please contact this NNEMA branch by writing to the temporary address of renofreepress@charter.net.
Thank you.
NNEMA
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Parabolic Hot Dog Cooker
Please note, I have not posted the pictures yet. Check back, and they'll be up as soon as possible.
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This is a cardboard hot dog cooker. Truthfully, I haven’t tried it yet. The foiled collector dimensions are 12 by 20 inches, which works out to about 240 square inches which is somewhat shy of 2 square feet. I’m guessing it will only collect about 100 watts of heat however, and don’t know if that is enough to cook hot dogs. However, if this simple parabolic were expanded, then it might work well. If each parabolic side were expanded by 6 inches, then the collector area would be 480 square inches, and will gather 120 watts onto a very small focused spot. Perhaps this was foolish use of my time, but I will try cooking with it this summer, and will of course not leave the hot dogs in it longer than about 45 minutes or an hour to make sure the hot dogs do not spoil. Oh well, possibly an impractical project, but it did get me away from the TV for awhile, and was semi-creative. Perhaps someone can expand and improve this project.
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Most people probably don't know how to make a parabolic. Or what it is. A parabolic mirror focuses the sun’s energy into a tight condensed spot.
It's kind of like a circular mirror, but is more precise, and concentrated. Higher temperatures can be reached.. Parabolics can be made into discs, or tubes. Discs are good for such things as smelting metals, cooking on high temperatures, or other undiscovered uses.
Follows are plans on how to build your own parabolic hot dog cooker.
The possibly ideal focuser is an old large TV satellite dish, which might be converted into a high-temp furnace.
If there is interest on how to build a parabola, write and I will post directions.
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as described in the book “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”, and found on the internet, PF Farms produces on a mere 100 acres of pastureland in a season:
30,000 dozen eggs
10,000 broiling chickens
800 stewing hens
25,000 pounds of beef
25,000 pounds of pork
1,000 turkeys
500 rabbits.
And this is done without chemical fertilizers, pesticides, insecticides, or additives. Since the cows’ pastureland is rotated daily, by the time the cows get back to their original starting point, the pasture has improved. This is a remarkable story about remarkable people. It is a blueprint on how we can truly become self-sufficient, and reasonably oil-free.
We have some wonderful pastureland in N. Nevada, Yerington, Fallon, and other places could be producing high-quality foods for the metropolitan areas, and help shrink our dependence on foreign influences. I hope that some farmers and ranchers who read this will research Polyface and other like farms, and take that giant leap of faith towards ensuring our futures.
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11/26/2006
Pressure cookers and the Pearly Gates.
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<br>When it becomes obvious to more of us that our fossil supplies are limited, and lessening, the hounds will be loosed.
The quick profit hounds will do their magic monetary mumbo-jumbo, and squeeze out the easy unearned pickings from whatever arenas they can find.
Just as they do today.
And at the cost of real growth, sustainable growth, generational growth.
But this is not to just badmouth the greedy. There will always be the greedy.
Those who say that the ones with the most toys win, will continue to believe that.
I just hope that at the end of their lives, or in moments of lucidity, they conclude that perhaps there is more to life.
That perhaps a good life is one of the realization of the joy of building a better world.
Of being truly social, compassionate, and cooperatively helpful.
It has been suggested that the root cause of greed is fear.
Fear of death, fear of being cold, hungry, whatever.
Why would anyone need a 15,000 square foot house? Or have a need to display ostentatious consumption?
Who knows?
It is possible/probable that in the end we will all be judged for our deeds.
Judged not only by our Father in heaven, but even possibly by our peers, and even by ourselves.
I hope that I can stand at that place of judgement and give myself a passing grade.
The pressure cooker of mortality often warps our decisions.
Enough psuedo moralizing...
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<br>Speaking of pressure cookers, this is another handy NNEMA tool that we should have in our arsenals.
Wasn't that a subtle slide into cookware?
Pressure cookers (stainless steel, NOT aluminum) are pretty handy things. They will cook not only as regular pans, but when pressurized cook very quickly, and with minimal fuel.
They will also supposedly double as stills. My dad at one time put a bunch of cheap wine into a pressure cooker to make Grappa. Unfortunately, the pressure cooker blew up, taking out the kitchen ceiling, and soon after we moved.
So this is not to be recommended unless you know what you are doing.
For other uses, they cook like a champ.
Soybeans, for example, which nobody seems to cook long enough, will take just over an hour. Normally they take many hours. And the problem with soybeans is that unless they are cooked well enough, they're not fit to eat. They should be soft enough so that you can squish them between your tongue and the roof of your mouth.
While soybeans can be tasty and very nutritious, they should not be eaten if they are at all crunchy. Ick.
Perhaps this is why they're not wildly popular.
Here's the basic recipe:
2 cups soybeans in 4 cups water. Put on burner until pressure builds and then turn off the burner. When the cooker loses pressure, (15 minutes or so) then turn on the burner again until re-pressurized. Repeat this for about an hour and 15 minutes. If you soak your beans overnight, they will take a few minutes less to cook.
Soybeans mixed with rice and a little soysauce are a filling meal.
Some people keep their cooker on low the whole time, but as long as it is pressurized, it is still cooking. I like to save fuel which is why I use this technique.
It takes awhile to get the hang of how long to cook certain foods. A full pot of potatoes takes about15-25 minutes. The nice thing about these cookers, is that when the pressure is gone, you can easily open the top and check your food. If it's not done, just bring it to heat again and wait until it cooks more.
A friend makes real chicken soup on his. He freezes the old chicken carcasses and puts them in the cooker until the bones are soft and this makes the very best real chicken soup. When was the last time you had real soup? Yum.
We have a one-meter parabolic mirror, which puts out probably about 750 watts of heat in full sunlight. One of these days it might be fun to try using the pressure cooker with. The outside of the cooker will probably need to be painted black for best heat gain, but there's nearly free cooking.
A blackened cooker will probably work well in a standard box solar cooker, too. They can get up to 350 degrees or more, which is certainly adequate to cook with a pressure cooker.
When finished, wash it well, and then rub some oil on the little rubber sealing ring on the lid. Make sure the vent hole is clear and not clogged.
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<br>So what does this all have to do with NNEMA?
It is sustainability, lessening our use of fuels, and conservation.
And it's fun and healthy.
Don't see why pressure cooking on an open fire is out of the question.
Put one of these into your survival kit list. Who knows, might come in real handy at some future time.
Even if we all decided to save energy by using these, and change all our lightbulbs to fluorescents, and lower our thermostats, we still will face the end of cheap oil. It still will happen. We are too addicted to our pleasures, and will not change in time.
But at least we can as individuals lessen our impact, eat healthier, save energy, and possibly help put off that day of reckoning for just a few hours or days longer.
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are one of those 'lost technologies' that have been nearly forgotten. The amount of fuel to cook foods in a pressure cooker is just a fraction of what you use on the stovetop. Once the pressure rises, the cooker will cook foods up to 3 times faster that ordinarily. Bring it up to pressure, and then turn it off. After the pressure drops (15 minutes or so), then just turn on the burner until it gets pressure again. Also, some have suggested the cooker be put into an insulating box. Probably cardboard will work. This insulation will slow down heat loss and allow you to keep the pressure up longer, and use less fuel. Be careful when using a pressure cooker. My dad reportedly tried making Grappa many years ago, and eventually the cooker exploded making a mess of the kitchen ceiling. We moved shortly thereafter.
Inspect your cooker before using and make sure the vents are not clogged. When cooking beans, etc. pour a tablespoon of oil into the water, this prevents the husks from jumping around and clogging the vent. Also, cooker manufacturers recommend not filling your cooker more than half full. It is a good idea to oil the rubber sealing ring before each use. This makes it easier to open the top, and helps proved a better seal.
What a great investment if you do any serious cooking.
Also pressure cookers can be used with parabolic solar cookers, and possibly with box cookers, but this still requires a little more experimentation and testing.
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The Federal Government has systematically been removing state and community’s ability to require pure food labeling. This has been driven by the giant food corporations, drug companies and other vested interests. The Feds even want to make homeopathic medicines and practices illegal and rigidly controlled.
I will fight to return to our states and counties the right to require adequate and complete labeling of ingredients in our foods. The Pure Food Act is a Pure(ly) Corporate Food Act.
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Hey, why not? I didn’t see any rules that say recipes can not go on a political page.
Many of us miss that wonderful Lemon Tahini dressing from the Blue Heron Natural Foods Restaurant. Steve has kindly allowed the recipe to be reprinted. This batch makes a couple of quarts, so give some away to friends.
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<br>Lemon Tahini Dressing:
1 bell pepper
1 onion
3 stalks celery
1 cup sesame tahini (health or natural foods store)
¾ cup tamari or soy sauce
5 or 6 lemons worth of juice
2 Tbs. black pepper
4 cups canola oil.
It‘s a big amount, so split everything in half and make two portions in your blender. Cut veggies into small chunks and blend it all together until lumps are out.
Oh my how great on salads, potatoes and other good food. Refrigerate. Share. Enjoy.
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If you have a black-painted surface exposed to a cloudless night sky, the temperature drop can be as much as twenty-degrees. If it's 50 out at night, you can theoretically freeze stuff.
There are refrigerators which can run off of one 50-watt solar panel. They cost more, but require zero energy from the power company. Solar coolers, refrigerators and freezers have been an esoteric solar item for centuries. Solar powered ammonia refrigerants have been around longer than anyone who is alive.
The sun can provide cooling/freezing/distillation with NO petroleum inputs. It is used in 3rd world countries to preserve vaccines to prevent disease.
And why do we spend so very much energy on keeping our food frozen? If we produced locally we'd save a bundle. It's frozen at the producer level, frozen via truck transport, frozen in our supermarkets, and frozen in our own freezers.
What does that represent? That's stupid.
Solar could even in theory power your house's evaporative cooler to keep you pleasant in summer months.
The opposite of heat is cold. We can use heat to make cold.
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My grandmother taught me that “there are two little magic words that will open any door with ease, one little work is Thanks and the other little word is Please.” What a sweet gift. We must respect all our fellows. Nobody told us why we’re here, or what to do. We all have done wrong things, and are incorrect in many of our opinions. I don’t want to sermonize, but by God, we’re all in the same boat.
Draw your enemy closer to yourself than your friends. Be polite even to those who offend you. Let’s put civilized back into civilization.
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Please note, I have yet to learn how to post the photos of the stove. Bear with me and they'll be up in a bit. Thanks.
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<br>A little research on the internet should bring up plans on how to build these very efficient cooking devices. Also research hobo stoves. This one was made from a few old cans, a little patience, and a razor knife. Yes, a stout razor knife will cut through the cans, but please be very careful. Took about a half hour to make this one, and no, I didn’t slip and cut myself. Whew.

