PermaKent Permaculture Ideas of J. Kent Hastings

Here’s a searchable directory of bike co-ops from bikecollectives.org. They even had an exhibit in Las Vegas at the bicycle industry’s trade show, Interbike.
One of the listings led me to the following about a Bike Over Borders conflict:
“. . .we learned first hand that the policies of “free trade” are made for corporations, not for […]

Fans of Silent Running will be interested in Art Carden’s latest article for the Ludwig Von Mises Institute, “Should We Be Recycling Paper or Building Battlestar Galactica?”
“Should we be recycling paper and preventing people from building parking lots to save trees? Or should we acknowledge that the planet will be destroyed sooner or later and […]

A Kurzweil AI post describes the rapid growth of off-grid households.
“Once the preserve of mavericks, hippies and survivalists, there are now approximately 200,000 off-grid households in the US, a figure that has been increasing by a third every year for the past decade.”
The post links to a New Scientist story, How To Unplug From The […]

An Unreasonable.Org post links to an energetic rebuttal of a claim that permaculture is an impractical “hippy dippy, hunter gatherer” farming system.
Quoting permaculturist David Blume on his experience:
“My yields were often 8 times what the USDA claims are possible per square foot. My soil fertility increased dramatically each year so I was not achieving my […]

A Boing Boing post by Mark Frauenfelder links to this instructables article titled “Imitation Alka Seltzer For A Fraction Of The Cost.”
To be precise, the make at home version is probably higher than the manufacturing cost (not including packaging and distribution to markets). But the price of the ingredients is much less than any store […]

BBC reports that the SeaGen tidal power generation project has reached its full power goal in a system test on December 18th. A Belfast Telegraph article headline proudly proclaims its local achievement “Northern Ireland tidal turbine breaks world energy record”.
Also, a front page item on Digg links to a CleanTechnica blog post titled “SeaGen Shatters […]

Following up the Coffee to Biodiesel story, it seems to me if you could grow your own coffee, as described at home coffee roasting supplier Sweet Maria’s, that would be great. Yeah.
Supposedly, a percentage of already processed (but not roasted) beans can become viable sprouts. After a couple of years a coffee tree can become […]

From the UK’s Isle of Wight comes this Ventnor Permaculture post about making your own Laundry Gloop. The author, Angie, explains why in this excerpt:
“. . .laundry products are often the worst in health terms as they are in constant contact with your skin. I have been making and using Laundry Gloop for years as […]

This Slashdot post links to an American Chemical Society article about a report by researchers here in Nevada, published in The Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, about the impact of turning waste coffee grounds into biodiesel.
“The resulting coffee-based fuel — which actually smells like java — had a major advantage in being more stable […]

There are advocates of hemp for biofuel, just as there are for tobacco.
That’s my excuse for including this anti-drug-war item on a permaculture blog. I’m also sick of seeing COPS style reality shows which glorify the destruction of our freedom. The latest atrocity is a new show called Heimatschutzministerium, or to translate from the […]

I’ve been on the road helping a friend move his stuff from the house he sold in Culver City, CA to his new home in Pahrump, NV. But while I haven’t posted here for a week, I have been taking notes about all things sustainable.
The first item is the most recent. During yesterday’s Ed Schultz […]