News & commentary on sustainability, activism, urban planning, politics, and our world.
I just came across this excellent animation which deftly explains just what hydraulic fracturing is, and how the toxic unregulated natural gas drilling procedure is poisoning our planet’s water supply. This educational fracking song is both catchy and easy to understand, quite a feat when you are trying to convey so many different components of such a complicated, explosive and deadly issue.
After having spent a few weeks here in Arcata, I must confess that I was already starting to grow very fond of this northern California hippie wonderland, but this week when I came across this police blotter item in the Arcata Eye, one of the town’s local newspapers, I totally fell in love with this city:
“Friday, April 8, 12:11 p.m. — A man was seen walking with a ‘bison’ — previously described as a buffalo, but actually a yak — at 11th and L streets. When a friendly passerby asked if he could take a picture, Yak Man faulted him for not saying ‘hi’ first.”
This is cool. A group of DIY enthusiasts led by Marcin Jakubowski, Open Source Ecology, have come up with a Global Village Construction Set (GVCS). The group’s official vision: “A world where every community has access to an open source Fab[rication] Lab which can produce all the things that one currently finds at a Walmart cost-effectively, quickly, on demand from local resources.”
Arcata is a university town of about 17,000 people in the northwest corner of California; it is nestled on the coast, between a stunning community owned forest and the Pacific Ocean. For three decades the city has been successfully treating its waste stream through a simple and effective system of natural wetlands, plantings and oxidation ponds.
