I suppose I might have offered you something more substantial than the google results, but it was late. Sorry!

So, again I will advocate giving it a close look. I used to have a big hardcover permaculture book, but had to give it back to its real owner, and now can’t recall its title or author. I do know, however, that permaculture is a big enough (and valued enough) movement to have spawned a magazine or two.

Anyway, good luck!

PeterB: Yes mass transit has problems in much of the US. I would love to see expansion of bicycle travel. I rode a bicycle through a crowded Chinese city with a guide once and it was one of my great experiences, though not a particularly safe one.

I think improving gas mileage and emmissions is critical. I did hear a good arguement from a libertarian sort of person that a big gas tax would be the most effective way because the market would decide the most efficient vehicles.

Rising gas prices has the most effect on what people drive.

I think mass transportation is an issue that would take… honestly I don’t know what it would take but it’s a long haul. First of all, the US is so wide, that -other than major inner cities- mass transportation would become difficult to maintain. I think due to geographic conditions, we have some difficulties maintaining a good form of public transportation.

The first step in my opinion would be to reconstruct all major non-highway road ways and create cycle paths on all of these major road ways and more rail trails. I witnessed this in Nagoya Japan, and I felt a whole lot more comfortable riding there…

There are some drawbacks of course. I know many people who drive over 15 miles or more to get to work… up and down hills and what not… As far as Massachusetts is concerned, I make a plan when I have summer classes. I drive from my house to the Bedford Bike Depot, and bike from there to either Alewife Station or Porter Square and lock my bike. Thats about 20 miles car + bike, and I use my bike for about 12 miles or so.

On this matter of bicycles- does anyone know a good store in Massachusetts that sells inexpensive bicycles? It seems that more and more stores are catering to the people who want to buy $800 bikes. I could buy a good bike in Japan for about $100 flat!

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=permaculture

Mass transit is going to continue to be a dead proposition until the systems are made more competitive timewise with travel by car. I know the Sacramento area in California, gutted an excellent bus system to support light rail.

There is a proposal by Arnold in California to get solar panels on every roof, or at least that is the talk. It would certainly make sense. Thousands of acres are going under subdivisions, we could at least generate some electricity from the roofs. What about the parking lots at the big box strip malls? They could even provide shade.

Educate and make incentives for developers to orient houses with south facing windows with the proper overhangs. That’s passive solar gain. Its simple and it works.

What about some sort of wood burner that creates electricty and burns cleanly? I live on 100 acres with 80+ acres that need thinning to make it a healthy forest.

How cool it would be!

(Or is boing boing a joke site?)

Oh, and would’ya order me a vodka and soda, pleeze? With lemon, not lime.

Thanks…

My first reaction was ‘this must be an early April fools joke’.

My second was: ‘this is so bizarre it might just be true!’

Either way, it’s well worth the little time it takes to read it.

I therefore enthusiastically second ALYB’s recommendation:

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/004052.html