Culture Artist Organization

Building Ecotopia: Intentional Communities, Part 2

2011-05-22T06:54:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

If you are interested in joining an intentional community, you might want to first meet as many of the people there as possible. Make sure you can get along with everyone first before making a commitment. Over half of intentional communities fail within a year of their founding, largely because of differences among members, so a little tolerance goes a long way. When shopping for communities, watch out for people who don’t seem to respect the opinions and rights of others. As the saying goes, “You don’t really know someone until you’ve lived with them.”
In many, if not all, intentional communities, members share resources and responsibilities. They usually are self-governing and have some sort of democratic governmental body. Many are communal in nature, not holding individual property. In most cases, all members of the community own the land on which the community is built in trust, and there are no individual property rights in terms of sale or ownership. The usual formula is that the homeowner leases the property from the community if the community doesn’t own all housing outright.
All members of an intentional community are expected to share the workload and to contribute to the community. Some are stricter than others regarding these rules. Before joining a community, it’s a good idea to know exactly what’s expected of you so there are no later.
These days, living in a community whose primary focus is sustainability is seen as the domain of aging hippies or religious cultists or social outcasts. The roots of the movement in its current incarnation began in the late 1960s and the early 1970s, so perhaps there is an element of truth to this perception. I think sometimes that the more conservative-minded people of the world see intentional communities as some sort of political statement or an idealistic dream rather than anything that could be put to practical use. That's unfortunate. People tend to forget that barely more than a century ago, most of the communities in this country were sustainable in part if not as a whole. In fact, some conservative groups, like the Amish, still live sustainably in intentional communities to this day. If our ancestors could manage to live in a sustainable way with the technology they had a century ago, surely we could manage to do so much more comfortably now, regardless of our political or religious affiliation.
I don't see sustainable living as the exclusive domain of people with a more liberal leaning, either. I know that such a lifestyle is often seen that way in America, but I think that's unfortunate. Granted, sustainability is more likely to be favored by those who tend to be more liberal (and I count myself among them), but since that is the case at this point in our history, I think liberals have the responsibility of demonstrating to the more conservative elements of society that caring for the planet isn't a political agenda, but a more practical and necessary way of life. Environmentalism shouldn’t be a partisan issue. So if you’re thinking about an intentional community, try to keep an open mind as you investigate the possibilities.

Building Ecotopia: Intentional Communities, Part 1

2011-05-22T06:52:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

"Once I was in Victoria, and I saw a very large house. They told me it was a bank and that the white men place their money there to be taken care of, and that by and by they got it back with interest. We are Indians and we have no such bank; but when we have plenty of money or blankets, we give them away to other chiefs and people, and by and by they return them with interest, and our hearts feel good. Our way of giving is our bank." - Chief Maquinna, Nootka Tribe

At its most basic level, an Intentional Community is simply a group of people who come together in one place with a shared vision of what living in a community means. In the opening quote for this chapter, Chief Maquinna has nicely summed up the idea behind intentional communities. It’s about caring for one another as one big family.
The term ‘intentional community’ comes from the 1944 article The Small Community by Arthur Morgan. Morgan saw the small community as the ‘seedbed of society,’ and he felt that America was at risk of losing its core values if the small community disappeared. Shortly after World War II, communities began to form across the United States with the intention of preserving those small town values. The rapid industrialization after the war had led many to feel disenfranchised, so they began to come together to preserve a way of life they felt was beginning to fade. At first these groups were known as ‘cooperative communities,’ because of the cooperative nature of their organization, but Morgan felt that the name ‘intentional community’ was more appropriate because these communities were founded intentionally, with a shared vision. The term has since expanded to include co-housing, residential land trusts, communes, student co-ops, urban housing cooperatives and ecovillages. Since this series of columns deals with building an Ecotopia, and one of the characteristics of an Ecotopia is sustainability, I’ll be focusing mainly on ecovillages.
There are 186 communities listed in the Intentional Communities directory of the Federation of Intentional Communities (FIC) at: www.ic.org. According to this directory, there are over 8,000 people, including 2,000 children, currently living in those intentional communities listed publicly with the FIC. There are also at least 700 other intentional communities listed with the FIC that have not given their permission for a public listing, so the number of people living in intentional communities in the United States could in reality number in the tens of thousands. If you factor in communities of a religious nature, such as monasteries, ashrams and kibbutzes, the number is even higher. While people aren’t yet fleeing cities and urban centers in droves, the movement is growing steadily. For the next few weeks, we’ll be discussing how these communities work, what it means to be a part of one, and how to choose an intentional community or start one yourself.