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<br>The secret to its efficiency is the double-walled construction, which helps focus the heat within the container rather than letting it escape to the outside as in a conventional campfire. The fire chamber is the horizontal can which is place through both the external and internal heating chambers. It protrudes slightly into the inner chamber, and you can see the metal baffle sticking out of the front which holds the firewood. It burns sticks, twigs and small branches. Ignite your twigs and place the burning portion on the baffle and slightly into the inner chamber. Once started my model burns quite well, and leaves an amazingly small amount of residue. As the wood burns, just push the sticks farther into the chamber. You can find on the internet a remarkable amount of engineering research as to the best air ratio and exit exhaust percentages for max efficiency. Uses a small amount of fuel for the cooking done. Very efficient, light, and portable. The ring in the last photo shows a technique for raising the cooking pot high enough so that the cooking gases and smoke can escape..

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Another reason suburbia is such a bad idea, is the enormous cost of hooking up sewage and other infrastructure. The well designed home should be able to process all of its water and solid waste.
From my years of work on solar devices, I am convinced that new and existing homes can be taken ‘off the grid’ as it were, as far as waste disposal. Many digesting toilets have been made, and some of them very successful. We should however, combine solar energy and sewage evaporation. Let us marry the two, and along with re-use of grey water, greatly reduce municipal waste treatment lines. New housing can eliminate or greatly lessen the high initial cost of sewage lines.
Also, it is suggested that the average person urinates enough each year to provide enough fertilizer to grow enough corn to feed that person. Instead we are using poisonous ground-killing chemicals, and flushing our wastes into our water supply.

The first thing I notice when going into a store (usually in the day, when it’s light out) is the number of light bulbs on. Let’s see, it’s daytime, and the lights are on.
This silliness is the mindset behind our coming energy crunch. If store owners were to install skylights, the savings on power will be enormous, the cost of selling goods will be less, we will all pay less, and there might even be a little extra money floating around somewhere for goodies.
This certainly could grow into a local manufacturing effort. Where are you entrepeneurs and builders?
I will for sure, shop in a store which has retrofitted with skylights and solar tubes. And tell my friends

If you have a solar cooker, bread will bake quite well in it. It takes a little longer (over an hour) but uses NO fossil fuels. You can in theory bake bread in a simple box solar oven, but it may take even a little longer. Preheat the oven by setting it in the sun until it's over 300 degrees. The oven will cool a bit once you put the bread in, but just bake it a bit longer. You can tell when it's done when you thump it and it sounds hollow. Yummy and efficient.<br />
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work quite well even for bread making. It takes about an hour and a half to bake 3 loafs of bread. You should not try solar baking when it is overly-cloudy, but, on a clear day, you should be able to ideally knock-out about 9 to 12 loafs with un-interrupted sunshine. Our commercial solar box oven ran right around $300 I think, so for 24 people to have a daily half-loaf of bread will involve an investment of say 15 bucks each. You could certainly build your own box oven for less if you have the expertise.
One of my current projects is to build a self-tracking solar oven. This will be powered by a small solar PV panel, and will automatically turn to face the sun in the morning, and then track the sun all day. The advantage of this is that you can leave your solar oven up, and whenever during the day you wish to, you will have a preheated oven ready to bake in. No more running out every 20 minutes to move the oven back into the sun, it'll already be pointing at it. This will allow greater control over cooking temperatures. Also, it seems very possible that with a little tinkering, one should even be able to adjust the temperature of the oven by how obliquely the sensor is tracking the sun. If it is just a little bit off focus, you should be able to select just about any temperature you want to maintain. Our current non-tracking solar oven works wonderfully, and will cook just about any meal including roasts It makes the very best solar soymilk, but be aware that soy tends to boil-over if not watched.
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A couple of months ago I built a solar grinder out of a standard grinder, a slot machine hopper motor, and a small 12V PV panel.

