A California Online Magazine, With a Focus on the San Joaquin Valley
Clovis Unified School District, north of Fresno, celebrated last year with a rebate of more than $100,000 from PG & E. Eight schools in the district participated in a pilot energy management program: Clovis High School, Kastner Intermediate School, and Cole, Maple Creek, Mountain View, Valley Oak and Weldon Elementary Schools, as well as the Center for Advanced Research and Technology (CART), a career-specific, lab-based school.
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In October, the U.S. Department of Energy sponsored its fifth Solar Decathlon. This year’s competition featured 19 colleges from five countries and four continents. The challenge: design, build and operate the most cost effective, energy efficient and attractive solar powered house. Ten contests over ten days pushed the teams to demonstrate each house’s performance, livability and affordability.
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Since the holiday season is upon us, here are some great suggestions of gifts for your young ones! These books are fun for the kids, but also teach them about recycling, eating their vegetables, therapy dogs & more.
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For two years now I’ve invested money in getting an annual fishing permit. What have I gained in return? Lost bait, hooks, weights, and even half a fishing pole, yet not a single fish to show for it. I’m starting to doubt if I can even shoot a fish in a barrel! That’s why, as I’ve been learning about self-sufficiency, I became very interested in an exciting method of growing your own food called aquaponics.
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Water can easily be taken for granted. We turn on the faucet and water quickly runs from the tap. And when there are rows of bottled water in the grocery store it’s hard to believe that the fresh water we expect to always be there might someday become a scarce commodity. But that is exactly what scientists are beginning to predict.
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The Slow Food Movement is an international movement that began in Italy in 1986 as an endeavor to keep a McDonald’s from opening near the Spanish Steps in Rome. In that year a Slow Food Manifesto was signed by delegates from fifteen countries in protest against big international business interests. The Movement now has over 100,000 members in 132 countries with hundreds of regional chapters around the world.
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As a west Texas farm boy, where five families shared a communal garden to the “Victory” garden at Pantex Ordinance Plant to the backyard garden at our new home in California, I have been around organic produce for a long time. In fact, organic farming has been around since the Revolutionary War and could be considered the primary farming method until World War II. Around that time, farming became a lot more technical and there was an explosion of new chemical products, many based on German patents that resulted in potent insecticides, fungicides, and herbicides used by farmers to control pests and increase yields.
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As a kid I always loved it when the power went out. It was exciting! Life was acceptably unpredictable and a tinge out of control. It was fun lighting the candles, peering out the window at the pitch black outside, gathering together as a family and talking or playing cards until PG&E could get things figured out – usually an hour or so later.
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So your teenager just came home from school and announced to you they are becoming vegan/vegetarian. What are you supposed to do? What does this even mean? What will you feed them? Will they be healthy? So many questions. Often a parent’s first response is to get angry. Your child is going against your way of living and you feel like it’s just a form of rebellion.
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The saying “One person’s garbage is another person’s treasure” was never more true than when it comes to upcycling. What is upcycling? It is the process of taking something that would ordinarily be thrown away and making it into something that has equal or greater use.
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Everyone seems to be “going green” these days. Even the United States Postal Services has taken major steps in reducing its carbon footprint. In 2009 the Postal Services voluntarily conducted an inventory of their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that resulted in findings that prompted them to make changes in the way they do business.
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It’s amazing to think that “green” was once just another ho-hum color on the crayon box. These days it’s impossible to even hear the word without immediate images of recycling, composting, and carbon tax credits floating across your periphery.
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Composting has recently become one of the hottest topics in the world of recycling and conservation. For many years, only people who have large gardens with plenty of extra space have composted; but even if you only have a tiny garden or balcony, you too can compost!
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Since I began writing this Going Green column a few months ago, I’ve focused on the need for recycling in our communities. This month I would like to take a different approach and present some ideas from a more ‘green’ perspective. Our Recycling Coordinators at Sunset Waste compiled a list of A to Z green tips which I am sharing with you.
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Hugs is a special, special needs guy. He is blind with cataracts in both eyes. He is young. The vet thinks 2 1/2 - 3 years old. He has a great temperament & gets around great using his other senses. His foster mom says that if she doesn't move anything, once around the house & he has it memorized. Hugs is very loving & affectionate. We think Hugs would make a great therapy dog. His hypoallergenic coat is also a big plus for therapy dogs.Hugs is available through Animal Compassion Team.
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