Building Ecotopia: Living without Electricity, Part 6

2011-05-22T06:50:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

When living without electricity, one of the most basic needs is home lighting. There are many options for home lighting that don’t rely on electricity from the grid. The oldest of these options are, of course, lamps and candles. While the amount of light emitted from the average candle hasn’t changed much over the centuries, there are propane lamps on the market now that give off far more light than their older kerosene counterparts. If the small amount of illumination available from kerosene lamps is an issue for you, you might want to step up to a propane lantern. A Coleman lantern generates about as much light as a 100-watt light bulb. I’ve used Coleman (www.coleman.com) lanterns for years, and have been satisfied with their quality and performance.
The final option for lighting a home without electricity is battery-powered lighting. This requires a little homework and a lot of planning. There are a wide variety of choices in battery-powered lighting. Some of these will work better than others, so it’s better to investigate the quality of the products you intend to buy before furnishing your entire home with them. In order to avoid going broke buying batteries, I would suggest purchasing rechargeable batteries. These may be recharged using a solar powered charger. Several companies offer solar powered battery chargers. A good place to start would be Battery Stuff’s line of products at: www.batterystuff.com/solar-chargers. The method I have used in the past is to buy two sets of batteries for each light; one to use and one to recharge. That way you’ll always have fresh batteries available. If you have children, you might want to buy some extras to hide around the house as well. For some reason, batteries seem to grow legs and walk off when kids are around!
A great resource for electricity-free living is Lehman’s Products for Simple and Self-Sufficient Living at: www.lehmans.com. This company caters primarily to Amish communities and carries a wide variety of products for people interested in a simpler lifestyle.
You don’t have to go totally without electricity to benefit from any of the ideas listed above. You can use as many of them as you think you will be comfortable with. The more you can do, the more you’ll save on your energy bill. Minimizing your energy consumption will also make it easier to install an off-the-grid power system. The less wattage you need, the less your alternative power system will cost.
So would it be possible to live your life totally without electricity? Two-thirds of the Earth’s population already does. With the technology available today, going electricity-free doesn’t have to be an ordeal. In fact, it can be quite rewarding. I think back on my little cabin in the woods and I remember the nights most of all. I’ve always had a bit of insomnia, but it wasn’t as much of a problem when I lived without electricity. There were no appliances humming through the night; in fact, there were no electronic noises at all. I fell asleep listening to the crickets and the wind in the trees. There was also no monthly electric bill to worry about. After about a month or so, I really didn’t miss the electricity much at all.
We live our lives according to what we’re accustomed to. We’re accustomed to the convenience of electric appliances, but what have we sacrificed for that convenience? How much freedom and independence have we traded away when we chain ourselves to the power company? Maybe it’s time to grow accustomed to something better.