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Preliminary tests show this device will grind enough flour in an hour to make a full loaf of bread. This is somewhat slower than using it as a 120V plug in grinder, but here are a couple of things I've noticed about the flour. It seems to grind a bit finer flour. The higher speed 120V unit makes ok flour, but it is just a wee bit coarse. Still makes great bread of course. The solar unit, since it runs slower, seems to give a very cold flour. Normally, higher speed makes the flour warm, and some suggest that that heat ruins the oils in the wheat. If that is the case, then this solar unit will make superior bread. Here's the breakdown: if there are 10 good hours of direct sunlight a day, then one can grind enough flour for probably 10+ loafs of bread a day. 10 breads is enough for 20 people to have a daily half loaf, and with 20 people that's, uh, right at a $10 investment. This may be a good tool for a group of people and neighbors who want to get off the grid. Of course, at an allocation of half a loaf daily, the grinder in 2 days can provide enough flour to feed 40 people. Your initial investment thus will drop to about the price of one loaf of good bread from your local bakery. You might want to suggest this to your local NNEMA group after you organize it. Also, this could be an excellent lifeboat tool, as well as an urban-tool sharing plan. There is great economic power in tool sharing and bulk purchasing. Good for times of economic uncertainty Drawbacks to prototype grinder: as the unit is now portable, this involves placing the PV panel directly at the sun and re-positioning it every hour or so. Also, when the sun disappears behind a cloud you lose power. One solution is to hook the panel up to a 12V car battery. One could possibly thus mount the PV panel in a permanent south position, and while losing just a little energy efficiency, and flour output, there would be no need for tracking the sun. I would guess you might lose 1/2 to 1/3 of your daily grain grinding capacity. That's still a lot of bread available daily though.... If you have questions, ideas, please write, and perhaps you can help develop this further. <br />

Today (March 09, 08) my little heat box hit 200 degrees. Pretty impressive. There is about one horsepower of heat energy from the sun falling on a perpendicular square meter of earth's surface. This little hot air collector should bring in almost 2hp of heat. That is somewhere around 1500 watts, or 15-100 watt light bulbs under ideal conditions. Of course, ideal conditions are rare, unless this device were to track the sun. However, the cost of that is right now silly, so we'll just be happy with what it will put out stationary. The piece of glass we had measured 33 by 72 inches, so the collector was built around that. The collector box was built from old plywood and 1 by 6 wood. As pictured left, (note, picture will be forthcoming soon....) the box was put together with glue and ring-nails. The corners were cut at 45 degrees, poorly, so we found that it is much easier and cleaner to make the corners a simple 90 degrees. A lot less effort unless you have a good saw which will cut a 1 by 6 properly. Next was put down a layer of high temp insulation (styrofoam might melt...) and then the cans were laid in and temporarily adjusted into position. The core of the collector is a series of condensed milk cans which were saved and fastened together to make long tubes. In theory this box will push air all by itself. However, we added a 12v fan at the inlet and the outlet. <br />
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Check back, there is more to write on this subject, and this page will be updated.

We installed our own commercial water heater. It paid for itself in under 5 years. Now we’re saving at least $50 a month on our power bill, and we turn off the electric back-up to the heater for about 7 months out of the year. Total cost to have a commercial unit installed by professionals will probably run about 5 grand. However, there are other models not quite as exotic which could surely be built locally for far less money. Free solar hot water feels better in a shower than grid water.
This is one of the finer investments you can make.
More on this subject later.
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2/4/2007
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<br>Solar hype
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<br>Many folks don't understand the solar options available to us. High priced PV (photovoltaic- electricity producing) panels are mainly for the rich, and while practical in the future are but a fraction of our choices solarwise.
This is not what we'll be hearing in the very near future, now that our city councils and higher government are catching on to Green power. We will be persuaded by the vested greedy powers, that the only survival for us is high-priced solar PV panels.
Well, solar isn't high priced. Not if done right.
There are a myriad of other low-tech solar devices available to us. Many of them are inexpensive, and some ridiculously so.
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<br>One very practical application, which doesn't take a lot of high-tech is air heating.
Another is water heating. Solar can be used for cooking, baking, distilling water and other fluids, and even refrigeration. One tremendously overlooked tool is the focussing collector. These have the potential to provide enough heat for the smelter and re-use of aluminum cans, for cottage industries and other local manufacturing. A good source of high temperatures for industrial uses.
In the 1800's, solar hot air engines were used to pump water out of mines. Napoleon used solar cookers while trying to conquer the world.
In Pasadena in the early 1900's, many houses had solar water heaters. Then, one winter a cold snap froze many of them, and the gas and oil companies stepped in. They often gave free fossil fuel water heaters to residents with the stipulation that the customer would buy their fuel.
Modern solar water heaters are much more advanced. They are freeze-proof, and quietly work while the sun shines, adding free hot water into your tank. We installed our kit about 5 years ago, and it has now paid off the cost of installation. Now we'll have virtually free hot water for many years.
We paid around $3000 for it, and installed it ourselves. To have someone else install one will be more expensive, and probably double the pay-off time, but will save you bucks after it is eventually paid off.
Solar water heaters could (and should) be installed on all new housing, probably adding less than $2000 to the cost of the house, and would immediately start saving money and fuel. Perhaps this is something we can all work on. Contact your state legislatures and urge them to pass solar legislation, including mandatory solar water heaters on new housing. Call the Governor, tell him your views.
A local industrial effort of building local water heaters will not only help make Nevada energy self-sufficient, but create many jobs, and help us toward becoming a nation of savers instead of chargers.
There are so many advantages to using free energy, that it is obviously some tragic cosmic oversight that we're not heavily invested in it, or some machinations of certain vested human interests.
We're currently building a solar hot air box for the roof of the garage. It is separated from the house, on a slab, and gets pretty cool in winter. There are currently 4 small air heaters on the south wall, and, while they raise the ambient temperature about 15 degrees. Adding a few on the roof will significantly cut our fuel costs. This version of the air heater is being made of tin cans. We use a lot of canned milk for our coffees, and have been saving the empty cans. These are becoming metal tubes which are to be painted hi-temp black, and mounted on the roof under glass.
We should be able to add another ten degrees to the garage, and in theory in summer the upper end of the collectors will be opened, and should become a free vent to exhaust warm air from the room, all without using any electric. The natural pull of the heated air will suck the room's heat out through the collector and act as a vent. If anyone is interested in building one, write & we'll get together.
The Mother Earth News years ago published plans for a solar window box for very little cost. It claimed to have provided a quarter of the rooms heat, and was about the size of a piece of plywood.
While tin can collectors require a bit of labor to make, the point is that it was low-tech to build in its entirety. And used available materials, including saving good metal from the landfill. Our landfills are going to become the 'gold mines' of future generations.
Good air collectors can be build from already manufactured metal tubing, and be assembled and built locally. Perhaps some savvy business types will pick up on this action and start building these. They can retrofit onto existing houses, and will have many benefits for us all.
This might be a good NNEMA topic for your group. Let's all see about providing our own neighborhood power. Reducing our fossil use by retrofitting our houses is a major step.
There is almost one horsepower of heat hitting each square meter of roof during a sunny day. Someone once remarked that there is enough energy falling on one-third of our roof to power our whole house.
And while PV panels are a nice idea, the great majority of us who cannot afford them can, by building air heaters (and water heaters) get a huge jump on getting off-petroleum. AND off coal for those Nevadans among us.
Yes, Virginia, there is a free lunch. It is called solar.

