We recently had the privledge to make a video about Rainforest Action Network, the non-profit envrionmental change maker. We first met Julie Wolk, RAN Grassroots Organizer, at the Bioneers Conference. Julie explained that RAN works to hold corporations accountable for their environmental practices through an ‘inside-outside’ approach to activism. Having protesters outside a store or shareholders meeting helps to put the pressure on, having a contact meeting directly with CEOs on the inside helps get the demands met, both creating space for each action to make real change.

We were super impressed and moved by the passion and dedication that everyone we interviewed in the organization has. They’ve made incredible changes and continue to train and empower the next generation of environmental activists to get engaged and tell corporations that ‘business as usual is just not OK’.

We’ve been working on this for a few months, going through their extensive video archive, gathering interviews and trying to bring 20 years of RAN’s work into the spotlight. All media in the video (music, photos and original interview footage) is Creative Commons licensed. Thanks to everyone at RAN for letting us come in and document your work!

On our way across the country to Virginia (our new home!), we stopped by Erik Nelson’s place in Vermont to help tear down a barn. He’s salvaging the wood to build a house on his land. Very exciting and a lot of hard work. Check out the video Jay made and the Wreck and Salvage post to see how they actually tore the structure down.

We’ll be more settled soon, so there will be more posts…I promise!

P.S. Check out our new post office!

As some of you might remember, we traversed through T or C last year and taped a bunch with Mikey and Wendy of Green Acre Hotsprings. On our way over to Virginia, we have stopped by again to catch up and meet some new folks hacking out here in the desert. The photo above is us taping an interview with Asher, who sells biodiesel and WVO (waste vegetable oil) for fuel in Mimbres, NM. He also has an off the grid household with solar power, a humanuare outhouse, a greywater system and a newly planted food garden.

We also got Mikey hooked on No Knead Bread and he’s successfully cooked two batches in his kick ass solar oven. I was incredibly skeptical of the solar oven at first, but when i saw it jump from 0-300 degrees in about 10 minutes, I was sold.

We are excited to post all our videos from our cross country trip as soon as we get settled in our new home. Stay tuned!

photos by Mikey Sklar

p.s. sorry no video this time! soon, soon

We had the privilege of attending a very hands on greywater workshop courtesy of The Greywater Guerillas, a local Bay Area crew of experts who are passionate about teaching folks to use their water (twice) wisely. Greywater is water that has been used once in your home and only contains a little soap, dirt (from laundry or skin) or kitchen particles like food or grease. Unlike blackwater, which is water that has touched excrement, like toilet water, greywater is safe to use in watering your garden. As Laura Allen, co-editor of the book Dam Nation: Dispatches from the Water Underground, and our amazing instructor points out in this video:

You don’t want to put the greywater onto the part of the plant that you’re going to eat…if you get the water going into the ground, there are no more health risks than would be [associated with the regular dirt in your garden]. So you want to get the greywater into the ground soaking down to irrigate the roots of your plants.

We were able to do just this in home owner Tara’s backyard. We replaced her kitchen sink pipe with a 3 way valve giving her the choice to send her sink water back to the sewer or out to the greywater system of pipes and mulch basins surrounding four fruit trees. The system was relatively simple and inexpensive. Total price was $200 for all new pipes which included a $60 top of the line 3 way valve, a bunch of 2 way splitters and under a hundred feet of piping. If you live close to a salvage yard or are savvy on Freecycle or Craigslist you can get these materials for way cheaper or even free.

Laura touches on some of the legality of systems like this:

California has a greywater code so greywater theoretically is legal…some states have no code so greywater is not legal. In California, you have the potential to do greywater…that said, the code that’s written down for greywater is very, very wasteful, it’s very bad, most people don’t follow it. In California most people have unpermitted systems which are…technically illegal, just as building anything unpermitted is technically illegal.

There are a few states, like Arizona, that encourage safe and resourceful greywater systems like the one we built here. So find out what your state allows before cutting into your pipes. But if you’re like these Californians and your state codes are no good, you’ll want to find some greywater experts to consult and keep in touch with to help change the codes for better.

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Technorati Tags: graywater, green, greywater guerillas, greywayter, ryanishungry, san francisco

Jamais Cascio is all about solutions. He considers himself an ethical futurist- one who designs and executes resilient and sustainable solutions that will not adversely effect present and future generations. On his blog, OpenTheFuture.com, Jamais writes about three cornerstone issues that will make or break this planet: Global Warming, Global Poverty and Nanotechnology. As he explains in this video

All of these are intrinsically connected. If you are to succeed in any one of them, you have to deal with the others…everything is connected. Fortunately, the solutions are connected as well…As these concepts become more commonplace, what happens is they disappear into the woodwork. They really become expectations.

