During the bitter cold of a colder-than-usual (and snowier-than-usual) winter, wood has been our primary heat source… and we are LOVING it!

So… the weather forecast here in Vermont is looking like we are seeing the first hints of Spring coming, with temperatures getting to around 40 degrees! We’ve come through a particularly bitter winter, according to most of the locals in Vermont. And, yes, it has been very cold, with lows in the -10 range periodically (not a problem for seasoned Minnesota transplants).

As we’ve been settling in to our new home, heating with wood was one of the decisions we made to help us live more sustainably and we were really nervous about how it would be during winter.

We have a Jøtul F 500 V3 Oslo that we were told would heat our entire house. Including the basement, that we use for yoga, sauna and storage, we are heating almost 2,600 square feet. We had a healthy dose of skepticism when the wood stove sales rep assured us that a single stove would comfortably heat our house, much more economically than fossil fuel based options such as propane or heating oil. But, it does, and then some.

So far, we have used only about 1.5 cords of wood through winter, and have another cord of wood in the basement to help us get through the rest of winter. This is particularly remarkable, because we like to keep our home pretty warm. Most days, the temperature in our house has stayed a very comfortable 75 degrees F. The best part is that, because the wood stove is in the basement and it sits on a concrete floor, it heats the concrete of the foundation to a very nice temperature. It also heats the floor of the living space above it, making it feel like we have radiant heat flooring. It also makes a very cozy space for sitting in the basement that we were not expecting to be using as living space.

The burning of wood has helped us dramatically reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. And, we are making plans to harvest all of the large trees that we taken down when our home site was cleared. There is enough wood piled up outside to heat our home for years to come.

This year, we needed to purchase cured fire wood, because the wood on our land hasn’t yet been processed into fire wood yet. Even still, the cost of heating with wood was minimal compared to other alternatives.

When we talk to people about using fire wood one of the most common questions people have is about the carbon dioxide emissions from wood. We will do a more detailed blog post about that later. But, the short version is this: Not all CO2 is the same. The Earth has a natural CO2 cycle that can easily sustain the burning of wood. Sustainably burning wood does not contribute to climate change, therefore. It is the burning of fossil fuels that is causing our climate crisis.

The Jøtul also has a secondary combustion chamber that burns off most of the smoke and other particulates, making it burn very efficiently. We extract more heat from every log and do not release much smoke into the atmosphere.

We have found nothing about the wood heat to be a negative. It is all good. While we were nervous about making the switch, we could not be happier with the result. Wood has proven to be economical, very comfortable and sustainable and it adds a wonderful aesthetic to our new house. The only minor issues we have had have been sourcing the wood. That was made more challenging because we had no way of knowing how much we would use through the winter and we have yet to set up an outdoor storage space for very large quantities of wood.

Now that we’ve been through the coldest part of our first winter, we have a lot more understanding about what we need and we have a lovely outdoor space that will accommodate several cords of wood. We’ll get that set up this summer. We expect future winters to be even more economical and efficient.

Anyone planning changes to their lifestyles to become more independent and sustainable should highly consider wood as a primary heat source. You will be glad you did. We sure are!

A recent blog from BBC.com suggests that the surging numbers of people who have given up hope that humans will be able to save themselves from the destruction we have brought to planet Earth are "doomers" and wrong. Yet, critics of doomers offer no substantive evidence to support that conclusion. Sure. They talk about some of the emerging technologies that have some promise of saving humanity from our collective destructive behavior. Sadly, the thing they neglect to address is the lack of willingness on the part of most humans to change in order to save the world as we know it.

Those of us who are "doomers" see the reality that the vast majority of humans, particularly those in the developed world, will not change their behaviors in any meaningful ways. In spite of our knowing about the threat of irreversible climate change for at least 40 years, our freeways are still packed with gas-guzzling vehicles; people still buy the latest and "greatest" cell phones way too often; few people grow any of their own food; very few homes have implemented alternative energy sources (and some fossil fuel based utility companies have successfully erected barriers to homes doing so), or do any kind of substantive conservation program and, politically, right-wing authoritarians who are climate deniers are on the rise globally.

On top of all of that, the science says that we have already passed multiple tipping points that would allow us to save ourselves. Even worse: projecting the notion that "there is still time" only promotes the notion that people can stay safe and comfortable in their old ways. That is fantasy. That is dangerous. That is not at all realistic. We advocate that people change their behavior now because it will have some chance of reducing the catastrophic impact in the future, not because we think it has any chance of stopping the total social collapse that is coming. Additionally, changing behavior now makes those who change immediately more capable of adapting to the crisis that is coming. The changes also make our lives better today.

