Dan Phillips and Creating Houses from Recycled Materials

I just found this excellent video, from TEDxHouston, of a talk given by a man named Dan Phillips on the creation of homes from recycled and re-purposed materials. I definitely thought that it was going to be meat and potatoes on home building and how to use/find materials to use. Boy was I wrong!! This, most excellent, talk is as much about philosophy of home construction, and how we live within our homes/communities, as it is anything else.

Mr. Phillips discusses basic philosophy in the terms of how we seek, build, finance, and live in our homes. A really interesting way to approach things indeed. He breaks it down into two major ways of looking at homes based on Friedrich Nietzsche's concept of the Apollonian and Dionysian. Now Nietzsche wasn't the first to discuss these two in opposition to each other, I think that was probably Plutarch, but Nietzsche went the extra mile to oppose the two diametrically. The Apollonian being the ordered, the ideal, the logical, the thinking, the appreciation for visual and tactile things, whereas the Dionysian is the chaotic, the intoxicated state, the instinctual, the feeling, the appreciation for reality (organic structure?). Applied to modern homes you have the Apollonian McMansion, and the Dionysian [name your organic/sustainable/recycled home design ethos].

Within this framework Phillips breaks down the ideas behind his work and why it is important. The largest driving force, within the home construction industry, is the waste created by the consumer. Formally waste was all over, the industrial revolution had a dirty, wasteful start (think your turn of the century saw mill or steel furnace), now we are presented with a industrial process that is certainly wasteful in terms of pollution but not necessarily use of raw materials. Modern mills and plants that make materials for use in home construction have the process of getting the most out of a raw material to a T. If you have ever been present at, or watched a video of, a modern saw mill in action you will have undoubtedly noticed the advancements made in production of dimensional lumber. Computer technology has allowed a mill to calculate the most efficient use of a log within milliseconds and then cuts it accordingly, gone are the days of cutting 2x4's from one log then 4x4's the next and so on. The problem of waste lies with the consumer.

Phillips gives an example that I, myself, have been guilty of, turning away a piece of lumber because it is somewhat warped. Another example is throwing out the off cuts of pieces of lumber and not using them for other projects and applications. Yet another is replacing any piece of a home just because of a minor imperfection that changes or, in the eyes of most, depreciates its value. This is as bad an example of wanton over consumption as any. Years ago people wouldn't waste anything they bought when building a home or making anything in particular. Today we throw away most of what we buy.

Mr. Phillips believes that a return, or more like a shift, towards the Dionysian side of life, is required in order to conceive of and create a less wasteful way of life. Mr. Phillips, you are preaching to the choir. This shift from an ordered way of building would allow us to get in touch with a more organic and natural expression of our wants and needs. His ideas are quite provocative and I strongly urge you to take aside for a few minutes and watch his talk. Without further diatribe, here is Mr Phillips.



Search Amazon.com for recycled home

Thanksgiving

Nothing much to report today except for the fact that another year has gone by and it is time for Thanksgiving. As we all know the first Thanksgiving didn't actually involve turkey, they hadn't quite thought of that back in 1621. Originally a three day feast, Thanksgiving was made an official holiday by Abe Lincoln, and then later given an exact day by FDR. One sad note about why Thanksgiving was made to be on the fourth Thursday of the month of November is that part of FDR's motivation was to create a day that would encourage early holiday shopping. This was our first step towards the wanton consumer orgy that is Black Friday... I won't go off on that tangent today but I will say that it's a sad thing to think about.

However, I am still thankful for this, my second favorite, holiday. Any time that we can get together with your families and share a meal is a very special time and we should all be happy we still have the luxury of a good meal. The only thing I will try to say to you today is please eat local, buy your turkey and veggies from local farms, and remember that you are all part of a complex system that needs to be responsibly maintained. The more we do to bring days like today back home and back to our local farms makes it more and more likely that we will have these gatherings in the future.

"Thy bounty", is our bounty, cherish it.

Communitarianism

This is a good article I found on the Times's website. Give it a read. I think Phillip Blond's essays echo many of my own feelings.

America the Miserable

I heard this article recently on NPR and thought that it was more than worth discussing. America the Miserable by Patrick Allitt, talks about the decline and fall of our American "can do" attitude. It is a pretty interesting look at our country's collectice psyche and how much we have changed as Americans since the Second World War.

I beleive he is definately onto the obvious here, America has lost its "Can Do!" spirit which we once held is such high reguard. What has replaced this feeling? Allitt says we are a nation of cynics and malcontented individuals, pessemistic of our country and living in perpetual fear of "them". I can definatley say I agree. We are ruled by CNN news breifs about the latest terror assesment level, and are content to argue silly indifferences while the country collapses instead of save ourselves. So what is our new attitude?

