Caroline Allen‘s “Air,” the sequel to “Earth” and the second novel in Allen’s ‘Elemental Journey’ series, addresses the universal theme of growing up via the unique, other-worldly voice of her début novel.

In the case of protagonist Pearl, growing up means growing away, leaving her rural Missouri for the resolute foreignness of Tokyo, an urban jungle entirely opposite of the earth that anchored her — quite literally — to home in the first book.

Pearl’s “visions” continue to make appearances in this novel, which begins after Pearl has completed journalism school and has made a dozen attempts at skydiving, an activity that allows her to distance herself from the earth to which she was so rooted as a child throughout the first book. Allen’s construction of these visions, which allowed her to gain a true sense of place in her home state, sensing the history of the Osage that once lived there, paves the way for a new sort of vision once Pearl arrives in Tokyo, rootless, raw, and far from home.

“My soul was not used to staying inside,” Pearl says upon her arrival in her new home; it is obvious almost immediately why air was chosen as the representative element of this book. Earth is home, but air is an exploration, a longing, a leaving — while it is a sense with which many can identify, Allen’s characters and keen physical descriptions make this leaving a feeling like no other. As Pearl moves further and further from her roots, she begins to suffocate — in the urban jungle of Tokyo, in the cigarette smoke that blankets her office, in her discovery of herself — though she is unaware. An expatriate and a stranger to this country, Pearl explores the new culture, with its foreign air gods, unique philosophy, and new encounters, all of which are illustrated with this same elemental theme.

“I felt an airy sense I knew him,” she says. “As though our souls had danced in the same place.”

But perhaps the most essential meaning of ‘Air’ is with regards to breath and breathing. At the beginning, Pearl is also a runner, saying that, “Running forced a person to breathe. It forced a person to stop holding their breath. But breathing here could have serious consequences.” This proves to be true, as Pearl begins to smoke more and more cigarettes, causing physical breathing difficulties, but also suppresses more and more of her personal truth, making a meditation session where she is meant to concentrate on her breathing nearly impossible. As she distances herself from the earth, she also seems to become further from herself; this very common post-adolescent feeling of loss of self is illustrated in the other-worldly voice and style unique to Allen.

The book is not without its faults. At some points, the author seems to become too reliant on the narrator’s visions — they become less of a tool and more of a shortcut, making the coincidences Pearl encounters too easy to explain away. There are also several oversights in continuity that become distracting — a last name that changes, or characterization that seems incoherent. Love and lust appear and disappear too quickly and are unexplained; certain characters are used as tools to help the story progress and do not evolve into three-dimensional people on the page.

The narrator, however, saves whatever issues the book displays; Pearl remains the same uncommonly honest character from the first tome: admitting her unfairness to the revolving door of men who seem to pass through her life, her genuine description of her feelings and shortcomings, both emotional and physical, from the odor of her own sweat to the temptation to abandon her friends for the new man in her life.

“I couldn’t cry,” she says at one point. “I didn’t have enough of me left.”

“Air” is, overall, a beautiful story, but not a pretty one. Despite the departure from the earth, the physicality of the original remains — the grime, the stench, the dirt — and it is this that grants the novel its authenticity. It is a genuine book that opens Pearl’s restricted Missouri background to the world, and it paves the way for even more self-discovery in the following installments.

“Air” is available via Amazon on Kindle and in paperback.

Related on Eco Salon

Book Review: ‘Fika’ by Anna Brones and Johanna Kindvall

Book Review: ‘Edible Memory: The Lure of Heirloom Tomatoes and Other Forgotten Foods’ by Jennifer A. Jordan

Book Review: Most Good, Least Harm

Image care of Caroline Allen

The post Caroline Allen’s ‘Air’: Jarring, Authentic Prose Explores Leaving Home appeared first on EcoSalon.

Air conditioners and central air systems are energy wasting mechanisms that come with a high price tag each month during the summer season. Thankfully, there is an interesting alternative to cool your house naturally: the Cold Pot, a low-tech device that takes the simple occurrence of evaporation and makes it that much more significant.

Clay, a natural substance so menial to most, probably never thought of much, actually has some cool tricks up its sleeve. It’s been around long before the dinosaurs were roaming freely about and embodies an abundance of common (and uncommon) uses. From beauty remedies and products to external and internal medicinal treatments down to pet litter, clay plays an exceptional and health conscious role. Now, in a most unusual portrayal, clay is actually wonderfully useful in altering the warm temps in your home.

