PermaKent Permaculture Ideas of J. Kent Hastings

Green Wombat describes former Australian Greenpeace activist Danny Kennedy’s new California venture, Sungevity:
“Putting photovoltaic panels on residential rooftops remains largely a labor-­intensive cottage business, often involving multiple visits to a client’s home to make the sales pitch, measure the roof, and design a custom system. Sungevity, which officially launches Tuesday on Earth Day, takes all […]

STEED stands for Social Security, Taxes, Energy, Education, and Defense. I came up with the acronym by adding Energy to TEDS, which was the rallying cry of some Nevada Libertarian Republicans whose meeting I stumbled into once. Never heard of TEDS? You’re not alone.
Naturally, the media is covering more important issues like Mindy McCready […]

Food aid is not being delivered because of fuel costs, and the cost of food is skyrocketing by itself. Biofuel from corn or even switchgrass requires turning agricultural land into not very efficient fields dedicated to fuel production instead. Kurzweil AI reports a Physorg article about genetically altered cyanobacterium (blue-green algae) that produces cellulose and […]

Although Brad Linaweaver is an agnostic libertarian science fiction Hollywood screenwriter who, except for a brief period following 9-11, has opposed U.S. military adventurism most of his life. Brad nonetheless maintained a correspondence and friendship with Catholic conservative icon William F. Buckley, Jr. for over thirty years.
WFB turned against the current neocon adventure in Iraq […]

Seedball.com, like this post, has a YouTube video about how to make seedballs, and in addition lists the “recipe” and has links to active seedball making groups.

The Independent describes a version of a Food Not Lawns/Edible Estates-ish organization in the UK.
Twelve months on and Food Up Front is now signing up people for year two. It has a network of more than 30 street rep co-ordinators, and has attracted the interest of would-be urban farmers from neighbouring boroughs and beyond.

BBC article in a series of reports about the global food price crisis. Seems the U.N. is promoting permaculture, if not using that word exactly.
The Unesco study recommends better safeguards to protect resources and more sustainable farming practices, such as producing food locally.

So I wasn’t imagining things, Al Gore really did say a tax on carbon should replace the employment tax. Maybe he could get together with Pat Buchanan since the number one CO2 emitter is now China, and thus part of the carbon tax could be viewed as a tariff.
Here’s the story, “Al Gore’s Pollution Tax […]

In this recent TED talk, speaker Al Gore wonders what he could say to promote a greater sense of urgency about the climate crisis. I don’t have an answer about that, but in order to get political action in his direction, he might talk more about the tax change I think he proposed in this […]

The U.S. is no longer number 1, according to a University of California research team quoted in this BBC online story.
We’ve got to try harder! Er, I mean to stop China’s reckless industry, that is.

If true, I could support Eco-Freaks author John Berlau’s claims against anti-dam construction protesters, as he wrote about them in National Review online back in 2005. A few environmentalist groups seemingly contributed to the catastrophic loss of New Orleans and other cities during hurricanes Katrina and Rita by opposing the necessary building of levees and […]

TED curator, Chris Anderson, sent several links from TED.com about the upcoming Pangea Day, including an inspiring performance by French singers of the U.S. national anthem:

Browsing recent bookmarks at del.icio.us led me to a series about Utopias in Forbes.com, including an interesting article called “Ecotopia”. The author is not as skeptical about the anti-capitalist lifestyle as you might expect from a business journal.
And despite the new commune members’ reliance on local barter and low-tech sustainable gardening, the use of satellite […]

The most sustainable place on Earth may not seem like utopia to its subjects, despite some recent welcome reforms.
According to Alvaro Vargas Llosa, author and syndicated columnist, in an article titled “The World’s Bravest Blogger”:
The Cuban government has finally blocked access to a Web log written by Yoani Sanchez, a young woman who has caused […]

Green Living Expo is in Los Angeles this weekend. Free Admission!
“Over 200 exhibits.” Organic food, alternative energy, sustainable fashions, clean household goods, music, art, and health products.
I’ll be wandering around there since I’m in town.

Internet marketer Ben Mack of Think Two Products Ahead announced a series of teleseminar calls from experts based on the thought of Buckminster Fuller, for the benefit of GENI, the Global Energy Network Institute, which is developing a global energy grid based on electricity from renewable sources so poor regions with sunlight and wind but […]

Boing Boing’s Cory Doctorow posted an article, “Can aviation go green with algae-based biofuels?” about biojet aviation fuel for Virgin Atlantic.
The link to a World Changing story, “Taking Aloft With Sustainable Biojet”, describes the next test:
When the Air New Zealand test takes place, it will be with a second generation feedstock. Of the possibilities, two […]

A popular TreeHugger story reports that carbon neutral biodiesel fuel can be grown from trees. Biodiesel burns cleaner than petrodiesel.
. . .the Brazilian Copaifera langsdorfii, to use its botanical name, can be tapped not unlike a rubber tree, but instead of yielding rubbery latex it gives up a natural diesel. According to the nurseryman selling […]

David Bach usually writes bestselling financial improvement books for the Oprah crowd. His latest book, Go Green, Live Rich, available April 8, is another in that series, but this time the method of living rich is by going green. By accident he moved into a new green building complex to be near his children in […]

Maybe this is five days late. . .
Someone hit me on the left side of the head yesterday, so today’s post is being written by my right side.
Insightful critics of renewables point out that gasoline works for transportation. Switching to something else will require a massive investment in new filling stations. The efficiency of any […]

Al “Bokashiman” sent me a more direct link to The Vancouver Guerrilla Gardeners Meetup Group.
On their description page, an elegant statement from the Toronto Public Space Committee is quoted:
“Without permit or license, we plant seeds and seedlings in all those neglected corners of public space. Join us as we vandalise the city with nature!”
Al also […]

The Atlasphere has a column by teacher union and environmentalist bête noire, John Stossel, about a recent court decision against homeschoolers “even though,” Stossel writes, “home- schooled kids routinely outperform government- schooled kids academically.”
An attack by the state education establishment against individuals with legitimate concerns about child safety and indoctrination with poisonous worldviews should not […]

Off Grid story from March 22 (again, not an April Fool’s Day joke) about personal nuclear reactors.
Think I’m lying? How about this Gizmodo story?
Stephen Years quotes a Santa Fe Reporter article about Los Alamos based Hyperion’s planned product.
The portable nuclear reactor is the size of a hot tub. It’s shaped like a sake cup, filled […]

Press junket by Nichelle Nichols I filmed and edited about the upcoming premiere of Lady Magdalene’s in the Los Angeles area. Not much to do with permaculture, but Nichelle’s stories about being discovered by Duke Ellington and how she recruited America’s first minority and women astronauts for NASA over Pentagon objections certainly belongs in the […]

Digg links to a Tree Hugger story about a water pump system that doubles as a Merri-Go-Round for kids. The YouTube video is from the PlayPumps manufacturer’s site.
(Not an April Fool’s Day joke.)

Rolex Award description of an effective earthenware method of keeping food and medicine cool in the Nigerian (and any other) desert. It is called a zeer in Arabic.
The impact of the pot-in-pot on individuals’ lives is overwhelming. “Farmers are now able to sell on demand rather than ‘rush sell’ because of spoilage,” says Abba, “and […]