I think we could call the new American perspective "Can Do Someday". We are prone, these days, to say we can do something about a problem but we will do it someday soon. Healthcare reform? Sure lets debate it to death and come up with a solution that we can someday put into law. Energy reform? Awesome lets have the alternative energy companies, car makers, and fossil fuel decryers argue about it indefinately the market will give us a sustainable answer someday soon. Joblessness? OK! Lets give companies all sorts of money to pump into their economic lifesupport machines so they can take out their corperate bonuses and be happy so they will hire new people someday next quarter or maybe in a fiscal year from now. Global Warming or Climate Change? Nah that isn't even a real thing! Washington had snow! So did Texas! It might happen someday but it wont happen today so we don't have to care.

Yes we have become a nation of off putters. Giving out problems to the next generation so the modern bourgeoisie can enjoy their SUV's and cable television, anyone want some chocolate covered strawberry's? They are perfect to forget about these cold winters! Yes lets revel in our greed and excess because we don't have to worry about it someone will fix our problems, someday.

What do you think? Do you agree with Allitt? What do you think about my ideas? Have something different? Lets hear it! I would love this one to become a debate!

Student of the Future

The future is a scary prospect for anyone but this is doubly so, I feel, for the American Student. Students in our modern society have a lot coming to them; guaranteed primary and secondary educations, and a relatively acessable post-secondary education, at the very least vocational training. However how likely is it that these students will need, use, or even have these options, in the future? I believe the student of tomorrow will have to look at educational sucession in a different light and with a greater deal of realism and pragmatism.

Unfortunately for many students currently enrolled or recently graduated from a post-secondary (usually a undergraduate) degree program there are few options open to them for career opportunities. This is a function of the recessing economy and steady instability (haha) of job growth. With unemployment rising, at current, and outsourcing ever expanding what options does the recenty graduated twenty-something year old person have?

Being among those happy few, I know from experience that there are few options out there. One has to be in a very specialized field to get a job. Many of us find ourselves back in our jobs we held in high school, flipping burgers, packing groceries, or, as it is in my case, delivering. The few fields that were formerly safe bets; education, law enforcement, medicine, etc, are currently shrinking instead of growing like we were told six years ago. So many of us with relatively general credentials, such as a english or history degree or even business, are left wanting. What went wrong?

Our high schools, once reguarded as the finest in the world, are failing our students. The world doesn't need another lawyer or doctor or businessman, there are already enough. But what have we lost in the last thirty years? We have seen our workers, the blue-collar man, the farmers and factory workers dissapear. Where did they go? Well many to college and then they went on to the East Side and go their condo apartments or suburban castles. Now what? What happens when the industries that built our nation dont have the pool of workers that used to supply demand? They have sold out, as the remaining few workers demanded more and more from their corperate bosses. Its cheaper to do it in Mexico and China than Detroit and Pittsburg. So if white collar jobs are bloated with excess employees and applicants then why do we sell our production to other places?

If people were told at an early age that it is, in fact, acceptable to be a steel worker maybe we would have a steel industry. The same could be said for farmers and factory workers. Maybe these industries wouldn't have left in the first place, maybe we could rebuild them, maybe we will have to. With our economy out of control, the globalization powering oil drying up, and demand for expansion of domestic American production growing maybe it becomes the job of schools to tell students it is ok to be part of that growth.

So can our schools deliver such an unsavory message to students and parents? Do we really want to say "hey kids, its OK to work on an assembly line or mine coal." Will parents of suburbia allow their children to stay out of college in lieu of a job as an mechanics apprentice? I don't know if it will be acceptable but it seems that if we want to grow those parts of our economy, the ones that once made this country great, we will need to say its OK.

But if we supply workers will industry come back? Do we need to build it before they will come? I think it will be a process driven, of course, by necessity. Any company looking for positive P.R. will want to say it is expanding operations in the U.S.. Many of the Japanese car makers have already capitalized on this reopening or building new assembly plants in the lower 48 in order to supply the volume needed by their customers. Can the same be done with the consumer goods we all use every day? Yes, and it will be cheaper than importing these goods, at least it will be soon. As oil dries up and the battle over the next great black gold intensifies, many companies will have to bring production state side. The great intercontinental processsion of super tankers and container fleets will not be able to be supported. Signs of this are already apparent as some shippers are planning to retrofit their vessels with sails to cut fuel costs and consumption, but this is a desperate action of a dieing industry.

As the switch comes back from white collar, no dirt in my nails, jobs. We need to show our students and young people that a job is a job, and no matter what it is you are sucessful as long as you are happy. If that means putting the dash boards into the next F-150's or assembling solar panels, thats still good. Any domestic expansion is good and should be encouraged. Bring our students back home to the farm and show them how to do it.

Schools Post Oil: What is going to happen to our educational system?

We all love our schools dearly in this country. Every Monday night across countless fields, our high school football teams face off under the lights, with the roar of their frenzied parents and fan fare of the bands behind them. But what happens to them when the lights go out for good?

