After a few weekends of discussing the topic of sustainable living and development with family and friends I have heard the term "moral" or idea of "morality" being expressed over the topic. This led me to discover that many people who discuss or are told about living in a sustainable manner believe that the choice to live sustainable is a moral one. The question of living sustainable is indeed a moral one but is the meat of the choice really moral? What makes it a moral question? What is the necessity of living so? I decided to put a few of the answerers for these questions down to paper.
The morality of living sustainably is simple. As long as we live within the means given to us by nature we will be able to live within nature. This may not be a symbiotic relationship but we can foster a less parasitic relationship with our ecosystem. In taking on a sustainable life we are able to support ourselves without detrimental results on the land around us. But it is not just the land that we are saving by living in a sustainable way. The effects of life the way we live it now are being felt all over the world. Rising seas, rising temperatures, unpredictable climate, degraded agricultural systems, overpopulation, overuse of resources, deforestation, the list goes on. By living in a more sustainable way we can reduce these negative effects of the way life has been lived, making living easier and increasing the likelihood that we will have a place to live in the future.
That brings me to the practical side of the choice to live sustainably. We already talked about the effects of our way of life on the world, so what does that mean for the practicality and moreover the necessity of sustainability. With our agricultural system stretched globally we are limited with what we can expect in the years to come, if we chose to continue on with a global system. The global agricultural system will not hold up under the stresses of reduced fossil fuel inputs and certainly will not survive the continues stresses the system itself puts on the land. Our system is losing thousands if not millions of acres a year to degradation, soil erosion, soil death, loss of water resources, suburban sprawl, etc. If the system we are using is killing the land we need to make the system work then it can clearly not last. If the fossil fuels used to power our system are polluting the word to the point it alters climate for the worse then we cannot further their use. If those same fossil fuel run out over the next 30 years, then we will surely face many years of strife if we dont change our ways. War, famine, climatic upheaval, none of these sound like a way to further life the way we know it.
So again morally we need to change our ways in order to protect our live, the lives of our children and our neighbors for generations to come. In order to do so we will be living a more harmonious life with nature. To anyone peace, harmony, safety for our children, helping our neighbors, protecting our species all seem like morally right and positive ends. From a practical point of view, being able to feed ourselves, live without fearing shortages of food, water, land, resources, electricity, safety from climatic change, and the security of our nation, all seem like necessities.
Through the lens of these two arguments we can see that certainly a portion of the argument is moral but the hard fact of the argument is that it is a necessary change that we must make.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Friday, December 11, 2009
Communes, Intentional Communities, and Ecovillages; different spins on society that can sustain humanity into the future.
When someone tells you they want to live on a commune they immediately have visions of free-loving hippies and psychedelic drug use, the traditional view of anyone counter to the common ideas of how a society should be structured. This, at times, may have been a understandable outlook, the 60's had their ups and downs, but modern intentional communities are paving the way for people to live sustainable into the future.
So what are all these concepts anyway? Communes? Intentional Communities? Ecovillages?
The idea of a commune is nothing new, we are all familiar with the communes of the 60's in America, but they go much further back into history than that. In America there were many political, religious, or social communes that date back into the 1800's. Believe it or not the Oneida silverware company, in Oneida, New York, began as a commune! Abroad there are histories of communes in Europe, in countries like Germany and Russia. In the Middle East was home to communes in the past. All over the world there are Abbey's and Monasteries that are communes and some of these date back hundreds of years, if not more!
What a commune is differs greatly from place to place but most are a community of people who unite over social, political, or religious causes, common interests of goals, and many other things. Typically material possessions and land are shared along with income and resources. These are a type of "intentional community" or planned community. Basically a residential community that places a high emphasis on team work and the common good, and which works towards a better way of life for its residents. Many commune-type communities are ruled democratically or by majority vote of its founding members. However some have a more hierarchical form of rule. It would seem that one common thread is a disdain for bureaucracy and unfairness.
What is an interesting concept within a commune is the idea of shared property and possessions. Foreign to most Americans is the concept that a group can own a piece of property, live and work on that property, and be successful as a society. Even more unusual is the idea that a group of people would pool their individual incomes together in order to serve the interests of the group as a whole. By bringing all their income together into one common purse the group can achieve much more than the individual and in achieving more as a group they raise the standard of living for the whole commune.
I personally think that in a time of global economic hardship the idea that a group could come together like this. In a way it is a very human thing to do. Those in the group without an income could find a way to be beneficial the group through the growing of food and livestock or doing the work and chores around the property, and maintaining the various systems needed for life. Meanwhile those who have an income can bring that into the group and benefit the group as a whole while being supported by other members of the group. This sort of symbiosis, I feel, is lost on many Americans today. Perhaps only in stories and the memories of the very old can we find functioning examples of this in out society.
So then comes the concept of the ecovillage. At it roots a combination of a intentional community and a sustainable habitat for humans. Most ecovillages place special importance on being eco-friendly to the extreme. Green or eco-friendly infrastructure and capital, small ecological footprint, systems of sustainable agriculture such as permaculture, and renewable energy are just some of the pillars that an ecovillage stands on.
Most within ecovillags place a value on being agents of change for the greater society. Setting the example of how people can live without harming the environment. Self-sufficiency is also sometimes a goal but can lead in ways to isolation that may not be desirable. Most ecovillages look down on immoral or objectionable spending from an ecological or socially just point of view. So leave your SUV's at the gate. This mindset of eco-friendliness combined with a goal of making life equally agreeable makes for a very attractive deal.
For more information on ecovillages I encourage you to visit The Ecovillage at Ithaca's website. EVI is a ecovillage made up of two distinct communities with a third on the way in Ithaca, New York. Their village spans a 175 acre parcel of land a large chunk of which is dedicated "green space" that will not be developed. Theirs is a very good inspiration for what a ecovillage looks like.
So how can these examples help our society in the coming decades? It may not be what these communities themselves do within themselves but the example they leave and the skills they teach others that will be of greatest importance to society as a whole. In the face of the converging problems of climate change, peak oil, overpopulation, food scarcity, water shortages, etc, etc, an ecovillage is a small utopia within the greater picture. Expand that Utopian lens to the size of a small town or city and we are talking about a method of living that could possibly sustain society.
A large part of what these ecovillages would do is bring infrastructure, production, agriculture, and all the basics of life back into the local community. Imagine a town of average size where the local economy wasn't a problem because everything that the town needed was made within its own borders. Now the concepts of property and income sharing might not be for all but imagine if your town made its own clothing and you were able to buy that clothing at 80% of what it would cost you to get it from a foreign supplier because by purchasing that piece of clothing you were not only supporting your local textile industry but also your own livelihood. Of course this might not work for places as big as New York City but there are parts of the greater message that might be applicable such as raising your own food, or even just a portion. Within a small town like the many that dot New York State there are surely people who would benefit from the de-specialization of labor, shared property, working within the community, for the community as a community member, growth of local industry, self sufficient lifestyles.
Realistically a group of friends or like minded individuals who were to start such a community would only need to be able to purchase, collectively, a piece of land to suit their group size, maybe 50 acres. From there they would need within their group, individuals with the skills and the means to build homes, farm the land, design green small scale water and water treatment facilities, build a internal power infrastructure, raise livestock. Skills that not many have but that many might be able to learn. Initially such a venture might be costly for those fronting the cash within the group or for all the members of the group equally, but after a few years of hard work and determination they would be able to put together a sustainable habitat for those who lived there. Such a goal is hard met but noble in its intent, and truly any group who deems such a cause worthy is deserving of such a haven. With luck, in time, there may be more such villages in the world. With greater luck perhaps the world will pay attention and set some similar goals of its own.
So what are all these concepts anyway? Communes? Intentional Communities? Ecovillages?
The idea of a commune is nothing new, we are all familiar with the communes of the 60's in America, but they go much further back into history than that. In America there were many political, religious, or social communes that date back into the 1800's. Believe it or not the Oneida silverware company, in Oneida, New York, began as a commune! Abroad there are histories of communes in Europe, in countries like Germany and Russia. In the Middle East was home to communes in the past. All over the world there are Abbey's and Monasteries that are communes and some of these date back hundreds of years, if not more!
What a commune is differs greatly from place to place but most are a community of people who unite over social, political, or religious causes, common interests of goals, and many other things. Typically material possessions and land are shared along with income and resources. These are a type of "intentional community" or planned community. Basically a residential community that places a high emphasis on team work and the common good, and which works towards a better way of life for its residents. Many commune-type communities are ruled democratically or by majority vote of its founding members. However some have a more hierarchical form of rule. It would seem that one common thread is a disdain for bureaucracy and unfairness.
What is an interesting concept within a commune is the idea of shared property and possessions. Foreign to most Americans is the concept that a group can own a piece of property, live and work on that property, and be successful as a society. Even more unusual is the idea that a group of people would pool their individual incomes together in order to serve the interests of the group as a whole. By bringing all their income together into one common purse the group can achieve much more than the individual and in achieving more as a group they raise the standard of living for the whole commune.
I personally think that in a time of global economic hardship the idea that a group could come together like this. In a way it is a very human thing to do. Those in the group without an income could find a way to be beneficial the group through the growing of food and livestock or doing the work and chores around the property, and maintaining the various systems needed for life. Meanwhile those who have an income can bring that into the group and benefit the group as a whole while being supported by other members of the group. This sort of symbiosis, I feel, is lost on many Americans today. Perhaps only in stories and the memories of the very old can we find functioning examples of this in out society.
So then comes the concept of the ecovillage. At it roots a combination of a intentional community and a sustainable habitat for humans. Most ecovillages place special importance on being eco-friendly to the extreme. Green or eco-friendly infrastructure and capital, small ecological footprint, systems of sustainable agriculture such as permaculture, and renewable energy are just some of the pillars that an ecovillage stands on.
Most within ecovillags place a value on being agents of change for the greater society. Setting the example of how people can live without harming the environment. Self-sufficiency is also sometimes a goal but can lead in ways to isolation that may not be desirable. Most ecovillages look down on immoral or objectionable spending from an ecological or socially just point of view. So leave your SUV's at the gate. This mindset of eco-friendliness combined with a goal of making life equally agreeable makes for a very attractive deal.
For more information on ecovillages I encourage you to visit The Ecovillage at Ithaca's website. EVI is a ecovillage made up of two distinct communities with a third on the way in Ithaca, New York. Their village spans a 175 acre parcel of land a large chunk of which is dedicated "green space" that will not be developed. Theirs is a very good inspiration for what a ecovillage looks like.