How exactly can clay cool your house naturally you ask? French-born designer, Thibault Faverie, has given us the answer with his terracotta Cold Pot invention that utilizes the organic process of evaporation to our benefit. Clay is extremely absorbent so that was the obvious main component used in the design. Cold Pot resembles what most would compare to a flowerpot. It does indeed appear that way, very sleek, simple, and compact in size and shape. But inside is where the magic happens.

Behind the clay exterior lays aluminum cooling slices, connectors, an aluminum pipe, and a fan. The outer pot converts heat through a wide opening at the bottom of the pot while absorbing the water on the inside as the fan propels, releasing it up through the cooling slices and pipe to the outer surface. Once water and air meet, evaporation occurs and a cooler temperature is dispensed. The contraption is so low maintenance it only requires 2 liters of water!

It hasn’t yet been specified how large or small of a room it can cool off, but if the Cold Pot actually ever goes into production, it would make a great little investment. It’s incredibly energy efficient, so no refrigerating gas needed which means as friendly as it is to our environment it also keeps our wallets in mind.

There’s also a major health benefit to the Cold Pot! The air you’d be breathing in would be renewed air, not re-circulated! Re-circulated air is the culprit of many airborne illnesses and germs as well as the lack of moisture, resulting in dry air. Dry air equals possible nosebleeds and sore throats. Renewed air gives you fresh, moist air helping to eliminate the issues mentioned above. Who would’ve ever thought a simple terracotta pot and the age-old philosophy of evaporation could sequentially help cool your house naturally? That’s some pretty awesome, progressive stuff!

Related on EcoSalon:

Win for the Clean Air Act: Court Decides EPA Can Regulate Mercury Emissions

10 Infographics On Energy

Common Houseplants Let Us Grow Our Own Clean Air

Image by thibault-faverie.com

The post Cool Your House Naturally with Bio Air Conditioning Inspired Cold Pot appeared first on EcoSalon.

Beijing artist sells a glass jar of fresh French air at auction for $860. The move signifies the problems with Beijing air quality.

Can we put a price tag on something as invaluable as fresh air? Apparently, yes. And it happened.

Beijing-based artist Liang Kegang auctioned off a small glass jar filled with fresh air from Province, France. And the going price? $860.

While on a recent trip to the south of France, Liang couldn’t pass up the opportunity to make a statement in response to the detrimental state of Beijing’s air quality issue. He photographed himself ‘filling’ the ‘clean south of France air’ into the jar on March 29, 2014. The jar sold at an auction on March 30 to Chengdu-based artist and entrepreneur Li Yongzheng.

Beijing, a city home to twenty-one million people, is one of the world’s most polluted cities. Extremely highs levels of thick smog constantly pose serious health issues to Beijing’s citizens. As the chart below shows, since April 2008, there has only been 184 days total where air quality levels were considered good.

Six years of Beijing air pollution summed up. image: Quartz

“Air should be the most valueless commodity, free to breathe for any vagrant or beggar,” Liang said in an interview. “This is my way to question China’s foul air and express my dissatisfaction.”

featured image: Sunset Noir and Home Naturals

Related on EcoSalon

Three Ways China Is Working To Clean Up It’s Air Pollution 

10 Tips To Reduce Toxins and Indoor Pollution In Your Home

For Pregnant Women, Air Pollution Just As Bad As Cigarettes

The post Beijing Air Quality Prompts Artist to Sell ‘Fresh Air’ in a Jar appeared first on EcoSalon.

EcoSalon’s weekly playlist pick from 8tracks.

Songs from a little bit of everywhere, this playlist is the definition of what a good mixtape should be.

No. 14Rainy May from witanddelight on 8tracks.

The post Music Monday: No.14 Rainy May appeared first on EcoSalon.

Electricity is in the air as we face a spike at the pumps. But what about the static?

The issue of range anxiety is far from trivial when you might be traveling over 140 miles to get to where you’re going. Sure, you’re saving some 700 gallons of gas per year by opting for a Nissan Leaf, enough fuel to drive across the U.S. 5,000 times in a gas guzzler. But to convince drivers to adopt lithium battery packs over the pumps, we must first ease range anxiety by increasing charging opportunities both at home and in cities attempting to amp up their green infrastructures and technology.

City governments are spurred on by President Obama’s economic stimulus package, setting aside $2 billion in grants for making advanced batteries along with tax credits to cover the manufacturing, as well as $7.5 billion in loans for producing the advanced technology for batteries and vehicles.

