The Tiny Life

As if the case for getting off oil wasn’t strong enough, just now reports are rolling in about an explosion on a oil/gas rig off the coast of Louisianan.  So far there hasn’t been any reports of oil spills, but CNN has reported that a “sheen has been confirmed” by the coast guard.  This platform was apparently not pulling any oil at the time.  I say it is time for us to get serious about getting off oil, let seem some legislation to drive up our reliance on sustainable energies.

So I recently read a comment written by one of our readers, Jason, he made an interesting point when he said (paraphrasing) at what point can we take a house and stop it from consuming, to producing.  This is a very interest notion, traditionally houses and their systems require resources to operate, to maintain, to use etc.  Now being a producer could mean the house itself produces, a system within the house, the person who lives in the house; how can we turn this negative into a positive?

So it left me wondering how could I have a house that doesn’t consume, but produces; while this might actually be impossible if you start looking at the laws of physics it might be a more accurate statement that a house that can offset the inputs with it’s outputs.  But is this even possible?

The average American home creates 4 tons of waste in just its construction, the average house produces almost 90,000 pounds of carbon emissions.  Now a Tiny House will drastically reduces the amount you have to offset, but it will still be a good bit.  Here are some ideas that could help us get closer to making our house a producer, not a consumer.

Reduce your usage right off the bat

First and foremost I would urge you to first reduce what you consume, being conscious of what you consume, if you have to purchase something, think about how you can extend the life of it or if you can use something that you have to preform the function.  Finally if you have to use something, recycle or up-cycle it.

Grow your home

How about instead of building a home, you grow one!  Here are two idea, the first is a real example that is being used already, the other is a concept that is grown from protein structures.

Green Roofs

Not only does the roof process CO2, but it can grow food and drastically reduce cooling and heating costs.  This isn’t a new concept but still an attractive concept.

Green Power

Now obviously it take energy and resources to produce solar panels, geo-thermal taps, and wind turbines, so you have to take into account how much you have to produce to just offset the production, but I would suspect you could make up the difference and then some over the lifetime of the products.

What other ideas could make your home a producer, not a consumer?

So I walk into work today and a co-worker is watching a documentary on mountain top removal.  This is a process were instead of making mine shafts and bringing out the coal, they inject toxic chemicals into the mountain, blow up the top of it and then mine the coal.  This has been receiving huge criticisms for several years, but this documentary was really well done and some of the stories are horrific.  I think what really hit home for me was when a man is being interviewed and he brings out his entire tray of medicine bottles that he take every day to combat the contaminated water they drink.

As I take a look at things when it comes to consumption and waste, one area that stands out is food packaging. While I am not sure I am ready to give up my toilet paper (even though it is 100% recycled) food packaging is an area that I could do without. Here is a neat concept for a quick deploy bulk food store. You have to bring or purchase reusable containers to get all your items, since it is all in bulk, it stands to reason that it could be done a bit cheaper too.

Via

Other source

So I saw this today and it had such character and the reuse and re purposing of these materials is so neat I had to share.   As most of us know, wine is often fermented in wooden barrels.  Typically these barrels are oak, often from french oak trees, but what I didn’t realize is that they only last about 10 years and cost around $1000 a barrel!  So this company takes the barrels which are often sold for rather cheap, straightens them out, mills then and the installs as wood flooring.

Via

So I have been kicking around this idea for a week or two now and it certainly isn’t a entirely new concept, but it is the concept that by taking actions on the green front, will actually enhance our security.  Now before we get into this, I would like to steer clear of political aspect of this discussion, with the side note those who focus on Green initiatives are sometimes seen as the polar opposites to those who focus on National Security.  I think many would disagree with this view and those who didn’t could be brought to the table and see both sides.    The other thing that I would assert is that this concept isn’t exclusive to America, I speak generally about the world.  So here are a few examples of the threats I see and their solutions.