So how can these examples help our society in the coming decades? It may not be what these communities themselves do within themselves but the example they leave and the skills they teach others that will be of greatest importance to society as a whole. In the face of the converging problems of climate change, peak oil, overpopulation, food scarcity, water shortages, etc, etc, an ecovillage is a small utopia within the greater picture. Expand that Utopian lens to the size of a small town or city and we are talking about a method of living that could possibly sustain society.
A large part of what these ecovillages would do is bring infrastructure, production, agriculture, and all the basics of life back into the local community. Imagine a town of average size where the local economy wasn't a problem because everything that the town needed was made within its own borders. Now the concepts of property and income sharing might not be for all but imagine if your town made its own clothing and you were able to buy that clothing at 80% of what it would cost you to get it from a foreign supplier because by purchasing that piece of clothing you were not only supporting your local textile industry but also your own livelihood. Of course this might not work for places as big as New York City but there are parts of the greater message that might be applicable such as raising your own food, or even just a portion. Within a small town like the many that dot New York State there are surely people who would benefit from the de-specialization of labor, shared property, working within the community, for the community as a community member, growth of local industry, self sufficient lifestyles.
Realistically a group of friends or like minded individuals who were to start such a community would only need to be able to purchase, collectively, a piece of land to suit their group size, maybe 50 acres. From there they would need within their group, individuals with the skills and the means to build homes, farm the land, design green small scale water and water treatment facilities, build a internal power infrastructure, raise livestock. Skills that not many have but that many might be able to learn. Initially such a venture might be costly for those fronting the cash within the group or for all the members of the group equally, but after a few years of hard work and determination they would be able to put together a sustainable habitat for those who lived there. Such a goal is hard met but noble in its intent, and truly any group who deems such a cause worthy is deserving of such a haven. With luck, in time, there may be more such villages in the world. With greater luck perhaps the world will pay attention and set some similar goals of its own.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Alternatives in housing, shrinking the McMansion into something small, sustainable, and eco-friendly.
There are a lot of problems with suburbia. One of my least favorite is the McMansions of suburbia, the multitude of cookie cutter, 3000+ square foot, hollow, stick frame, buildings that line countless thousands of housing developments across the nation.
What is so bad about these behemoth buildings? From an architectural stand point they are mutts, cross breeds of many different architectural styles. The facade of many of these homes are considered beautiful but the beauty stops at the front door. Walk around the side of these buildings and they are cold, flat, emotionless, vinyl sided and ugly. There is nothing attractive about vinyl siding. Its cheap plastic, and about as American as housing gets. Under these plastic wrappings are even cheaper stick frame constructions, built to save time, money and labor. On the inside of the massive homes are more of the same; cold, flat, white, and empty spaces. The cheapness of construction in these homes means the house has a short life span and regular repair bill. The insides need to be filled with massive, over-sized, furniture just to make the place feel lived in. There is little to no warmth, no feeling that these houses are homes. These homes are fragile, and hopelessly wasteful in their design and what they incorporate into their construction. This was not always the way, no, in fact our country has a colorful history of building designs and ideas. The alternatives are out there we only need to look for them.
So what are the alternatives? There are many different styles of homes being built today that qualify, at least in my mind, as "alternative' in their designs. These range from the simplest and closest to modern architecture, such as the Tumbleweed Tiny Homes of Jay Shafer, to the very progressive, such as the Earthship designs of Earthship Biotecture. Like I said some of these homes are completely radical and some are rather traditional, either way it is what they represent and how they are built that really makes them special.
Lets start with the Tiny House Movement. Tiny homes are a large piece of American housing history, from the times of the settlers right on up the the bungalows of the early 1900's through the 1970's and beyond to modern cabins and retreats, these sub-1000 square foot homes pop up all over America. But what makes them special, you ask? Efficiency and conservation of space, rooms with multiple uses and features, small operational and construction costs, all of these are part of the tiny house charm.
Here is an example of a tiny house and its floor plan from the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company in California. This particular house is one of their mid range home size wise, and offers up to three bedrooms within it's 681 to 774 square foot structure. They are beautiful homes but they are traditional in their architecture, stick frame with hardwood floors and wood paneled walls and ceilings. However, it is their efficient design scheme, taking advantage of ever little nook and cranny conceivable to fit the necessities of daily life into such a small space. Two bathrooms, the option of three bedrooms, a family room, and kitchen (with an optional dinette area replacing the downstairs bath) all trimmed of the unnecessary space and wasted areas. I know from experience that a family of three or four could easily live in such a small space. It only takes a quick google search to confirm that thousands of families in the US are already living in such simple and streamlined arrangements.
A special aside is needed for Jay Shafer's Tumbleweed Homes that are on wheels. These designs, while dependent on fossil fuel driven trucks, are a novel take on the nomadic lifestyle. Reminiscent of the Gypsy wagons of old Europe, these homes allow for geographic and social mobility on seldom achieved levels. An inspiration to me and many of my friends, these homes exemplify a multitude of alternative concepts in housing.
The next most radical idea in shrinking the McMansion into a sustainable and alternative design again lends much from American housing history, the straw bale home. Building homes with bales of straw dates far back into pre-history, however the use of straw bale construction as an industry or model design is an American invention dating back to the late 1800's. The mid-west was rich with the basic element needed, straw, and it was a staple of local farming. Homes, community buildings, and even churches and schools were constructed out of rectangular straw bales stacked up on top of each other, most famously in the Sand Hills region of Nebraska.
In this method of building there are two schools; those who build straw bale homes with load-bearing straw bale walls and those who build homes with non-load-bearing walls supported by a post and beam style frame. The earliest bale homes were load-bearing. Modern frames bale homes can support as many stories as the builder wishes to put up, though I doubt anything more than seven stories is practical. Any modern home design can be adapted for straw bale construction. Space must be added to accommodate the size of the bales, but the benefit of bale walls is in the limitless artistic possibilities and the R-value (insulation value) of the walls, safety from fire and pests, and costs.
The typical bale wall has as much as triple the R value of a conventional stick framed home, making the straw bale design a pillar of energy savings and efficiency in any environment. The artistic advantage of bale construction is in the ease at which curves, shapes, and complex designs can be integrated into a stawbale home. Your imagination is the limit when you are able to cut and shape the straw to whatever shape you wish and the plaster, with which you cover the bales, can be colored and formed at will. The possibilities are really endless and this uniqueness makes for a very attractive home.
The level fire and pest resistance that a strawbale home provides takes most by storm and leaves most completely blown away when they see facts. A well built straw bale home is nearly fireproof when compared to a typical stick frame structure. If you punched a hole in the wall of a straw bale home and lit the straw with a lighter it can take as much as 24 hours until there is any structural failure. When compared to the minutes it can take to bring down a stick frame home this is truly unbelievable! This is because there is very little air inside the walls of a straw bale home, effectively suffocating any fire.
Quite similarly a well built straw bale home is nearly impervious to pests as there isn't much for them in the densely packed straw and they also have to bore through very hard plaster to get to it.
Lastly the cost of a straw bale home is a huge point to discuss. On average the typical straw bale home costs between $30 and $100 per square foot. This varies greatly depending on things like source of labor, bales, equipment used, number of workers you hire, and permits needed. Of course the lower ranges are typically that low because a person decides to DIY their house under the guidance of an experienced professional and hires family and friends at the cost of pizza and beer on weekends to get the job done. So the cost will obviously go up if you hire a contractor to do it for you. In comparison to a stick frame home, which costs on average $80-$200 per square foot, a straw bale home is a great alternative and remember we haven't discussed the savings over time with such good insulation or the ecological implications of building with straw.
To briefly cover the ecological implications, let me compare the main components of both straw baled and stick frame homes. Straw bales rely on just that, straw bales, which can be regenerated twice a year. Stick frame homes rely on 2x4's and other lumber, which can only be regenerated once every 6-8 years or longer. Then we may consider the interior and exterior walls. A straw bale is covered, inside and out, with plaster (plaster, stucco, etc) made from; a mix of cement, lime formula, or clay/earth, all readily available and cheap to procure. A stick frame home is reliant on Sheetrock and vinyl siding, both of which are artificial and costly to produce compared to the coverings on straw bales.
Similar to the straw bale home is the cob home. The cob home is made of a slurry of clay, earth, straw, sand, and water, indeed it is cobbed together! Even cheaper than a straw bale it rivals the straw bales artistic possibilities and in construction is very akin to the adobe construction methods of the South West. Many cob homes, like their straw bale cousins, last for generations on generations. However, the cob home surpasses the straw bale in overall longevity with one of the oldest cob homes still inhabited today at over 500 years old. Adaptable to many climates the cob home has been seen in places like the UK, colonial America, the American South West, Africa, the Middle-East, New Zealand, Australia, and the list goes on and on. My expertise and experience with cob building is very limited, as seen by my short mention of it here, however a short google search will turn up an endless amount of information on the topic. Should you want to visit a cob home, I believe there is still one in construction on the Pine Lake Environmental Campus of Hartwick College, in Oneonta New York. I suggest contacting Peter Blue through Hartwick's website for more information. If you end up there be sure to visit the beautiful example of a straw bale home also at the Pine Lake Campus.
Next up on my list of housing alternatives is the completely sustainable living system of the Earthship. The Earthship is a completely self contained example of what living could be. Developed by the company Earthship Biotechture the Earthship is a system or ideology of building a home. It's design is aimed at providing for the occupant in every conceivable way, from self contained sewage treatment, to solar and wind power for electricity and rain catchment cisterns for a water source. These look and feel almost like a modernized version of the "Hobbit Hole" from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. These fantastic designs are more than many could imagine and with the ability to be adapted for any climate and condition, constructed of any recycled or renewable material, and containing almost every necessity of life (not to mention all the necessities of modern life). I am not much more than a fan of the Earthship design and my research into this building practice is limited. There is a wealth of information on the Earthships site including diagrams, videos, messages from Earthship inhabitants, amongst other things. It is well worth looking into. My only concern with this concept is the price point. At or above $200 per square foot this is a comparatively expensive concept, at least at the beginning. However, once you actually are living in your Earthship there is very little maintenance and expenses typically encountered with most modern homes, making these homes a valuable investment.
I hope this post was enlightening for you all an I encourage you to comment! If you want me to explore any of the above alternatives or wish to hear about how they can be successfully combined please let me know.
