NZAD vs NZFA

NZAD vs NZFA …WTF?

Well… if you have read our last update, we introduced our new project…the creation of a new small NET ZERO everything dwelling in our lower garden.  We have set our goals high with this project are aiming for full LIVING BUILDING certification.  Along with this we are attempting to implement new land use policy called the NZAD (Net Zero Additional Dwelling), which would legally allow us to build a secondary dwelling.

Two council meetings have passed since we submitted our proposal on Jan 3^rd to the District of Highlands for presentation to Mayor and Council.  The NZAD (Net Zero Additional Dwelling) policy has yet to be sent to mayor and council by municipal staff.  20120103 NZAD letter.   It is a policy that has been pre-drafted by us and has been discussed at great length within two council appointed sustainability advisory groups.  We very much like the Highland’s planner…Back in 2005, she was instrumental in designing and counseling us when we created our protective covenants on the Eco-Sense land which allowed us to build our house on previously impacted land.   But these days she is extremely busy with the sudden influx of rezoning and development issues on her plate.

The municipal planner has been so busy addressing rezoning applications for NZFA developments, that our application for the NZAD (Net Zero Additional Dwelling) has been placed on the backburner so she can get her head above water.   We do understand, but we had hoped that our application would have been seen as an opportunity to learn from, wherein the present applications for NZFA could be viewed with a new lens of sustainability where the new developments could include at least something greener like net zero water, zero waste, zero toxic materials, net zero energy, or zero land damage.  Oh… we forgot to define what the NZFA applications are – Net Zero Fuck All.  Yes we are on the back burner to big money and conventional status quo development sprawl.  We had really hoped that our project would provide discussion points for council and District of Highlands staff in their assessment of all the developments currently on the table.  So…what to do…well we are building anyways.  The only municipal barrier is that we cannot rent out the dwelling until we have approval to do so.  We are following all the rules.

Ann with her winter veggies...good for PMS and BMS

It has begun.  The Living Building Challenge is providing us ample opportunity to have sleepless nights afflicted with BMS (Busy Mind Syndrome).  Ann is also afflicted with PMS… which results in ‘interesting’ times for all of us when BMS and PMS simultaneously present themselves.   This update dives into the early thoughts and research as we begin the house design, systems design, infrastructure design and more.  In all honesty not until starting this update did it strike me as to what we have actually accomplished in two weeks.

Our disillusionment and anger over the proposed pipeline and tankers on the BC coast has led us to design a building that doesn’t require any of that shit to operate, thus to prove the point that we can function with very little fossil fuels.  Even more is to accomplish these goals building an affordable home for someone with little embodied energy.  We plan on utilizing recycled and natural materials while simplifying systems. Oh, we have LEARNED so much from building the Eco-Sense home and our research sponsored by the Real Estate Foundation and VanCity.  This new small dwelling will be fully passive solar and Net Zero Energy, Net Zero Water and Zero Waste and will function as part of the ecosystem as it evolved in place.

House design:  The basic design is done.  The dwelling is a little bit larger than we anticipated, as it has to accommodate all the systems.  We are being smart with placement (thanks to a tip from the Highlands building official), and have decided against a separate mechanical room.  The systems, instead, will be incorporated throughout the body of the house.  Can you imagine what the human body would like if all of our systems were in a separate compartment away from the body?  It would look like a really big poorly fitting heavy backpack…with all the organs crammed into it and a lot of extra wires and pipes.

Infrastructure design (non- nerdy types may wish to skip ahead)

Solar thermal and heating design:  So very cool!  Spent three days thinking, and researching components.  This will be a tour all unto itself.  Simplicity of design rules for removing costs, nasty products, efficiency, maintainability, and cost… Ooops did I say that twice.  Sustainable design does NOT have to be expensive… our research on the Eco-Sense home showed us that our solar thermal system amortized over a 10 year lifespan comes in at a cost of $0.09 kWhr… better than BC Hydro; if you don’t believe us just wait a year and see, or look at your second tier cost on your hydro bill now.

A warm house is important for Boo...He hates toques.

Heat Load:  House heat load calculations bring it in at 3,700 BTUH on the coldest day… can you say negligible?  Yeah for passive solar design and a highly insulated building envelope.  Details:  R70 roof, R66 walls, and a solar thermal battery in the form of a 22’ long, 3 foot deep and 2 foot wide water tank under the home, with recycled insulation over top, and an insulated cape outside the house envelope.

