Couple of cool things to view
Dr. Mercola has a health focus web site setup that also has a weekly (or greater) newsletter that gets sent out. I'm just now getting to the one from Thursday and there were some really cool things in it.
The first had a link to a Harper's Magazine article titled, "The Next Bubble: Priming the markets for tomorrow’s big crash". It's a long read concentrating on economics, but it's very well written and explains why we have this boom / bust cycle of economics in the U.S.
The second was a TED video that spoke about living in harmony with the earth. In the talk was a mention about something I'd never heard of before, permaculture. Basically permanent agriculture. Instead of thinking we have to bend nature to our will, we work with it. In the video the speaker mentions a visit he had to a farm that practiced this and how the farmer would have the cows graze a plot of land so that the grass was really short, he'd herd them out and 3 days later bring in chickens. He waited 3 days for the maggots in the cow manure to get fat, to be food for the chickens. As the chickens moved around they spread the manure around, added their own, and suddenly the grass had instant fertilizer. The grass would grow like crazy so the next ruminant could eat it. I really really really love a self-sustaining ecosystem like that.
In other, somewhat related, news. I think I may have figured out how to not use my air conditioner. I've tried this before but in the summer I tried it I simply couldn't tolerate the house getting to 86 degrees. So I'm trying again this year because I'm determined to not use the A/C. Both for saving money and in some way helping the planet.
I'm walking around the house practically nekkid, which is required because the house still warms up a good bit, and it actually got to the unbearable 86 degree temperature last night. The fact that it was so cool outside but absolutely baking inside led me to -- what I hope will be -- the final solution. Open up the attic door. Give a place for the warm air in the house to escape. I did that last night and I was amazed at how cool it was up there, even though it was baking in my house.
So today it's been open the whole day and I noticed the temperature in the house rise to 84 before going down to 83 and then 82! Hopefully this means by just leaving my windows and attic door open all summer long I can get away with not turning on the A/C.