The Environmental Atheist

I didn't want to turn this into a personal blog, but my birthday present today made some excellent blog fodder, that I just had to write about it. Besides, I need to post more tips as I planned to do in my manifesto. I seem to have focused more on commentary.

I was awoken this morning by my son, spray bottle in hand. I had just taught him the night before that it's a great way to cool down in this incessant heat. He thought his sleeping dad looked hot. We don't have air conditioning - not by choice mind you, even though our west facing picture windows could drive us to caving to our unsustainable whims in such a heat wave. We've found other ways of keeping things from getting too hot, like keeping out direct sunlight, and keeping a cross-breeze moving through the place. A green roof would be better. Ours is tin. But spraying yourself with water cools you down the same way sweat does. The evaporation takes heat with it, removing it from the surface of your body.

My wife followed my son, parcel in hand. She handed it to him and he handed it to me. It had a card attached, a beautiful print of one of my wife's drawings. It was wrapped in one of my son's receiving blankets. I told him that it was once used to wrap something else that was beautiful. He hadn't a clue what I was talking about. But how about that for an alternative to wrapping paper? I thought it was brilliant. It was tied with an organic cotton ribbon.

I unwrapped it, and I couldn't be more delighted with the contents. First, there was a copy of The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan. I've been meaning to read this for some time, even before another blogger who's work I enjoy recommended it to me. It's basically about where our food comes from - the long, sordid road from the ground to the table - and how we should eat as opposed to how we do eat.

There was also a copy of Building Green: A Complete How-To Guide to Alternative Building Methods by Clarke Snell and Tim Callahan. It's an amazing guide to sustainable building techniques like cob and strawbale, and it even has a section on green roofs.

Well, my birthday has just begun and the family unit wants breakfast, I'll be enjoying the rest of the day with a picnic and some housework. Stay out of the heat!