EcoNewMexico.com

How do you have fun on a Tuesday night? I like to unwind with a little amateur plumbing repair. This Tuesday I dismantled the kitchen faucet assembly, rushed over to the hardware store minutes before closing time and pawed madly through the plumbing section for valves and bits. Then I ran back home to reassemble the whole mess and I only had to reverse one valve body! In the process I also banged my head under the sink. All of this so I can stop a maddening drip at the kitchen faucet. Yep, good times at our house.

Put on your party clothes and grab some beads folks, it's carnival time! Specifically, Carnival of the Green. This is a traveling blog show filled with links about green living, sustainability and whatever else is floating about the 'green blogosphere'. Scroll down, you may find some tips you like, environmental issues, or a discussion you want to join in. Oh, thanks for visiting EcoNewMexico.com where we blather on about practical ideas for sustainable living in the American Southwest!

Observing the news over the past year I've come to a (probably obvious) realization or two. Climate Change is rapidly growing in global awareness, importance and the discussion has become heated (pun intended). It appears that our planet is rapidly approaching a point of change (cultural, economic, environmental, etc.) driven by climate change. Change brings uncertainty, so governments, companies, and people have chosen to either fight change or promote their vision of change.

It's Labor Day weekend and summer has begun winding down. I can only hope that it won't be winding down too quickly because it was just in the past few days that I noticed little proto-green beans on the vine. However, people are back in school, it is cool in the morning, and the scent of roasting green chile has permeated the northern New Mexico air. As the days get shorter, I feel this mad desperation coming over me to preserve what I can of summer.

0n December 22, 2008 a 'storage pond' dam broke in Harriman, TN flooding the Tennessee River Valley with over 5.4 million cubic yards of coal ash sludge. What wasn't known at the time of this man-made disaster is how many more Coal Ash dump sites exist in the U.S.A. Thanks to a Freedom of Information Act request by the Environmental Integrity Project, Earthjustice and the Sierra Club the EPA released a list of 584 coal ash dump sites across the country. 35 states, including New Mexico, have coal ash dumps containing arsenic, lead, mercury and other toxins.

The garden is so very alive these days and it is incredibly exciting. I went out to snip some mint last night at about 10:30 p.m. An all night produce department! There has been an almost daily rainstorm and that is perking things up considerably. Birds and butterflies have been visiting our yard looking for insects, seeds, sustenance and we have thoroughly enjoyed their flittering about. Then there are the bees.

I can't stand it. I'm looking out my window and the snow is piling up. Okay, what's going on here. We turned in our taxes, we have skiied our last slope, my first proud tulip bulb was seconds away from blooming when a weird storm decided to pass over. I ask you, where was this snow the past few months.

Don't judge a book by it's cover, especially when the cover is this bad. Fortunately the book 'Sustainable Energy - without the hot air' by David JC MacKay is a much better book than its wrapping suggests. Professor McKay makes a case for, of all things, a fact and number-based energy policy. The idea that rational decision-making should drive energy policy shouldn't be a radical idea, but strangely enough it is.

America has been known for years as a 'Land of Plenty'. Yet, even the Land of Plenty is not immune from economic recession. But, there may be a silver lining to this darkly clouded economy. The very American ideals of frugality and efficiency have reappeared after years of extravagant waste. I've heard that everything old is new again, including our grandparent's values of thrift and conservation. But just maybe there are some NEW frugal and efficient ideas we can try out too.

This week I spent $134.02 on groceries. I nearly fainted when I tallied up the receipts I saved from food purchases. Suddenly the "the week without shopping" I read about in The New York Times Dining and Wine section seemed like the world's most brilliant idea. I e-headed over to the man who inspired this: Fat Guy at eGullet. He saved himself about $100 and several hours in shopping and transportation time by doing what I'm always saying we should do around the house: eat down the freezer, refrigerator and pantry.