You are here: Home / Archives for Lindsay Curren

About Lindsay Curren

Lindsay Curren is Editor-in-Chief of Transition Voice, the online magazine on peak oil. She also writes Lindsay's List, the women's conservation blog, and co-founded Occupy Parenting. Follow her on Twitter @LindsaysList.

Clothesline art, laundry activism, cash savings

By April 17, 2012
Vintage paperdolls.

Make a clothesline and post it in a storefront to encourage line drying.As tempting as it is to take a break from your life to join the activities at an  Occupy Wall Street encampment, this isn't necessarily possible for everyone. But that doesn't mean you don't get to enjoy the opportunity to make a statement, flout mainstream culture, and help influence others toward the good. In fact all you need to achieve all three is to hang your tidy whities on the line. That's right, later this … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , , , ,

Finger pointing on gas prices — the pink slime of politics

By April 12, 2012
Rove Slime

During this already hyper-bizarre presidential election cycle, Super PAC money is enjoying an unprecedented ability to reach a media-addicted public while being held to virtually no standards of truth. Sadly, donors do all this with a nod-nod wink-wink relationship to the candidates each Super PAC wishes to support. Nowhere is this getting more crazy than on the emerging "gas prices" narrative. Yet nowhere is there a greater opening for deconstruction of this phony narrative, and an … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Politics Tagged With: , , , , ,

Yes, you can ferment your food: Review of “Wild Fermentation”

By March 14, 2012
A Reuben

If you're an old hand at all things DIY, congratulations. The following review may or may not be for you. But if you're like me, and devoted to a low-impact lifestyle but a newbie when it comes to all the skills to get you there, read on. Like bread making, about which I wrote a few weeks ago in the beginning of my Yes, You Can...series, fermentation can easily scare the living daylights out of you. Not only does it operate on the presumption that you're working with the bacterial world (a … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Arts, Books, Food, Reviews Tagged With: , , , ,

Cold comfort. Review: The Winter Harvest Handbook

By February 27, 2012
Fall Garden With Cold Frame

Every gardener knows the thrill of gardening season coming upon them. Nigh about January, when those seed catalogs start rolling in, the imagination lets loose its longings, dreaming of the joy of watching the garden take shape, of favorite vegetables growing and the recipes they inspire, and of new plantings, experiments with life's mystery and bounty. The season, feeling too short in most places, becomes a condensed element of time in the year. It's the window where a relationship to … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Books, Reviews Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Yes, you can bake bread

By February 23, 2012
Fresh Bread

My husband and I are on one heck of a family resilience bender. When we first got married almost three years ago, we focused on insulating our place from attic to basement, shaving 20% off of our heating and cooling expenses. This really adds up. But in the past six months our efforts have turned more to homemaker re-skilling. We've added a rain barrel and composter. He's learned to brew beer. And after getting into canning, I've also begun the art of real, regular bread baking. Rising to … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Arts, Products, Re-skilling Tagged With: , ,

Energy and presidential politics

By February 7, 2012
Mitt Romney & Va Gov Bob McDonnell as "Friends of Coal"

We found out the hard way when my husband Erik ran for the Virginia state legislature* that too often issues within states and localities are drowned out by the political noise blared out across the nation from Washington by the news media. (Transition Voice readers will know Erik as our publisher). It was 2009, and on the local campaign trail, almost all Erik ever heard, besides concerns about jobs, were questions on the federal health care bill, the cost of wars, and the US federal … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Politics Tagged With: , , , , ,

Peak kitsch: “The Crisis of Civilization”

By January 31, 2012
Carbon Man

An ongoing issue in the peak oil world is how to tell the story of declining non-renewable resources in a way that's accessible to a wider audience, while remaining credible to experts. To reach out without dumbing down. Most experts on energy and the economy have already made up their minds on the financial crisis, global warming and peak oil and no one documentary is going to shake the faith of these stalwarts. But the public is a different story and there's plenty of room there for … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Films, Reviews Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Why Jane, you look lovely! Review: AUSTENtatious Crochet

By January 17, 2012
Cap and Muff

Images of the post peak-ocalypse tend toward the grim. Even when we imagine ourselves earnestly gardening our edible plots and sharing hand tools and home brews with neighbors, in the background we see the haunting specter of mutant zombie bikers. We also wonder whether there will or can be any aesthetic pleasures in a world made by hand if that world is cobbled together like a MacGyver experiment, all duct tape, bunny ears and twine. Is there not some reason to fear I may be wrong? But … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Books, Reviews Tagged With: , , ,

Portlandia, the best city since Cicely, Alaska

By January 3, 2012
Pickle Sketch

Portland, Portland, Portland. It seems like Portland's all we ever hear about when some great new thing is happening in the world of clean energy, proactive government, mass transit, holistic health, spiritual wellness, social innovation or cultural offerings. It's like Portland is God's own petri dish for hatching the best of the best, the most progressive of the most progressive. Sure, we envy Portland. Sure, we want to be Portland. But all that fantastic ahead-of-the-curve prescience … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Arts Tagged With: , ,

Ten easy resolutions for 2012

By December 31, 2011
New Year banner

Here it comes, the scariest potential year since Y2k, if you buy the hype on 2012. Of course, the sages tell us that rather than ushering in an earth-shattering colossal end to the human experiment, what we can really expect in 2012 is an increase in human enlightenment, even if there are some growing pains along the way. In the spirit of thinking about what could be better in your life, community and the world, here are ten easy resolutions that you can adopt (or cherry pick) to help out … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Transition Tagged With: , , , ,