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Make Your Own Solar Rice Cooker! <br />
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<strong>Materials list:</strong> <br />
* One wine box <br />
* Two nesting glass jars, one with lid. <br />
* Glue or scotch tape Masking tape <br />
* Black paint, either spray or brush on <br />
* Scissors <br />
* Aluminum foil. <br />
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<strong>Directions: </strong><br />
1. Disassemble box and remove the mylar bladder, and cut as shown. Fold corners at 45 degrees, mark and cut corner. <br />
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2. cut off small 4th end flap. <br />
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3. Cut and glue bottom flaps in place, weight them down and let the glue dry. <br />
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4. Use the cut-off end flap to build out the base of your cooker. Glue and let dry. Give every seam a second application of glue to help hold it together and make it stronger. Let it dry overnight for max strength. <br />
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5. Cut the wine bladder with scissors right along the edge seam. Pull apart in 2 halves and wash off the wine. &amp; remove inner plastic. <br />
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6. Check how the foil pieces will fit onto the frame, and then glue them into place. Use glue, spray-glue, or scotch tape. <br />
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7. Gather the jars you'll need. You can get a good gallon glass one from your local bar. They use them for olives and cherries. Your inner jar can be what I use which is a spaghetti sauce jar cleaned out. Some of these are mason-type jars, and are even marked with ounce measurements. You MUST make sure first that the smaller jar is going to fit into the larger one. If it doesn't fit inside it won't work. (of course you could use an oven bag as your inner container, but I haven't tried that yet.) <br />
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8. Put some masking tape on your smaller jar (as shown) and then paint it black. Flat black is best. After paint dries remove tape and you now have a window to check out your food while it is cooking. <br />
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9. Set the smaller painted jar (with lid not very tight!) on the cooker surface. Place the larger jar over the smaller one. You now have a double insulated glass cooking area. As the sun reflects off the foil onto the jars, they get hotter and hotter, and eventually start cooking. Please note, this is a sloooooow cooker. But it does get quite hot. I've measured 200 degrees, and with extended front foiled flaps can probably reach boiling. It will burn you severely if you don't take care. Use gloves or potholders when handling both jars, as the outer one gets hot, too. And never, ever, set a hot jar down onto a cold metal or other surface. Set them on wood or cloth, else they may suddenly break. <br />
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10. Set your cooker up in good sunlight and let it bake on the black paint for a couple of hours to let it cure. <br />
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11. I've only cooked rice in this cooker, but you could certainly cook potatoes, carrots, probably cabbage, and most other vegetables. I wouldn't try cooking meat, because it can develop toxins if not cooked quickly and hotly enough. Biscuits might work, but use your creativity. You MUST always use great care when handling hot jars. Please. You could probably also use a blackened tin can instead of an inner jar to make hobo bread. <br />
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To cook rice, mix 1 part rice to 2 parts water in the black jar. Do not fill it up to the top, as it expands while cooking it will overflow and make a big mess. Fill about 2/3 full or less, rice really expands. Also, you should put the lid on the jar, but not very tightly. You don&rsquo;t want a highly pressurized glass container sitting around waiting to decompress suddenly. <br />
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Now, you have to set it up. Figure out where the sun will be when you want to eat (evening) and point the western most edge of the cooker to right where the sun will be then. You don't want to set it to be at the middle focus point, but rather you are looking for a position where the sun will gradually through the day pass directly over the cooker in an arc, and by the time it hits the end of that arc, you will have had a couple of hours of cooking time. Start your cooker early in the morning as that lets the rice pre-soak a little bit. And, again, set it so that the sun will just be going off of it when you want to eat. The rice gets hot, hotter, starts cooking, keeps cooking, gets cool, and if you time it right, your rice will be steaming hot and ready to eat. Please remember, that when handling hot jars with potholders, the jars can slip. Get a good grip. You can customize your cooker by adding extra lower foiled flaps to extend the sun gathering surface, and by finding a place that gets good sunlight but is out of the wind. The cooker I made today is setting in the sun, the paint is curing, and the thermometer reads just about 225 degrees. Of course, the jars are empty.<br />
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Another fun cooker is to make one built with cardboard triangles. While it is not really a geodesic dome, foiled inside, it is called an icosahedron. Take 15 large cardboard triangles and glue aluminum foil onto one side. After you tape all the triangles together, it will look kind of like a bowl. Cooks pretty well, and uses the double jars system as described in the wine box cooker.

The soybean is the almost perfect vegetable answer to meat. Growing it costs less fuel per food/value than most any other food product. It is nearly the equivalent of steak, yet requires a fraction of the energy to produce. It has been called the most complete vegetable food, and is recognized as the highest quality vegetable protein. It is the answer to a hungry world. 40% of our world is hungry, and there is no excuse for that. Soybeans could be a crop in your garden this year. The 3 foods I know that can be made from soybeans are soymilk, cooked soybeans, and tofu.
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<br>Here's how to make cooked soybeans: Take 2 cups of dry soybeans, and add to 4 cups of water. Let soak overnight. Pour into a pressure cooker (otherwise it'll take MANY hours to cook) add a tablespoon of oil, and bring to pressure. Turn off heat, and let set until pressure is reduced. Bring to heat again and repeat. After about 45 minutes, when pressure is released, taste one or two of the beans. If they are soft (squish between tongue and pallet) then they are done. If they do not squish, then they are not done. Cook them some more. Uncooked soybeans are really ickky, and you don't want to eat them. They are good with a little soysauce added and a spoonful of nutritional yeast (check your local co-op). They will last for weeks in the fridge, and you will NOT believe how filling they are.
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<br>Tofu is a little harder to make, and unless you request directions, there is no time to do that now on this site. Research it on the net, or drop me an email & I’ll try to get back to you.
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<br>Soymilk, the almost-perfect food is also quite simple to make.
Add 4 cups water to 2 cups dried soybeans. Let soak overnight. Drain, put on the stove about 1/2 gallon water to boil, and then process the soybeans. Using a common blender, add a little bit of soybeans with enough water to grind it well. Too little water it'll stick to the sides and not blend. Add each batch into your heating 1/2 gallon of water. When all is processed, turn up the heat, and while CONSTANTLY stirring, bring the batch to a boil. You must pay attention, because if you don't, the mix will boil over and ruin your day as well as your stovetop. After the mix starts boiling, turn down heat and cook for about 10 minutes. Next, pour the mix through a screen or cloth to remove the excess large pulp. Place back into pan, bring to boil, and add one rounded Tsp. salt, and stir in enough honey to taste. Bring to boil and remove from heat. Pour a full cup and enjoy your first batch of soymilk. Note: all natural soymilk does tend to curdle. No biggie. It will form a crust or layer on the top, but be informed that this is high quality protein, and is good to eat. Soymilk is also good to replace water in boiling your morning breakfast oatmeal or on cereal. Oooo, yum
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This is a must-see movie starring Charleton Heston. If Peak Oil is not kind to us, then that scenario will be a pleasant one. If Peak Oil is very kind to us, then get used to that kind of future. If it is not kind, we will quickly degenerate into chaos and horrible cruelty. I represent the Green Party, not the Soylent Green party. We do not want our culture to collapse because of diminishing resources. Pretty dismal scenario. We want to provide for the future. We're more of a keep-life-going party. Find and watch the movie.
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A real quick way to get into sprouting. Save and clean several old plastic milk/juice containers.
Gallon ones are fine, or smaller I like better. Carefully cut the top half of each jug off.
Now poke holes in the very bottom of the jugs with a nail or whatever sharp thing you have.
Also, poke holes in the screwtop of the jug, as you can invert it, fill it with seeds and use it as a sprout platform. Don't make too many holes or the water will drain out too soon. You want it to stay in long enough to saturate the seeds. You can stack several of the bottom halves inside each other, and be sure to leave the very last bottom part with no holes in it. You don’t want water all over your countertop. Keep it by your sink so that you will remember to water it while doing the dishes. Be sure to clean the sprouted containers with spray vodka after each use to kill molds and germs, rinse and let dry thoroughly.
This milk jug method also works great for container gardening, just fill with soil and water. It is very very very water conserving.
Good for a couple of seasons of growing, more if you keep the plastic out of direct sunlight