What so-called "doomers" don't do is pretend the crisis isn't coming. That is a good thing. That is healthy. That is science and reality-based. Frankly, for many people, the crisis is already here. Every year, the numbers of displaced people from fires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes and the wars resulting from depleting resources continues to grow. Severe impacts have already been felt in the most vulnerable communities--the poor, communities of color.

Denying reality is the real doom in this conversation. Pretending we can continue as we are is the real crisis.

Out on a recent stroll in the neighborhood I (Mike) saw some signs in a yard that made me laugh out loud in a kind of tragic irony sort of way. We were walking along Edmond, Boulevard, which runs along the Mississippi River. It is a really beautiful walk, made-so, in part, because it is at the only natural river gorge along the whole Mississippi River. There is an amazing green-way along the river, which is situated along one of the greatest migratory bird routes on the planet.

Anyway, the signs that caught my eye were these pictured.

As we prepared this blog post, both the east and west coasts of the USA have been engulfed in record-setting heat waves, the likes of which we have never seen before. Portland Oregon, known for its mild weather, topped 116F degrees for the first time. Dozens of people have died from heat in the West and countless more have been hospitalized. Farther north, in British Columbia, where temperatures have soared to 121F degrees, hundreds have died so far and the heat isn't letting up.

From Canada to Baja, and stretching deeply inland, the western side of the nation is cooking. Yet, as bad as the heat is, the drought may be even worse.

The lack of rain is exacerbating the heat and the fire seasons, which have been growing longer and more severe for decades, are becoming downright unmanageable, resulting in more death and destruction. Widespread crop failures this season are almost a certainty and likely to affect the food supply for the rest of the nation, at least to some degree. Impacts to the salmon and other fishing practices are being greatly felt in indigenous communities who rely on these practices as central to their identity.

Here in the Midwest, where we have been relatively insulated, our weather has been downright freakish, seesawing between record cold and dry to sweltering heat and with drenching rains, with farmers being challenged to manage crops experiencing both extremes within days of each other. It is also worth noting that the record storms and heat are a global phenomenon, with similar problems being seen as far away as Moscow.

Meanwhile, in Florida, a luxury beach-front condominium collapse that most certainly killed more than 150 people is being blamed (at least in part) on rising sea levels, as more and more coastal areas are being engulfed by the world's melting glaciers.

These are just a handful of the countless examples of the extreme climate crises that are unfolding across the entire globe in just our current news cycle. From the Great Barrier Reef to both poles of the planet, and most points in between, humans and non-humans alike are facing the life-threatening effects of the human addiction to fossil fuels. That is not hyperbole. It is now the simple reality of the daily drumbeat of climate crisis news.

Even before this recent spike in heat, drought, fires, storms and floods, the World Health Organization estimated that each year, more than 150,000 people have been dying due to human-caused climate change. And, that figure does not even take into account the numbers of people who die annually from related things, like air pollution (which is an additional 4.2 million human deaths annually, for the record).

Taking in, fully absorbing and appreciating the scale and scope of today's current events relating to the Climate Crisis is nearly impossible. And, even as we struggle to do that, we are also taking in the news that fossil fuel companies knew decades ago that use of their products would result in "dramatic, global environmental crises." As early as 1979 their own scientists were telling them that the problem was "great and urgent." Instead of solving the problem by working on alternative energies and re-thinking their businesses, they spent billions of dollars over several decades spreading misinformation and lies about fossil fuels and the Climate Crisis they were creating. In other words, they willfully put the survival of our entire planet in danger for their own, personal, short-term profits.

Again, that is not hyperbole. When offered the opportunity to save the planet decades ago, they chose profits over the planet's survival. Currently facing more than a dozen law suits from local and state governments in the USA because of the lies they told about the Climate Crisis, fossil fuel companies are being forced to turn over decades-old documents that prove this to be true. Communications from within the fossil fuel industry about all of this are now part of the Earth's official history. There is no getting around it.

Not only have the World's governments failed to hold "big oil" accountable for what they have caused, they have largely done the opposite: they have given them enormous subsidies and tax breaks, in spite of the fact that they are already staggeringly profitable. We subsidize them in other ways, too.

The other Climate Crisis news that is breaking as we write this blog is coming out of northern Minnesota, where police have formed a barricade around a camp housing protesters of the development of a tar sands pipeline that will run through pristine wilderness and tribal lands. The barricade is being called "an overt political blockade" in support of the fossil fuel industry. This "political blockade" is being paid for with our tax dollars.