For the last fifty or so years our nations schools have been suburbanized, centralized, and have downsized on teaching staff and resources. Before the age of the yellow school bus fleets and high school campuses that resemble shopping malls, we had a smaller, less centralized, system. A system that was walkable, flexible, and very personalized for that region. But no longer. Our children get bused from far away to massive buildings, full of thousands of students, where two teachers could work at the same school all their careers and never meet. If you are reading this blog you likely have a good handle on how poorly our schools operate from various angles, such as quality of education or efficiency of resource use, but have you ever considered what would happen if the students couldn't even get to school if they wanted to?

The scenario almost plays out like a charity commercial for a third world country. Students longing to get to schools but they are too far to walk or bike. The roads are rough from even a year of disrepair, and in the winter months the way is simply impassable. The schools are shells, falling down around the few teachers and students that manage their ways in every day. Water supplies are inconsistent, lights are broken or off dew to power outages, and heating and air conditioning systems are inoperable. Books are old and tattered and all the marvelous technological innovations of the 20th century are useless. It is a sad and stark reminder of what we will not be able to accomplish in a world beset by constant oil shortages and/or total oil depletion.

So how will schools need to adapt in the times to come? There are many answers or at least many options. Not every school is the same, nor is the town in which it is located, neither are the places they will no longer be able to serve, and the traditional methods of teaching might not apply from town to town, city to city.

The biggest change will have to be in size and geographic location of schools. Gone will be the day that kids can be bused from miles and miles around. Instead of serving entire districts schools will be forced to serve much smaller populations. To give you an idea of school sizes, the average school district in America serves about two thousand students grades K-12 and this is inclusive of vocational and other schooling. Two thousand students is a very large population for a school system and in a post-oil age it is likely that the average population of an entire district will shrink to a fraction of this. I predict that the average school will serve between fifty and a hundred students, that number may shrink or swell based on geographical location. In some cities it is totally foreseeable for a school to serve a few hundred students, and maybe even a thousand, based on the walkability of cities. On the flip side of this, our rural districts could become completely home schooled or turn into a local communal form of education with neighbourhood families taking shares of the responsibility for the education of their young people. "School" sizes in places such as these could be as small as a couple dozen students K-12.

The schedule of schools will likely stay within some semblance of what it is today. I would imagine since schools would be serving their own immediate localities, each would have their own unique calendar year. But regardless of location schools will likely revert to a more agrarian based school year. Days might be shorter in the harvest and planting months and longer during the winter months. Most schools will likely be directly tied into local economies to the point that weekly decisions about scheduling may be made depending on who is available to teach what or if a local business may provide a learning opportunity to educate students. City schools will be less affected by this change. They inner city areas will probably lengthen their school years and shorten the days. This would not only afford teachers, but students even, the chance to get a part time job on top of their obligations to school. This would benefit the local work force as well as give teachers and students a deeper level of integration within their neighborhoods.

The role of the teacher will change drastically. The traditional teacher will be replaced by a more versatile and multifaceted individual, capable of not only teaching a "classic" subject like history, science, or math, but also more practical skills such as carpentry or farming. Vocational education through internships and work programs might become the new norm for students in their teens, in a time where learning a specific skill to contribute to the common good of your home town trumps individual success. The role of a teacher may become a higher valued position within a community. Parents and community leaders may, once again, look to teachers as the stewards of their future instead of necessary components of a educational industry. College, among other forms of higher education, may revert to a realm for the select, and lucky, few who can afford to leave their local community or have such a resource at their disposal locally.

As I touched on already it is likely that many student will not move on to more than a 8th or 9th grade educational level. This would be reasonable in a world post-oil, at least initially, for a few reasons. First is that a functioning high school may be out of reach geographically for some. Not all rural areas would be able to afford or support such and endeavor. It would be more practical for some students to simply move into the work force at the age of 13 or 14 if the only thing they need to know is how to support their family by living off the land. Certainly the structure of classes, content, and years of mandatory attendance would change but even in areas that are more densely settled than farm areas it will likely be more practical for students to apprentice in their communities in order to learn and preserve trades necessary to their town. Of course doctors, lawyers, teachers and politicians will still be needed but they will be those select few who will go on to higher educational institutions, if they still exist. The biggest worry here is the creation of a more intense class system where select areas of a state or even people of certain professions call the shots. I can see this happening, however, I hope that the feeling of belonging to a community and the sense of responsibility for a persons own people will not be lost on these lucky future few.

Indeed the role of education and the way it is executed is yet to be seen for the future. All that we can do is speculate and prepare for what may come. But the overarching theme needs to be this; that we MUST be prepared for any eventuality. The biggest weakness we will face as the world turns and changes is an uneducated population, especially if that population forgets the lessons of the past. We have ignored those lessons already and, because of that, we face a grim future.

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.