To expand on what I consider national security I think it is important to note that national security extends beyond terrorism and nuclear armaments.  It includes anything from any source that can threaten our safety, well being and long term livability.  This includes drought, blight, natural disaster, war, terrorism, etc.

Food

If you have ever seen the documentary Food Inc. (which I highly recommend) talks about how 90% of the corn and 60% of all soy beans come from one company that are one strain.  This means that a blight, whether engineered or natural, were to hit our country, we would loose 90% of all our corn in one fell swoop.  This is pretty concerning when you truly understand how much of our food comes form corn and in really unexpected forms.  If you look at how many individual strains of food we actually grow for the majority of our food, we are talking 22 types of plants with a specific strain make up 80% of our food.  Can we afford to lose 80% of our food?

So how to fix it.  We first need to encourage a larger diversity of plants, the idea being that some blights will effect some strains of plants and not others.  We then need to decentralize our food production, moving food production closer to the people.  This will take time, money and in all honesty could turn out to be more expensive as economies of scale decreases, but we also need to put a price on sleeping soundly at night.

Energy

I don’t think it takes any stretch of the imagination to see how us depending on other countries  for oil is a bad thing.  Especially when you consider that most sources of this oil are in politically unstable areas.  One thing we see as an option is to drill off shore, which as of late, we have seen how bad that has turned out to be.  The fact is that there may be a large volume of oil out there, but it is still a finite resource and it is getting harder and harder to get to.  With increased difficulty comes increased risk and while innovations can mitigate those risks, I am still left doubting it.

So the solution, I say save what we have in our country and lets focus on sustainable technologies.  While people talk about nuclear, I have to remind them of the heavy subsidies they get every year.  Nuclear is a pretty mature technology, I assert that if we took these subsidies and used them to develop solar/wind into mature technologies that we could come out on top.  The added benefit to this is that we can then decentralize power production to avoid 50 well place bombs to take out most of our power production.

To sum up I think that we are beginning to see how Green is better for everyone in many ways.  I found this video done by Pew which is pretty interesting.

Climate Patriots from Laura Lightbody on Vimeo.

Walmart now has three stores where it no longer uses plastic bags, they are expanding to 52 stores soon and expect to have this be the status quo by 2013!  I have been saying for a while now that I thought this would happen and Walmart or Target would lead the way.

This serves several functions:

• reduce plastic waste
• reduce cost
• develops a new revenue stream
• builds good will

To say Walmart is doing this because they are green is inncorrect, but to chastise them for trying to turn a profit by selling the bags is also.  I for one am glad to see this.

Click photo for video

I came upon an article talking about Switzerland’s new tree museum, at first I had this wide range of negative reactions.  What have we come to?  Are we already at a place where we have to house these trees because we have damaged the earth so much?  etc etc.  The song Pave Paradise by Joni Mitchell (popularized by Counting Crows)

They paved paradise and put up a parking lot
They took all the trees, and put em in a tree museum
And they charged the people a dollar and a half to see them
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you got till it’s gone
They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot

But as I was thinking about this whole concept while taking a shower, which is where I do my best thinking, I realized a few things.  First off, Switzerland is generally a pretty low impact place, not great, but not bad.  The second thing, the more important thing was thing: A museum is a structure that holds a culture’s/nation’s/etc best achievements.  The objects found in museams are held in a very high esteem, they are symbolic of humanity in a way, we find great value in them.  They inspire, they drive introspection, they ask questions that many are afraid to ask.

So as I come along this thought line I realize what this Tree Museam stands for.  A deep reverence for nature.   We are holding these plant, this earth in the highest esteem, we are saying that of everything that man has created, those things in the natural world we hold high on a pedestal.  I always wonder if aliens form another world where to come to our planet and look at us after we are gone, what would they think?  I think examples like this speak highly for us.  That regardless of our innovations, plants are seen as culturally important.

Maybe I am reading into it too much. What do you think?]

Tree Museum

Great little video by a fisherman singing the oil spill blues