So, in summary, here is where we are at today: 

Gord in the digger

Jan 10-12^th -  Rented Bobcat.  Gord reorganized lower garden and re-routed the driveway on the outer edge away from garden area and future deer fencing.  Gord will never go back to the shovel and now suffers from TICS…Testosterone Induced Child Syndrome.  He’s like a kid in the sandbox with his digger toy.

Trench going into pond

Jan 13-15th  – Cleared small trees out of old man made pond that doesn’t hold water.  Begin preparations for resurrecting the pond that will hold about 250,000 Gal of water.  This pond will service all irrigation for upper and lower gardens and provide potable  water to the lower dwelling (after filtration and UV sterilization).

Jan 15-26^th – correspondence with ROWP (Registered Onsite Wastewater Professional) for design of Flush Toilet Ready policy AND stand-alone grey water system. 

Emily with Ann's red hair - Taking a break from design work

Jan 10-20^th – Designed 500 ft²  Dwelling.  Gord learned how to use Google Sketch up.  Great tips from John Gower (of Gower Design), and now on to Cindy McCaugherty from Raincoast Homes.  Both excellent friends who do amazing design work.  Cindy will put our plans into AutoCad, work her cob home design and detailing magic and send to the engineers who have already been prepped (Kris Dick and Tim Krahn)

Trying to keep sense of humour in the evenings...Boo with Red hair

Jan 16, 2012 – Electrical permit.  Must pay the permit fee on entire solar installation cost.  Must install a new service connection in the lower garden.  Must install a minimum 100Amp service even though we don’t need it.  Must pay for a new transformer on the Hydro pole.  Must use toxic wood treatment on bottom of new service pole.  Living Building Challenge does not allow toxic materials red list items…so plan B.  NO new pole:  Build small shed for electrical to attach to and then bury cable all the way to the dwelling (100 ft).

Jan 23^rd – Gord spent more time in the bobcat prepping the dwelling site.  We will have enough earth on site from the excavation to build the dwelling.  More TICS behaviour.

Jan 23^th -25^th – design and research heating system, and solar thermal etc.

Jan 24^th – well water test at our house failed!  Took water sample in for testing on Jan 9^th.  Finding out what is going on?!?!?!?!?!  VERY Upsetting.  Could it be due to the damage from next door (see last update)????  Could it be due to all the goat manure we put on the garden?  High in nitrates, coliforms, lead, dissolved solids, and too hard.

If we want veggies...we have to plant them

Jan 25^th – plant lettuce and early greens.  Pick up all the bits and pieces for the underground infrastructure.

Two diggers - Two men - prepping dwelling site and moving fill

Jan 26^th – make goat cheese.  Hire local guy (with TICS) and excavator to finish site prep.  Dig out dwelling site, dig trenches, and dig trench to connect pond to existing buried water pipes.  Our land is currently NOT beautiful…but thankfully we have not dug up any undisturbed land.

Whew…that’s it I think.

Gord and Ann

Links:  

Into Eternity.  A  thought provoking documentary about nuclear waste…it’s not what you think.  Nuclear waste has to be looked after for more than 100,000 years.  Next week is hard to predict…let alone 100,000 years from now.  Interesting exploration of ideas.  What do you think?  It comes in 5 parts as it keeps getting removed from the internet. Here’s part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=HnQAz7oYwQM

Spoil.  Half hour beautiful documentary by the best nature photographers on the planet.  See the Great Bear rain forest, learn about the tar sands, and the pipeline.  Inspirational AND disturbing. http://vimeo.com/19582018

A New Journey Begins

A New Journey Begins

Picture us…lost on the barren wasteland through a cold wet December on a yet to be established living roof, situated somewhere between the solar hot water evacuated tubes and the bank of 16 solar PV panels on our roof.  Ann and I were about to set camp… for a month.  Yup, that’s right, we were going to OCCUPY our roof top equipped with our tent, our home grown food, and our composting toilet bucket from December 1 all the way through Consumptionmas (Xmas) till New Years day.

At the dinner table Emily cringes her eyebrows, cocks her head to one side and asks “Your going to do what?”  Parker shaking his head with a look of great concern resembling a parent upon hearing of their child’s wish to climb Everest… naked…asks “Why?”

