Ah yes, simple living. Who hasn’t, at some time, wished for a simpler life? Which then begs the question: why do we feel the need to live more simply? Are we frustrated?
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Time Flies
A Five Year Trend Towards Renewables They say that time flies when you’re having fun. If that’s true, then we’re having a ball, because it seems like only yesterday that the first issue of our Green Living Journal hit the streets of Portland in 2008. That’s right, we are five years old, we have published 360,000 copies of our Journal, and we are optimistic about the future because of the changes that have taken place in those five years. Optimistic? How can we, or anyone else, be optimistic, given the present state of affairs? With civilization on the brink of collapse, are we not all in the proverbial handbasket? Where…
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The Men Who Built America
Resource reality is setting in, and we are now aware that there are consequences to ignoring the effects that our lifestyle has on the environment.
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Wood in the Course of Human Events
Wood has got to be one of nature’s most miraculous gifts to the human race. We have depended on wood for fuel, tools, weapons, and shelter since before the dawn of history. Even in this high tech world of the twenty first century there is wood everywhere, in one form or another, no matter if we are flying across the country at 30,000 feet, riding in a subway beneath the streets of Manhattan, or sitting on the sofa in front of the TV set. The sad fact is that wood has been with us for so long and is present in so many different forms that we no longer notice…
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History, Habits & Water Bottles
In early 1946 when my dad returned home from the Philippines after the end of WWII, he brought with him a treasure trove of neat stuff to fire the imagination of a seven year old. All the right stuff was there for exploring the empty lots in our Long Island (NY) suburban neighborhood: knapsack, pup tent, canteen and mess kit. But the canteen was far and away my favorite, for with it, I was free to roam far beyond the limits of the “run home for a glass of water” range. This sturdy veteran of “The War” was to be my introduction to a wide array of containers needed to…
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Bob’s Ultimate Driving Machine
People with the ability to take something that interests them and turn it into a passion have always fascinated me, and, I might add, raised a certain amount of envy as well. And, even more so, when that passion makes a difference, not only in that person’s life, but in the lives of all of us as well. Quite often, and usually during times of crisis, these people come to our attention because the focus of their passions offer solutions to that very crisis. Enter Bob Simpson, who gave a presentation at a recent Solar Oregon gathering that I attended. He briefly described the conversion of his gasoline powered BMW…
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Welcome to Green Living
Originally published in the Spring 2008 issue of the Green Living Journal Welcome to the first issue of the Green Living Journal serving the Portland Vancouver area, which also happens to be our first ever venture into the publishing world. We hope you enjoy its message as much as the folks in Vermont and southern Oregon have enjoyed their editions published by individuals with years of experience. So just why would a retired forester fast approaching his 70th year start a new career (we hope we succeed in putting out many more issues) in a whole new field of endeavor? Perhaps a short tale will shed some light on that,…