What is so bad about these behemoth buildings? From an architectural stand point they are mutts, cross breeds of many different architectural styles. The facade of many of these homes are considered beautiful but the beauty stops at the front door. Walk around the side of these buildings and they are cold, flat, emotionless, vinyl sided and ugly. There is nothing attractive about vinyl siding. Its cheap plastic, and about as American as housing gets. Under these plastic wrappings are even cheaper stick frame constructions, built to save time, money and labor. On the inside of the massive homes are more of the same; cold, flat, white, and empty spaces. The cheapness of construction in these homes means the house has a short life span and regular repair bill. The insides need to be filled with massive, over-sized, furniture just to make the place feel lived in. There is little to no warmth, no feeling that these houses are homes. These homes are fragile, and hopelessly wasteful in their design and what they incorporate into their construction. This was not always the way, no, in fact our country has a colorful history of building designs and ideas. The alternatives are out there we only need to look for them.
So what are the alternatives? There are many different styles of homes being built today that qualify, at least in my mind, as "alternative' in their designs. These range from the simplest and closest to modern architecture, such as the Tumbleweed Tiny Homes of Jay Shafer, to the very progressive, such as the Earthship designs of Earthship Biotecture. Like I said some of these homes are completely radical and some are rather traditional, either way it is what they represent and how they are built that really makes them special.
Lets start with the Tiny House Movement. Tiny homes are a large piece of American housing history, from the times of the settlers right on up the the bungalows of the early 1900's through the 1970's and beyond to modern cabins and retreats, these sub-1000 square foot homes pop up all over America. But what makes them special, you ask? Efficiency and conservation of space, rooms with multiple uses and features, small operational and construction costs, all of these are part of the tiny house charm.
Here is an example of a tiny house and its floor plan from the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company in California. This particular house is one of their mid range home size wise, and offers up to three bedrooms within it's 681 to 774 square foot structure. They are beautiful homes but they are traditional in their architecture, stick frame with hardwood floors and wood paneled walls and ceilings. However, it is their efficient design scheme, taking advantage of ever little nook and cranny conceivable to fit the necessities of daily life into such a small space. Two bathrooms, the option of three bedrooms, a family room, and kitchen (with an optional dinette area replacing the downstairs bath) all trimmed of the unnecessary space and wasted areas. I know from experience that a family of three or four could easily live in such a small space. It only takes a quick google search to confirm that thousands of families in the US are already living in such simple and streamlined arrangements.
A special aside is needed for Jay Shafer's Tumbleweed Homes that are on wheels. These designs, while dependent on fossil fuel driven trucks, are a novel take on the nomadic lifestyle. Reminiscent of the Gypsy wagons of old Europe, these homes allow for geographic and social mobility on seldom achieved levels. An inspiration to me and many of my friends, these homes exemplify a multitude of alternative concepts in housing.
The next most radical idea in shrinking the McMansion into a sustainable and alternative design again lends much from American housing history, the straw bale home. Building homes with bales of straw dates far back into pre-history, however the use of straw bale construction as an industry or model design is an American invention dating back to the late 1800's. The mid-west was rich with the basic element needed, straw, and it was a staple of local farming. Homes, community buildings, and even churches and schools were constructed out of rectangular straw bales stacked up on top of each other, most famously in the Sand Hills region of Nebraska.
In this method of building there are two schools; those who build straw bale homes with load-bearing straw bale walls and those who build homes with non-load-bearing walls supported by a post and beam style frame. The earliest bale homes were load-bearing. Modern frames bale homes can support as many stories as the builder wishes to put up, though I doubt anything more than seven stories is practical. Any modern home design can be adapted for straw bale construction. Space must be added to accommodate the size of the bales, but the benefit of bale walls is in the limitless artistic possibilities and the R-value (insulation value) of the walls, safety from fire and pests, and costs.
The typical bale wall has as much as triple the R value of a conventional stick framed home, making the straw bale design a pillar of energy savings and efficiency in any environment. The artistic advantage of bale construction is in the ease at which curves, shapes, and complex designs can be integrated into a stawbale home. Your imagination is the limit when you are able to cut and shape the straw to whatever shape you wish and the plaster, with which you cover the bales, can be colored and formed at will. The possibilities are really endless and this uniqueness makes for a very attractive home.
The level fire and pest resistance that a strawbale home provides takes most by storm and leaves most completely blown away when they see facts. A well built straw bale home is nearly fireproof when compared to a typical stick frame structure. If you punched a hole in the wall of a straw bale home and lit the straw with a lighter it can take as much as 24 hours until there is any structural failure. When compared to the minutes it can take to bring down a stick frame home this is truly unbelievable! This is because there is very little air inside the walls of a straw bale home, effectively suffocating any fire.
Quite similarly a well built straw bale home is nearly impervious to pests as there isn't much for them in the densely packed straw and they also have to bore through very hard plaster to get to it.
Lastly the cost of a straw bale home is a huge point to discuss. On average the typical straw bale home costs between $30 and $100 per square foot. This varies greatly depending on things like source of labor, bales, equipment used, number of workers you hire, and permits needed. Of course the lower ranges are typically that low because a person decides to DIY their house under the guidance of an experienced professional and hires family and friends at the cost of pizza and beer on weekends to get the job done. So the cost will obviously go up if you hire a contractor to do it for you. In comparison to a stick frame home, which costs on average $80-$200 per square foot, a straw bale home is a great alternative and remember we haven't discussed the savings over time with such good insulation or the ecological implications of building with straw.
To briefly cover the ecological implications, let me compare the main components of both straw baled and stick frame homes. Straw bales rely on just that, straw bales, which can be regenerated twice a year. Stick frame homes rely on 2x4's and other lumber, which can only be regenerated once every 6-8 years or longer. Then we may consider the interior and exterior walls. A straw bale is covered, inside and out, with plaster (plaster, stucco, etc) made from; a mix of cement, lime formula, or clay/earth, all readily available and cheap to procure. A stick frame home is reliant on Sheetrock and vinyl siding, both of which are artificial and costly to produce compared to the coverings on straw bales.
Similar to the straw bale home is the cob home. The cob home is made of a slurry of clay, earth, straw, sand, and water, indeed it is cobbed together! Even cheaper than a straw bale it rivals the straw bales artistic possibilities and in construction is very akin to the adobe construction methods of the South West. Many cob homes, like their straw bale cousins, last for generations on generations. However, the cob home surpasses the straw bale in overall longevity with one of the oldest cob homes still inhabited today at over 500 years old. Adaptable to many climates the cob home has been seen in places like the UK, colonial America, the American South West, Africa, the Middle-East, New Zealand, Australia, and the list goes on and on. My expertise and experience with cob building is very limited, as seen by my short mention of it here, however a short google search will turn up an endless amount of information on the topic. Should you want to visit a cob home, I believe there is still one in construction on the Pine Lake Environmental Campus of Hartwick College, in Oneonta New York. I suggest contacting Peter Blue through Hartwick's website for more information. If you end up there be sure to visit the beautiful example of a straw bale home also at the Pine Lake Campus.
Next up on my list of housing alternatives is the completely sustainable living system of the Earthship. The Earthship is a completely self contained example of what living could be. Developed by the company Earthship Biotechture the Earthship is a system or ideology of building a home. It's design is aimed at providing for the occupant in every conceivable way, from self contained sewage treatment, to solar and wind power for electricity and rain catchment cisterns for a water source. These look and feel almost like a modernized version of the "Hobbit Hole" from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. These fantastic designs are more than many could imagine and with the ability to be adapted for any climate and condition, constructed of any recycled or renewable material, and containing almost every necessity of life (not to mention all the necessities of modern life). I am not much more than a fan of the Earthship design and my research into this building practice is limited. There is a wealth of information on the Earthships site including diagrams, videos, messages from Earthship inhabitants, amongst other things. It is well worth looking into. My only concern with this concept is the price point. At or above $200 per square foot this is a comparatively expensive concept, at least at the beginning. However, once you actually are living in your Earthship there is very little maintenance and expenses typically encountered with most modern homes, making these homes a valuable investment.
I hope this post was enlightening for you all an I encourage you to comment! If you want me to explore any of the above alternatives or wish to hear about how they can be successfully combined please let me know.
Friday, December 4, 2009
By Request: Holidays in America, why don't I get Kwanzaa off from uni?
This could be a new direction for my fledgling blog, accepting requests to rant on about, but we shall see how people respond to this one before I make it a habit.
Well today's post is all about holidays in America and what we recognize as a federal, local, school, or university holiday. Read this post as a response to someone complaining about why they don't get their religions holy days or holidays off as a regular thing over the holidays celebrated by Christianity, the dominant religion in America.
Let us first consider what holidays we do get off as a regular thing in our schools. I want to look at this in specific because it would seem like the majority of the complaints come from this age group. Lets kick things off with a little analysis of what days we DO get off. Here is a run down of the days the school I am currently working for gets off.
Labor Day
Yom Kippur
Columbus Day
Veterans' Day
Thanksgiving (2 days)
Winter Recess (read Christmas and New Years, 7 days)
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
Mid-Winter Recess/ Presidents' Day (5 days)
Spring Break/ Easter and Good Friday (6 days)
Memorial Day
For a grand total of 26 days off, not too shabby. What about the holidays that this school recognizes but doesn't observe as days off?
Rosh Hashanah
Id al-Fitr
Passover (2 days)
Muslim New Year's Day
That's an extra five days, not really a big deal, but what other major holidays are left out? To figure this out, first we need to see what our major religions are here in America. To this I move to the ever-trusty Wikipedia.
According to this graph from Wikipedia, Christian religions make up an overwhelming majority of the population in this country, to the tune of 78.5%. We already celebrate most of the major Christian holidays. This makes sense, understandably, as the founding fathers of our dear country fled to America to escape religious prosecution. Huguenots, Anglicans, Dutch Reformed, Quakers, and Puritans made up the bulk of the early settlers in America, ALL escaping from persecution in Europe during the mid 1500's and early 1600's. The Roman Catholics pre-date all of these groups by settling in Puerto Rico during the late 1400's when Columbus came to this side of the pond.
So that covers why we celebrate Christian holidays, sure, but what about the rest of us?
The Jews make up the next largest religion in the United States, coming in at a whopping 1.7%. First appearing on the scene as early as the 1600's, the Jewish community really didn't make more than a ripple in the religious pool of America until the mid 1800's. The only major holidays that are not recognized by most schools and universities is Hanukkah which comes close to Christmas many years. Those eight crazy nights however are not observed as days off. The addition of those eight days to most holiday schedules of schools and uni's would bring the typical winter break to 15 days. If there are any Jewish readers who say I missed something, do let me know, I will add it to my dialog.