Building Ecotopia: Living without Electricity, Part 5

2011-05-22T06:46:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

About the only major electricity-using device that we haven’t covered yet is lighting. There are several approaches to dealing with lighting in an electricity-free home. For daytime lighting needs, you can always make strategic use of skylights. Even on cloudy days, skylights can supplement your lighting needs. Until recently, skylights were a problem for homes with more than one floor; however, a new product is being researched that would use fiber optics to redirect sunlight to the lower floors of a multi-story building. In these units, a solar collector reflects sunlight into a bundle of fiber optics. This bundle terminates on the ceiling of an interior floor. The sunlight is conducted by the fiber optics to a fixture placed over the end of the bundle. The fixture functions to diffuse the light evenly. The problem so far with these systems is that the sun has to be at the proper angle for them to work at all. One approach to solving this problem to add a motor-driven reflector to track the sun as it moves across the sky. The motor would be solar powered as well, so no external energy source would be required. The problem with any sort of sunlight-driven system is that it will only work during daylight hours, so if you need lighting in the evenings, you’ll have to come up with an alternative plan.
An approach that lies halfway between candles and regular incandescent bulbs in terms of electricity requirements is compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs). CFLs still require electricity, but at a fraction of the cost of an incandescent. A 15-watt CFL produces as much light as a 100-watt incandescent! Recent modifications in design have vastly improved the CFLs of today. If you’ve used CFLs in the past and set them aside because of the harsh light and short life, now’s the time to try them again. I switched my home lighting to CFLs almost a year ago, and I haven’t had to replace a bulb yet. Not only that, but the lighting is indistinguishable from the incandescent bulbs I previously used, at a fraction of the energy cost. While the up-front cost for CFLs is more, savings over the life of the lamp can be between $35 and $80 or even more.
If you intend to use a CFL in a dimmer switch, be sure that it is dimmer compatible. If it doesn’t specify ‘dimmer compatible’ on the package, it can’t be used with a dimmer switch. Don’t attempt to dim a CFL that isn’t rated dimmer-compatible. Dimmer switches work by varying the amount of voltage supplied to the lamp. Each CFL has its own ballast that regulates the voltage going to the bulb, so using a non-dimmable CFL will overwork the ballast as it tries to supply a steady level of voltage to the lamp. So, using a CFL not dimmer-compatible could greatly shorten the life of the bulb. While some varieties of CFL will dim to a limited degree, the range is nowhere near as great as that of a dimmable CFL.
CFLs still need electricity in order to operate, so if you’re planning a totally electricity-free lifestyle, they’re not for you. I mention them here for those of you who want to minimize electricity use, but aren’t ready to do without electricity completely. If you are trying to minimize your electricity use so that a solar, wind, or other alternative energy source is more viable and affordable, or if you’re just trying to decrease your monthly power bill, CFLs might be a wise lighting choice for you. If, however, you are striving to be a purist, and wish to live completely without electricity, there are still a few lighting options. We’ll examine those options next week.

Building Ecotopia: Living without Electricity, Part 4

2011-05-22T06:31:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

If you're planning an off-the-grid home, one of the considerations is water usage. Getting water to your home without electricity doesn't have to be a problem. If you have a well, you can use a good old-fashioned hand pump. Another alternative would be to install a cistern and a rainwater catch system. With a cistern, all the rainwater that usually goes through the gutters and out into the ditch is instead captured for later use. By installing a filtration system, this captured rainwater can be used in the home. Such a system is gravity-fed by installing a valve in the bottom of the cistern. This means that the bottom of the cistern would have to be situated above the water tap.
Using a cistern as your primary water supply would require careful planning and conservation. If you have a garden or plan to water your lawn, it helps to route the gray water from your showers, baths, and sinks into the ground by installing a piping irrigation system. That way you're using the water twice. I wouldn't recommend using a cistern without a well or city water backup unless you live in an area with a lot of annual rainfall. Even then I'd be cautious. As global warming continues, weather patterns are changing all over the world. Regions that have had a lot of rainfall in the past may no longer be as wet in the future.
Would you like to get rid of that electric washing machine without having to by a washtub and a scrub board? The Laundry Alternative (www.laundry-alternative.com) has a solution that doesn't require scrubbing by hand. Their portable washing machine, the Wonder Wash, is hand-operated and can wash five pounds of clothes in minutes. The secret is its pressurized laundry compartment. The pressure forces the detergent through the fibers in the fabric, getting them clean in record time. It uses a fraction of the water a traditional washing machine uses, so a Wonder Wash is indispensable if you're practicing water conservation. The best part is that the Wonder Wash can be had for less than $50!
There are still quite a few electronic gadgets in the average home, but many can be substituted for battery-operated alternatives. Battery-powered radios have been around for decades. Even televisions and computers have become compact, portable, and battery-operated. Cell phones have virtually eliminated the need for a home telephone. If you're living electricity-free, you can always charge your cell phone in the car. If you go to the extreme of living without a car as well, you can buy a charger for your cell phone that works on solar power. Solar Style offers one for less than $60 at: www.solarstyle.com.