In spite of the fact that science tells us that we have already crossed multiple, interconnected tipping points that could trigger a run-away global catastrophe that will result in the end of life on Earth as we know it, the average global citizen remains as callously resistant to change as the executives in "big oil" have been. They prioritize their short-term comfort and financial interests over climate action. They penalize politicians for policies that raise gas prices. Then, those same politicians respond by continuing the outdated policies that got us into this mess in the first place.

This dynamic has allowed the fossil fuel industry to effectively shield themselves and their politician friends from taking responsibility. They like to point their fingers at everyday consumers and say, effectively, "all of this is their faults." They are only giving the public what they want, their argument goes. And, if they didn't do it, someone else would. It has a nice ring to it, but it ignores the fact they they have been funding politicians who will give them the policies they want while selling false narratives to the public for decades.

At the same time, it is pointless for "we the people" to blame the fossil fuel industry and our so-called political leaders if we are unwilling to make the lifestyle changes we need to make in order to correct this problem. When it comes to the climate crisis, no one gets a pass. We are all responsible for the choices we make. We are not passengers on this ship. We are all crew. We cannot blame our politicians and industries and then turn around and continue supporting them. We cannot continue mindlessly consuming and refusing to change when the evidence that we need to do so is all around us. Petroleum has provided the basis for modern living and modern countless modern conveniences. But, it is also killing us and the planet. We have to change and change fast.

Right now is probably about the time you might expect a blog like this one to provide a list of the things people should change in their lives to begin living more sustainably. But, this blog isn't going to do that. Frankly, we have done it and done it and done it some more and anyone really interested in living a more balanced life can find ideas and resources on our website and countless other places on the Internet. Instead of telling people what they should change, we will simply say that over many years, we have changed nearly everything about our lives, from the ways we use and produce energy, to the ways we eat, the products that we buy and even the television we watch. With each change that we have made, we have not only made our lives more sustainable, we have made them better, more fulfilling, healthier and we are happier as a result.

Many people think that living more sustainably is a matter of "giving up" a lot of things. We have found it to be the opposite of that. We have added quality to our lives. We didn't give up commercially processed foods. We added more healthy, organic, delicious and nutritious foods to our diets until commercially processed foods were of little or no interest to us any more.

More than a dozen years ago, we gave up one of our family cars and took up bicycling, walking and public transit as alternatives for everyday transportation. We are leaner, healthier, more energetic and likely spend less on medical care as a result.

Three years ago, we installed solar power on our home as part of our ongoing efforts to live more sustainably. Yesterday, we checked in on our production to-date. So far, with a minimal up-front investment, we quickly created a positive cash-flow for our home and already have prevented the emission of more than 9,400 kg (20,723 pounds) of CO2, the equivalent of planting more than 150 trees. And, the fact of the matter is that practically anyone can have solar power (sign up for a free solar estimate here).

Going solar is only one of countless things you can do right now to begin living more sustainably while also making your life better. From walking and biking more and driving less, and buying fewer things, to planting a garden or getting your own backyard chickens to making your own pet food, hair gel or tooth paste, the options are many and effect every area of your life.

The fact of the matter is that we are all responsible for the climate crisis that is unfolding right now in front of all of us. It is up to all of us to begin changing our lives while we also demand our governments and industries do the same. There isn't a minute more to waste. We are not victims, we are the cause. The sooner we accept that, the better.

When people tour Our Urban Farm, they are always surprised by how small it is and, at the same time, how much is in it. The fact is that we grow a lot of food and have other non-food areas outside in what is really a smaller-than-average city lot in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which is 40 feet wide x 120 feet deep.

In our small piece of Earth, we have expanded the footprint of the original house. We, therefore, extended 2 exterior walls of the home and converted it from a 790 square foot home to about 1,900 square feet. We also added a detached 2-car garage. All of that addition/remodeling ate up more of the tiny outdoor space that had previously been available.

In spite of the tiny size of our available space, we have done a lot with it, in part by creating many small areas that we use for different things. We thought we would share this slide show to help inspire others. You really do not need much space to do amazing things.

We recently wrote about the film Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet. Then we watched another must-watch film, the Biggest Little Farm, currently on Hulu. We simply had to tell you about it. If you are concerned about the state of the planet; if you are interested in food or farming; or if you just like an amazing story that is beautifully told, you have to see this film, which has won more film awards than I care to bother listing.

The filming/photography is stunning. The music score is sensational. The story is fun, funny and yet strangely gripping at the same time. It takes you on an unexpected roller coaster ride that begins when city-dwellers rescue a special-needs dog they name Todd. Todd won't stop barking when they are away. In spite of this, the couple promises Todd that theirs will be his final home.