According to the graph I am using Buddhism is the next largest religion at a zen-like .7%. Buddhism is one of the religious late-comers to America, landing in the mid-1800's with Asian immigrants from China and elsewhere. I'm no big Buddhist buff, but from what I understand the holy days of Buddhism follow lunar cycles and beyond those monthly celebrations there are also roughly a dozen holidays. Because of my lack of knowledge I'm not going to comment further for fear of sounding like an ignorant boob.
Islam is a fast growing religion in the US, and I an almost guarantee that since the 2007 survey that pegged the Muslim population at .6% it has grown, likely overcoming Buddhism and then some. Major observances of Islam include; Ramadan, the date of which varies year to year, Ashura, Laylat al-Qadr, Laylat ul Isra and Mi'raj, Laylat ul Bara'ah, Eid al-Fitr (last day of Ramadan, 3 day feast), and Eid al-Adha (4 days). The nice thing about Muslim holidays and observances are mostly at night. The word "Laylat" means night or night of, so you can see that most of these wouldn't require a day off. Ramadan is a month of fasting and prayer, which also wouldn't require a month of days off. Both Eid's would require time off but would likely amount to something similar to a 3 or 4 day weekend. Ashura is a two day holiday that coincides with Yom Kippur. So the total count for new holidays to accommodate Muslim holidays would be as many as 8 or 9 depending on the year.
Hinduism is a very small religion in America with only .4% of the population. Hindu holidays number close to 30 and some are based on solar cycles, others are specific days of months of celebration. I am not too firm on Hinduism and its specifics so I will not comment on it however it is easy to say that the roughly 1.25 million Hindu's in American will get by with taking days off from work that they find to be of great importance.
Lastly we have a large group of Americans, the non-affiliated, who make up 16.1% of the population. Larger than any of the other groups in America. These folks, I can say with out a reasonable amount of doubt, don't really care or don't really mind not getting special holidays for them. They are probably good enough to have the days they already have off, off.
So what would it mean to accommodate all these different religions? Well to start we would need to add around 16 to 20 days to the calendar. Wow that's nearly an extra month of school off and the same tacked onto the school year to make up for it! Lets imagine the cost. I don't have good numbers on this but I remember from college hearing that the average public school tuition would work out to almost 10k per student per year. So for 180 school days, the average public school is spending about $55 per student per day. This would mean an additional $1100 per student per year, bringing the average cost per student to near $11,100 per year. The average American school district serves about 1800 students, small I know, but when you consider the number of rural districts this is understandable. Ok enough number juggling. The cost per school to observe as many holidays as politically correct, would be about 2 million dollars.
Now consider the effect this would have on districts that already cannot afford to stay open! Thousands of schools would close, thousands more teachers would be out of a job, and students would need to be crammed into classes in the remaining schools. This would not be the effect everywhere but we would see a dramatic decline in the quality of education for our students.
Take into account I haven't addressed any of the socio-political and socio-economic effects or the effects on the many aspects of American life there would be.
So can we observe the holidays of every religion here in the United States, no. Should we consider it a problem, I think not. Are there more pressing social issues that we need to address, yes our time and money and brain power should be aimed elsewhere.
Well today's post is all about holidays in America and what we recognize as a federal, local, school, or university holiday. Read this post as a response to someone complaining about why they don't get their religions holy days or holidays off as a regular thing over the holidays celebrated by Christianity, the dominant religion in America.
Let us first consider what holidays we do get off as a regular thing in our schools. I want to look at this in specific because it would seem like the majority of the complaints come from this age group. Lets kick things off with a little analysis of what days we DO get off. Here is a run down of the days the school I am currently working for gets off.
Labor Day
Yom Kippur
Columbus Day
Veterans' Day
Thanksgiving (2 days)
Winter Recess (read Christmas and New Years, 7 days)
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
Mid-Winter Recess/ Presidents' Day (5 days)
Spring Break/ Easter and Good Friday (6 days)
Memorial Day
For a grand total of 26 days off, not too shabby. What about the holidays that this school recognizes but doesn't observe as days off?
Rosh Hashanah
Id al-Fitr
Passover (2 days)
Muslim New Year's Day
That's an extra five days, not really a big deal, but what other major holidays are left out? To figure this out, first we need to see what our major religions are here in America. To this I move to the ever-trusty Wikipedia.
According to this graph from Wikipedia, Christian religions make up an overwhelming majority of the population in this country, to the tune of 78.5%. We already celebrate most of the major Christian holidays. This makes sense, understandably, as the founding fathers of our dear country fled to America to escape religious prosecution. Huguenots, Anglicans, Dutch Reformed, Quakers, and Puritans made up the bulk of the early settlers in America, ALL escaping from persecution in Europe during the mid 1500's and early 1600's. The Roman Catholics pre-date all of these groups by settling in Puerto Rico during the late 1400's when Columbus came to this side of the pond.
So that covers why we celebrate Christian holidays, sure, but what about the rest of us?
The Jews make up the next largest religion in the United States, coming in at a whopping 1.7%. First appearing on the scene as early as the 1600's, the Jewish community really didn't make more than a ripple in the religious pool of America until the mid 1800's. The only major holidays that are not recognized by most schools and universities is Hanukkah which comes close to Christmas many years. Those eight crazy nights however are not observed as days off. The addition of those eight days to most holiday schedules of schools and uni's would bring the typical winter break to 15 days. If there are any Jewish readers who say I missed something, do let me know, I will add it to my dialog.
According to the graph I am using Buddhism is the next largest religion at a zen-like .7%. Buddhism is one of the religious late-comers to America, landing in the mid-1800's with Asian immigrants from China and elsewhere. I'm no big Buddhist buff, but from what I understand the holy days of Buddhism follow lunar cycles and beyond those monthly celebrations there are also roughly a dozen holidays. Because of my lack of knowledge I'm not going to comment further for fear of sounding like an ignorant boob.
Islam is a fast growing religion in the US, and I an almost guarantee that since the 2007 survey that pegged the Muslim population at .6% it has grown, likely overcoming Buddhism and then some. Major observances of Islam include; Ramadan, the date of which varies year to year, Ashura, Laylat al-Qadr, Laylat ul Isra and Mi'raj, Laylat ul Bara'ah, Eid al-Fitr (last day of Ramadan, 3 day feast), and Eid al-Adha (4 days). The nice thing about Muslim holidays and observances are mostly at night. The word "Laylat" means night or night of, so you can see that most of these wouldn't require a day off. Ramadan is a month of fasting and prayer, which also wouldn't require a month of days off. Both Eid's would require time off but would likely amount to something similar to a 3 or 4 day weekend. Ashura is a two day holiday that coincides with Yom Kippur. So the total count for new holidays to accommodate Muslim holidays would be as many as 8 or 9 depending on the year.
Hinduism is a very small religion in America with only .4% of the population. Hindu holidays number close to 30 and some are based on solar cycles, others are specific days of months of celebration. I am not too firm on Hinduism and its specifics so I will not comment on it however it is easy to say that the roughly 1.25 million Hindu's in American will get by with taking days off from work that they find to be of great importance.
Lastly we have a large group of Americans, the non-affiliated, who make up 16.1% of the population. Larger than any of the other groups in America. These folks, I can say with out a reasonable amount of doubt, don't really care or don't really mind not getting special holidays for them. They are probably good enough to have the days they already have off, off.
So what would it mean to accommodate all these different religions? Well to start we would need to add around 16 to 20 days to the calendar. Wow that's nearly an extra month of school off and the same tacked onto the school year to make up for it! Lets imagine the cost. I don't have good numbers on this but I remember from college hearing that the average public school tuition would work out to almost 10k per student per year. So for 180 school days, the average public school is spending about $55 per student per day. This would mean an additional $1100 per student per year, bringing the average cost per student to near $11,100 per year. The average American school district serves about 1800 students, small I know, but when you consider the number of rural districts this is understandable. Ok enough number juggling. The cost per school to observe as many holidays as politically correct, would be about 2 million dollars.
Now consider the effect this would have on districts that already cannot afford to stay open! Thousands of schools would close, thousands more teachers would be out of a job, and students would need to be crammed into classes in the remaining schools. This would not be the effect everywhere but we would see a dramatic decline in the quality of education for our students.
Take into account I haven't addressed any of the socio-political and socio-economic effects or the effects on the many aspects of American life there would be.
So can we observe the holidays of every religion here in the United States, no. Should we consider it a problem, I think not. Are there more pressing social issues that we need to address, yes our time and money and brain power should be aimed elsewhere.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
"Americans Sedentary Lifestyle"
That's politically correct talk for "Americans are a bunch of lazy fat-asses!"
We have a serious problem here in America and this problem isn't exactly my usual soap-box fare. The way we live our lives is very unhealthy. We get up in the morning, sit in the car for a half hour munching on our breakfast burrito, then we sit at a desk for 6-8 hours, get back in our cars and sit for another half hour with a big mac, once we are home we sit in front of our TV's, laptops, and video games for another 4-5 hours before bed. That makes about 10 minutes of actual walking between the house to the car, car to work, trips to the bathroom, back to the car, back home, and in between commercials for another bag of chips.
Hells yes that sounds like a great relaxing day!! But did we ever consider what all that relaxing is doing to us? Our bodies? Well according to nationmaster.com and also held as common knowledge we are the fattest country in the world. Thirty percent or almost one out of every three people in America is considered obese (thats a BMI of 30 or higher). Annnnnnnnnd do many people really care? No, not really. Should they? YES!
What do you get for being so fat? Well cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, depression, respiratory problems, muscular atrophy, and even hemorrhoids. Thats right ladies and gentlemen, even your ass hates you for being fat...
Sure your thinking I'm being a little harsh. True, I am. But this is seriously one of the greatest health concerns we've ever seen! Yeah worse than swine flu or SARs or whatever scary super bug has been drummed up this year. The effects of obesity claim more people a year than smoking!! For people over the age of 35, 20% of all deaths are caused by the effects of a lack of physical activity.
Your body is no car, it doesn't get worn out from being used. Instead as a body is used it gets healthier. That doesn't mean over exerting yourself is good. Don't jump up and run ten mils a day, that might be bad, but by all means go for a good walk out in the sunshine! As you move your body gains a lot! You move oxygen round your body, your body becomes more flexible, you move lymph fluid through your body, you keep your heart healthy and you keep your lungs in good shape too! Your body will even pay you back for all the work!!! As you exercise your body releases chemicals to make you feel good, and a little serotonin is good for everyone!
