Latest news with #sustainableliving
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Lifestyle
- The Guardian
Can you live without a car in the mountains? Yes, with planning and a few different bikes
Living car-free in a big city is fairly common these days. Yes, it can mean some adaptation, but when so many things are on your doorstep it's not such a big challenge. So how about car-free life in a remote Italian mountain village, with barely any public transport? We have been living in rural Italy without a car for more than five years now. Even though we have always loved bicycles, the decision to sell our car wasn't a particularly considered one. It all started with our fear for climate change and environmental issues, which prompted us to draw a massive bicycle across the map of Europe a few years ago in an attempt to try and persuade people to use their cars a bit less. We succeeded in at least one regard, because we persuaded ourselves we could live without a car completely. Previously, we owned a VW Golf that was quite nice and super-reliable. As with most people, we depended on it for all sorts of essential and non-essential trips: shopping, doctors' appointments, trips to the garden centre or dump, walks in the mountains – pretty much everything. We had lived as a couple without a car before, but we were younger, we didn't have a dog, and we lived in big cities. Now, we live in a small Italian village in the foothills of the Alps, where public transport is close to non-existent and what there is is highly unreliable. Most of our extended family were against the idea, and perhaps with some justification. Cycling in rural Italy is not particularly easy, as there is very little cycling infrastructure and drivers do not give cyclists enough space on the road. We weren't (and still aren't) particularly dedicated cyclists. Even if it is fair to say that we sold the car without thinking through the consequences too much, there were early signs that this wasn't the most stupid thing we had done. The sense of freedom and happiness in those first few trips was empowering. We felt we had managed to stop letting society dictate what we had to have and what we didn't, at least regarding our transport choices. And over time, we have found that there is a car-free solution to almost every logistical problem, with just a little bit of planning – and a few bikes. For the grocery shopping, we use an electric cargo bike – hauling 50kg of food uphill without a motor would be enough to make extreme dieting seem attractive. To take the dog for a walk, we use a non-electric cargo bike. You get to the paths pretty fast, and then the dog can walk while you cycle. For trips to Milan, Turin or Novara, a combination of train, bus and folding bike works well. We've taken pretty much everything on our cargo bikes, from small olive trees and manure for our vegetable patch to kayaks and building supplies. Trips to the mountains are still tricky, though. Quite often it takes longer to go by bike, but time can be saved with a bit of organisation. Going to the gym by bike means you don't need to warm up once you arrive. Commuting and exercising at the same time is certainly a time saver. If the dog can come where you are going and you're not too tight for time, you can take a path and walk the dog on the way. Shopping takes longer, but parking is never a problem. Sign up to Down to Earth The planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essential after newsletter promotion Predictably, we are now fitter than we were and have saved money, but there have been other benefits we would never have anticipated. Cycling everywhere has improved our social life, as speeds of up to 15mph are sociable. People can say hello as you pass and we feel more like we are part of a community. There is also nothing like a good bike ride to help you clear your thoughts and feel better psychologically. Simple trips, even the most boring of errands, have become a bit more adventurous and fun. And we get to park near to the entrance of wherever we're going, quietly content – some would say smug – that we didn't come by car. We're not planning to get another car just yet. But if anyone is heading to the mountains, we'd love a lift.
CBC
3 days ago
- General
- CBC
These Yellowknife gardeners just ate their last carrots and potatoes — from last summer
With a cool space and peat moss, gardener Dwayne Wohlgemuth says anyone could do it Image | Dwayne Wohlgemuth Caption: Dwayne Wohlgemuth is able to make his produce last nearly the whole year by storing his bounty in a cold cellar and using peat moss to prevent mold and rot. (CBC) Open Image in New Tab While many gardeners in the North are busy planting for the coming summer, some Yellowknifers are still finishing their produce from last year. Dwayne Wohlgemuth just finished his last carrot a couple weeks ago after finding it in storage while he was looking for a beet, also from last summer's crop. "I was like woohoo, I've got another carrot," he said. He says it was the best carrot he's ever eaten. "It was still perfect. It wasn't even soft," he said. Wohlgemuth is a serious gardener. He estimates he had a crop of about 30 pounds of carrots from his garden last year, and even more beets, along with a wealth of various greens in his freezer. He also hunts, and cans bison meat, lard, and bone broth to eat throughout the winter. "I hardly buy any food. I don't buy any fruit, I don't buy any vegetables, I don't buy any meat. My food bill is so low," he said. Wohlgemuth is able to store this bounty of food throughout the year thanks to small cold cellar he dug below the entryway of his Yellowknife house. The insulated, underground space stays between about 9 to 5 C all year long, keeping vegetables and canned goods from freezing in the winter or spoiling in the summer. It's something he learned from his parents. "I grew up in a house in Alberta that my parents had built this massive cellar, and we had it so full all the time of root vegetables and canning," he said. "When I built this house I thought 'I've got to put a cellar in there.'" He uses peat moss to keep the vegetables dry to prevent mould and rot — separating the vegetables into layers to ensure that there are no spots where they touch. Kevin O'Reilly, another avid gardener in Yellowknife, has also managed to make his produce last until May, thanks to a crawlspace below his Yellowknife home which stays about 2 or 3 C all year long. Each year, he puts down a tarp on the sand in the crawlspace, and he and his wife load up plastic crates with vegetables separated by layers of wood shavings, similar to how Wohlgemuth uses peat moss. "I just took the last of the carrots out a couple days ago, and some of them were almost like you took them right out of the garden," he said. Overall, O'Reilly said about three quarters of his carrots were still good to eat in May — not bad, after months outside. He also still has some potatoes. Some will be used for seed potatoes in his garden this year, but O'Reilly said a lot of them are still good to eat. Wohlgemuth acknowledged that not everyone has a house where they can dig a cellar, or a convenient crawlspace, but he says a lot of the techniques he uses can be put in practice anywhere. Root vegetables like carrots and beets could be packed in peat moss in a cool basement or pantry, Wohlgemuth said, and canned goods can be kept anywhere where they are not exposed to direct light. Both O'Reilly and Wohlgemuth say they have already planted most of their crops for next year.
