I sometimes come across the idea "Hey, let's start a green wiki!" I sometimes see an alternative thought - one with a lot more promise of making an impact: "Let's see if someone's doing a green wiki already."

Many people have started green wikis - and like wikis on all subjects, most of them wither before they can take off. There are a bunch of ( Read more... )

The Appropedia Blogs are now active - so most of my development, sustainability and appropriate technology related  blogging will be there from now on.

There's still some tweaking to do, though - putting in the open license notices, and making the layout of links more like the Appropedia wiki.  Then to make the Appropedia wiki's skin more like the ( Read more... )

I swam in Lake Ontario today. Good time of year for it - while the water is in liquid form.

Beautiful spot here in Kingston. It's good meeting Joshua Pearce (who teaches at Queens University) face-to-face at last, and talking about sustainability, appropriate technology and all that, and ways to get collaboration happening in a much bigger way. And ( Read more... )

Green home designs that cost less than traditional housing - simple changes make such a difference. Especially passive solar design, which also makes for a much more pleasant and comfortable place to live in.

That's real sustainability.

Received an email from the founder of a fairly prominent UK organization, devoted to practical action for sustainability. The query was whether Appropedia was a suitable place to work collaboratively  on a book, which would later be published.

While we'd love to have this content, there are some reasons it may not be an acceptable solution for them ( Read more... )

Crazy to flush with fresh, clean water, right? Use the water from washing your hands: Wash n Flush. (Huggs, and Stumbles welcome!)



( Read more... )

Plan a trip by public transport: Google Transit's on 4 continents now, and just added some more cities. In Australia, they do Perth so far.

( Read more... )

An (overdue) article from The Guardian describes how "food miles" is not a very useful concept.
- hat tip to
( Read more... )

I've mentioned Appropedia, the wiki for sustainability, appropriate technology and international development. I've just discovered that another green wiki has been started, at Green Options. I have mixed feelings about this. It's great when people want to do something, and a wiki is a fantastic way to collaborate, to pool our knowledge.

But the ( Read more... )