By Co-Founding the site WorldChanging.com (also check out the beautiful World Changing Book), Jamais is helping to make these solutions part of the planetary problem solving vocabulary.

Big Thanks to Lisa Rein for connecting us and letting us take over her apartment for the interview!

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Technorati Tags: jamais cascio, worldchanging, open the future, futurist, ryanishungry, nanotechnology, san francisco

Yep, it’s true. We’re moving back across the country to the mountains of Virginia. You might remember our video about recycled paper insulation that we were installing at Jay’s dad’s garage in Virginia…well, that’s the place! We’re excited to continue to learn more about living a sustainable life and we plan to keep documenting this process on Ryan Is Hungry. We also plan to take our mini-documentaries of other folks hacking the sustainable lifestyle to another level. Thanks for the year of total awesomeness. We’ve learned so much from all of you, thanks for following us and contributing back to the conversation!

As Jay and I prepare for a big move back to the East Coast (Rural Virginia/DC area to be exact-we’re officially bi-coastal now!), we’re dispersing most of our possessions back into the world via Craigslist, Freecycle and Etsy. Yep, we’re moving again. We still love the SF Bay area and the San Mateo Eco-Village very much, but we’re feeling the need to start building something of our own. Jay’s dad has land in Virginia that is the perfect spot to put to use what we’ve learned this past year about gardening and sustainable building (thanks to all of you and this here blog!). What a perfect time to re-visit the Swap-O-Rama-Rama video! More to come about the move…
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You might recognize Wendy Tremayne from our Green Acre Series here on RyanIsHungry. Wendy founded Swap-O-Rama-Rama as a way to break out the consumer cycle of shopping for clothes. Utilizing the abundance that just a few people’s closets can bare, adding a little creativity with fancy sewing machines and silkscreen artists for custom modifications, Swap-O-Rama-Rama makes recycling clothes fun and social. This particular swap was part of Maker Faire, an event to celebrate makers of all kinds from robot artists to crafters to computer hackers.

As Wendy says here:

There is no creativity in consumerism…makers don’t make good consumers. The less you know, the less you can make, the more you’re going to buy.

Want to produce a Swap-O-Rama-Rama where you live? You can! Because it’s Creative Commons licensed! Contact Wendy through the site and she’ll get you started!

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Technorati Tags: swaporamarama, wendy tremayne, clothing swap, recycle clothes, recycling, green, sustainable, gift economy, maker faire, san francisco, ryanishungry

Right now, Jay and I are touring Europe- basically we’re couch hopping at videobloggers’ houses! We took a short detour and stayed in a hostel in Edinburgh, Scotland. One of the cool things about this hostel was its energy conserving light systems (besides these LEDs, they had motion sensor hallway lights that were only on when you walked through!). This LED halogen replacement was super cool. LEDs have very low wattage, so they use a ton less electricity than even fluorescents- compare .5-2w to the average 13-20w fluorescents or 40-100w incandescents. They also are said to have an almost infinite life span. I think we’re going to be seeing a lot more of these in the future. Philips, one of the major light bulb manufacturers, just recently bought some LED technologies for future(istic) integration. The only issues are that LEDs are super focused, meaning they don’t spread light like other bulbs; they keep light kind of funneled and focused like a spot light. The other issue is that they tend be a more cold, blue color, rather than the pleasant warm glow of incandescents and the newer fluorescents. Hopefully LEDs will start to evolve into warmer hues and eventually replace the energy sucking lights we have now. I was really excited to see this light in use as a little reading light!

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Technorati Tags: LED, halogen, scotland, energy, green, ryanishungry

Alemany Farm is a 4 acre, fully functioning urban farm nestled between a major highway intersection, a newly gentrified neighborhood on a hill and a housing project- the perfect place to grow some food! We got a tour (and some amazing fruit) from Antonio Roman-Alcalá, Volunteer Coordinator and soon to be videoblogger/documentarian extraordinaire. The work being done at Alemany Farm proves the point that urban farming and local food production is totally possible and necessary for the health and well being of a city and its inhabitants. Local farming and gardening are great motivators for people to get acquainted, eat more healthily and become more connected with where their food comes from and what it actually is (olives grow on trees? broccoli is a flower?). If you live in the SF Bay area, you can visit or volunteer at Alemany Farm on the weekends- check out AlemanyFarm.org.