Building Ecotopia: Living without Electricity, Part 3

2011-05-22T06:25:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

If you’re planning to live without electricity from the grid, then what about home heating? Is it possible to forego electricity without freezing in the winter? If you’re building your own home, you can use passive solar to help to some extent. ‘Passive solar’ means aligning your home so that you have a lot of glass facing to the south during the winter months (assuming you live in the northern hemisphere) to maximize heat from the winter sun. Planting deciduous trees on the south side of the house will help in this regard. When the leaves are on the trees in the summer, they provide shade. In the winter, when more sunlight is needed for warmth, the trees have shed their leaves, allowing for more sunlight. Overhangs can also be strategically placed to block the summer sun while maximizing the winter sun.
Passive solar design can go a long way towards meeting your heating needs, but what do you do when it isn’t enough? One option is a wood-fired heating stove or fireplace. You can’t beat a warm hearth fire for coziness and romantic atmosphere! Today’s wood-fired heating stoves and fireboxes are much more energy efficient and less polluting than your grandparents’ wood stoves. Since they are designed to burn hotter than their counterparts of yesteryear, more of the wood burns, so less carbon and other pollutants are released into the atmosphere. Of course, you’d have to have a ready wood supply and now mind chopping wood on occasion. If that’s not a problem for you, visit the Wood Heat Organization at: www.woodheat.org.
A newer home heating alternative is the biodiesel stove. These stoves can burn either biodiesel or regular diesel fuel if biodiesel isn’t available in your area. And as with the biodiesel cooking stove, you can always make your own fuel. For more information on biodiesel heating stoves, visit Kuma Stoves at: www.kumastoves.com/bio_diesel.
If you have a biodiesel heater, you may also want to consider attaching a water line to it to heat water for showers and baths during the winter months. In many cases, such a system will supply all of your hot water needs when it’s cold outside. During the summer months you can place a solar collector on a south-facing roof. Such collectors can be made inexpensively yourself using PVC pipe painted black. You can find detailed instructions on how to build a collector at Build it Solar: www.builditsolar.com/Projects/WaterHeating/water_heating.htm. The water can be heated the roof solar collector during the summer and by the home heating system during the winter, eliminating the need for an electric water heater altogether.
If such a system seems too elaborate for you, you might also consider tankless water heating systems. Such systems attach to the water line and heat the water as it flows, eliminating the need for a tank. While some of these run on electricity, most run on propane or natural gas. If you’re interested, House Needs offers a wide variety at: www.houseneeds.com. So far I haven’t been able to find a manufacturer that offers a biodiesel tankless water heater, but as demand for green products continues to increase, rest assured that there’s probably one on the horizon.