How hard can it be to go for a walk?
We have a serious problem here in America and this problem isn't exactly my usual soap-box fare. The way we live our lives is very unhealthy. We get up in the morning, sit in the car for a half hour munching on our breakfast burrito, then we sit at a desk for 6-8 hours, get back in our cars and sit for another half hour with a big mac, once we are home we sit in front of our TV's, laptops, and video games for another 4-5 hours before bed. That makes about 10 minutes of actual walking between the house to the car, car to work, trips to the bathroom, back to the car, back home, and in between commercials for another bag of chips.
Hells yes that sounds like a great relaxing day!! But did we ever consider what all that relaxing is doing to us? Our bodies? Well according to nationmaster.com and also held as common knowledge we are the fattest country in the world. Thirty percent or almost one out of every three people in America is considered obese (thats a BMI of 30 or higher). Annnnnnnnnd do many people really care? No, not really. Should they? YES!
What do you get for being so fat? Well cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, depression, respiratory problems, muscular atrophy, and even hemorrhoids. Thats right ladies and gentlemen, even your ass hates you for being fat...
Sure your thinking I'm being a little harsh. True, I am. But this is seriously one of the greatest health concerns we've ever seen! Yeah worse than swine flu or SARs or whatever scary super bug has been drummed up this year. The effects of obesity claim more people a year than smoking!! For people over the age of 35, 20% of all deaths are caused by the effects of a lack of physical activity.
Your body is no car, it doesn't get worn out from being used. Instead as a body is used it gets healthier. That doesn't mean over exerting yourself is good. Don't jump up and run ten mils a day, that might be bad, but by all means go for a good walk out in the sunshine! As you move your body gains a lot! You move oxygen round your body, your body becomes more flexible, you move lymph fluid through your body, you keep your heart healthy and you keep your lungs in good shape too! Your body will even pay you back for all the work!!! As you exercise your body releases chemicals to make you feel good, and a little serotonin is good for everyone!
How hard can it be to go for a walk?
Monday, November 23, 2009
America on a Diet: Curbing Consumption
As a concerned American I can only hope that my writing will spread awareness of certain problems we have in our society. As Americans we consume, a lot, from the oxymoronic consumer durables to fast food. I believe we can live our lives in much simpler ways. This has become somewhat trendy to the extent that people are buying clothing, coffee mugs, and appliances that are made from recycled parts or products. Now really these things serve not to fix the problems but serve the problem in a way that makes consumers feel good about themselves. But what about acctually solving the problem?
There are many ways to consume less but we have to be willing to change the ways we live and work. Here are some suggestions of what we could cut out or cut down on in order to fix our consumption problems.
In the kitchen we have a great deal of waste going on. On average 8% of our energy costs are from our refrigerator alone! Dishwashers, microwave ovens, blenders, bread makers, toasters, all take a good deal of electricity or water to run. Now if we cut out say dishwashers we could free up space, electricity, water, and even eliminate a sanitary nighmare. Replacing your older appliance might be a good plan but be weary. Just because you buy a energy star fridge doesn't mean you are doing the right thing. Keep those clunkers around till they need to be put on life support. Who knows, by then there might be better options and some might not come from China.
Turning out the lights and making sure the faucets are not leaky will also save an enormous amount. Lights can be complicated because of the buzz over CFL (compact flourecsant) light bulbs. As a rule of thumb if you are leaving a room turn your lights off. If you are leaving a room and then coming right back in it is better to leave them on, but no more than 5 minutes. Turns out that the large initial amount of energy to turn that light on does make a difference. A leaky faucet is a huge waster of water. Consider that a leaky faucet in your home will waste approximately 2,000 gallons of water a year. That is 2,000 gallons of fresh water that is completely wasted. To look at this in a different light that translates to about a 5 gallon bucket filled a day, or 41 baths a year, or 21 liters a day for all you metric people. Considering that you might have more than one leaky faucet you are wasting a TON of water.
How about the things we buy?
Well a great way to stop consuming or rather to consume significantly less would be to eat local. Supporting local food is supporting an industry that uses considerably less energy and wastes a lot less than industrial agriculture. Beyond that you will likely be spending less money on things like packaging and preservation that increase the amount of energy used to produce a food but not the amount of energy (nutritional value) of a food. Also consider that on average our produce at Wal-Mart and Price Chopper and other grocery stores travels 1,500 miles to get there. And worse still only about 7% of the money you spend stays in your local economy, the other 93 pennys out of every doller go to pay for parts of the food system like packaging, transportation, and preservation. In comparison local farmers at your local farmers market keep up to 90% of each doller you spend. Thats money that stays in your local economy and not the economy of other communities or other countries.
The holidays are upon us and we are all going to be heading out to shop for gifts for our friends and families. But do they really NEED what we are getting them? Is there anything we can get that will hold its value? Are we spending money for something that is disposable when we can get reusable? Is there an alternative to what you are getting them that would be less wasteful?
Instead of a CD or DVD maybe get a gift certificate for a digital copy that you can get through iTunes or some other service.
Instead of hitting Abercrombie hit the local Salvation Army.
Try to find things used instead of new. 9 times out of 10 you will be able to find what your want on your local Craigslist or maybe even eBay. Remember just because it is used doesnt mean it has stopped being useful.
Get digital copies of books that can be viewed on something like Amazon.com's Kindle or Barnes and Noble's Nook. Sure these things are news technology and are energy intensive, but they represent entire library's of books in your pocket. Save trees and some green this way. Besides we don't need a highway infrastructure to transport E-books.
Instead of getting something for someone this holiday season do something for them. Maybe take them to a museum or local concert. Not only are you doing something fun but you are stimulation part of your local economy. You could even volunteer to do work for them or treat them to a day off and say do dads chores or mow the lawn or wash the dishes. These little things can help a lot.
Remember people it isn't what you are giving to people but what the gift really represents. Your love for your friends and family. So if it is something special and personal, and not something just bought at Wal-Mart and wrapped in gaudy paper, it will mean more.
I encourage you to leave some comments on this post. I gave a few examples, but now I want to hear what your ideas are regarding lowering consumption.
There are many ways to consume less but we have to be willing to change the ways we live and work. Here are some suggestions of what we could cut out or cut down on in order to fix our consumption problems.
In the kitchen we have a great deal of waste going on. On average 8% of our energy costs are from our refrigerator alone! Dishwashers, microwave ovens, blenders, bread makers, toasters, all take a good deal of electricity or water to run. Now if we cut out say dishwashers we could free up space, electricity, water, and even eliminate a sanitary nighmare. Replacing your older appliance might be a good plan but be weary. Just because you buy a energy star fridge doesn't mean you are doing the right thing. Keep those clunkers around till they need to be put on life support. Who knows, by then there might be better options and some might not come from China.
Turning out the lights and making sure the faucets are not leaky will also save an enormous amount. Lights can be complicated because of the buzz over CFL (compact flourecsant) light bulbs. As a rule of thumb if you are leaving a room turn your lights off. If you are leaving a room and then coming right back in it is better to leave them on, but no more than 5 minutes. Turns out that the large initial amount of energy to turn that light on does make a difference. A leaky faucet is a huge waster of water. Consider that a leaky faucet in your home will waste approximately 2,000 gallons of water a year. That is 2,000 gallons of fresh water that is completely wasted. To look at this in a different light that translates to about a 5 gallon bucket filled a day, or 41 baths a year, or 21 liters a day for all you metric people. Considering that you might have more than one leaky faucet you are wasting a TON of water.
How about the things we buy?
Well a great way to stop consuming or rather to consume significantly less would be to eat local. Supporting local food is supporting an industry that uses considerably less energy and wastes a lot less than industrial agriculture. Beyond that you will likely be spending less money on things like packaging and preservation that increase the amount of energy used to produce a food but not the amount of energy (nutritional value) of a food. Also consider that on average our produce at Wal-Mart and Price Chopper and other grocery stores travels 1,500 miles to get there. And worse still only about 7% of the money you spend stays in your local economy, the other 93 pennys out of every doller go to pay for parts of the food system like packaging, transportation, and preservation. In comparison local farmers at your local farmers market keep up to 90% of each doller you spend. Thats money that stays in your local economy and not the economy of other communities or other countries.
The holidays are upon us and we are all going to be heading out to shop for gifts for our friends and families. But do they really NEED what we are getting them? Is there anything we can get that will hold its value? Are we spending money for something that is disposable when we can get reusable? Is there an alternative to what you are getting them that would be less wasteful?
Instead of a CD or DVD maybe get a gift certificate for a digital copy that you can get through iTunes or some other service.
Instead of hitting Abercrombie hit the local Salvation Army.
Try to find things used instead of new. 9 times out of 10 you will be able to find what your want on your local Craigslist or maybe even eBay. Remember just because it is used doesnt mean it has stopped being useful.
Get digital copies of books that can be viewed on something like Amazon.com's Kindle or Barnes and Noble's Nook. Sure these things are news technology and are energy intensive, but they represent entire library's of books in your pocket. Save trees and some green this way. Besides we don't need a highway infrastructure to transport E-books.
Instead of getting something for someone this holiday season do something for them. Maybe take them to a museum or local concert. Not only are you doing something fun but you are stimulation part of your local economy. You could even volunteer to do work for them or treat them to a day off and say do dads chores or mow the lawn or wash the dishes. These little things can help a lot.
Remember people it isn't what you are giving to people but what the gift really represents. Your love for your friends and family. So if it is something special and personal, and not something just bought at Wal-Mart and wrapped in gaudy paper, it will mean more.
I encourage you to leave some comments on this post. I gave a few examples, but now I want to hear what your ideas are regarding lowering consumption.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Skills that everyone should have. Part 1: Finding water
Well as you can probably figure from the title of this post you are about to learn a skill you should have. This is a weekly installment of The World According To Mr. K where I'll teach you something different every week. This week you are going to learn about water; how to find it and why it is important.
We all need water no matter what, we need to keep our bodies hydrated. Without water we begin to shut down. Headaches, nausea, depression, disorientation, poor judgement, and even hallucinations are just some of the effects of dehydration on the body. Most people say that you should consume about 4 liters or one gallon of water a day. This is in the most ideal of situations and in fact most Americans are considered chronically dehydrated because we consume more soda, coffee, lattes, alcohol, and other liquids over water. In a situation where you don't have water you can begin to feel the more severe effects of dehydration in as little as a day. Granted some people have lasted as much as ten days without water but there are few of us out there who could pull this off and not be permanently harmed.
