Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Skills, sustainability and self-reliance links

I'll be adding these links to the left of the page over the next few days, but thought I'd share them here first.

Here's a new foraging link -- a free e-book about acorns, a wild edible found readily across North America.

You'll find out almost everything you want to know about preserving food here at the National Center for Home Food Preservation.

This was by far one of the most intriguing (and potentially dangerous) things I've come across in a while. I've only glanced through it. It's a .pdf guide about practicing medicine in austere conditions where appropriate technology and professional assistance are unavailable. (I'm no medical expert, so I'm certainly not recommending any of the info in that guide, which is full of disclaimers itself.)

Then there's Howtopedia -- the Wikipedia of practical skills, where users are invited to write articles to contribute to this self-described practical knowledge library.

Finally, here's a simple guide on how to make homemade cider vinegar.

2 comments:

adrian2514 said...

Hey! Thanks for all the great links. I had never heard of howtopedia.com, what a great site. I was browsing through a bunch of green websites and blogs and I came across yours and found it very interesting. There are a bunch of others I like too, like the daily green, ecorazzi and earthlab.com. I especially like EarthLab.com’s carbon calculator (http://www.earthlab.com/signupprofile/). I find it really easy to use (it doesn’t make me feel guilty after I take it). Are there any others you would recommend? Can you drop me a link to your favorites (let me know if they are the same as mine).

M said...

I check out ecorazzi from time to time for kicks. Some of my favourite sites include:

http://www.motherearthnews.com/
http://www.grist.org/
http://www.organicconsumers.org/
http://www.hugg.com/

I think I've linked to a few of these already (check out the links on the left of my blog) and most of the rest of the rest of the green sites I visit can be found there, as well.

I've tried taking a few of those carbon footprint tests. It's kinda funny how it almost always turns out, even though I bike and walk everywhere (I rarely even take the bus and maybe cab 3-4 times a year at most), I'm a vegan who eats next to no processed foods, I grow some of my own food in a little organic kitchen garden, I usually barter or buy pre-owned things rather than splurge on new items and I try to restrict my energy usage as much as possible (e.g. I kept my thermostat between 10 and 13C all winter). Many of the tests have some gaping holes in 'em that don't seem to take certain things into account that they should. It's tricky and I don't think that one's energy consumption can be all summed up in a handful of questions and answers; there are so many lifestyle choices that come into play. I mean, even bagging your lunch rather than eating at a cafeteria makes a huge difference when you add it up over a year (i.e. where you could end up with a sandwich in a hard plastic container wrapped in cellophane, a foam or non-recyclable coffee cup, plastic utensiles, etc.).