Five Pane AIR Window Inserts
Yesterday my wife and I took down the five pane window Air inserts in the sunroom and hung them in the basement ‘til next winter. The temperature change was noticeable almost immediately. These simple inserts, based on an old idea that layers of air insulate, saved us a lot of energy and heating costs last winter. Last year I tried to get new interest in this old idea of using air as an insulating factor, but with a few exceptions there was not much interest.
I was really disappointed that Will Allen and Growing Power were not interested in testing out this AIR idea. It could have saved them a significant amount of money. Will is the one who brought another traditional idea, making castings or vermicompost from worms popular and built his organization on this old idea.
Now I am about to try to popularize another old idea, turning cow dung into vermicompost or castings. Again this is a traditional way of making organic fertilizer but not used much in the USA.
The above three observations of old ideas being renewed reminds me of my belief that there is so much to learn that is already present in society or ourselves if we just take the time to see, hear and feel it.
I have also learned that old ideas take off and are renewed more easily when there is money and effort involved. Will Allen and his staff worked hard to popularize vermicomposting, by putting it into practice, selling products, information, training and advising others in this method and raising many grants, from private and government organizations. I read today how they are applying for a $63 million dollar grant from the Federal National Recovery Act for a Centers for Urban Agriculture to advance their mission to “provide equal access to healthy, high-quality, safe and affordable food for people in all communities.”
The two traditional idea of AIR and making castings from cow dung that I am renewing involve no money (www.nonviolentcow.org is a profit-free site) and not a lot of hard work. If I were younger and back in my entrepreneur days I guess I could make a business venture out of these two old ideas. If they worked and made money there would be a lot of interest. But I am not going to do this so these two ways of saving money on energy and making affordable organic fertilizer will need to wait until someone else discovers them anew and works to make them a business, profit or nonprofit.
For now the AIR inserts are out and cow dung is in.
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