Why?  Complete helplessness!  Pissed off!  Sad!  Angry!  Frustrated beyond words trying to make a difference the conventional way via slow incremental change (committee).  Passionately wanting to make a statement, (not that living in a mud house and shitting in a bucket doesn’t), but in respect to the movement to occupy for the change from a corrupt political and economic system, to occupy ‘reality’… not the illusions and distractions that entertain our culture, to occupy truth and fact and to dismantle the false arguments that sustainability is too hard – too expensive – too inconvenient.

The Scar next door (it is now 3 times bigger)

We wished to spend our month to speak truth to the failings of a growth based economy, corporate capitalism, greed, self-gratification, ecological destruction, political dysfunction, regulatory failure… all of which we can see from our roof.  We wouldn’t have to go far with our solar powered video camera to blog on it.  Just peak over the edge of our roof to see the thousands of trees gone on Goodwin Farms, and see what 10 months of dumptruck loads of fill look like (one day there was 120 dumptrucks, but even being conservative at 50/day for 8 months equates to 9600 loads of fill), entombing millions of life forms from bees, birds, fungi, ants, frogs, plants…  and the wetlands which is the local ground water recharge and spring mating ground for countless species; and this all being allowed under the watch and the rules and regulations of our municipality and province.  No Laws were being broken.  Well, the laws are wrong.  This is after all what land ownership means in our culture.

Nature has no rights…it is simply a thing enslaved to those with rights.  Here is a link to a Bioneers program talking about how 12 municipalities in the US have granted rights to nature.  http://www.bioneers.org/radio/series-archives/2010-series/earth-justice

Most of us could point to countless violations of nature which demonstrate the crazy extraction of anything, at any price for the benefit of a few, with the real cost yet to be paid.  Place these actions alongside the efforts for our community whose has produced a remarkable ICSP (Integrated Community Sustainability Plan) that is entirely aspirational… a great plan sitting on a shelf.  Here’s the link. http://www.highlands.bc.ca/sustainability/

Just imagining what Fox news north or the CBC would report on.  “Couple who recently completed building mud house, and whom compost their own BLEEP decide to move to their roof in December.”  The reality is that most of the country would just see the entertainment value of the two eco-freaks, unaware of the reason.  No impact, no information exchange… just two damp cold people more miserable than before, self abusing themselves for the entertainment of the sheeple (sheep people).

What are two conservation minded science nerds, with passions for local food, nature, solar technolgies,  policy, and green building supposed to do?  Well the first step is to not OCCUPY the roof, but rather OCCUPY ourselves.  You might argue that being occupied with a task, a project, will stop the ghosts from haunting you, and Chris Hedges would argue that it is merely more distraction supporting ones illusion… or delusion.  But what if you occupied yourself stirring the pot of Sustainability Soup.  What if you dreamt up a project that in its very concept would fit every aspect of the desires of the Municipal OCP and Sustainability reports, but broke all the “current” rules?  Now things are getting interesting.

Lower Garden Site (permaculture gardens and small Living Building Dwelling)

Imagine for a moment if two people decided to build an affordable dwelling on impacted land, where resources were shared between buildings and ecosystems, where the building needed no combustion for cooking or heating.  Where the house produced ALL of its own energy and water, with no waste, and that attached to the house was the creation of food gardens 10 times the floor area of the dwelling (also on damaged land).  What if this home like its parent (the Eco-Sense Home) had zero carbon footprint, and actually contributed to the community by providing local food, and the occupants could rely less on a car.  What if this building met all 7 petals of the Living Building Challenge, and the very creation of this building led to municipal policy changes to allow such.  Our home is about the reproduce!

Lets face it… a project such as this would make great media.  So pro-active, a model of extreme affordable modern sustainability, a model of all the concepts cities and towns are trying to implement, situated right here beside an ecological disaster.  See map.  Even better would be the stories if the project was stalled and thwarted by a political system that although supports it on paper, disallows it as it is not legal.

Ann and I have decided to push and drive policy by ‘doing’, in an attempt to create the most appropriate example of sustainable community land use planning in the CRD, with the limited funds, skills and knowledge we have at our disposal.  Surely enough if we can do it, then anyone with more means shouldn’t be scared of it.