Building Ecotopia: Living without Electricity, Part 2

2011-05-22T06:23:00.001-07:00

by Chuck Hall

One way to live off-the-grid is to do without a source of AC power altogether. This doesn’t necessarily mean living completely without appliances. It could mean using rechargeable appliances or appliances powered by sources other than electricity. For example, major energy guzzler in any home is your kitchen range. Before the days of electric ranges, people cooked on an open fire or in a wood-fired stove. Unless you live near a forest, you probably won’t have a ready supply of kindling for a wood-fired stove. Then of course there’s the work of chopping wood and lighting a fire every time you want to cook. But there is a new alternative. Aga Cookers of Telford, Shropshire, Great Britain, manufactures a cook stove that can be run on biodiesel (http://www.aga-web.co.uk/index_334.htm). Biodiesel is a cleaner-burning alternative to wood-fired stoves. As biofuels become more readily available, these stoves will be more convenient to operate using a sustainable fuel source. In the meantime, they can be operated using regular diesel fuel or by making your own biodiesel. If you’re interested in the latter option, you can learn the details of making your own biofuels at Journey to Forever’s Web site: Handmade Projects. Make Your Own Biodiesel!
On the other hand, if you don’t mind a little extra work on occasion, maybe an earth oven would be right for you. Earth ovens are just what they sound like: ovens made of earth. Such ovens are made of a mixture of clay and sand. You can make coils to shape the oven, or alternately you can stack balls of the mixture in a circular pattern to form a dome. Some people have also made such ovens out of cob: a mixture of clay, sand and straw. The straw adds structural support and makes it possible to actually sculpt an oven into an ornamental piece for your lawn that is both attractive and functional. As fires are built inside, the oven solidifies, much like pottery being fired. For instructions on building an earth oven, visit: http://katipo.co.nz/gallery/oven. If you’re interested in the sculptural effects that can be achieved by using cob to build an oven, and don’t mind cooking outdoors on occasion, the Low-Impact Living Initiative site has some interesting photos.
There is also the option of using a propane cook stove, but propane isn’t a sustainable fuel. I once read about a hydrogen-powered cook stove, but I can’t seem to find any more information about it. If such a stove is ever offered to the public, it would have the advantage of operating on a sustainable fuel. If such a device is offered in the near future, I’ll be sure to let you know!
Next week, we’ll look at the energy saving that can be had by using passive solar design In building your new home.

Building Ecotopia: Living without Electricity, Part I

2011-05-22T06:22:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

The ultimate in energy independence is to live without electricity, just as humankind did for thousands of years before Thomas Edison came along. Some groups, like the Amish, have always lived without electricity. Others ‘dropped out’ in the 1970s during the ‘back to nature’ movement. Still more have come to more recent decisions to live off-the-grid by living without electricity. Today it’s called ‘homesteading.’
Why on earth would anyone want to live without the modern convenience of electricity? In the words of Marci Lilly of the High Lonesome Ranch in Birch River, West Virginia, “Living without electricity is actually a lot easier than most people think. How can I not have tv, or the blender, mixer, lights? Well, many people still choose to live without all the hassle, electric bills, etc. And life actually becomes easier, slower, even more serene. You go to bed earlier, so you get up earlier in the morning.”
“We lived for over five years without electricity, and had very little adjustment. We never even missed tv. But it probably takes a week before the habit of switching it on, diminishes. Just think of the silence... sometimes that takes getting used to!”
I know from my own personal history that living without electricity puts you into a whole other world of experience. I lived without electric power for nearly a year back in the late 1990s. After a while you realize just how annoying all these electronic gadgets can be. Without a television or computer or a video game to distract you, you begin to notice the world around you. You pay attention to the details. You learn to listen to the silence.
Living without electricity doesn’t have to mean living a life of austere asceticism. Don’t forget, ancient Rome’s palaces didn’t have electricity, nor did the palaces of all the kings and queens of Europe in days gone by. It is quite possible to live a life of luxury without electricity. The secret lies in learning the alternatives to electric appliances.
For one example, let’s look at refrigeration. Think about that big energy-guzzling appliance in your kitchen. It’s there to preserve food, but could there be another way to do so? Could there be several alternatives to food preservation by refrigeration that have stood the test of time? The answer, of course, is ‘yes.’
If you are a vegetarian, you can preserve most of your food by learning how to do home canning, or by storing it in a root cellar, or by drying it on a line in the sun or in a solar-powered food dehydrator. Do you eat meat? Then a backyard smokehouse can add flavor to your meats while preserving them. I can still remember my grandfather’s smokehouse, and strings of dried apple slices strung across my grandmother’s kitchen. Sometimes the old technologies are the best technologies. These tried-and-true methods worked for the human race for centuries before refrigerators came along. If you don’t want to give up the convenience of refrigeration just yet, there are solar-powered fridges. Vegas Trailer makes one, designed for use in a travel trailer. It could just as easily be used in an electricity-free cabin or home, assuming you can get by with a small fridge. For product information, visit their site at: www.vegastrailer.com/sundanzer.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be looking at creative alternatives to on-the-grid living. It could be that the Ecotopia of the future won’t rely on fossil fuels or other polluting energy sources at all. Only time will tell.