What does this have to do with anything? Well in a situation where water supplies could become scarce you will need to know what to expect and what you need to have in order to continue on living. Water shortages are already happening all over the country and in a post-oil economy we could see much larger spread water shortages. And don't forget that water supplies are easy targets and terrorists both foreign and domestic have in the past targeted water supplies.
So how do I find water in an emergency? What do I need to know to prepare for such an event? Well its pretty easy to prepare for the even of water shortages. Stocking up on water or putting together a large scale rainwater catchment system are easy enough, the latter will be discussed as part of a agricultural posting in the future. But being able to find water is equally as important.
Knowing your local area is the easiest way to find water. If you live near water sources such as streams, rivers, lakes, ponds, etc., you are in luck. It is easy enough to collect water in a pot of bucket, boil it or otherwise purify it and use it for drinking. Beyond common sense some less obvious ways to find primary water sources include watching the sky, following animal paths, observing insect populations, follow birds (especially water foul), observe changes in vegetation, and use snow, ice, and slush.
Observing the sky can lend you more than just a nice view of clouds, it can inform you of the relationship between clouds and the color of the sky and large water sources. Now this skill is something that takes practice and I myself am no expert however I do understand the basics of this method of water location. By noticing the changes in color of the sky a skilled observer can see that the sky directly over a water source often is much bluer than the rest of the sky. This is because the sky is reflecting the water source. Also looking for early morning clouds and mist are easy ways of finding water sources as low lying clouds often hang directly over water sources. If you ever have looked over a pond or lake at 5:30am in the summer or spring you know what I mean!
Following animal trails is also a useful way of finding water. Now this is by no means a sure fire way of finding water BUT animals need water too. Any hunter, trapper or skilled woodsman knows that if you were to plot animal trails on a topographical map the intersections of these trails forms a V which often will point in the direction of a water or food source. Following these paths takes skill and patience, I suggest talking with a seasoned hunter or trapper before looking for game trails because you will likely not know what you are looking for.
Insects can also point the way towards water. I you do any hiking during mosquito season you understand this very well even though you might not know it can save your life. Beyond swarming insects like mosquitoes, bees are never very far from water and may be a good indicator that water is near by, usually within a mile or two. Ants also need water and will sometime find it in trees. If you see some ants around a damp log or hole in a tree there is a decent chance that you will find some water in these locations.
Birds love water, especially grain eating birds and water foul. Anyone from the northeast that owns property with a pond or lake on it likely have a flock of geese that stop by every fall for a few weeks. But simply following birds is not enough to find water. You need to know that birds are likely nearest to water early in the day or late in the afternoon/evening. This is because like us they sleep, only they often congregate at or near water sources to nest and sleep. If you follow the flight paths of these birds in the early morning go to where they are coming from, of in the evening where they are going to. Good luck and remember to filter that water before drinking it. Birds are to careful where they urinate or defecate, and you don't want giardia.
Finding water by watching the changes in vegetation is also very straight forward and almost obvious. To find water by looking at plants look for denser, greener vegetation thatn the norm. If you are finding a very heavily vegetated area look around your probably close. You might have to dig even but you are close.
Well folks I hope that his have been some what educational for you. At the very least you now know something you didn't. My next installment of Skills will be about more complex ways of finding water where there isn't an obvious source.
We all need water no matter what, we need to keep our bodies hydrated. Without water we begin to shut down. Headaches, nausea, depression, disorientation, poor judgement, and even hallucinations are just some of the effects of dehydration on the body. Most people say that you should consume about 4 liters or one gallon of water a day. This is in the most ideal of situations and in fact most Americans are considered chronically dehydrated because we consume more soda, coffee, lattes, alcohol, and other liquids over water. In a situation where you don't have water you can begin to feel the more severe effects of dehydration in as little as a day. Granted some people have lasted as much as ten days without water but there are few of us out there who could pull this off and not be permanently harmed.
What does this have to do with anything? Well in a situation where water supplies could become scarce you will need to know what to expect and what you need to have in order to continue on living. Water shortages are already happening all over the country and in a post-oil economy we could see much larger spread water shortages. And don't forget that water supplies are easy targets and terrorists both foreign and domestic have in the past targeted water supplies.
So how do I find water in an emergency? What do I need to know to prepare for such an event? Well its pretty easy to prepare for the even of water shortages. Stocking up on water or putting together a large scale rainwater catchment system are easy enough, the latter will be discussed as part of a agricultural posting in the future. But being able to find water is equally as important.
Knowing your local area is the easiest way to find water. If you live near water sources such as streams, rivers, lakes, ponds, etc., you are in luck. It is easy enough to collect water in a pot of bucket, boil it or otherwise purify it and use it for drinking. Beyond common sense some less obvious ways to find primary water sources include watching the sky, following animal paths, observing insect populations, follow birds (especially water foul), observe changes in vegetation, and use snow, ice, and slush.
Observing the sky can lend you more than just a nice view of clouds, it can inform you of the relationship between clouds and the color of the sky and large water sources. Now this skill is something that takes practice and I myself am no expert however I do understand the basics of this method of water location. By noticing the changes in color of the sky a skilled observer can see that the sky directly over a water source often is much bluer than the rest of the sky. This is because the sky is reflecting the water source. Also looking for early morning clouds and mist are easy ways of finding water sources as low lying clouds often hang directly over water sources. If you ever have looked over a pond or lake at 5:30am in the summer or spring you know what I mean!
Following animal trails is also a useful way of finding water. Now this is by no means a sure fire way of finding water BUT animals need water too. Any hunter, trapper or skilled woodsman knows that if you were to plot animal trails on a topographical map the intersections of these trails forms a V which often will point in the direction of a water or food source. Following these paths takes skill and patience, I suggest talking with a seasoned hunter or trapper before looking for game trails because you will likely not know what you are looking for.
Insects can also point the way towards water. I you do any hiking during mosquito season you understand this very well even though you might not know it can save your life. Beyond swarming insects like mosquitoes, bees are never very far from water and may be a good indicator that water is near by, usually within a mile or two. Ants also need water and will sometime find it in trees. If you see some ants around a damp log or hole in a tree there is a decent chance that you will find some water in these locations.
Birds love water, especially grain eating birds and water foul. Anyone from the northeast that owns property with a pond or lake on it likely have a flock of geese that stop by every fall for a few weeks. But simply following birds is not enough to find water. You need to know that birds are likely nearest to water early in the day or late in the afternoon/evening. This is because like us they sleep, only they often congregate at or near water sources to nest and sleep. If you follow the flight paths of these birds in the early morning go to where they are coming from, of in the evening where they are going to. Good luck and remember to filter that water before drinking it. Birds are to careful where they urinate or defecate, and you don't want giardia.
Finding water by watching the changes in vegetation is also very straight forward and almost obvious. To find water by looking at plants look for denser, greener vegetation thatn the norm. If you are finding a very heavily vegetated area look around your probably close. You might have to dig even but you are close.
Well folks I hope that his have been some what educational for you. At the very least you now know something you didn't. My next installment of Skills will be about more complex ways of finding water where there isn't an obvious source.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Automobiles, should we maintain our dependance on the car into years to come??
Let me preface this post by saying first that I am a car person. Those of you who know me well, know that I grew up spinning wrenches with my dad and dreaming of being a rally car driver. Racing in the SCCA and growing up to be a decent mechanic. I've worked for Land Rover as a driving instructor and Mercedes as a chauffeur, and my longest lasting job was based on long distance delivery driving. Two of my big hobbies, taking rides on nice days and off-roading, revolve around cars. But I recognize that these are all unsustainable and that we are facing a grim problem because of our dependence on automobiles.
We all remember the oil crisis of 2008 and the events that followed which crippled our nations, and the worlds, economy. The after effects of the oil crisis are still being felt and will still be felt well into the this century. Private (as in personal) automobiles are the largest glut for oil in America, accounting for over 40% of the total oil demand in 2004. (www.eia.doe.gov) This HAS NOT, and WILL NOT decline significantly unless our society changes on a massive scale.
So what does this mean for a nation faced by the end of a oil and fossil fuel based economy? Here are some questions we need to be asking ourselves in all seriousness as we enter the second decade of this millennium.
Can we even maintain the roads we drive on without oil?
Can we keep our cars on the road without oil?
Do we stand a chance of maintaining the thousands of 18-wheelers roaming our highways that deliver our products and petroleum on-demand and on time?
Do hybrids, electric cars, and alt-fuel vehicles stand a chance of saving our auto-industry?
In short, no, ladies and gentlemen, we are fucked.
Before we even get on the road we need an infrastructure born, raised, and maintained on fossil fuels. From the electricity that drives the pumps at the gas station, to the asphalt that paves our streets and highways, all of it is based on a fossil fuel economy headed by cheap and easy to obtain oil.
Lets start with roads. Roads are paved by equipment, massive diesel machines and trucks that GUZZLE fuel. My father would know more than me about this as he is a master mechanic and welder for a local trucking and heavy equipment company. He has told me, on many occasions, about the enormous thirst that these machines have and how on a good day a driver can visibly watch the needle on the gas gauge fall when they are driving hard. These roads are further maintained by a fleet of similar equipment. Most of the road surfaces currently use are partially MADE of oil. The asphalt used to pave a road is a byproduct of crude oil, and in its natural form is highly difficult to work and in a refined state is as difficult to manage requiring temperatures of hundreds of degrees to even stay in a usable state.
Apart from the roads themselves the automobile industry relies, like any other industry, relies on raw materials. Plastics, glass, sheet metal, various electronics, engine parts, ad infinitum. On average there are 10,000-20,000 parts in a car. A great deal of which are direct descendants of oil (plastics and vinyls), others take a great deal of fossil fuel energy to produce (metal products), and all of it has to be shipped from suppliers (sometimes across continents and across the globe) to assembly plants which dot the land scapes of many industrial towns in North America. Now tell me with a straight face that this production method is sustainable if oil becomes scarce.
How about maintenance? Even a hybrid has to go get its oil changed. Parts need to be lubricated. Your old ripped and faded faux-leather vinyl seats eventually will need to get replaced. Where are these products going to come from if we cant obtain the oil from foreign shores? When you think about the average car on the road, something that takes 4-5 quarts of motor oil and has to have it changed regularly, for this argument we'll say every 4,000 miles (about 1,000 miles over when you should change it), and has a lifespan of 150,000 miles. You will need to drop about 188 quarts of oil into that engine, almost 50 gallons!!! That's a lot of oil considering that as of 2006 there were 469,851,833 registered passenger vehicles (cars, trucks, and SUV's) on the roads.
