Riot 4 Austerity

Gasoline

If we want to get to a 90% reduction from the impact of the average American we need to know where we started. For the past six months I have been actively tracking our gasoline, electric, natural gas, and water usage.  Today I am going to cover our current gasoline usage.

Amount […]

Energy

Dmitry Orlov does it again: Definancialisation, Deglobalisation, Relocalisation
I’m in the middle of reading this and it’s just a great article.
One quote I really like:
It is an unfortunate fact that the recent centuries of settled life, and especially the last century or so of easy living based on the industrial model, has made many people too […]

Water

In almost every way, this Spring is turning out to be a completely different gardening experience than last year.In Spring ‘08, it seemed like the seeds I planted all sprouted nicely, grew steadily, fended off pests and even the odd hailstorm. Rain fe…

Food

Hi, everyone!
We’re having a bit of a cool spell — it’s only 90 instead of 102 here! — and our summer is going pretty well. I just read Sharon Astyk’s blog, which reminded me to do my Independence days update. It’s been quite dry here, the bit of rain we got a couple of days […]

Waste

Okay. I am not talking about visiting people, but rather that monthly friend that comes to visit most women. After a 5 year hiatus from my visits, I was recently reintroduced to the joys of menstruation. I was one of those lucky few who have no sign or hint of menstruation during nursing — thus […]

Cooking/Heating

Inspired by my experience with the Dark Days Eat Local challenge, I am now participating in the far easier One Local Summer — participants agree to cook at least one meal per week entirely out of local ingredients, excluding salt, spices, and cooking oil. For the purposes of this, I’m defining “local” as “from within […]

Consumer Goods

homemade entertainment: no tv and no computer games