When they are evicted from their apartment because of Todd's barking, it pushes them to pursue their real dream of moving to the country to start a farm. But that is just the beginning of a 7-year-long bumpy ride. The land they buy is nearly dead and lifeless and they know little about farming. As they struggle to regenerate the land, "pests" move in. Starlings eat their fruit. Aphids damage other crops. Gophers kill their trees and coyote slaughter their chickens.

This is a story that is as much about how they fulfill their promise to their dog as it is about how they learned to view these "pests" as potential partners on the farm. It is about their personal transformation as well as the transformation of the land.

The Biggest Little Farm hits every emotion yet leaves you with a sense of awe and inspiration for what is possible if you remain true to your vision. More than anything, though, it provides lessons for human kind about learning to cooperate with nature, rather than trying to conquer or control it.

It is one of the best films we have seen in a very long time. Add it to your watch list today.

As I type this, the western United States is engulfed in a record-breaking heatwave and drought. At the same time, sea levels continue rising globally, threatening coastal cities world-wide. Climate Crisis news is everywhere, driven by the unmistakable evidence that we have either passed or are about to pass a major tipping point in the CO2 levels in the Earth's atmosphere. There is almost no way to miss the news and to connect that news to real-world impacts being felt everywhere. What many people do not yet realize is that CO2 levels in the biosphere are only one of at least nine factors that have allowed life on our planet to remain habitable during the Holocene period, during which planetary temperature fluctuations stabilized, allowing for civilization as we know it to develop.

While we all hear about the dangers of CO2 level increases, the other eight factors are less often discussed in detail. The new Netflix Original documentary Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet changes that. In the film, award-winning film maker David Attenborough travels the World to speak to top scientists about the interconnected tipping points we will be crossing if we do not make radical change to our society now. If you think you understand the scope of the challenge we face, you are probably wrong. As this film makes crystal clear, there are key tipping points in each of these nine areas that are interconnected like dominoes. If one falls, it can knock all of the other ones down as well and the Earth as we know it will be no more. As dire as that sounds, however, the film has an inspiring message, because now that the science in all of these areas is clear, we know exactly what we need to do to change course. The science is irrefutable. The path forward is obvious and relatively easy in some ways.

Put this film in your Netflix watch list and share it with everyone you know. You will be glad that you did.

Before getting too far into this post, we have to first say that we have a pretty large (18 panels) solar array on our house. We love it. We are thrilled that we got it. We also have a pretty realistic perspective about it. We know, for example, that there was mining of products and destruction of habitat that needed to happen in order to manufacture the system. We know it has a lifespan of, maybe, 20 years. Even though it produces nearly 2 times the amount of electricity we use on a very good month, solar power is not a total solution to the energy problems humans are now facing.

To us, that seems like rational common sense. In fact, if you add wind and geothermal and other "green" energies to the equation, it is still not enough to get humans out of the existential crises that we have created for ourselves due to human overpopulation, excessive consumption, habitat loss, etc. Yet too many advocates for "alternative" energies promote these technologies as de facto be-all end-all solutions that they are not.

The problem is that too many people don't want to face the reality that to survive on this planet much longer humans are going to need to radically change the ways we live. Rather than doing that, they look to things like solar power as ways to keep us consuming while leaving a little bit smaller footprint on the planet.

That is the topic that filmmaker Michael Moore took on in his latest project, Planet of the Humans.

In it, in classic Moore fashion, Moore takes on some of the most common misconceptions about alternative energies and exposes the connections between these technologies and traditional fossil fuel companies. Most importantly, he tackles the difficult question, "can these technologies save humankind?"

Spoiler alert: He answers that question with a hard, "no."

In Planet of the Humans Moore accuses the Green Energy Movement of, in effect, selling snake oil that says people can continue living as we have in this modern, consumer based society so long as we get some solar or wind power (or eek, biofuel) to help offset things a bit. On the face of it, that is a pipe dream, no less offensive than a street corner charlatan pushing the latest elixir.

The notion that green energy alone cannot save humanity should not surprise anyone who has been paying any attention. In spite of that, the "green" energy industry has been aghast by the film, proclaiming it to be "dangerous," and with some going so far as insisting it should be taken down. What they don't realize is that in doing so they are only proving Moore to be right. Watch it yourself and see what you think.

In our opinion the most dangerous idea of all is the notion that humans can keep living on this Earth consuming as much as we have been. Too few have the courage to say so.