The vision of an electrical energy system across the nation promises the creation of hundreds of thousands of new green jobs – along with the irresistible reduction in emissions from foreign fuel – a huge drain on our air quality and economy.

In San Francisco, where road thrill accounts for 50 percent of all emissions, civic leaders are charging ahead to become the EV capital, first installing three vehicle-charging stations – called Smartlets – in front of City Hall in 2009 – and promising 90 stations by the end of 2011.

The first stations were  part of a pilot project to lay the groundwork for a charging infrastructure to power a growing electric fleet, from car-sharing Zipcars and City CarShare, as well as a plug-in car in the City’s municipal inventory. The city – which now boasts the highest number of hybrid car owners in the U.S. – hopes residents will take advantage of electric vehicles as they become more widely available.

“Buyers now have anxiety over range and  how chargers will get built in their homes or offices, and if we can reduce the fears we will be on our way to saving the planet,” says San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee, who has partnered with car makers, station builders and civic leaders to expand the green grid throughout the Bay Area.  “Removing the man made obstacles from bureaucracies will go a long way because people will buy the cars with publicly-available charging stations in jurisdictions and in homes.”

In fact, the makers of the stations say they are igniting an entire charging industry, bringing together agencies needed to collaborate to convert to an EV culture.

“We will be giving away 4,800 stations with $37 million in grants from the Department of Energy and every time one is installed, three people go to work, so we are creating tons of new jobs,” says Richard Lowenthal of Coulamb Technologies, which builds the stations. “We went from sending three stations to San Francisco to 25 a day throughout the country, and our new industry is seeing a growth of 400% each year.”

Framed by TreeHugger as “gas stations of the future,” will the Smartlets along our sidewalks prompt us to trade in our SUV’s and truly cross over to the Leafs, Volts and Karmas coming on the market?

Nissan tells me it stopped at 20,000 Leaf reservations last year. Nearly 7,000 of those went on reserve in 65 hours when opened to customers, a rate of 100 per hour. Committing to $99 each, 75% of the people registering came from Nissan targeted areas like Seattle, San Diego, Oregon, Tennessee and the Phoenix/Tucson region.

“People are ready,” Nissan PR chief Katherine Zachary told AutoblogGreen, adding most of the reservations are from California but a fair amount also are from places like Georgia where extra state incentives for plug-ins are dangled. Still, the cost of an all-electric that can go 100 miles when fully charged could outweigh the savings for some consumers.

The cars are priced in line with the Honda Civic and Toyota Prius – as low as $25,280 after tax savings (MSRP $33,720 minus federal savings of $7,500), and lease for around $379 per month with an initial payment of $1,999 – excluding the cost of a home charging dock and installation.

“When I heard the price, I was ecstatic because I knew it would mean Nissan is going to sell a lot of these, and that’s going to help our country,” Paul Scott, VP of Plug In America told the Christian Science Monitor. “We think world-of-mouth on this car is going to be better than any consumer product since the iPod.”

And as with iPods and cell phones, the prices of new technology are sure to come down once an EV nation demands mass production, responding to a user-friendly charging industry on its way from a slow burn to an ecstatic boil.

Images: Nissan; Gas2; Chevy

The post Sparking a Plug-In Car Culture appeared first on EcoSalon.

A new study by University of California scientists finds exposure to local traffic-generated pollution increases a pregnant woman’s risk of developing preeclampsia (pregnancy-induced hypertension) and/or having a premature baby.

The study focused on a review of over 81,000 medical records that documented births in the Long Beach/Orange County area between 1997 and 2006. Having built a database capable of estimating what the pregnant women breathed within the three kilometres of their homes, the researchers examined the records to determine where the highest numbers of premature births and preeclampsia occurred.

Correlating the database with birth records showed that living in an area with the highest levels of car and truck emissions increased the risk of a pregnant women having a “very preterm delivery” (when the fetus was less than 30 weeks old) by 128 percent. Furthermore, living in this high-risk area also appeared to increase the risk of developing preeclampsia (pregnancy-induced hypertension) by as much as 42 percent.

The study’s lead author, Jun Wu, an assistant professor of epidemiology at UC Irvine, said results like this indicate the importance of doctors making their pregnant patients aware of these issues so that they can take can reduce the risk as much as possible with precautions such as closing their windows at home and when in the car.

Study abstract

Image: Caveman 92223

The post Southern California’s Toxic Car Emissions Associated with Premature Births appeared first on EcoSalon.