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Living with the land: Florida’s first Earthship
Eric Stewart, Creative Loafing
In previous posts, I declared the problems that our country faces. The point was not to be pessimistic but to maturely point out the weak points so we can find solutions. We face mounting debt, a dependence on a finite power source stored beneath the Earth that may have peaked production, the baby boomer generation about to enter retirement, a lack of savings, and a consumer culture built upon a dominator society that depends entirely from receiving it’s inputs of materials and things from far away. This society is unsustainable and will need to transition to something different by choice or by collapse.
…What does this look like though? It’s easy to state abstract ideas on digital paper, but how about an example locally?
Meet Bryan Roberts, the contractor for Florida’s first Earthship in Manatee County and founder of Eco-Tech Construction.
An Earthship is a concept founded by Michael Reynolds, a.k.a. The Garbage Warrior. Mr. Reynolds wanted to design a home that took care of the people that lived within it. He utilized reclaimed material such as aluminum cans, glass bottles, and the infamous used tires to build the walls of the Earthship. In the permaculture design philosophy there is no such thing as waste, it is simply a unused resource waiting to be utilized.
Mimicking nature Mr. Reynolds as well as the Florida Earthship utilizes a greywater system that uses the water from kitchen sinks and showers. This water can be used to water plants and in toilets in the home. Utilizing water more than once allows the Earthship to drastically reduce its water use. The water will come from a nearby well, as well as from 6,000 gallons of stored rain water from the home’s roof collection system. In Florida, our water supply is at critical levels – if every home began utilizing their water more than once we wouldn’t have problems with our water supply. Greywater is thefuture we all need to be investing in.
(20 July 2009)
The good life 2.0
Davie Philip, Scottish Left Review
We urgently need to take an evolutionary leap in the way we do things and to design systems from the bottom up in ways that fit this planet’s carrying capacity and we need to do this together, as communities. Web 2.0 is the term that has come to signify the new upgraded internet, which is community based, interactive and user-driven. As the current crisis is too overwhelming for individuals to face alone, I want to propose a ‘Good Life 2.0’ – a response to the challenges of our times based on an upgrade for the 21st century of the ideas of the 1970’s self-sufficiency movement and the values of community plus everything we have learned in the thirty years that have passed.
Do you remember The Good Life, the popular 1970s television sit-com based on the notion of getting out of the rat race and being self-sufficient in suburbia. This was launched just after the first oil shock and amid one of the UK’s worst economic downturns. It was based on the writings of John Seymour, the father of self-sufficiency. His books give a comprehensive introduction to the ‘Good Life’, covering everything from growing your own crops, animal husbandry, wine making, bee keeping, building, renewable energy, and much more. John gained considerable experience living a self-sufficient life, first in Suffolk, then Pembrokeshire, and then Ireland where he established the School of Self-Sufficiency in Co. Wexford. He also travelled around the world and wrote and made films exposing the unsustainability of the global industrial food system. Sadly on the 14th of September 2004 John Seymour died aged 90.
…If Tom and Margo of The Good Life were striving to be self-sufficient now, they would probably have started a community garden or joined their local Transition group and be engaged in the building of food and energy security with their neighbours. That’s The Good Life 2.0,a community approach to building local resilience because, as Richard Heinberg writes in his book ‘Powerdown’, “personal survival depends on community survival”.
…As well as initiatives to reduce our fossil fuel use, the Transition model helps communities develop the capability to provide most of its essential needs from a number of local sources so that in the event of a system failure, they will be able to look after themselves. ‘Transition’ communities are characterised by their positivity and creativity, the process is deliberately designed to be non-threatening and engaging. Its ability to bring all sorts of people and groups together is its strength. Through a loose twelve step process the initiatives set out to build the capacity of the community to develop an Energy Descent Action Plan and this is the process at the core of Transition thinking.
“The concept of energy descent, and of the Transition approach, is a simple one: that the future with less oil could be preferable to the present, but only if sufficient creativity and imagination are applied early enough in the design of this transition.”Rob Hopkins, ‘The Transition Handbook’Initiatives include the starting of community gardens and allotments, creating community supported agriculture systems, localising energy production, starting car clubs, rethinking healthcare, and future-proofing their houses and public buildings. Some have even introduced local currencies to keep money circulating in their local area. All of these initiatives build community and offer the potential of an extraordinary transformation in our economic and social systems.
(July 2009)
Root Cellar 101 – Help Wanted
Nate Hagens, The Oil Drum
Oil Drum editor Nate Hagens says:
Below the fold is a guest submission from TheOilDrum.com reader mnborn, a data analyst living in rural Minnesota. It is more of a request for knowledge/advice than our usual essays but food storage in northern (or southern) climes certainly is one basic necessity that is largely supported by fossil fuel powered JIT inventory systems. (Currently most of us use grocery stores as our winter storage caches).
Below the fold are her questions. Old-timers please help her out…;-)
I have read with interest your Campfire posts pertaining to discussions of acquiring practical skills and techniques particularly focused on food production, preservation and storage. Perhaps this would be an appropriate forum to gain feedback from some of your readers on a few ideas I have for the construction of a root cellar. Below is a picture of the spot I have chosen in which to build this. The soil is heavy clay, slope faces northeast and ‘elevation gain’ is approximately 6 feet. My dog marks the spot where I intend on building a root cellar.
Illustrative photos and many helpful comments follow on the Oil Drum post…
(22 July 2009)
