Need lumber for a pet project? Aren’t into the nasty selections at Home Depot – chemically treated woods from unsustainable clear cuts? A thought provoking article can be found here on Verdant.net about all the in’s and outs of obtaining free building materials. Make your projects green by recycling old growth lumber thrown away by clueless contractors. Here is a link at the California Construction and Demolition Debris Recycling site to more great info on recycling lumber, while it specifically relates to California, much of it is relevant to most anywhere.

I don’t get carbon offsetting. It’s like pouring oil down the sewer grate after an oil-change and then donating 20 bucks to Greenpeace so you don’t feel guilty about your toxic oil heading for the harbor. I don’t see how that’s much different than the idea of paying someone to plant a treefarm so you won’t feel bad about that cross-country airline ticket.

My suspicious nature wonders about how verifiable some of these carbon credit outfits are. Like the plant-a-tree-today.org or Dell Computer’s plant a tree for me campaign. I worry it’s a half-measure at best, giving people an excuse to postpone the difficult politics needed for significant changes to halt global warming. It will do more to create a lucrative market of pollution trading then it will to help us change from a fossil fuel based economy to renewable sustainable one. It also helps to paint a happy face on the corporations that are often some of the biggest polluters.

That said, planting a tree can still be a good thing. Trees can help remove significant amounts of carbon from the atmosphere. But a healthy forest with a thriving total ecosystem is better for people and other living things not just a monoculture of thousands of perfect rows of pine trees in a sterile tree farm. I’m sure many of the carbon trading organizations earnestly attempt to solve our global warming problems but, for me, I would rather directly give money to people fighting for healthy forests. Or even get a shovel and go out in my backyard plant my own tree. If you feel particually daring there is a group of guerrilla gardeners who plant who use direct planting to help make the world a better place. Guerrilla Gardeners is a group worth checking out.

As individuals there is only so much we can do. Planting a tree won’t absolve you of your need to get involved in the bigger political arena or better find earth friendly solutions in your life but it’s nice to do something constructive however small. If you don’t have the space or the green thumb to plant your own then consider donating to Save America’s Forests nationwide campaign to end clearcutting and protect and restore our nation’s wild and natural forests. They also work to help protect the rain-forest in Ecuador. Of course there are other groups doing similar work and equally deserving of your attention.

Enhance your USB WiFi with cheap Chinese cookware

Tired of excessive consumerism? Some people are sick of buying expensive computer hardware when more simple solutions can suffice? Here is a link from a New Zealand site that shows some ingenious ways people have found to make and dramatically enhance a Poor Man’s WiFi. Here is a link that clearly explains what you need to do to make one of these (shown above) I have a pretty fast connection already and I don’t work from a coffee shop so I haven’t tried this myself but I like the funky angle of this and I am happy people are finding ways to make computing more affordable and accessible. Just make sure you aren’t using any trans fats!

A complaint occasionally heard about wind turbines is that they produce low-frequency sounds that are disturbing to some people. According to an ariticle in The British Wind Energy Association this is just a myth, but what if you like the sounds that wind can make? An amazing range of artistry and invention exists in the world of wind music making. There is often an eerie quality to the sound, reminiscent of science fiction movies. I like to imagine these wind sounds are the music from the earth gaia herself.

The Plastorgan shown in the above photo fascinates me the most because it’s free, keeps some plastic bottles out of the landfill, encourages people to unleash hidden talent, and makes for more interesting neighborhoods. All you need to do is make one slit of a certain size in the side of a plastic bottle, paint it with a cool design, put the cap on the bottle and glue or somehow fasten the cap to a bamboo pole and stick the pole in your garden or yard – the more the better, with all different sizes of bottles and slits to create a wide range of tones and timbres. Check out the sound of the above grouping here. You can see more samples and info on how to build your own plastic bottle wind organ as well as other kinds of wind organs and harps here. Here is another link in which a few people share their experiences with these plastic wind organs.

If you want something a bit more sophisticated than plastic bottles then your options are wide open. There are many resources available from extremely expensive wind sound sculpture to affordable garden wind harps.

One site, mohicanwindharps.com offers a number of reasonably priced contemporary wind harps as well as the traditional Aeolian Harp, one of the oldest known musical instruments made by the ancient Greeks. You can listen to the sound one of these harps makes here.
more links on wind harps here.
appalachian heritage alliance.org
soundscapes international.com