The new policy we have written by the way… is derived from our idea of the Net Zero Zone, and rather than create a new zone, we have written a policy for an attachment to the property called the NZAD (Net Zero Additional dwelling).  The details of the policy are presented in this PDF. 20120103 NZAD letter

Humans are purveyors of myths to attach meaning to what at times seems meaningless.   We are entering a critical time symbolized and enshrined by the Northern Gateway and Keystone XL pipelines attaching the dirtiest of oils to the veins of the culture, pumping heroin into the addicted as our entire cultural myth is unraveled.  The criminal gang pushing this symbolizes all things wrong with our current cultural story.  It shines light on a political system that no longer functions as democracy but as a vehicle for corporations to achieve their desires to extract monies from all those whom have come to believe that money in its very existence is real rather than just a monetary concept that was designed as a tool of trade.  It exposes the huge dichotomy of power, politics and greed from ecology and natural systems, from which natural resources are ripped away.  The pipelines are the divining rod where first nations, climate scientists, fisheries, naturalists, natural capital economists, youth groups and small towns have a platform on which to unite and actually put their lives on the line against big environmentally irresponsible monsters.   This pipeline, the oil tankers on our coast, oil sands, climate change issue makes our blood boil….

The unraveling of our present myth, is lending to the beginnings of weaving new stories and new creation mythologies to provide new meaning to something that is now being exposed as having no meaning.  Excellent talk by Michael Mead here (Bioneers) http://www.bioneers.org/radio/series-archives/2010-series/why-the-world-doesn2019t-end

A few more links:
Chris Hedges – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zotYU21qcU

A great talk with Werner Simbeck about the radiation from Fukushema meltdown. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_iLsJhzZ7g

Charles Eisenstein (article and short video) on Sacred Economics. http://www.ianmack.com/charles-eisenstein-author-of-sacred-economics-coming-to-vancouver/

if we can't figure out how to live on this planet, nature will send us back to evolve some more

So there you have it.  Welcome to 2012.  It’s going to be very interesting watching much of our civilzation unravel and a new reality emerge.  We all play a role in what that new reality will look like.  Time to get busy…VERY busy.

We will be blogging regularly with our Progress on the NZAD.  Time line so far:

• Dec 3^rd, 2011 corresponded with Jason McLennon from the Living Building Challenge.  Jason is very excited and supportive.
• The process began on Jan 3^rd, 2012 when we officially sent our policy request (see link) into the district of Highlands.  We hope to be on the next council agenda.
• Jan 6^th, we met with Highlands building official.
• Jan 8^th we started resurrecting the old pond (for irrigation water and Net Zero water).
• Jan 11^th started preparing the lower garden site – extensive permacutlure gardens (we have rented a small bobcat)

We’ll keep you posted.

Quick notes:

• We will be presenting on solar energy on Feb 22^nd at 7pm at the Calib Pike Heritage site in the Highlands.  Judith Cullington (from Colwood) is also presenting.  All welcome.
• Newest Island Gals is out.  Ann’s writes on climate change, how bad it is, and what we can do about it.  see www.islandgals.ca to learn where you can pick up a complimentary copy.

Ann and Gord

Emerging Green Builder’s (Eco-Sense Presentation)

Greetings EGBs!

The new year is just around the corner and what better way to start it than with a night of EGB? This is a reminder about next week’s meeting.

Gord Baird from Eco-sense is going to give a presentation on the year long research project that the Bairds completed on their cob home. Eco-sense was one of the first buildings to be certified under the Living Building Challenge and has been called ‘the greenest home in North America’. On Thursday you will find out why.

The project involved extensive data collection throughout the home to track energy consumption and how the earthen walls perform compared to conventional construction. This was followed with a rigorous analysis to show how earthen construction vastly outperforms conventional building techniques. Please join us!

The research can be found on the Bairds’ blog:
http://ecosenseliving.wordpress.com/research/

The presentation will be about 30min long followed by Q&A, and then social time.

Burnside Gorge Community Centre
471 Cecelia Road
Thursday, January 5th, 7-9pm

Refreshments will be provided. Please BYOMug!

RSVP to egbvictoria@gmail.com

The Energy Diet Challenge…the winner is…

Our role as mentors to the six families has been an amazing journey;  we blogged, posted, tweeted and commented along with the six families chosen from across Canada in this national contest co-sponsored by Canadian Geographic and Shell Canada.

Kitchen-Kuiack Family - Yup, they won a new Toyota Prius Hybrid

After 3 months of intensive competition AND conservation the wining family has finally emerged.  The Kitchen-Kuiack family from the Yukon was able to learn, adjust, modify, and adapt their choices and routines to conserve an impressive amount of energy and water.

• Household Electricity:  34%
• Home heating (in a very cold climate): 33%
• Cooking fuel: 51%
• Transportation Fuel: 10%
• Water: 57%

All of this was achieved through simple inexpensive means.  The other 5 families also produced similar conservation numbers.  This goes to show that these levels of conservation are possible for most Canadian families.