Building Ecotopia: Electric Vehicles

2011-05-22T06:20:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

There’s no shortage of ideas for alternative fuels. Each of these ideas has its own advantages and drawbacks, but my current favorite (no pun intended) is electric vehicles. There are many reasons for this choice, but chief reason is that electricity can be produced by wind and sunlight, thereby eliminating the need for fossil fuels altogether. Ultimately, wind energy is also solar energy, as winds are produced as the atmosphere heats and cools. If electric vehicles can be built that would rely on batteries recharged from solar energy, we would have found a totally sustainable energy source. Unlike fossil fuels, sunlight offers a limitless supply of energy, for all practical purposes. If humankind is still around when the sun finally burns out, driving electric cars will be the least of our worries! So why not rely on this free, virtually limitless source of energy?
Some of the problems in the past with electric cars have been the limited range due to the storage capacity of the batteries, and the amount of time it takes to recharge between uses. These problems appear to have been solved with Toshiba’s new lithium-ion battery. This battery can charge to ninety-percent capacity in as little as five minutes, and will work in temperatures as low as minus 22 degrees F. This battery is estimated to last for about 5,000 charges, or ten years, before needing to be replaced. Toshiba Vice President Toshiharu Watanabe expects this new battery to be incorporated into hybrid vehicles by 2010.
While hybrid vehicles at present still rely on fossil fuels, the new Toshiba lithium-ion batteries are so efficient that they have resurrected talk of all-electric vehicles. The problems in the past with electric vehicles have been the limited speed and range that could be achieved with older battery packs, and the amount of time it takes to recharge the batteries once their energy is spent. The new lithium-ion batteries may eliminate these problems.
If all-electric vehicles can return to the marketplace in a big way, then each home could have its own charging station, powered by solar or wind energy. If a lithium-ion battery pack can be charged in only five minutes, such charging stations could be common in public locations ten to fifteen years from now. Imagine leaving your home for the market, and plugging in your car for a quick recharge while doing your shopping. Once your shopping’s done, your car is recharged and ready for the trip home. In the average electric, you can travel about 25 miles on 5 kilowatt-hours of electric power. Based on today’s average utility prices, that works out to approximately 1.5 cents per mile! If your gasoline-powered car gets 25 miles per gallon at $4 per gallon, that works out to 16 cents per mile. That means that electric cars cost about one-tenth as much as gasoline-powered cars to operate!
The only drawback to lithium-ion batteries is that they could damage the environment if they wind up in a local landfill, but recycling them easily solves this problem, allowing lithium-ion batteries to be a truly sustainable resource.

Building Ecotopia: Alternative Fuels

2011-05-22T06:16:00.000-07:00

By Chuck Hall

A kit for making your own biodiesel fuel

As fuel prices rise around the world, entrepreneurs everywhere are looking for alternative fuels and alternative energy.
Personally, I don't think that there is any one-size-fits-all solution to the global energy crisis. If there is to be a solution to our transportation needs, I think the answer lies in utilizing many different types of energy. The commonality of all of these types of energy should be that they all be sustainable and renewable, doing as little damage to the environment as possible. Fossil fuels meet none of these requirements, as there is a finite supply of fossil fuels, and all of them are bad for the environment. I don't think it's wise to invest in any resource that will eventually run out, especially if there is an alternative.
An example of a fuel source that is both sustainable and renewable would be biofuels. Biofuels include ethanol and other alcohols made from plant matter, and biodiesel made from plant oils.
Biofuels have gotten a bit of a bad reputation based on the ways they are currently produced. Using current production methods, it actually takes more energy to produce biofuels than you get back out of them. This is also true of fossil fuels, but the energy used to create fossil fuels was expended over millions of years. The laws of physics actually prevent you from getting more energy out of any fuel than you put into it in the first place, but that doesn't mean that the energy expenditure required to make biofuels cannot be greatly reduced.
One way of reducing these energy requirements is to use the parts of the plant that are normally discarded. For example, ethanol is usually made from the corn grain itself, but it could just as easily be made from the stalks. Instead, stalks are routinely cut down and burned. Another example is biodiesel, which is usually made from plant oils. There is no reason why biodiesel cannot also be made from reclaimed cooking oil from restaurants. In fact, many people do just that. There has been a recent outbreak of people stealing waste cooking oil from storage tanks behind restaurants. Presumably these bandits are making their own biodiesel.
Biofuels are just one of many alternative energy sources for transportation. Other choices include hydrogen fuel cells, public transportation, electric cars, vehicles that run on compressed air, walking, and the good old-fashioned bicycle.
Another way to make a difference in energy used for transportation is to redesign how we travel. The Western world has developed a ‘car culture' in which we design our communities around our automobiles. One of the considerations in building Ecotopia is redesigning our communities around foot traffic instead of around automobile traffic. One design I really like has an ecovillage laid out in a series of concentric circles. Each circle is a road. A common garage lies on the outermost circle. People who live in the ecovillage park their long-distance transportation vehicles in the garage. The ecovillage itself has smaller vehicles for travel within the village. These vehicles might be electric golf carts for the elderly or handicapped, or bicycles or tricycles for those capable of using such vehicles. There could also be covered quadricycles for those days with inclement weather. These smaller vehicles would use less energy for short-distance trips within the ecovillage.
Ultimately, finding alternative fuel sources is only one part of the solution. Rethinking how and why we travel gives us a broader perspective, offering more solutions and greater energy independence.