Associated Press
4 days ago
- Business
- Associated Press
A little bit of farm, a little bit of suburbia: That's the recipe for Agritopia
GILBERT, Ariz. (AP) — Just steps from the porticos, patios, clay-tiled roofs and manicured lawns of suburbia, Kelly Saxer has gotten used to questions. As she weaves through tomato vines, snaps asparagus and generally gets her hands dirty, visitors and even some nearby residents want to know what she's doing — and how the farm where she works wound up here. 'Sometimes it feels like we're animals in a zoo a little bit because people will walk by and they'll just stare, you know, like gawk at us,' Saxer said. This is Agritopia, an 11-acre (4.5-hectare) organic farm that's all that remains after miles of alfalfa, corn, cotton, durum wheat and sugar beets were swallowed up by Phoenix's roaring development. In this 'agrihood' — a residential community that includes a working farm — kids play outside at a school that borders vegetable fields or in communal green spaces nestled between homes. Well-dressed couples and boisterous teenagers flock for selfies and picturesque photos. Lines form at the diner featured on Guy Fieri's Food Network show. On the farm itself, people can walk the dirt roads, rent out plots to grow their own foods or buy its produce. Some developers have turned to the agrihood concept in the past couple of decades to lure buyers with a different kind of amenity. At least 27 U.S. states and Canadian provinces had agrihoods as of a 2018 report from the Urban Land Institute, and more have cropped up since then. Experts say agrihoods cater to buyers interested in sustainability, access to healthy food and a mix of urban and rural life. The core aim of many projects is to 'create a feeling for people,' said Matt Norris, one of the lead authors of that report. Agritopia's founders saw change coming, and made a planIt was the late 1990s when the family behind Agritopia saw 'the writing on the wall,' said Joe Johnston. The family farm was some 5 miles (8 kilometers) from Gilbert then but it was clear the Phoenix area's rapid growth was going to bring development to their doorstep. With his parents mostly retired and a pair of brothers interested in doing other things, Johnston got their blessing to develop the land himself rather than simply selling it. Johnston, with a background in design engineering, was intent on 'creating place,' as he puts it. The neighborhood features narrow streets and homes within walking distance of restaurants, bars, shops, small parks and fitness businesses. The farm is at the center of it. Melissa Checker, a professor of anthropology at City University of New York and author of a book on environmental gentrification, said agrihoods can appeal to people in different ways — their desire to feel environmentally conscious, nostalgia for an imagined idea of the past, increased interest in food 'self-sufficiency' and even a heightened desire to be safe and connected to neighbors after the COVID-19 pandemic. 'You have a kind of convergence of some commercial interests, you know, something that you can sell to people, and then also this real desire to change the way we do things,' she said. Agritopia, but not utopia In an ideal world, using green community space to grow food could especially benefit people who are food-insecure, Checker said. But because agrihoods are often tied to real estate prices and developers want a return on their investment, 'it's much more likely that these kinds of projects go into gentrifying neighborhoods or more affluent neighborhoods,' she said. It's not clear just how big a role the farm plays in attracting buyers. At Agritopia, for example, few of the 500 homes participate in the farm box program that offers them first pick of seasonal fruits and vegetables. (The farm also sells at a market in downtown Gilbert and donates to a local food pantry.) Johnston said he knew 'not everyone's going to be passionate about agriculture.' That's why he was intent on creating a village where people have spaces to come together; it's up to them how much, if at all, they want to be involved in farming. Still, farms are a selling point for developers especially across the Sun Belt who compete to offer pools, gyms, parks and other perks to would-be residents who have a wide range of planned communities to choose from, said Scott Snodgrass. He's founding partner of a developer that created Indigo, an agrihood outside Houston, and also of a company called Agmenity that runs farms for agrihood developers. How the farm and the neighborhood intersectAs the sun rises, the farm's workers snip the roots off scallions and pull up thick bunches of lettuce and green garlic. Before he started working at Agritopia, Ernesto Penalba didn't know all the steps involved in growing garlic — harvesting, cleaning, plus packing and transporting. 'But we only perceive it as one process. So it was really interesting to understand that,' he said, speaking in Spanish. CC Garrett, who goes by 'Miss Hickory' when she's leading educational tours for kids on the farm, said she loves watching young people connect with their food in new ways — eating and maybe even enjoying salad for the first time or learning why you can't grow tomatoes year-round. 