Kathleen Draper, a climate change activist has constructed a 1,500-square-foot, three-bedroom straw bale home that she said will help reduce global warming and keep her comfortable in the harshest New York winter. “I call it my ‘dwelling on drawdown’ project,” she said, referring to the future point at which the atmosphere’s greenhouse gas levels stop … Read more
Root cellars are great to help preserve some produce through the winter. When most people think of a root cellar, they picture a large underground room, often with an entrance somewhere in the yard separate from the house. But building a root cellar requires space and resources that are not always available to homeowners. Here … Read more
Old churches offer both spiritual and historic value. I’ve visited several in the American Southwest that are worth commenting about. The first is the San Francisco de Asis Church in Taos, New Mexico, which was started by the Franciscans in the late 1700s and completed in 1816. This adobe building is now a National Historic … Read more
The City of Cape Town, South Africa is using recycled materials to construct a new multipurpose center at the Helderberg Nature Reserve. The center, due to be completed by June 2021, has a horse-shoe shape and faces the Helderberg mountain. The Helderberg Nature Reserve will provide benefits include education, recreation, tourism, job creation and skills … Read more
The Mishings, a tribal community of Assam, India, are a rare group that has escaped the stifling economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. “We didn’t feel the economic pressures,” says Pabitra Mili. What came to the community’s rescue is the revival of an ancient food-forest practice generally known as agroforestry, where trees, shrubs, herbs and … Read more
Greensburg, a farming community in southwestern Kansas with a population of 900 rebuilt “green” after a tornado barreled through at more than 200 miles per hour and nearly wiped it off the map in 2007. Now Greensburg gets all of its electricity from a wind farm, has an energy-efficient school, medical center, city hall, library, … Read more