I just ran across an article on azstarnet.com about Kyle Young, a man that has built his own house, is an organic farmer, and is nearly self sustaining.

A pioneer in the natural-building movement that took off in the late ’70s, Young built his 600-square-foot home in Arivaca entirely from natural materials such as cob and bamboo, creating a weather-proof fortress that is both environmentally friendly and cost-effective.

“Most of the materials came from excavations at the building site,” says Young, now 54. “I just dug in and added a little bit of straw for reinforcement.”

[Read More]

This has been changed from April 17th to April 22nd.

This is a great opportunity to meet Mark Edwards, Milton Summerfeld, and Hu Qiang ASU Polytechnic’s leading researchers of Algae for use in biofuels. They will be talking about their research and giving a tour of their lab. Head over there and learn about what is looking to be one of the next generation feedstock of biofuels.

Arizona State University
Polytechnic
Tuesday 22 April 08
Cooley A at MU, 3 pm

Map

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Wrigley Lecture Series
The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery
April 9, 2008 4:40 pm
Arizona State University Tempe Campus, Neeb Hall

Drawing on the ideas from his groundbreaking new book, Tim Flannery presents a straightforward and powerful exploration of the connection between climate change, global warming, and human activity. He has a gift for making complex science understandable for a lay audience, through a deft use of imagery, analogy and common sense. But Flannery does not just tell his audience what is happening to our planet. He very clearly lays out a game plan for halting current warming trends and beginning the long, but entirely achievable project of reversing the damage we have done. His goal is to mobilize his listeners—both personally and politically—to recognize that we are all “weather makers” and that the only choice, both logically and ethically, is to begin to address this problem before it’s too late. More Info

Looks like valley cities are doing well to improve their environmental scores on Valley Forward’s report card. The city of Phoenix did particularly well scoring straight A’s. The report looks at city’s air, land use, transportation, and water. To see the report click here.

This is a really interesting documentary about working toward no waste, making products that are truly recyclable or compostable, buildings that respect the occupants and the land, and doing it in a way that is beneficial to business.

Man is the only creature that produces landfills. Natural resources are being depleted on a rapid scale while production and consumption are rising in na­tions like China and India. The waste production world wide is enormous and if we do not do anything we will soon have turned all our resources into one big messy landfill. But there is hope. The German chemist, Michael Braungart, and the American designer-architect William McDonough are fundamentally changing the way we produce and build. If waste would become food for the biosphere or the technosphere (all the technical products we make), produc­tion and consumption could become beneficial for the planet.

http://www.vpro.nl/