'It's amazing for me just because this community, it just really speaks to me, being built around an urban farm, which I think is such an important American concept,' she said. For some who live here, this place is more than a typical neighborhood. In Agritopia's 'kid pod,' a cluster of families with 23 kids between them, parents let the young ones roam freely, knowing at least one guardian will always be looking out for them. The rest of the parents make dinner or plan a date night. Just across the street, a peach and citrus orchard sways in the breeze, occasionally wafting the smells of fruit into front yards. Maria Padron lives in the 'kid pod' with her husband and two children. She loves living in Agritopia for the sense of camaraderie with her neighbors. Her own family in Virginia had to give up their farm when her grandfather couldn't take care of it anymore. She wishes it had stayed in the family, but it's a vineyard now. Asked whether she would have wanted her grandfather's land to become an agrihood, she says maybe — if it was done right. 'There's something obviously beautiful here that's going on, but there is some grief there too, if you've watched this land be a certain thing and then it changes within an instant,' Padron said. ___ Follow Melina Walling on X @MelinaWalling and Bluesky @ Follow Joshua A. Bickel on Instagram, Bluesky and X @joshuabickel. Follow Annika Hammerschlag on Instagram @ahammergram. ___ The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at
South China Morning Post
5 days ago
- Business
- South China Morning Post
A family upcycles a 1970s Jardine's Lookout duplex
Sometimes, serendipity smiles. When a long-time expat family were looking to upgrade the Jardine's Lookout apartment they had lived in for years, a 'gem' of a duplex in the same neighbourhood happened to come on the market. For the family of two professionals and two teenage sons, the 2,150 sq ft, two-level apartment had many advantages: four bedrooms, four bathrooms, a study, plus a rare outdoor terrace. The main draw, however, was two living areas, one on each level. The ground floor's expansive 540 sq ft social space would be perfect for entertaining while the second-floor lounge could be converted to a library-cum-reading room, tailored to the family's love of books. Staircase. Photo: Walker Yip But the property was overdue for a makeover, having been built in the 1970s, with little refurbishment apart from a relatively recent kitchen upgrade. Ian Hau, founder of design and construction firm XLMS, was assigned the task, along with architectural designer Kamila Pioterek. Hau says the clients were focused on functionality and comfort. 'Their main request was to create a practical home with ample storage,' he says. Intending to live there long term, the family wanted a 'timeless' decor that would work with their eclectic collection of vintage furniture , art, books and travel mementos accumulated over the years. At the same time, the brief from the committed upcyclers called for minimal waste and use of sustainable, natural materials – values that Hau says match the ethos of XLMS, which also offers joinery and furniture-fabrication services.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Katrina survivor builds homes from cargo ship containers to weather all storms
HARVEY, La. (WGNO) — In Louisiana, with his West Bank crew, Josh Clark is in the business of building and rebuilding. His construction site is inside a cargo container, a big steel shipping box built to withstand a typhoon in the ocean. WGNO Good Morning New Orleans features reporter Bill Wood finds Clark at his headquarters in Harvey, La. That's where they turn these transportation contraptions into homes. You get a bedroom, a bathroom, a living room and kitchen. Clark practices what he preaches. Home Sweet Home for him is one of his cargo container creations. He lives, these days, down the Bayou, about an hour down the road from New Orleans in Cut Off, Louisiana. But when Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, he was in the French Quarter. He was a writer and still is. After Katrina, he moved to a solar-powered Louisiana log cabin. That was until Hurricane Ida destroyed it in 2021. Then he headed west to the California Coast. He figured it would be a more peaceful place to write books. That was until the wildfires. He made it through the fire. It was the mudslides a few days after that left him homeless again. 'I've taken it all, earth, wind, water, fire,' said Clark tells. Bill Wood asks, 'didn't you want to just give up?' He says, 'No, I wanted to keep building, I wanted to find something sustainable other people could live in.' And that's what he's doing with ARK Container Homes. He says it's 'where beauty meets strength.' You'll see Clark and more on our WGNO Special called Hurricane Season 2025-Your Questions Answered. It's Friday, May 30 at 6:30 p.m. on WGNO and on Saturday, May 31 at 9 p.m. on NOLA 38 – The of Desire homicide victim arrested on murder allegations Katrina survivor builds homes from cargo ship containers to weather all storms 4 finally going home after WWII bomber crash left 11 dead and 'non-recoverable' International students scramble as Trump signals nowhere is safe LSU to host NCAA baseball regional at Alex Box Stadium Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
