For years, Latin Americans were stripping the landscape bare to sell palm leaves to US florists and churches, until an eco-friendly Guatemala program turned things around....Read More 

The one piece of mail certain to go unread into my wastebasket is the one addressed "to the busy pastor." Not that the phrase doesn't describe me at times, but I refuse to give my attention to someone who encourages what is worst in me. I'm not arguing the accuracy of the adjective; I am, though, contesting the way in which it is used to flatter and express sympathy. "The poor pastor," we say. "So devoted to his flock; the work is endless and he sacrifices himself so unstintingly." But the word busy is the symptom not of commitment but of betrayal. It is not devotion but defection. The adjective busy set as a modifier to pastor should sound to our ears like adulterous to characterize a wife, or embezzling to describe a banker. It is an outrageous scandal, a blasphemous affront. Hilary of Tours diagnosed pastoral busyness as "irreligiosa solicitudo pro Deo," a blasphemous anxiety to do God's work for him.

The earth is a living thing. Mountains speak, trees sing, lakes can think, pebbles have a soul, rocks have power.

Henry Crow Dog

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The main economic factors for Solar Energy are the local state or federal subsidies and the price that you normally pay for electricity from your utility. Federal subsidies come in the form of tax credits for solar installations and do not vary anywhere in the country. State or city subsidies may also be in the form of tax credits, but there are also rebates and the utility you are hooked up to may or may not be forced to take into account any surplus power that you generate yourself and supply to the grid. An economic factor that is often neglected is the rising cost of electricity generated by non solar means and the average cost per unit of this electricity. This affects the amount of savings that can be made by using solar generated electricity rather than continuing to use grid supplied electricity. When all the economic factors are taken into consideration, some interesting facts are revealed. For instance, one of the cloudiest and coldest states - New York - is actually a better place to install a home based solar energy system than many sunnier locations. This is mainly because of more generous credits given by state and city governments in what has become a much more forward thinking, in solar terms, than many other states. Also, normal electricity is more expensive in New York than states like Louisiana or Texas, for instance. It is economics like this which helps to explain the explosion in home solar energy installations over the last decade - a phenomenon which shows no sign of decelerating.