Sunday, April 15

 

Living Green

click here to listen (mp3 format)
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This week on noticing nature, our guests discuss sustainable living. Alan Weisman presented on Michigan Tech's campus on Thursday April 12. We were fortunate to catch an interview with him while he was here. This interview is pre-recorded. Merle Kindred will be live, in the studio.

The concept of Living Green may be seen as for only tree huggers, or even just as an unattainable pipe dream. As Paolo Lugari points out in Gaviotas!: A Village to Reinvent the World, the word utopia literally means 'no place.' What the story of Gaviotas continues to discuss is how a barren land in a war-torn Columbia has became a topia. We look forward to hearing from Alan Weisman about his experience being in this living laboratory, where Living Green has become a reality.

Merle Kindred, a Ph.D. Candidate in the Humanities Department at MTU, is dealing with communications issues that relate to energy use in the built environment. During the program, she will talk about sustainable living here in the Keweenaw and what is happening in India, from where she recently returned.

A special thanks to Katie Schalk of the Environmental Sustainability Committee for providing the Eco-News segment and to Joe Kaplan of Common Coast Research & Conservation for the local phenology update.

 

Guest Biographies

Alan Weisman,
author: Gaviotas!: A Village to Reinvent the World, copyright © 1998

Alan Weisman, who spent many months in Colombia researching this fascinating book about a successful experiment in ecologically symbiotic living, found a nation with a rich cultural heritage and a bio-diversity unsurpassed anywhere in the world. In 1994 Weisman was one of a team of journalists charged with documenting the search for solutions to the greatest social and environmental problems facing mankind. He took his quest to an unlikely locale: war-torn, drug-ravaged Colombia, where 25 years earlier a group of visionaries had decided to attempt the seemingly impossible -- to fashion a self-sustaining community in the harshest setting they could find: the Colombian hinterland, a desert-like plateau known as los llanos, or 'the flatlands'.

Thus was born the extraordinary community of Gaviotas, named for the river gull, one of 1,780 bird species found in Colombia.

Alan Weisman is an independent journalist who has written for numerous publications, including the Los Angeles Times Magazine. He also co-produced a series for National Public Radio on solutions to world environmental and social problems.

[from The Ecologist and Yes magazine]
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Merle Niemi Kindred

Merle Niemi Kindred is a Ph.D. candidate in Rhetoric and Technical Communication at Michigan Technological University. She has family roots in the Copper Country that date back to great grandparents who settled in Atlantic Mine in 1900, but left for Saskatchewan in 1912. Merle was born in Toronto, Ontario, and raised in Warren, Michigan. She has served as a VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) Volunteer in the U.S. Virgin Islands and as a CUSO (Canadian University Service Overseas) Volunteer in Jamaica. Merle also trained teachers for six years in the Bahamas.

Merle and her late husband, Garfield F. (Skip) Kindred, moved to the Copper Country in 1998 to the passive solar, super insulated home Skip designed as their home and architectural studio. Merle is heavily immersed in both academia and activism as she attempts enlightenment on energy-related issues and empowerment of individuals both in North America and abroad to effect positive global change.

[from KeweenawNow]
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From Merle's notes:

Step It Up national effort initiated by writer Bill McKibben with local activity to inspire citizens to push the government to reduce carbon emissions by at least 80% by 2050 in real action to address climate change - forum and Pinwheel Parade on the 14th starting at Good Shepherd Church in Houghton (organized by Anne Newcombe)

Katie Alvord encouraging individual effort for Step It Up (www.stepitup2007.com)

Tuesday the 17th at 7:00 p.m. at Lakeview Manor, part II of community forum with local experts on saving energy in our homes (organized by Citizens of Progressive Change and the Keweenaw Sustainability Project)

Next weekend (21st - 22nd) Green Festival '07 in Chicago at McCormick Place/Lakeside - 350 exhibits at 150 speakers on sustainable economy, ecological balance, and social justice (sponsored by Global Exchange and Co-op America) [www.greenfestivals.org] Green Festival in Washington, DC last October and San Francisco in November

MREA Renewable Energy and Sustainable Living Fair, June 15-17 in Custer, WI - 18th Annual Fair - oldest and largest fair in the country - FUN! [www.the-mrea.org]

HFHI site on CCHFH homes in the UP [www.habitat.org/env] (Spring 2006)

Homes Across America - CCHFH S. Range house [www.homes-across-america.org]

 

Opportunities to Learn and Help Change Our World for the Good

 

more related Links

◊ Friends of Gaviotas
◊ excerpts from Gaviotas, Yes magazine
◊ book review of Gaviotas from planeta.com
◊ book review of Gaviotas from The Ecologist
◊ Other books from Alan Weisman

◊ Michigan Case Study Series on the Kindred home
◊ MTU Lode on the Kindred home

◊ SustainableLiving.org
◊ BuildingGreen.com
◊ additional links from University of Missouri-Columbia

◊ book review:

Animal Passions and Beastly Virtues
by Mark Bekoff.
Bekoff is Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder. His work on animal behavior is said to be for both scientists and non-scientists. Jane Goodall wrote the forward for this book.

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