This is a must for any diet, especially an austerity one. When out-of season crops get too expensive to ship from South America, sprouting seeds and beans may prove to be a most excellent way to get those missing nutrients.
Benefits:
Usually take only 3-5 days to eat,
Not sprayed with insecticides or chemicals,
Lower food bill,
Chock full of vitamins Some beans have practically no vitamins when dry, but when sprouted really are tremendously vita-filled. Soybeans when sprouted undergo the following changes:
Vitamin C jumps to 700 mGrams, Vitamin B complexes jump, and B-1 Niacin and Pantothenic acid double. Biotin and Pyridoxine increase 150%, and B-2 and Folic acid reach a 500% increase. Oooo, healthier.
Information taken from USDA Handbook No. 80
Composition of foods-soybeans.
Dry Sprouted
Protein 38 48
Fat 20 14
Carbohydrate 38 37
Vitamin A 90-IU 800-IU
Thiamine B 1.2 1.6
Riboflavin B 0.35 1.5
Niacin B 2.4 7.0
Ascorbic Acid 0 100
(vitamin C)
In percent or grams per 100 grams of dry weight.
They are low in calories,
Foods high in water (sprouts) are more easily digestible,
<br>
<br>As an emergency food source they are invaluable, and even added to our normal daily diets, they provide much good nutrition and can thus lower our health bills and increase our wellness.
Sprouts are cool because the seeds take up little space, need no refrigeration or other storage requirements, and do not spoil, and some have a very very long lifespan.
I’ve found that a great many items found in our local supermarkets will readily sprout. Sunflower, wheat, rye, brown rice, nearly all beans including soy, just about any seed.
You can sprout in commercially bought sprouters, glass jars, towels, sacks, flower pots, and even in baggies -- especially if you are camping or hiking long distances.
And, when sprouted, seeds greatly increase in bulk. In essence, you have twice as much to put into your tummy than non-sprouted. They’ll make you feel fuller with less.
Seeds are indeed responsible for our very civilization. Early man learned that they were storable food, and fostered agriculture, and thus communities. Sprouts are seeds on steroids. Kidding, but you get my drift…?

Ill-timed traffic lights are costing us all a lot of money and wasted time. If there are 120,000 cars commuting daily in the Sparks/Reno area, that equates to about $600,000 daily in our fuel costs. This assumes a typical average of 15 miles to work at 15 miles per gallon highway. Probably not too inaccurate.... Highway miles are different than city miles, and can easily be cut in half -- or more -- when driving in-city.
It is kind of stupid to have to stop at nearly every stoplight. Especially stupid to have to re-accelerate after every one. If we were to co-ordinate our traffic flow to a level twice as efficient, then we might increase our mileages from 7 1/2 to at least 10 miles per gallon. This will save all of us here about $200,000+ a day, or a million a working-week, or $52 million a year in unnecessary fuel use. While this seemingly simple solution may seem obvious, we don't have the political will or funds to create an efficient highway system.
Not yet.
<br>
<br>

Stress is responsible for over 50% of our disease, according to the Green Party Platform of 2004, and certainly many other sources. Get that stress down. Change Road Rage into Road Annoyance. Chill out. Nobody gets out alive.

Emergency Survival Kits
<br>
<br>Here's the Reno NNEMA preliminary emergency survival kit.
It's pretty basic, and probably needs refining, but that's something you can help with.
A two gallon plastic jug of water with a handle.
Cooking vessel of some kind with a lid
5 Lbs. rice and 5 Lbs beans. (soybeans are good for this)
Waterproof matches, and/or a magnifying lense, in a breakproof case.
Waterproof tarp and blankets/sleeping bag/extra warm clothes.
Small backpack or rucksack to but this all in.
<br>
<br>Pretty basic and crude, but it's portable and won't set you back an arm and a leg. Either stow it in your car, or somewhere you can access it quickly and easily. Not too heavy for the average person to carry, and it is certainly better than being unprepared at all.
Your first task whenever you get to where you're going, is going to be to find a source of water. Common literature suggests a gallon of water a day per person is sufficient for survival. Probably a little less is needed in a pinch. The cooking pot is needed to purify your new water source by boiling, as well as (obviously) cooking your food in.
10 pounds of rice and grains per person is enough to live on for several weeks. The body can go quite a while without food, but not without water.
Surely a cup of rice is not what we're used to eating, but hey, in an emergency let's be thankful for that. Most of us overeat. In fact, it is suggested that we throw away enough food daily to feed another 300 million people, so living a temporary low-food diet probably won't kill us.
Most of the world goes to bed hungry anyway.
<br>
<br>While this kit ain't pretty, we certainly sleep better at night knowing it's at hand. And so should you.
Of course this is a pretty spartan kit, so you might want to start on kit part B.
Part B is a little more refined and cultured. Part B can include such things as:
A container of salt.
small bottle of cooking oil.
a few rolls of toilet paper.
Flashlite and batteries.
Dehydrated fruits.
A good book to read, also one on native edible plants.
Medical kit.
Extra sox, undies and your toothbrush.
Rope, duct tape, fasteners.
Portable radio, extra batteries.
Bottle of Vodka for bartering purposes, disinfecting, and getting a buzz on. Stash an extra.
Any meds or prescriptions that you need.
Whatever else you think is missing.
<br>
<br>We personally have never (knock on wood) had to face a disaster, so suggesting that we are authorities on this would be foolish.
However, it is important to get some kind of dialog going, so that's what this is all about.
And, preparing for a disaster is kind of like tilting at windmills. We don't know what kind of disaster will befall us until it gets here.
If the Stampede reservior breaks (because it is on an earthquake fault), then many of us here in Reno will find ourselves washed up against the hills east of Sparks. Not a lot can be done about that. If the terrorists launch those thousands of WMD's against our cities, not a lot can be done about that. If a giant meteorite hits the planet, there're not a lot of places we can go.
If the rapture happens, some of you will be fine, but most of us will not be at all. (or we'll be in a real hot place for a very long time -- depending on your upbringing and how kind of a person you were).
So, the best we can do for short-term sudden emergencies is to try to be minimally prepared to survive for a few weeks until help gets here.
FEMA?
Probably not going to happen.
<br>
<br>So get your NNEMA chapter going, do some dialog with your neighbors and friends, and get back to us with your recommendations.
<br>
<br>Long Term Lingering Disasters.
You know the kind: the stock market crashes, all our jobs go overseas, our 401K's are found to be without sufficient funds, Global Warming takes a great big bite out of our agricultural productivity, declining oil reserves make everything much more expensive, the health care system goes belly-up, we start a war in the middle-east which brings on the burning of oil wells and refineries, Bush is exposed as an alien bent on enslaving the Earth, or the social security system collapses.
Long term emergencies are something we can put some thought into how to prepare for.
We can prepare for a slowing down of the global economy, for the end of suburbia from $10 a gallon gas, or the general collapse of our culture because of apathy.
Can't we?
We can turn off the TV, get our gardens ready for next spring, start a compost pile, insulate and weatherproof our houses, ride that bicycle once in awhile, call city hall and demand that they fix our traffic flow, make our next new car more fuel efficient, quit charging on our credit cards and pay them off, start putting a little money in the bank every check, buy a silver coin once in awhile, get a 60 lb. sack of soybeans or whole wheatberries, start to conserve a little bit, and, most importantly, read those important books coming out about our energy insecurities.
These are the things that NNEMA should be about. Learning about the perils of overconsumption, and learning how to deal with it. Realizing that fossil fuels are FINITE.
Learning to become more self-sufficient as a nation and culture.
We Americans use 5 times the energy of everyone else.
We are overfed while the rest of the world is hungry.
We spend more on medications for our upset tummies and erectile dysfunction than the rest of the planet spends on all their medical needs.
We spend enough on make-up and pet food to give the rest of the world clean water, and thus prevent those 2 million child deaths a year from impure drinking water.
We spend enough on war to provide the whole country with clean alternative non-polluting power, thus eliminating the need for war.
We continue to build ugly box houses above ground, when underground and bermed dwellings will substantially cut down our heating and cooling costs, while eliminating the threat of fires and conflagrations, and even lowering our insurance costs.
We live in cities where half of the available land is paved, and our streets have become nothing more than mobile parking lots.
Our business ethics are now based on short term profit -- at public expense -- instead of the public good. Our slick quick-profit obscenely overpaid CEO's are looked up to as sharp operators, rather than reviled as they should be for being thieves.
Capitalism and endless growth are seen as essential to our survival rather than as threats to all humanity.
We throw away millions of disposable bottled water containers, when in most cases our tap water is just as pure.
The packaging on much that we buy costs more than its contents.
Genetically altered foods are routinely included in our foodstuffs, and no labeling is required.
Isn't it time to stop this madness?
Go ahead open up that window and shout into the street, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!"
Go ahead.
Then come back and get out your pencil, and put down your solutions.
And share them with us.
We'll wait.
We're counting on you.
<br>
<br>Here's some homework.
Part one: put down your ideas for survival kit part C.
(hints: pressure cookers, solar ovens, a community grain grinder to share with the neighbors, survival libraries, a list of (shareable) hand tools)
The second part of this homework is to calculate how many of these items you can share with your neighbors and other local NNEMA partners, and do a cost analysis of the shared costs per person for these items.
The third part is to calculate how much more of your yard you can put into a garden this year.
The fourth part is to calculate the size of a semi-dwarf fruit tree (your choice of fruit), where you can put it for best growth potential, and when is the best time to plant it.
Part five is to locate the shut-offs for your home's water, electric, and gas supplies.
This homework is due at the end of the month.
If you don't hand it in in time, you may fail.
<br>
<br>And no, the dog ate your homework is not a legitimate excuse....
<br>
<br>

