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Summary
Paul takes a break from editing the SKIP book to review chapter two of his Building a Better World in your Backyard book with Julia, Katie, and Mark, although they spend half the podcast talking about the upcoming Garden Master course, progress with the SKIP book, and other Kickstarter updates.
Before they get into the book, there’s tickets to the livestreamed version of the 2022 Garden Master course available on the digital market – more details are linked below. The teacher for the Garden Master course, Helen Atthowe, not only studied under Masanobu
Fukuoka, but taught the officially sanctioned Master Gardener courses for 17 years before quitting due to excessive control over what she taught from pesticide companies, so whilst this course won’t get you a Master Gardener title, the information will nonetheless be invaluable.
Getting into the book, Paul brings up the situation of an area in which a wind farm couldn’t be built due to opposition from the locals, with both the leaders of the anti-windfarm and pro-windfarm groups citing ecological reasons for their stance. In order to figure out if your stance is actually eco-friendly or just the result of copious greenwashing, Paul has come up with a basic test that’s probably a bit too loose, but generally works: do you spend less than the average US adult on heating annually ($1000), with kids not counting? If yes, you’re a certified eco-warrior/environmentalist level 1. This test was originally conceived when Paul got invited over to Seattle to house-sit a friend of his for a few months and managed to reduce the utility bill while he was there by 75% and consequently settle a half-decade long dispute on how to quantify if you’re an environmentalist or not.
Relevant Threads
Building a Better World in your Backyard by Paul Wheaton and Shawn Klassen-Koop
2022 Certified Garden Master Course - In person tickets
Pre-order Certified Garden Master course - LIVE Stream
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This podcast was made possible thanks to:
Dr. Hugh Gill Kultur
Kyle Neath
Bill Crim
anonymous
Chris Sugg
Kerry JustTooLazy
Jocelyn Campbell
Bill Erickson
Sasquatch
G Cooper
Dominic Crolius
Penny McLoughlin
Mehron Kugler
Pasquale DeAngelis
havokeachday
Julia Winter, world's slowest mosaic artist
Greg Martin
Mark
Sean Benedict
Rita Bliden
Dana Martin
Candace Dahlk
Keith Kuhnsman
Leanne
Eric Tolbert
Nick DePuy
Nathan Hale
Opalyn Brenger
Polly Jayne Smyth
Todd Gerardot
Katie Young
Ivar Vasara
Brent Lawson
Weston prestage
Candice Crawford
Chris Holtslag
Song Zheng
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