From following all six families on their conservation journey, it was apparent that they were all having fun and growing closer as a family.  Conservation didn’t mean that they had to give up everything that was important to them…it just meant that they changed their habits, routines and programming.

The six motivated families did an amazing amount of dot connecting between energy, water, resources, packaging, toxic materials, biodiversity, nature, food, local economics, community, family, efficiency, phantom loads, task lighting, low flow, kWh, solar, re-cycling, re-using, second hand, homemade, embodied water, embodied energy, transportation, etc.

Gord and I are so proud of these families and feel honoured to have been able to share their journey.

Gilles Gagnier (Canadian Geographic), Currie Dixon (Yukon's Minister of the Environment), and Ashley Nixon (Shell Canada Ecologist)

We were also privileged to have worked with a great group of people from Shell Canada and Canadian Geographic and especially Lauren Mangion (eco-coach) from Conscious Homes in Calgary who did a fantastic job in designing the families journey.

We learned that regular people can conserve HUGE amounts of water and energy without giving up their quality of life…in fact they achieve a better quality of life as they develop closer relationships with their families, their communities, and the earth’s resources.

Now we know what IS possible…what are you waiting for?

All the stories and links are still available on the Canadian Geographic website.   Pick a family and follow all their posts/videos and their unique journey from the beginning to the last post.  Conservation alone won’t solve the climate crisis but it is a BIG step in the right direction.  You can also check out lots of information in the energy section and read all of the Eco-Sense posts.  Here are the links:

• Embodied Water
• Harnessing the Sun
• Building the Eco-Sense Home
• Off-The-Grid Chicken Coop – Eco-Sense Style
• Winterizing At Eco-Sense
• The Two P’s of Composting Toilets
• What’s a Solar Powered Kitchen in a Mud House Look Like Anyways?
• We Live In a MUD House…Are We Crazy?
• The Talk
• The Journey

Meet the Island Gals Sat/Sun Dec. 10-11

Meet the Island Gals Poster

Meet the Island Gals at the Last Chance Craft Fair in Sidney this weekend. I’ll be there on Sunday from 10-noon. Come on out and ask me questions about Green building and sustainable living…or just come to say Hi.

Pick up your Dec. issue of Islands Gals magazine…it will be hot off the press too!

Online facebook chat. All day Friday (Nov 25th)

Ann and Gord will be available to answer your questions on Green building, household conservation, and living more sustainably.

Link to facebook conversation.…start asking questions now and we will answer tomorrow.  Gord has started the conversation with a great question.

Also, from this morning an online forum we participated in.  Read the conversation here.

Greening Buildings and Homes.  Conversation on green buildings and how to make your home greener Thursday, November 24th at 12pm EST. Expert panelists include:

Ann and Gord Baird, creators of greenest home in Canada

Eden Brukman, Living Building Challenge

Jerry Yudelson, Yudelson Associated Green Building Consultants

Mark Hutchinson, Director of Green Building Programs

National online Chat with Ann and Gord – Nov. 24th

http://greatfutures.thestar.ca/posts/article/1128

On thursday Nov 24th at 9am PST Ann and Gord are part of an on line panel discussion.  Topic is “Greening Your Home”.  Tune in and ask questions of us or the two other panelists.

Island Gals, Interesting Links, and Energy Diet Articles

A few new links and articles to check out.

Island Gals Issue 2

Island Gals Magazine.  New magazine on Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands.  Pick it up current issue #3 free around your community.  Ann writes an article in Island Gals…here is the link to Ann’s article in Issue 2.    More on Island Gals coming soon.  

Canadian Geographic Energy Diet Challenge blog posts:

• Off-The Grid Chicken Coop, Eco-Sense Style.  Photos and videos
• Building The Eco-Sense Home.  Blog, photos and videos
• Entertaining blog posts by the SIX Canadian families on their personal journeys to reduce their energy and water use.  Very inspirational to follow along, comment, and vote daily for your favourite family.