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Technorati Tags: alemany farm, urban farming, food security, urban gardening, gardening, san francisco, green, ryanishungry

Ever since we started living in a place were every square inch is growing something useful (to people and other creatures), our eyes are opened to the possibility of transforming lawns and other unused green space to grow food. Why water a lawn full of grass when you could water and grow salad greens, root veggies, herbs, squash, tomatoes, peppers, the list goes on and on. In this video we used some scrap wood to build a raised garden bed over a 7′x7′ patch of driveway gravel. Not only do we pluck the greens for dinner, it looks a lot nicer than the dumping ground of found materials that it once was. If every neighborhood had even a few lawns turned into gardens, we could start hyper-localizing our food supplies and getting to know our neighbors- because, after all, you’re going to want to trade gardening tips!

Correction: Thanks to Nicole who commented below that this garden bed is 49 sq feet (or 4.5 sq m), not 14 sq feet (which would be 7+7 not 7×7, duh). Thanks Nicole!

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Technorati Tags: urban permaculture, gardening, food security, urban farming, san mateo eco village, ryanishungry

You might remember from our Stone Soup video that our little eco-village has started to cull our chicken flock to make room for new birds. For the last 2 months we’ve been learning what it takes to be mother hens and raise two dozen newly hatched chics. Jay and I grew up in urban areas where there were no chickens but in the grocery store, so this was a learning experience for us both. These babies need tons of food, water and warmth because they grow exponentially in their first months of life. The benefits of having chickens in your backyard are many- they eat veggie food scraps and weeds, they poop instant fertilizer, they lay eggs and, if you’re into it, they’ll eventually make a great organic, free range, home raised meal.

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Technorati Tags: chickens, chics, raising chickens, san mateo eco-village, food security, ryanishungry

Bryant Terry, co-author of the book GRUB: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen, and Jason Harvey, founder of Oakland Food Connection, teamed up recently to have a totally organic soul food brunch. Hanging out with food justice foodies as of late, we’ve been hearing a similar idea that to encourage folks to think about where their food comes from and who controls it, they have to have a taste of ‘real food’. Real food meaning local, sustainable, fresh, no pesticides, delicious, colorful, home grown and cheap. Yes, this food can be affordable, especially if we’re not paying extra for it to get shipped thousands of miles and for the medical bills we will incur because of the processes and chemicals that will eventually make us sick and over weight. Thanks Bryant and Jason for inviting us over!

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Technorati Tags: grub, bryant terry, jason harvey, food party, food justice, organic, oakland food connection, ryanishungry

I’m so sick of getting my utility bill and seeing that a huge majority of my money goes to pay for energy from Natural Gas and Nuclear (and in many places in the US, Coal). I want my money to go towards renewables and I’m not the only one. Many communities, including San Francisco and Oakland are petitioning and passing legislation for more choice in their energy purchasing. The movement is called Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) or Community Choice Energy. This type of legislation would not take down big corporations like PG&E, but would work with their existing infrastructure to deliver energy from sources chosen by the community. This would allow citizens to put their money towards more sustainable and renewable options and not have to wait around for the private companies to decide when to start investing in these technologies. As you’ll hear Rory Cox of PacificEnvironment.org say:

PG&E gets about half of its electricity from domestically sourced natural gas. The plan that PG&E is pushing right now is to import natural gas from abroad…most likely…from the former Soviet Union and The Middle East. It would require a whole brand, new fossil fuel energy infrastructure. We’d rather see those billions spent on clean energy.

When will it end? When will companies stop thinking that it is ok to continue to invest in finite resources? When communities stop relying on them to make energy choices for the people. For more info on Community Choice Aggregation, check out Local Clean Energy and Local Government Commission’s CCA page.

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Technorati Tags: Community Choice Aggregation, Community Choice Energy, Bay Localize, Pacific Environment, Oakland, ryanishungry

Neelam Sharma is the Programs Director for CSU, Community Services Unlimited, an organization empowering South Central Los Angeles residents to eat and grow healthy food. The “Food Not Lawns” attitude towards neighborhoods, I must admit, is infectious. After hanging out with urban and suburban farmers in the last year, we see people watering grass and we gasp. What a waste! CSU encourages and empowers folks to start thinking this way by teaching backyard gardening and reclaiming un-used urban space for food production. Check out their other projects in our previous video ‘Community Services Unlimited: Rocking LA with Food and Beauty‘.

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Technorati Tags: community services unlimited, south central los angeles, south LA, urban gardening, urban farming, food justice, ryanishungry

We first met the Community Services Unlimited folks at the Just Us For Food Justice Bioneers day. They told us we should come check out their work in community gardening in South Central LA. How could we not? These folks are on the front lines of urban gardening in an LA neighborhood most famous for violence. The work they have done transforming empty lots and street abutting school yards into luscious, cornucopias of food and beauty is awe inspiring. They hold weekly workshops at each garden site to get folks involved and to taste goodies from the garden as well as local farmers’ wares. In an area of town where the only food resources tend to be liquor stores and fast food joints, CSU is a welcome addition empowering residents to grow their own and take action for food justice.

