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About me
I spent several years in real estate appraisal after college, but became interested in the environmental movement while living in Boston. Who would think that something as mundane as recycling could change your life? I returned to graduate school at Arizona State in August 1994, where I became very interested in the issue of sustainability.
My thesis project was a feasibility study of a potential geothermal district energy project in Mammoth Lakes, CA. It was published in the professional journal Geothermics in January 2003. After completing my Masters in Geography with a specialization in Renewable Energy, I decided to move from the desert southwest. I had been to Portland a couple times and I liked the availability of numerous outdoor recreation possibilities. About two years after moving to Portland, OR, I stumbled on the theory of 'peak oil'; the concept that oil production for any given wrell, field, country or the world will ultimately reach a pinnacle, after which it begins an inexorable decline. Production data indicates that date could very well have been around August 2006. Please refer to the Links page for more information on peak oil.
How we will replace oil remains to be seen. How do you replace the most highly concentrated and easily accessible form of energy ever discovered by humans? After discovering that our car culture was not truly sustainable, I began researching and learning about how to reduce the individual's dependence on fossil fuels. With oil prices predicted to spike in the next two to three years the viability of suburbia as a lifestyle will come under increasing scrutiny. The days of commuting forty or fifty miles or more are essentially over.
I try to commute by bike as much as possible, or use the bus if I have to but I try to avoid using the car. We have a Jetta TDI that we sometimes run on biodiesel.
In
a sense, my interest in sustainability goes back to high school.
When my dad bought my first car for me he was very
perplexed when I opted for a Chevy Vega over a muscle car.
Not
that a Vega was a great car, but I was more interested in gas mileage
than horsepower.
I think the muscle car would have made me more popular than the Vega
did, but that was thirty years ago. I've been
researching
sustainability issues and renewable energy resources for over 10 years.
Our
family of three usually generates about one grocery bag of garbage per
week. We try to buy products with limited packaging and we
recycle as much as we can. We compost, grow lots o
f veggies...etc. Big decisions are important but it's also
the
seemingly insignificant things that can make a difference as
well.
If you have any ideas on sustainable living please feel free to share
them.
Photo
Gallery - Images of
current projects as well as humor and photographic art.
"We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our
children." Native American proverb.
