I’ve been mentioning my new project at the 10News Ranch a lot lately. I harvest rainwater and reuse it in my gardens and orchards for irrigation. Here is a video we produced when I installed the system a while back http://www.10news.com/video/13679766/index.html
The practice of harvesting the rain is as old as mankind. In modern times we [...]

I’m trying to save money again and I think I’m living more sustainably as a result. Being a news junkie, I usually have news coming at me from the TV, papers, magazines, and the Web during every waking hour. The economic news is wearing on me, so I’m working hard to be frugal. Each time [...]

My mind has been active this week with several items from chickens to laundry as a life lesson and chocolate macaroons.
Dear Mayor Sanders,
I know you’re busy and what I’m about to suggest may not rise to the level of urgent business to you, but often big problems are best solved with many smaller solutions. That [...]

…but it is way too easy to tell people you’re green, and that’s the problem. Green sells, so businesses understandably want to sell their green-ness. Advertisers know many of you as consumers want to have less impact on the environment, so they tell you they are green. They spend millions creating that image of a [...]

As an environmentalist, I’ve struggled with being a meat eater. Like most Americans, my mouth waters at the thought of a grilled steak. I can’t get enough sushi and I find it hard to walk away from lamb chops, carnitas, grilled salmon, baked ham, and my daughter’s incredible Mediterranean chicken recipe. If it moos, oinks, [...]

Melting ice caps, stronger hurricanes, more frequent wildfires, aren’t these the things scientists warned about if we failed to address our contribution to climate change?
Here we are in Santa Ana season again and our hills and valleys are drier than ever. Brush fires are growing out of proportion to the wind pushing them along. Our [...]

It’s painfully obvious our 401K savings will not be growing anytime soon, and for many of us holding on to every spare penny seems like a darned good idea right now, so saving money wherever we can is essential. One good idea is to reuse things we’ve too often thrown out. For example, now is [...]

For eight years Federal regulations have been tumbling down. The consensus from all those stern-faced analysts is that we may be in for very hard times ahead as a result. My retirement account is down 18 percent this year. Yours probably is too. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t know very much about the economy, [...]

The Zogby polling done this past summer shows that 3 out of 4 Americans support offshore oil drilling, so I guess congressional Democrats had no choice but to cave and allow a 25-year-old moratorium on Atlantic and Pacific coast offshore drilling to expire next week. NOW they finally follow the will of the people?
My question [...]

Worldwide, water war is a term getting wider use. It describes what some people believe are an increasing number of armed conflicts over drinking water and irrigation water. The UN reports that within 50 years 3 billion people could be facing water shortages. These will likely be flash points for water wars. The most effected [...]