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Technorati Tags: community services unlimited, south central los angeles, south LA, urban gardening, urban farming, food justice, ryanishungry

As you might remember, we made a new worm bin after our original bin failed. This new one is doing great! The drainage holes in the bottom have helped keep it moist but not too wet, the shallow shape allows the worms to get to everything faster and the blending of food scraps allows the worms to eat right away. Today we harvest all the rich vermicompost (soil) and sprinkle it into one of our garden beds. Potted plants also LOVE this stuff. I’ve brought back to life more than one of our failing ferns with a scoop of nutrient rich vermicompost. Why buy chemically fertilizer when you can use worm poop?

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Technorati Tags: vermicompost, worm compost, worm bin, apartment composting, compost, garden, ryanishungry

Recently, Jay’s dad started building on some property he owns in Rural Virginia. The first structure built was the garage/workshop. Jay and I were eager for the chance to try out some green building materials as an alternative to the usual stuff. Before traveling over to the east coast for Turkey Day, we did some research along side his pops about what the cheapest, most green insulation material could be used (which could also be purchased at a major box store near by). We found that Recycled Paper Cellulose was the least expensive material you could buy, at 25 cents per sq. foot and it is available through most building material suppliers. The alternatives were ‘The Pink Stuff’, fiberglass rolls at about 50 cents per sq. foot. I was wary of using fiberglass because of its notorious itch inducing particles that will irritate not just your skin, but your lungs as well! If the particles ever become loose and get into your ventilation system, this can mean big trouble for your internal organs and cancer fighting immune system. Another recycled and mostly benign insulator are the trendy new denim rolls. These are made from recycled scraps from jean manufacturers. This was my top choice until I did a price check. This stuff goes for $1.00 per sq. foot. Yikes!

The price factor is still top priority when you have to build, those square feet can add up fast. And when you’re trying to convince a retiring baby boomer to go green even though it costs 4 times as much, they’re gonna laugh and buy the usual ‘Pink Stuff’. So we were happy to find an alternative that was cost effective and recycled. The only downside was the actual packaging of the material. It came in plastic bags, which most of you know, drive me crazy and can not be easily recycled or degraded. A would love to see this company really pull through and start packaging the product in, you guessed it, recycled paper!

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Technorati Tags: cellulose insulation, insulation, green insulation, green building, virginia, ryanishungry

We met Allstar Organics co-founder, Janet Brown, during the Just Us For Food Justice Bioneers day up in Marin. I really liked what she had to say about the impending crisis that is climate change and the small scale human solutions through the food we eat. I liked it so much, I thought I should share her interview as it’s own separate post. Thanks Janet!

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Technorati Tags: allstar organic farm, organic, farm, garden, marin, janet brown, ryanishungry

Just Us for Food Justice is a youth track of the Food and Farming program at The Bioneers Conference that happens annually in Marin County, California. We had the privilege of hanging out with this crew of folks who came from as far as Costa Rica and as close as Oakland. The day included a trip to Allstar Organics Farm, the Marin Farmer’s Market and the Marin Youth Center’s incredible kitchen for the cooking of a feast of epic proportions and local, organic origins. Each group of participants is involved in helping resolve issues of food justice and equality in their neighborhoods back home. They came together this day, to share stories and experiences over a plate of home cooked, healthy food in preparation for Bioneers weekend. Thanks to the folks at Bioneers for letting us join them!

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Technorati Tags: bioneers, food justice, organic, farm, marin, farmers market, ryanishungry

When I was little, my best friend’s family never dried their clothes in their dryer but on a clothes line or indoor rack next to the radiators. In my house, we did use a dryer. I never understood their reasoning until now. Why use all that electricity or gas when you can just hang your clothes out in the sun (or partial sun in my case)? This is how it’s been done for thousands of years before the industrial revolution, so why change? According to the US Dept of Energy an electric dryer can use between 1800-5000 watts of power. That’s a lot of electricity! Even if you supplement your dryer usage by hanging stuff out half the time, you’d be saving a bunch of money and resources. So that’s what we’ve decided to do. It’s even catching on among our fellow eco-villagers - every time I walk by the line, it’s got someone else’s clothes on it! Thanks to Rhett and Amy at Greentime for the inspiration!

P.S. Check out Project Laundry List for more info on communities coming together to end laundry line bans. Isn’t that nutty? Drying clothes on a line is illegal in a lot of places!