Links to videos and stories we found interesting:  

• IEA (International Energy Agency) warns that we only have 5 years to make majors changes towards reducing greenhouse gases or we face runaway climate change  http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2011/11/09/iea-world-energy-outlook-climate-change.html
• Inspiring and helpful video to make sense of our planets predicament.  Joanna Macy here.  Three ten minute parts from 2009 Bioneers conference.
• Excellent Ted talk by Paul Stamets on natures fungal internet.  Even if you’re not a budding mycologist you will be inspired by what our partners the Fungi are doing to heal our world.   Ted Talk here
• Earthrise.   New online upbeat solutions documentary…each half hour episode has 3-4 inspirational stories/solutions.  SIX episodes are out.   Excellent!  Our new favourite show.
• Greenhouse gases rise by record amount. Levels of greenhouse gases are higher than the worst case scenario outlined by climate experts just four years ago.  Article in the Guardian
• Posting this one again.  Keynote by Gwynne Dyer to 2011 BC Power Smart convention.

A few new links…

Latest Blogs on Canadian Geographic website:

• Winterizing at Eco-Sense  http://energydiet.canadiangeographic.ca/main/page/winterizing-at-eco-sense-2011-10-24-19-10-21
• The Two P’s of Composting Toilets.  http://energydiet.canadiangeographic.ca/main/page/the-two-p-s-of-composting-toilets-2011-10-17-11-10-43

Other links to videos we found interesting: 

• Amy Goodman and Chris Hedges discussing the Occupy Movement  http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11961
• Keynote by Gwynne Dyer to 2011 BC Power Smart convention.     http://a4.g.akamai.net/f/4/79195/30s/smb2.download.akamai.com/79195/4000/5469/5478/7241/Lobby_2/default.htm

Eco-Sense Oct 2011 Email Update

Below is our Oct 2011 Eco-Sense update as sent out to our email list.  We now have over 400 people on our Eco-Sense list.  Many on this list are not active on facebook or twitter, so we send out an occasional update to keep in touch with folks.  Here it is.

Hey all,

Gord and I have been very active lately posting on our www.eco-sense.ca website/blog as well as getting a fair bit of press and magazine coverage.  Our blog has become our focus and the eco-sense.ca link will now take you there…the old website is of course still viewable from our blog (lower left hand side)

We have also been very active posting on Facebook and Twitter…yes we have broke down and now actually know what a tweet is.  Videos have also been consolidated and there is a video section on our blog… with links to all kinds of videos taken over the years and even in the last few weeks.  So, in light of all these changes, we thought it was time to send a quick email to our Eco-Sense list to keep you up to date.

News:

• Canadian Geographic magazine Oct 2011 edition is on news-stands now…a short snippet on us and our home, with two pages of photos, and the same for the Energy Diet Challenge families.
• Island Gals is a new magazine.  Ann has been writing an article for this quarterly publication.  You can pick it up where other such magazines can be found around town.  Oct issue (currently Free) has just hit the boxes and Ann’s article has been very well received so far.  Let us know what you think.
• Goldstream News Gazette - Losing Inches on a Carbon Wasteline – Highlands eco-gurus advise on national home energy contest by Charla Huber.  Discusses our involvement in the Canadian Geographic Energy Diet Challenge.
• Four recent posts on the Canadian Geographic Energy Diet Challenge Website
• What’s a Solar Powered Kitchen Look Like Anyways?  video blog
• We Live In a MUD House…Are We Crazy?
• The Talk
• The Journey Begins
• More video blogs just posted on our website in the video section and some photos of our newly completed Carbon Neutral Patio and cob oven built onto the earth sheltered Greenhouse.
• A couple articles from Quebec… on our method of building earthen floors…anyone read french?

On October 17th, from 7-9pm Gord is doing a presentation in Victoria on the research on our cob home for the BC Sustainable Energy Association.  Event is Free.  Check out the BCSEA events page for more details.

The Eco-Sense blog also has a new research section where the Cascadia Report, and the full Science report can be viewed and downloaded.

And finally a list of the interesting videos that we have encountered lately…the world is a very interesting place these days…if you have the time I highly recommend watching these videos.

Wade Davis speaks about BC…and BC Hydro…and the sacred headwaters.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGzDNfMumYU&feature=share

Keith Olbermann reads the concerns from the occupy walls street protesters  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8o3peQq79Q&feature=share

Chris Hedges on CBC news clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Covd7_O1ARE&feature=share

Helina Norberg TED talk from the producer of “The Economics of happiness” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r06_F2FIKM&feature=player_embedded

Dylan Ratigan’s  Awesome Rant…powerful   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qI_P3pxze5w

I am not Moving - making connections and seeing the parallels http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjfhOPCPJnE

And a short funny one that Gord filmed a few days ago…of Ann cooking dinner.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFZNh33t2ik&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

Our best to everybody,

Ann and Gord