We all love to go to the store and by groceries, ipods, lawn chairs, craft supplies, etc etc from our local big box store. but do we ever consider where and how those products get to the shelves? There is a fleet of semi-trucks(18 wheelers, tractor trailers, whatever you prefer to call them), about 10 million, constantly buzzing around the country at an average of 6mpg logging an average of 150,000 miles a year. This adds up to 250,000,000,000 gallons of low-sulfer diesel fuel a year. That is a LOT of zeros, and represents an industry which cannot survive AT ALL without oil. And remember that there is no centralized pipeline that supplies gas and diesel to the pump, no that is the job of semi-trucks to deliver it to the pump on time and on demand. Meaning without a trucking industry there is no happy motoring to be had. Does anyone remember the 1973 oil crisis? The gas lines? The odd and even plate number days? That was a relatively small disturbance compaired to what might be coming down the pipeline, or should I say not coming down the pipeline...
Since we NEED our vehicles in the worst way. Indeed we need them in every way from going to work in the morning, to the sports activities of our children, to going grocery shopping, and traveling to see family. With this in mind many of our countries automobile manufactures have begun exploring alternatives to our current gasoline powered, internal combustion driven autos. Indeed leaps and bounds have been made in efficientcy and even alternatives. We all know and love the Prius hybrid, or maybe you Ford fans prefer the Fusion Hybrid. We have seen ethanol make it to our gas pumps in increasing percentages. Diesel has come back with a bang. Hydrogen and electric cars are the wave of the future according to many. And lastly there has been a great resurgence of human powered locomotion, yes the bicycle. but will these efficient and alternative replacements for the current fleet make a difference? Will we solve the problem? Will we only accomplish to replace that problem with another, and possable bigger, problem?
The MPG craze has hit everyone. We all love our efficient cars from all over the globe. Toyotas and Fords alike, as long as they return a combined average economy of over 30mpg... But does this replace the problem, no! All that these efficientcies do is prolong the inevitable, a life-support machine for our terminally ill standard. The technology we are implimenting will only serve to make oil last a few years longer. And in from a realistic point of view it might not even matter at all given the increasing number of motorists in Asia and India. So sqeezing every last bit of efficientcy out of a gallon, while noble, will probably be futile.
Alternative fuels are huge and for a time even I was swayed by their attractive and green properties. But it was not long before the shiny green luster wore away to reveal a deeper dingyer path to motoring. Lets first examine the hybrid electric car. Mating a gas or diesel engine to a electric motor is a awesome idea from many perspectives. The increased MPGs, greater engine longevity, futuristic styling are all wonderful and the looks you get from impressed green-loving ladies sure is nice too. But behind all the flashy new technology is a history that you might not consider.
Like the normal gas or diesel car, that hybrid has thousands of parts, the latest and most expensive being its battery pack, normally lead acid, nickle metal hydride or lithium based. These batteries are toxic, for starters, and wear out after an average of 100,000 miles. So within ten years or so we can expect to see thousands of battery packs wearing out and being scrapped, and, if industry will be industry, with a likelyhood of there being little consideration for the environment. A Prius batter costs about $3000 to replace, do you want that repair bill after 100,000 miles of normal motoring? Then lets look at the ingredients. Lead is one of the greatest carcinogens we have in the auto-world, formally seen in our gasoline and paint, now religated to our car batteries and hybrid packs. The NiMH batteries are less toxic but more prevalent in hybrids. All those original and second gen Prius' had them and so do many current hybrids. Lastly lithium has to be combines with another metal to make a good battery, some of those like cobalt are pretty toxic and harder to recycle. Then you must consider something that has made news lately, the reserves of lithium and other rare precious metals in the world. China, holder of the lions-share of our national debt, owns most of the lithium we know about and they might not want to give it up. Lithium mines aren't too pretty either, you could equate them to the environmental train wreck that is our nations coal industry. So do these hybrids really make a much greener scene? And with this knowledge of batteries does it make the argument any better for battery electric cars?
So what about alternatives like corn ethanol or switch grass ethanol or (insert plant name here) ethanol? Well we love our corn in this country, we produce 259,273 thousand metric tons a year, more than double that of the next largest producer China. (www.nationmaster.com) That being said we must have a lot of corn to brew up into ethanol right? Wrong. If we shift our corn industry from producing for the food industry to the fuel industry the price of corn and corn based products (everything from soda and candy to canned foods and baked goods) will go sky high. We have already seen the prices of food go up and up and up in recent years. Do we really want that to continue? Moreover can we afford to? No. And what about ethanol from other sources? Well we have a lot of airable land left in American, no where near what we need to support our current population but we have land, and that land is dissapearing in the thousands of acres every year. So can we switch our land use from producing food and crops vital to our survival to crops vital to our gas tanks? do I have to answer that?
So what about alternatives like corn ethanol or switch grass ethanol or (insert plant name here) ethanol? Well we love our corn in this country, we produce 259,273 thousand metric tons a year, more than double that of the next largest producer China. (www.nationmaster.com) That being said we must have a lot of corn to brew up into ethanol right? Wrong. If we shift our corn industry from producing for the food industry to the fuel industry the price of corn and corn based products (everything from soda and candy to canned foods and baked goods) will go sky high. We have already seen the prices of food go up and up and up in recent years. Do we really want that to continue? Moreover can we afford to? No. And what about ethanol from other sources? Well we have a lot of arable land left in American, no where near what we need to support our current population but we have land, and that land is disappearing in the thousands of acres every year. So can we switch our land use from producing food and crops vital to our survival to crops vital to our gas tanks? do I have to answer that?
How about hydrogen? Time for a chemistry lesson, and you thought I hated chemistry!Hydrogen is a gas. Hydrogen fuel for cars is a liquid. It take INCREDIBLE pressure to keep hydrogen a liquid and that takes an enormous amount of energy. Most of that electricity comes from coal. Now coal is one of the largest emitters of green house gasses such as CO2. Switching to hydrogen is going to require a terrible increase in CO2 and green house emissions. Serving only to kill us quicker with climate changes and to destroy some of the last wild places in America which contain our coal. So unless our electricity comes from clean sources, we wont be able to produce a viable hydrogen economy and given the amount of pressure needed to keep hydrogen a liquid I don't know if I would want to drive one in case of an accident. Boom!
So are there answers to this problem? Can we keep our cars on the road? Well the answers that I know, are not the answers you want to hear. Our understanding of this problem as a nation is limited and misguided at best. Few people understand or think about the far reaching roots that all transportation technology has. We only have a couple of decades to figure this out and after that it might be too late to mobilize some sort of disaster/crash plan to fix the system. A good idea to pursue is the expansion of mass transit via rail and bus. But these things need to be considered in terms of overall efficiency and what we have the ability to do in the time frame we are looking at. But it is already beginning. Our road based infrastructure is crumbling and becoming ever more expensive to repair. Lets begin to think about things in new ways. Lets shrink our supply lines, live/move close to your job, buy local and rejuvenate our local economies, plan our shopping outings, drive economically or "greenly", share rides and carpool, ride our bikes, and in any other way possible begin to wean ourselves off long range vehicle travel. Good luck America.
We all remember the oil crisis of 2008 and the events that followed which crippled our nations, and the worlds, economy. The after effects of the oil crisis are still being felt and will still be felt well into the this century. Private (as in personal) automobiles are the largest glut for oil in America, accounting for over 40% of the total oil demand in 2004. (www.eia.doe.gov) This HAS NOT, and WILL NOT decline significantly unless our society changes on a massive scale.
So what does this mean for a nation faced by the end of a oil and fossil fuel based economy? Here are some questions we need to be asking ourselves in all seriousness as we enter the second decade of this millennium.
Can we even maintain the roads we drive on without oil?
Can we keep our cars on the road without oil?
Do we stand a chance of maintaining the thousands of 18-wheelers roaming our highways that deliver our products and petroleum on-demand and on time?
Do hybrids, electric cars, and alt-fuel vehicles stand a chance of saving our auto-industry?
In short, no, ladies and gentlemen, we are fucked.
Before we even get on the road we need an infrastructure born, raised, and maintained on fossil fuels. From the electricity that drives the pumps at the gas station, to the asphalt that paves our streets and highways, all of it is based on a fossil fuel economy headed by cheap and easy to obtain oil.
Lets start with roads. Roads are paved by equipment, massive diesel machines and trucks that GUZZLE fuel. My father would know more than me about this as he is a master mechanic and welder for a local trucking and heavy equipment company. He has told me, on many occasions, about the enormous thirst that these machines have and how on a good day a driver can visibly watch the needle on the gas gauge fall when they are driving hard. These roads are further maintained by a fleet of similar equipment. Most of the road surfaces currently use are partially MADE of oil. The asphalt used to pave a road is a byproduct of crude oil, and in its natural form is highly difficult to work and in a refined state is as difficult to manage requiring temperatures of hundreds of degrees to even stay in a usable state.
Apart from the roads themselves the automobile industry relies, like any other industry, relies on raw materials. Plastics, glass, sheet metal, various electronics, engine parts, ad infinitum. On average there are 10,000-20,000 parts in a car. A great deal of which are direct descendants of oil (plastics and vinyls), others take a great deal of fossil fuel energy to produce (metal products), and all of it has to be shipped from suppliers (sometimes across continents and across the globe) to assembly plants which dot the land scapes of many industrial towns in North America. Now tell me with a straight face that this production method is sustainable if oil becomes scarce.
How about maintenance? Even a hybrid has to go get its oil changed. Parts need to be lubricated. Your old ripped and faded faux-leather vinyl seats eventually will need to get replaced. Where are these products going to come from if we cant obtain the oil from foreign shores? When you think about the average car on the road, something that takes 4-5 quarts of motor oil and has to have it changed regularly, for this argument we'll say every 4,000 miles (about 1,000 miles over when you should change it), and has a lifespan of 150,000 miles. You will need to drop about 188 quarts of oil into that engine, almost 50 gallons!!! That's a lot of oil considering that as of 2006 there were 469,851,833 registered passenger vehicles (cars, trucks, and SUV's) on the roads.