originally published on the NNEMA website on Jan 14th, 2007
<br>
<br>Emergency Survival Kits
<br>
<br>Here's the Reno NNEMA preliminary emergency survival kit.
It's pretty basic, and probably needs refining, but that's something you can help with.
A two gallon plastic jug of water with a handle.
Cooking vessel of some kind with a lid
5 Lbs. rice and 5 Lbs beans. (soybeans are good for this)
Waterproof matches, and/or a magnifying lense, in a breakproof case.
Waterproof tarp and blankets/sleeping bag/extra warm clothes.
Small backpack or rucksack to but this all in.
<br>
<br>Pretty basic and crude, but it's portable and won't set you back an arm and a leg. Either stow it in your car, or somewhere you can access it quickly and easily. Not too heavy for the average person to carry, and it is certainly better than being unprepared at all.
Your first task whenever you get to where you're going, is going to be to find a source of water. Common literature suggests a gallon of water a day per person is sufficient for survival. Probably a little less is needed in a pinch. The cooking pot is needed to purify your new water source by boiling, as well as (obviously) cooking your food in.
10 pounds of rice and grains per person is enough to live on for several weeks. The body can go quite a while without food, but not without water.
Surely a cup of rice is not what we're used to eating, but hey, in an emergency let's be thankful for that. Most of us overeat. In fact, it is suggested that we throw away enough food daily to feed another 300 million people, so living a temporary low-food diet probably won't kill us.
Most of the world goes to bed hungry anyway.
<br>
<br>While this kit ain't pretty, we certainly sleep better at night knowing it's at hand. And so should you.
Of course this is a pretty spartan kit, so you might want to start on kit part B.
Part B is a little more refined and cultured. Part B can include such things as:
A container of salt.
small bottle of cooking oil.
a few rolls of toilet paper.
Flashlite and batteries.
Dehydrated fruits.
A good book to read, also one on native edible plants.
Medical kit.
Extra sox, undies and your toothbrush.
Rope, duct tape, fasteners.
Portable radio, extra batteries.
Bottle of Vodka for bartering purposes, disinfecting, and getting a buzz on. Stash an extra.
Any meds or prescriptions that you need.
Whatever else you think is missing.
Please post what is missing....
<br>
<br>We personally have never (knock on wood) had to face a disaster, so suggesting that we are authorities on this would be foolish.
However, it is important to get some kind of dialog going, so that's what this is all about.
And, preparing for a disaster is kind of like tilting at windmills. We don't know what kind of disaster will befall us until it gets here.
If the Stampede reservoir breaks (because it is on an earthquake fault), then many of us here in Reno will find ourselves washed up against the hills east of Sparks. Not a lot can be done about that. If the terrorists launch those thousands of WMD's against our cities, not a lot can be done about that. If a giant meteorite hits the planet, there're not a lot of places we can go.
If the rapture happens, some of you will be fine, but most of us will not be at all. (or we'll be in a real hot place for a very long time -- depending on your upbringing and how kind of a person you were).
So, the best we can do for short-term sudden emergencies is to try to be minimally prepared to survive for a few weeks until help gets here.
FEMA?
Probably not going to happen.
<br>
<br>So get your NNEMA chapter going, do some dialog with your neighbors and friends, and get back to us with your recommendations.
<br>
<br>Long Term Lingering Disasters.
You know the kind: the stock market crashes, all our jobs go overseas, our 401K's are found to be without sufficient funds, Global Warming takes a great big bite out of our agricultural productivity, declining oil reserves make everything much more expensive, the health care system goes belly-up, we start a war in the middle-east which brings on the burning of oil wells and refineries, Bush is exposed as an alien bent on enslaving the Earth, or the social security system collapses.
Long term emergencies are something we can put some thought into how to prepare for.
We can prepare for a slowing down of the global economy, for the end of suburbia from $10 a gallon gas, or the general collapse of our culture because of apathy.
Can't we?
We can turn off the TV, get our gardens ready for next spring, start a compost pile, insulate and weatherproof our houses, ride that bicycle once in awhile, call city hall and demand that they fix our traffic flow, make our next new car more fuel efficient, quit charging on our credit cards and pay them off, start putting a little money in the bank every check, buy a silver coin once in awhile, get a 60 lb. sack of soybeans or whole wheatberries, start to conserve a little bit, and, most importantly, read those important books coming out about our energy insecurities.
These are the things that NNEMA should be about. Learning about the perils of overconsumption, and learning how to deal with it. Realizing that fossil fuels are FINITE.
Learning to become more self-sufficient as a nation and culture.
We Americans use 5 times the energy of everyone else.
We are overfed while the rest of the world is hungry.
We spend more on medications for our upset tummies and erectile dysfunction than the rest of the planet spends on all their medical needs.
We spend enough on make-up and pet food to give the rest of the world clean water, and thus prevent those 2 million child deaths a year from impure drinking water.
We spend enough on war to provide the whole country with clean alternative non-polluting power, thus eliminating the need for war.
We continue to build ugly box houses above ground, when underground and bermed dwellings will substantially cut down our heating and cooling costs, while eliminating the threat of fires and conflagrations, and even lowering our insurance costs.
We live in cities where half of the available land is paved, and our streets have become nothing more than mobile parking lots.
Our business ethics are now based on short term profit -- at public expense -- instead of the public good. Our slick quick-profit obscenely overpaid CEO's are looked up to as sharp operators, rather than reviled as they should be for being thieves.
Capitalism and endless growth are seen as essential to our survival rather than as threats to all humanity.
We throw away millions of disposable bottled water containers, when in most cases our tap water is just as pure.
The packaging on much that we buy costs more than its contents.
Genetically altered foods are routinely included in our foodstuffs, and no labeling is required.
Isn't it time to stop this madness?
Go ahead open up that window and shout into the street, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!"
Go ahead.
Then come back and get out your pencil, and put down your solutions.
And share them with us.
We'll wait.
We're counting on you.
<br>
<br>Here's some homework.
Part one: put down your ideas for survival kit part C.
(hints: pressure cookers, solar ovens, a community grain grinder to share with the neighbors, survival libraries, a list of (shareable) hand tools)
The second part of this homework is to calculate how many of these items you can share with your neighbors and other local NNEMA partners, and do a cost analysis of the shared costs per person for these items.
The third part is to calculate how much more of your yard you can put into a garden this year.
The fourth part is to calculate the size of a semi-dwarf fruit tree (your choice of fruit), where you can put it for best growth potential, and when is the best time to plant it.
Part five is to locate the shut-offs for your home's water, electric, and gas supplies.
This homework is due at the end of the month.
If you don't hand it in in time, you may fail.
<br>
<br>And no, the dog ate your homework is not a legitimate excuse....