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Technorati Tags: clothes line, laundry line, clothes, electricity, conservation, energy, green, san mateo, ryanishungry

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A Word of Warning: This is a graphic video. If you do not eat meat and think killing animals to do so is bad, you should not watch this video.

We live at The San Mateo Eco-Village, where we know our neighbors, garden together and learn how to live more sustainably. Part of living sustainably is eating local foods. Harvesting food from the garden and raising hens for eggs is about as local as you can get. When our neighbors Amy and Malaki arrived at the Eco-Village, they noticed a lack of eggs coming from the hens. Both have an agricultural background from years of working on a farm in Kenya. What do they do in Kenya when a bird gets too old to lay? They eat it. The whole damn thing! So we, as a community, decided to do just that. Most of us had never experienced living with chickens, let alone killing them for dinner. Growing up in the United States allows us to be vastly ignorant of where our food comes from- meat and vegetables alike. We thought this would be a good education for us city kids.

The interesting part to me was the difference in methods between Brian, co-founder of The Eco-Village and Bay Area Native, and Malaki who grew up on a farm in Kenya. Also I thought it would be way more physically dramatic- you’ve heard the saying “running around like a chicken with its head cut-off”. Well, it’s true. Even after the chicken has died, the body still moves around and spasms. Though it was not the most pleasant experience to watch an animal die at human hands, I do know that these birds had a peaceful life full of good food and loving owners. That’s saying a heck of a lot more than all the meat that is factory farmed and trucked to our grocery stores.

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Technorati Tags: local food, sustainable, chickens, hens, permaculture, garden, san mateo ecovillage, ecovillage, co-housing, san mateo, ryanishungry

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I know, I know- flying places is not very green at all, I hear ya- but getting to and from the airport can be. Recently, on a trip to Los Angeles, I decided to bypass the forever clogged LA highway system and go the Green LA Girl route and take the Metro. Yes, LA has a subway and it rocks. For $2.50 roundtrip, I got downtown from LAX (and back again a few days later) in one hour. I made it to my events and then I made it home to San Fran without ever having to climb into a car and sit in traffic. It was great! I highly recommend public transport to and from airports. Especially New York City where a cab can cost you over $100 roundtrip (take a book if you’re going to JFK, it’s a long ride!). Going somewhere soon? I obessively compiled a list of public transportation resources for some major North American airports below. Know of better ones? Link to them in the comments! Get on the bus!

Austin, Boston, Burbank, Chicago (O’Hare and Midway), Dallas-Fort Worth, Denver, Las Vegas, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis/St.Paul, Montreal, New Orleans, New York City (Laguardia and JFK), Oakland, Orange County, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Providence, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, Tampa, Toronto, Vancouver, Washington DC (Reagan and Dulles).

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Technorati Tags: los angeles, los angeles metro, subway, light rail, lax, public transportation, ryanishungry

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The Green City Gallery is an eco-demonstration site/art gallery/community meeting and event space in downtown Berkeley, CA. A collaboration between Bay Localize, an Oakland based non-profit focused on post petroleum community empowerment, and Dig Cooperative, an eco-design crew helping to re-invent urban environments to be more sustainable. The Green City Gallery was established to showcase to the public, as well as local politicians and business folk, that green does not have to be hippy-fringe but practical, clean and smart. Some of our favorite demonstrations are the roof top garden (keeps buildings naturally insulated, provides green space and food to occupants), the constructed wetland/greywater filtration (filters all your household water naturally through gravel and plants right back out to your garden) and last but not least, the composting toilet and urinal (fertilize your plants every time you go!). Thanks to Ingrid from Bay Localize for touring us around! If you’re in Berkeley, head over to the space, it’s at 1950 Shattuck Avenue, Downtown Berkeley.

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Technorati Tags: green city gallery, bay localize, dig coop, berkeley, green, rooftop garden, greywater, composting toilet, sustainable, ryanishungry

The Solar Decathlon is a competition between 20 international (but mostly US) universities to build a solar, green and sustainable house that could be practically duplicated for the marketplace. Sponsored by the US Department of Energy, the contest requires teams to ship their entire house to the National Mall in Washington, DC for a week long, public exhibit and to be judged on ten sustainable areas. We got the chance to check out the Santa Clara University team house before they shipped it to DC. It was definitely inspiring to see students so passionate and excited about building sustainably. Here’s to hoping the Department of Energy will take queues from all these talented students building for the future.

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Technorati Tags: solar decathlon, santa clara university, santa clara, silicon valley, solar house, solar, sustainable building, ryanishungry