We all love to go to the store and by groceries, ipods, lawn chairs, craft supplies, etc etc from our local big box store. but do we ever consider where and how those products get to the shelves? There is a fleet of semi-trucks(18 wheelers, tractor trailers, whatever you prefer to call them), about 10 million, constantly buzzing around the country at an average of 6mpg logging an average of 150,000 miles a year. This adds up to 250,000,000,000 gallons of low-sulfer diesel fuel a year. That is a LOT of zeros, and represents an industry which cannot survive AT ALL without oil. And remember that there is no centralized pipeline that supplies gas and diesel to the pump, no that is the job of semi-trucks to deliver it to the pump on time and on demand. Meaning without a trucking industry there is no happy motoring to be had. Does anyone remember the 1973 oil crisis? The gas lines? The odd and even plate number days? That was a relatively small disturbance compaired to what might be coming down the pipeline, or should I say not coming down the pipeline...
Since we NEED our vehicles in the worst way. Indeed we need them in every way from going to work in the morning, to the sports activities of our children, to going grocery shopping, and traveling to see family. With this in mind many of our countries automobile manufactures have begun exploring alternatives to our current gasoline powered, internal combustion driven autos. Indeed leaps and bounds have been made in efficientcy and even alternatives. We all know and love the Prius hybrid, or maybe you Ford fans prefer the Fusion Hybrid. We have seen ethanol make it to our gas pumps in increasing percentages. Diesel has come back with a bang. Hydrogen and electric cars are the wave of the future according to many. And lastly there has been a great resurgence of human powered locomotion, yes the bicycle. but will these efficient and alternative replacements for the current fleet make a difference? Will we solve the problem? Will we only accomplish to replace that problem with another, and possable bigger, problem?
The MPG craze has hit everyone. We all love our efficient cars from all over the globe. Toyotas and Fords alike, as long as they return a combined average economy of over 30mpg... But does this replace the problem, no! All that these efficientcies do is prolong the inevitable, a life-support machine for our terminally ill standard. The technology we are implimenting will only serve to make oil last a few years longer. And in from a realistic point of view it might not even matter at all given the increasing number of motorists in Asia and India. So sqeezing every last bit of efficientcy out of a gallon, while noble, will probably be futile.
Alternative fuels are huge and for a time even I was swayed by their attractive and green properties. But it was not long before the shiny green luster wore away to reveal a deeper dingyer path to motoring. Lets first examine the hybrid electric car. Mating a gas or diesel engine to a electric motor is a awesome idea from many perspectives. The increased MPGs, greater engine longevity, futuristic styling are all wonderful and the looks you get from impressed green-loving ladies sure is nice too. But behind all the flashy new technology is a history that you might not consider.
Like the normal gas or diesel car, that hybrid has thousands of parts, the latest and most expensive being its battery pack, normally lead acid, nickle metal hydride or lithium based. These batteries are toxic, for starters, and wear out after an average of 100,000 miles. So within ten years or so we can expect to see thousands of battery packs wearing out and being scrapped, and, if industry will be industry, with a likelyhood of there being little consideration for the environment. A Prius batter costs about $3000 to replace, do you want that repair bill after 100,000 miles of normal motoring? Then lets look at the ingredients. Lead is one of the greatest carcinogens we have in the auto-world, formally seen in our gasoline and paint, now religated to our car batteries and hybrid packs. The NiMH batteries are less toxic but more prevalent in hybrids. All those original and second gen Prius' had them and so do many current hybrids. Lastly lithium has to be combines with another metal to make a good battery, some of those like cobalt are pretty toxic and harder to recycle. Then you must consider something that has made news lately, the reserves of lithium and other rare precious metals in the world. China, holder of the lions-share of our national debt, owns most of the lithium we know about and they might not want to give it up. Lithium mines aren't too pretty either, you could equate them to the environmental train wreck that is our nations coal industry. So do these hybrids really make a much greener scene? And with this knowledge of batteries does it make the argument any better for battery electric cars?
So what about alternatives like corn ethanol or switch grass ethanol or (insert plant name here) ethanol? Well we love our corn in this country, we produce 259,273 thousand metric tons a year, more than double that of the next largest producer China. (www.nationmaster.com) That being said we must have a lot of corn to brew up into ethanol right? Wrong. If we shift our corn industry from producing for the food industry to the fuel industry the price of corn and corn based products (everything from soda and candy to canned foods and baked goods) will go sky high. We have already seen the prices of food go up and up and up in recent years. Do we really want that to continue? Moreover can we afford to? No. And what about ethanol from other sources? Well we have a lot of airable land left in American, no where near what we need to support our current population but we have land, and that land is dissapearing in the thousands of acres every year. So can we switch our land use from producing food and crops vital to our survival to crops vital to our gas tanks? do I have to answer that?
So what about alternatives like corn ethanol or switch grass ethanol or (insert plant name here) ethanol? Well we love our corn in this country, we produce 259,273 thousand metric tons a year, more than double that of the next largest producer China. (www.nationmaster.com) That being said we must have a lot of corn to brew up into ethanol right? Wrong. If we shift our corn industry from producing for the food industry to the fuel industry the price of corn and corn based products (everything from soda and candy to canned foods and baked goods) will go sky high. We have already seen the prices of food go up and up and up in recent years. Do we really want that to continue? Moreover can we afford to? No. And what about ethanol from other sources? Well we have a lot of arable land left in American, no where near what we need to support our current population but we have land, and that land is disappearing in the thousands of acres every year. So can we switch our land use from producing food and crops vital to our survival to crops vital to our gas tanks? do I have to answer that?
How about hydrogen? Time for a chemistry lesson, and you thought I hated chemistry!Hydrogen is a gas. Hydrogen fuel for cars is a liquid. It take INCREDIBLE pressure to keep hydrogen a liquid and that takes an enormous amount of energy. Most of that electricity comes from coal. Now coal is one of the largest emitters of green house gasses such as CO2. Switching to hydrogen is going to require a terrible increase in CO2 and green house emissions. Serving only to kill us quicker with climate changes and to destroy some of the last wild places in America which contain our coal. So unless our electricity comes from clean sources, we wont be able to produce a viable hydrogen economy and given the amount of pressure needed to keep hydrogen a liquid I don't know if I would want to drive one in case of an accident. Boom!
So are there answers to this problem? Can we keep our cars on the road? Well the answers that I know, are not the answers you want to hear. Our understanding of this problem as a nation is limited and misguided at best. Few people understand or think about the far reaching roots that all transportation technology has. We only have a couple of decades to figure this out and after that it might be too late to mobilize some sort of disaster/crash plan to fix the system. A good idea to pursue is the expansion of mass transit via rail and bus. But these things need to be considered in terms of overall efficiency and what we have the ability to do in the time frame we are looking at. But it is already beginning. Our road based infrastructure is crumbling and becoming ever more expensive to repair. Lets begin to think about things in new ways. Lets shrink our supply lines, live/move close to your job, buy local and rejuvenate our local economies, plan our shopping outings, drive economically or "greenly", share rides and carpool, ride our bikes, and in any other way possible begin to wean ourselves off long range vehicle travel. Good luck America.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Frugality is here to stay? Hopeful but doubtful...
For my inaugural post on this new blog of mine I figured I would spare the usual mission statement and diatribe associated with such a thing and say something simple. Ladies and Gentlemen, as a planet we are screwed and as a nation we are in a worse situation than most. That is likely to be the theme of many posts here. And so you don't get confused other common themes you can expect to see will be about technologies that may be considered "green" but are more of a necessity to life in the future, surviving in the post oil age, problems faced by our nation and our nations young people, and just about anything else that strikes my interest.
On to the post.
This morning while hoping to be called into work I was, as with every morning, watching the news. What caught my ear was a young holiday consumer being interviewed saying "cheap is the new black". I laughed at the idea and watched on. The report unfolded into an explanation of the use of coupons porting over from a analog paper form to the digital realm of smart phones. I like the idea of coupons and spending less for what you want to buy. Coupon technology has moved this forward a good amount, and at the very least its now easier than cutting up your newspaper every Sunday. However all this coupon stuff isn't the real point I'm trying to get at. The closing remarks of the segment, made by a middle aged holiday shopper with a slight accent, that said "frugality is here to stay".
Frugality is here to stay? I could certainly hope so, but has this latest recession really broke Americans of our addition to consumerism? I really doubt that it has. Regardless of my thoughts on the matter nation wide we are spending less than we have in years past. Despite the ham fisted efforts of the federal government with its cash-for-clunkers program, retail spending is down or slowing. Trade deficits are growing. Every segment of the retail economy, with the exception of box stores, is shrinking. And everywhere in the nation signs of the times are clear, but will we learn our lesson?
What is the lesson? Well to answer your question I'll be a dick and ask you to take part in an exercise with me. If you are in your home office or living room on your laptop or at the kitchen table, etc, I want you to look away from your computers and look around. Notice for me the amount of consumer items you have in your home. How many did you buy without having the cash for them? How many do you use every day, or every week for that matter? How many are the biggest, shiniest, most complicated model you could buy? How many come from China or other foreign powers? How many would only be able to be manufactured in an economic and industrial system based on the exploitation of fossil fuels? If it turns out that your looking around your house thinking "no way I never even noticed this stuff" your starting to get my purpose.
As a country we have sold ourselves to a consumer lifestyle. Our identities are bought and sold, right at the end of the highway at the strip mall, boxed up and shipped across massive oceans on equally mammoth container ships, from the expansive factory complexes of China, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Etc.... For what ends? So I can watch my morning news on a 40" Samsung LCD? We buy what we want because it is made easy. But it is only easy because there is a demand for easy credit. There is a demand for easy credit because the Joneses were able to refinance and get money for a down payment on their new SUV!
If we stopped to think, really think, about how we live our lives and spend our money and leave a footprint in the sand we might rethink what we are doing. Perhaps the hapless shopper interviewed on the news this morning will go home and meditate on his comment. Maybe he and many like him across the nation will think about where their money went and why most of them can only afford to spend about $650 on their holiday gift shopping. Maybe some of them will think that they could make the holidays warm and bright in some other way than gift cards to Wal-Mart and Target. Maybe cash strapped shoppers will stick closer to home and shop their local downtown shops (if they still exist) before making the trip to a box store. But will it stick?
Well I don't know if any of it will stick. I don't know if anyone out there will ever realize that we need to consume less, save more, buy local, buy smaller, reuse what we have, repair what we already own, invest in our local economies, take part in rebuilding small businesses, and revive an America reeling from the morning after of its buy-bigger-buy-more consumption binge. Hopefully other cash strapped American Citizens out there will begin to think the same. and make the change.
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