File under WTF?

There must be more to this story (the article does suggest s0), but a City bringing a lawsuit because a guy does not need trash service anymore? I can understand the requirement for trash pick-up, but only to prevent unsanitary conditions - which if they can establish should just lead to fines.

A man who claims to have reduced his waste to nearly nothing out of concern for the environment now faces a lawsuit from San Carlos for canceling his garbage-collection service.

Eddie House, 53, says he was shocked when he was served with a lawsuit Sunday at his Cedar Street home.

The lawsuit, filed by San Carlos Deputy City Attorney Linda Noeske in San Mateo Superior Court on Jan. 22, seeks a permanent injunction forcing House to maintain garbage service. City officials are also seeking to recoup from House the costs of the lawsuit.

The lawsuit claims House broke the city’s municipal code requiring all residential, commercial and industrial properties to contract with Allied Waste for pickup at least once a week — a standard requirement in most cities, San Carlos Deputy City Manager Brian Moura said.

I like food

I've been doing some research into how other people have done the whole veggie+locavore thing, and it turns out, they don't. I googled vegetarian locavore, veggie locavore, veggie localvore, etc. and got jack squat, other than one locavore blogger saying, "Being a Vegetarian-Locavore is really freaking hard. I really feel for Mike" and another saying "There is nothing easy about being a vegetarian locavore." Plus, most everyone doing the locavore thing and having a website about it seem to live in either California or the mid-Atlantic states. The farthest north I've found (or Elliott found, actually) are the "Upper Valley Localvores" in New Hampshire/Vermont who seem to be eating nothing but carbs and meat right now.

I have to say I'm a little surprised at how little overlap there is between the veggie people and the locavore people-- you'd think they're all cut from the same animal-loving hackysack-playing quinoa-eating cloth, right? Or is that just me?

We're quickly running out of non-USA non-organic food from before the contract set in and I'm really not looking forward to when I run out of rice noodles (I usually keep 3 kinds), or Japanese soup noodles, or curry powder, or any Asian sauce for that matter.

Salt

So.... we're running low on salt in the house. I don't normally use salt-- it's either soy sauce or vegetable bouillon, or I omit salt altogether. But occasionally that's not an option. Like, sweet potato fries. Anyways, this really causes a problem because, to my knowledge, there's no such thing as organic salt, since it's mined. And although there is "local" salt from the Maine Sea Salt Company, this stuff sells for $6/8oz bag, which is a whole lot more than Morton's. So I'm curious-- assuming they don't live on the coast, do locavores have to omit salt?

There are clubs for shoes now?

I was browsing the Maine Switch's website for something to do tonight and I found this below. Seriously?!?!

Hello Stiletto Shoe Club meeting
When: Friday, January 25, 2008 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.
Where: Wine Bar at Wharf Street; 38 Wharf Street Portland, ME 04101
Who:
207-878-0175
www.shoeclub.us/

Cost: Free

Category: Special Events

Description: The Hello Stiletto Shoe Club is a free social networking club for shoe lovers to meet and wear their favorites. Shoe contest will be held!

Green-collar jobs?

I missed the last debate (uh, and most of them so far), but apparently "green-collar" jobs were mentioned as a way improve the economy and the environment. See here for what it all means.

Creating enough green-collar jobs to beat global warming and create real economic opportunity for those who most need it is a tall order. It will require a major transformation of the American economy, and we must be clear about the terms of this transition. Only then will we have a yardstick to measure real progress against exciting rhetoric.

Confessions, Round 1

Hmm, so time for some admissions of contract-breaking over the past week. First, I asked Elliott to drive me to work (<2 miles) on Friday morning after I ventured out, walked about 15 feet, and realized you can't see sidewalk ice when it's actively raining. Second, while at the Whole Foods we bought some halvah made in Canada. It's a middle eastern dessert made from Tahini and honey that my sister introduced me too. The pre-packaged kind sucked, which I serves us right for buying Canadian. Second, Elliott picked up Primal Strips veggie jerky which was (a) an impulse purchase, and (b) made in Taiwan!

Wood v. Oil

I like the contrast in these two headlines:

"Environment Be Damned, Oil Prices Spark Wood Sales" (Bloomberg, Nov 21)

Burned by high oil prices, Mainers warm to wood (Portland Press Herald, lead story today).

The Press-Herald story starts with the line "The warm glow of a wood fire has rarely felt so good," and puts forth this novel theory:

"...wood does not contribute to global warming the way oil and coal do.

Burning wood does release carbon dioxide, a gas that traps heat in the atmosphere. But the carbon in trees is part of the natural cycle and is, in theory, taken up by new trees. Burning fossil fuels, on the other hand, releases carbon that has been buried deep in the earth."

Um, I'd like to see some evidence to back that up. Especially when the Bloomberg article states that "the typical wood stove emits as much as 350 times more pollution than an oil furnace."