Survival needs
for humans are:
<br>
<br>proper atmospheric pressure,
tolerable temperature,
air to breathe,
water,
food,
and to not be alone.

Also known as evaporative coolers, these clever devices work especially well in dry climates. Just like ours. Last year we recorded a 4% humidity here in Reno, and that is almost unheard of outside of laboratories. Swamp coolers will save you a ****load on your power bill. Our swamp cooler last year measured a 25 degree drop in ambient temperature. From 95 to 70. And it didn't cost an arm and a leg. You can put a small unit into one of your windows, and hook it up to a simple timer to turn it on in the early morning for hot days. It will help to keep you from using your expensive AC unit quite so often. It is a great supplemental device for both homes and business to efficiently cool.
<br>
<br>

Everybody in America is getting poorer, except for the rich. While the rest of us pay to keep our infrastructure and commons working, the rich spend their money figuring out how to avoid taxes. And, from personal experience I know that they do cheat. So we are paying for their war, their road repair, their amenities that the rest of us also have, but they don’t want to contribute their fair and equal part. If the corporations and rich threaten to move offshore, well, they've already done that to our workforce, what else can they do? Screw ‘em. If they do not want to participate in our growing Democracy (Republic), then good riddance. Let us tax offshore multinationals at a far greater rate than American companies. Punitively.
Locally, we need sliding scale DMV fees. If you buy an efficient car, then you should pay no fees. If you buy a jackrabbit-start, high horsepower go-fast car so that you can get to the next stoplight first, then you should pay at least double the current rate. To buy a car that does 140 out-the door, to use in city is pretty bogus. Let’s tax on fuel economy, not zip.
Fuel economy is real, Zip is nada.
It is time to speak of a temporary tax on gas, to give our cities the necessary funds to fix our traffic lights. You know what I mean….
What do taxes give us?
Roadways, courts, streetlights, stoplights, police protection, fire protection, the military, public airways, protection against mega-corporations, libraries, schools, fallout shelters (ooops, wrong generation…), and our government.
I am proud to pay my taxes, because it helps support our country. We should all be proud and willing to help our commonality.

Television
It takes 20lbs of coal burned to give you one hour of TV. It has been suggested that our TV addiction is oft'times responsible for Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). As well as for RLS. In any event it is responsible for stealing nearly 30% of our free time (commercials), and contributing to violence and despair. NBC recently excluded Dennis Kusinich from the Presidential debates. Have they really got the power to tell us who our next president is going to be? The airwaves DO belong to the people. As the Burners say, "Kill your TV". And rightly so.
<br>
<br>
TV Scorecard. Get a scrap of paper and make your own card.
Catergoies might include:

Commercials in one/half hour
Image changes in 1 minute
Ads telling you to ask your doctor
New car commercials
Shootings, simulated or real
News stories about anything other than the presidential elections
Comedy shows without canned laughter.
Commercials on how the oil companies are solving the energy crisis.
Your category here
Your next category here
<br>
<br>

1/21/2007
<br>
<br>Toasting Grains and miscellany.
<br>
<br>A pretty bizarre topic, eh?
One can go to the bulk foods section of your local food store, and buy bulk grains.
Chances are these bulk foods are fairly fresh. And we all know that fresh is good. Fresh is not rancid.
Many of the foodstuffs we buy have been assembled and packaged long before we buy them.
Who knows how long they have set in the warehouse, in the truck, on the shelf before we purchase them?
There is a reasonable probability that bulk foods are fairly fresh.
Most of the seed foods that this author has purchased in mega-supermarkets are reasonably fresh.
If they are fresh they are still living.
If you can sprout your seeds, they're fresh, ergo-living.
And you might be surprised at how many of those foods on the shelves will sprout!
Most beans, barley, whole brown rice, sesame, raw sunflowers, and other grains are still living.
To test your foods, soak them in water for about an hour, and then drain, put them in a paper towel, and put that into a baggie.
Put the baggie in a warm place, and re-wet them a couple of times a day.
If, after a couple of days they start sprouting, then the chances are they are a living food.
It kind of makes sense that living foods help build strong bodies better than non-living (dead) foods.
In a society which is surviving on increasingly pre-prepared foods, the odds are that the healthier we eat, the healthier we are.
Also, one consideration about foods is the comparison between flesh foods and plant foods.
We know (most of us) that it takes about 15 pounds of plant food to make one pound of animal food.
Fifteen pounds of soybeans or corn will give us a one pound steak.
That steak is usually full of fats (unhealthy), and has come from an animal which has probably been fed hormones, antibiotics, and who knows what so that they are 'monetarily maximized' to give the biggest bang for the buck. They look real nice under that plastic wrap, infused with colorizers, and anti-listeria spray on organisms.
And whatever else that makes them more saleable.
One consideration is that the higher we eat on the food chain, the more pollutants we have in our foods.
When one eats lower on the food chain many benefits are realized.
First, there are less pollutants.
Secondly, less energy is used to produce that food.
Third, more people can eat, as less food is needed to give you that steak-equivalent of protein.
Sure, most of us love that nice prime rib, or other meat product, but it is increasingly evident that we do NOT need quite as much protein to survive as the beef/pork/chicken industry would have us believe. Although that nice filet mignon sure is tasty as hell, once in awhile....
<br>
<br>So it is a good thing to start eating lower on the foodchain.
More grains, more veggies, less meats.
We really don't need as much meat to live healthily as we are told.
This writer has spent some good part of this day making toasted cereals.
Wheat and rice cereal, toasted over a cast iron frying pan, and coarsely ground make a delightful cereal.
And you can do this too.
It's pretty easy, and probably fairly healthy.
Get a couple of pounds of whole wheat berries from your local bulk foods store, and a few pounds of brown rice.
Now it's time to toast them. Toasting makes a much more pleasant cereal, and you can do this a couple of ways.
One is to toast them on a cookie sheet in your oven. On moderate temperature, spread the grains on a cookie sheet, and cook until they are slightly browned. Or, in a cast iron pan, cook on medium heat on your stovetop until they are golden colored. You should shake the pan as you toast, so that the grains are distributed evenly and cook evenly.
As the new James Bond said, when asked if he wanted his martini shaken or blended, it doesn't matter.
The point here is that if you don't agitate the grains, the bottom ones will burn and the top ones won't cook.
And, your next question is, "how do I know when they're done?"
Very simple, you use the 2-sense system.
If they start browning, AND they smell toasted, then they are probably done.
It's the smell test. The test that applies to many things in our lives. If it smells fresh and true, then it's probably ok.
If it smells fishy, then beware.
Toasted grains have a wonderful real smell. Unlike many other things in our lives.
So when your grains are properly toasted, then set them out to cool.
When they get down to room temperature, then it's time to grind them.
If you have had the foresight to buy (with your neighbors) a grain grinder, then simply put your blender on coarse grind, and run the batch through.
If you haven't bought a grain grinder ( to share with your neighbors hint hint...), then be aware that a simple blender will work very well for getting those pesky grains to edible size. Run them on the blender for a couple of minutes until they are somewhat coarse.
And now that you have your most excellent healthy fresh grain cereal, here's how to cook it.
For each cup of lightly salted boiling water, slowly add 1/4 cup cereal while stirring. Lower the heat and cook covered for about 12-15 minutes.
Add a pat of butter before serving, and stir in a couple of tablespoons of honey or pure maple syrup, or sugar if needed.
Add a bit of half and half milk, regular milk or that (ugh) blue looking low-fat crap.
Makes for a pretty darned good breakfast, especially with a couple of slices of whole wheat bread.
Probably healthy, too.
And, if you cook it in home-made soymilk instead of water, the taste just excels.
(directions on how to make your own fresh soymilk coming soon...on this site)
So why should we do this silliness of grinding our own cereals?
Well, after Peak Oil, when we are really on our own, and spending much of our free time growing our own foods, doesn't it make sense to eat closer to the bone from our crops?
If it takes 15 acres of crops to give us X pounds of beef/pork/chicken,and it takes 1 acre to give us the same nutrition via grains, well then there is the question -- would you rather grow 15 acres, or one acre for the same nutrition?
Pretty easy answer from this side of the monitor....
How about from your side?
<br>
<br>The history of humanity shows some very dark dark episodes throughout time. And because we are hep and hi-tech, that is no guarantee that we are not susceptible to those very human failings of the past.
I'd rather pre-prepare and not need it, than not prepare and not have it.
How about you?
<br>
<br>End NNEMA Log
<br>
<br>