Coming in to land at the Harrisburg International Airport in Pennsylvania we circle past the partially shuttered Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, two of the cooling towers still ominously steaming years past the plant's life expectancy. For my family members who lived within the 5 mile evacuation zone when Reactor Number 2 at the plant partially melted down on March 28, 1979, the towers still stir deep emotions. And rightly so. Like the stories of so many others who lived through that nuclear crisis, their tales point to some of the problems with nuclear power as a potential alternative to fossil fuel: It isn't safe, and we cannot rely on the Government or the nuclear industry to be completely honest about it.

Those who were in Harrisburg that day are still angry that it took years - yes YEARS - before the true scope of the meltdown at Three Mile Island was reported. When it was reported, we learned that massive quantities of radioactive material had leaked from the reactor that had suffered catastrophic damage. Due, largely, to dumb luck, the radioactive cooling water that leaked from the reactor had remained mostly contained, yet the radiation released to the community was real. And though the nuclear industry has consistently repeated the mantra that the increased cancer rates in the community since the meltdown have been "statistically insignificant," that has done little to calm the the emotions of the people effected by it. If anything, it has made them believe the industry itself cannot be trusted. At best, the nuclear industry's statement is grossly insensitive to the cancer patients left wondering if their disease is a result of that event.

Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima... these accidents are the primary concern people have about nuclear power, and understandably so. There are, however, other very serious concerns at every stage of the nuclear cycle, from the mining and enriching of uranium to the operation of reactors and the long-term storage of radioactive waste.

There are three main approaches to the mining of uranium and all three bring with them significant human health and environmental impacts, because, in part, the mined uranium begins releasing radioactivity into the environment the moment it is taken from the ground. Open pit mines use explosives to blast the uranium deposits, releasing radiation into the air. Deep tunnel mines expose miners to more intense radiation exposure and risks of mine collapse. All forms of mining release significant quantities of radiation into the environment when the waste products, called tailings, are discarded. Tailings end up blowing in the wind and leaching into ground water. Each mine represents an environmental disaster of its own that is rarely factored into the discussion when people are promoting nuclear as a potential replacement for fossil fuels.

Once dug from the ground uranium needs to be enriched in order to concentrate it into the more potent forms used for nuclear energy production. The enriched product then needs to be fabricated into fuel. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) there are significant environmental impacts associated with each of these stages of the nuclear power supply chain, up to and including the routine daily operation of all nuclear power plants.

The reality that all nuclear power plants continually release low level radiation into the environment is a little appreciated fact that has led industry insiders, like Bernard Leonard Cohen, to make the claim that regular exposure to low level radiation is perfectly safe. Cohen was the Director of the Scaife Nuclear Laboratory from 1965 to 1978 and is one of the most frequently cited sources by proponents of nuclear power. What these proponents usually ignore, however, are the facts that Cohen's published statements about the safety of nuclear radiation were not supported by major organizations, like the World Health Organization and that Cohen himself retracted his statements about safety later in life.

Then there is the issue of safely storing toxic nuclear waste. If you believe the industry, doing that is simple, safe and no problem at all. On the other hand, the United States Department of Energy says there are ALREADY "millions of gallons of radioactive waste" as well as "thousands of tons of spent nuclear fuel and material" and also "huge quantities of contaminated soil and water."

The DOE has a stated goal of cleaning the existing contaminated sites by 2025. Just one site in Fernald, Ohio has "31 million pounds of uranium product, 2.5 billion pounds of waste, 2.75 million cubic yards of contaminated soil and debris." A 223 acre portion of the Great Miami Aquifer has uranium levels above drinking standards. Let those facts sink in when pondering the sustainability of nuclear power.

The United States has at least 108 sites designated as areas that are contaminated and unusable, sometimes many thousands of acres.

These waste products will remain hazardous for thousands of years and we have already produced this level of problem while obtaining a small portion of our total energy use from nuclear. Clearly, nuclear power is anything but green. It turns out that it is also not economically viable.

Many people believe nuclear power to be inexpensive because the building of nuclear power plants and the production of nuclear fuel have been heavily subsidized by government funds. If these costs (along with the true costs of storage and clean up) were included in the economic equation, nuclear power becomes not only environmentally disastrous but also cost-prohibitive.

As we look to the future we need to focus on truly clean and renewable energy sources that can be decentralized to help make people and neighborhoods to be more energy independent. Nuclear power is the polar opposite of the future we need. We should not replace one centralized and unsustainable system with another more centralized and more unsustainable one.

In the relatively near future, Reactor 1 at Three Mile Island is expected to be shut down. As I said earlier, it is past its life expectancy. For my family who lives in its shadow, the day cannot come soon enough. Hopefully, we will have learned enough from its partial meltdown in 1979 to know we should not build another.