We have to build our Light Rail, Electric Cars, Pneumatic tubes and even reconsider exquisitely efficient Blimps. And especially promote and encourage however possible 2 wheel transportation.
It takes 2K gallons of oil to build each car. 2-wheeled vehicles take less.
We need to design and build over-and-unders, which will allow an uninterrupted flow on certain key roadways.
With the internet and cell phones, we could use car pooling when possible, and may be able to do much of our work from home online.
Pneumatic tubes for goods transport may be highly efficient and should be on our wish lists.
We must help fund Hybrid Retrofits as opposed to new vehicles.
<br>
<br>

Ugly is a nation facing Peak Oil with no dialogue on how to fix it.
With no plans for a possible immediate disruption in our oil supply.
Ugly is killing our topsoil with petrochemical fertilizers and pesticides with only make us more dependent on them.
Ugly is eliminating the federal tax on oil for the holidays so that we can use it up sooner and keep from addressing the problems with the internal combustion engine
Ugly is a $600 tax break (charge it!) so we can buy more stupid goodies, and to hell with paying it back.
Ugly is continuing the two party system which provides NO new thinking..

can be used for many purposes. In a catastrophic emergency, they can be lit to provide instant but very horribly polluting survival heating. And there are sure a lot of them around. Ick! Not recommended in a sane world...? They can be used for water-conserving gardening as self-warming water conserving plant containers. We have about 15 of them in our garden area, and grow potatoes, carrots, squash and other plants in them. They use less water than a normal garden.<br />
<center><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3056/2598722612_0a0a493a9c.jpg" alt="" /><br />
</center> Also, several very successful houses have been built, requiring zero heat energy input. (see housing). Finally, tires may be baled and strapped to provide architectural building blocks. Tires are things we have built using fossil fuels, and we must re-use that energy accordingly, not just throw them in the landfill. We&rsquo;re tool users, right?

Unlike methanol or rubbing alcohol, vodka is an ethanol based substance. It is less harmful. It will merely give you a hangover, instead of killing you. It is potentially less cancer producing. Vodka in a spray bottle seems to work well to disinfect kitchen and bathroom counters. It is supposedly good as a mouthwash, and been shown to reduce foot odor, possibly for underarm odor, as well as reduce smells on your laundry. Unlike soaps full of antibiotics, vodka can clean your hands and not promote antibiotic germs from evolving, or getting into 'downstream'. Why disinfect with toxic unknown chemicals when you can spritz a shot of vodka instead?
About $20 bucks a gallon, it lasts a long while, and it's biodegradable! Spray bottle not included.
Link to 21 uses for vodka.
<br>
<br>http://lifehackery.com/2008/03/11/21-amazing-alternate-uses-for-vodka/
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<br>Today I used it to spray-wash my veggies when making Lemon Tahini Dressing.
Also today I started a vodka mouthwash similar to one found on the internet.
1 and ½ cups Vodka
3 full Tbs. dried spearmint leaves (optional)
30 drops tincture of Bloodroot (optional-helps remove plaque)
2 full Tbs. Myrrh (optional-helps heal mouth sores)
Bottle it and shake it every day for 2 weeks.
Then strain it through a cloth to remove residue, add 2 cups water and store it in a big bottle by the sink. Rinse and gargle a couple of times a day.
Incidentally, it’s been several weeks now since the mouthwash was made. It is horrible. Now, I prefer to just gargle a shot of vodka, and then either spit it out or swallow. Much better tasting.
Vodka is something we could make at home, if we could change ATF laws.
Do a search on the internet for 21 uses for vodka. Experiment.
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With a cheapo plastic cement trough, and a pane of old glass you can make your own distiller. Mine produced almost a quart of water a day, and one or two more should be enough for a person to comfortably survive. It uses no fossil fuels to work. Email for more info.
Large scale and commercial solar stills work well and do provide safe clean water.

Wealth
10 methods of acquiring material wealth.
“1. Inherited wealth-riches derived from parents and other ancestors.
2. Discovered wealth-riches derived from the uncultivated resources of mother earth.
3. Trade wealth-riches obtained as a fair profit in the exchange and barter of material goods.
4. Unfair wealth-riches derived from unfair exploitation or the enslavement of one’s fellows.
5. Interest wealth-income derived from the fair and just earning possibilities of invested capital.
6. Genius wealth-riches accruing from the rewards of the creative and inventive endowments of the human mind.
7. Accidental wealth-riches derived from the generosity of one’s fellows or taking origin in the circumstances of life.
8. Stolen wealth-riches secured by unfairness, dishonesty, theft, or fraud.
9. Trust funds-wealth lodged in your hands by your fellows for some specific use, nor or in the future.
10. Earned wealth-riches derived directly from your own personal labor, the fair and just reward of your own daily efforts of mind and body.”
Reprinted from the Urantia Book, (1955), authors unknown. Paper # 152, section 5.
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<br>Spiritual wealth is perhaps something different. Possibly longer lasting and a greater return.
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Windmills
I will work toward putting up windmills in Washoe Valley. It will be one of my prime goals as your representative. (See NIMBY)
Some farmers in the mid-west are leasing their lands for windmills. They are reportedly being paid as much as $5000 a year for leasing 1/4 acre. While windmills are not, and have not been, touted as being the final solution to our energy problems, they ARE a sizeable supplement. I read once that windmill energy may fall below 5 cents per kilowatt hour if mass produced. Better, cheaper, and cleaner than coal and nuclear. Imagine retooling Detroit and those lost jobs into manufacturing large scale windfarms for our whole country.
More will be added to this page...

When the idea of a national repository first came up years ago, I was for it. Why not collect all this dangerous material into one safe, guardable spot? And, my thoughts were to tax the federal government for each load delivered, and those funds to go into the Nevada State coffers. Also, we could have bargained with the feds that they return X-number of acres back to us. As you may know, the BLM owns about 87% of Nevada land.
However, since there have been credible questions about the safety of Yucca Mountain, and especially concerns about the wisdom of transporting deadly nuclear waste through populated areas, I am currently opposed to Yucca.
What remains is the problem of what to do with that toxic waste.
What shall we do? We cannot ignore this dilemma.
One far-out possibility is that we re-use that waste heat on-site. It is possible that we could build hot air engines which use that waste heat and generate electricity.
A ridiculous idea?
Perhaps, but perhaps it is one worth exploring.
Until it can be proven that moving this spent fuel is safe, and that Yucca is geologically stable, and other problems are addressed, I am opposed to it.
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