Building Ecotopia: Green Honeymoons

2011-05-22T06:14:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

The final phase of any wedding is of course the honeymoon. You can make your honeymoon a trip to remember by looking into ecological tourism, also known as ecotourism. Ecotourism is a relatively new idea in vacationing. According to the International Ecotourism Society (http://www.ecotourism.org), ‘ecotourism’ is “Responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the well-being of local people.” Ecotourism is about connecting conservation, communities, and sustainable travel.
Ecotourism packages are designed to minimize the impact of travel on the local ecosystem. Instead of tour buses, such trips often use bicycles, hikes, canoes or other non-polluting forms of transportation. Once you arrive at your destination, you get to experience life in the local culture. You might participate in a tribal festival or help with the harvest. You might build a church, school or other needed building. You might use your expertise and training to help the local villagers dig a well, improve their healthcare, or plan their village’s development. Ultimately ecotourism is about learning from and contributing to the local culture; gaining mutual respect, education and maybe even friendship.
Many ecotourism adventures take place in more rural settings in agrarian communities, where people are more in tune with nature and have a deeper appreciation of the growing cycles and seasons of the year. They have learned to take care of the land because they depend upon it for their survival. By vacationing in these locations, you have the opportunity to immerse yourself in cultures that have a deeper appreciation for the benefits of nature. In many ecotourism vacations you will also gain firsthand experience in implementing conservation measures, and the cost of your vacation package will contribute to sustainable development for the people who live in your destination.
Another benefit of ecotourism is the cultural exchange. By participating in the local culture, you become aware of the political situation there. You become sensitive to the political, environmental and economic concerns of the region. With such sensitivity comes awareness. This awareness helps to build community and understanding around the world. You are in effect an ambassador of goodwill, learning about the customs and concerns of other peoples in other nations.
A particular type of ecotourism that environmentalists might be interested in is sustainable travel. Sustainable travel is designed in part for the benefit of the locals. If you have special skills or education that they could benefit from, a sustainable travel package would allow you to volunteer for a brief or extended period to put your skills to work for the local community. For example, if you are a teacher, you might teach a class. If your specialty is construction, you might plan a building for use in the community. If you are a health care specialist, you might set up a clinic. If your specialty is agriculture, you might educate the locals in sustainable crop development. A skilled travel agent can take an inventory of your talents and put them to work in many locations throughout the world. If you don’t have any specialized skills, don’t worry. There are still many hands-on opportunities that require little or no skills. You might find yourself building a home for a needy family, digging a garden, or making a road. The possibilities are endless!
If your local travel agent doesn’t offer ecotours, you may also visit The International Ecotourism Society’s site at: http://www.ecotourism.org.
To make your honeymoon a truly unique and memorable experience, consider an ecotour. It’s a great way to start your life together with your new spouse. Bon voyage!

Building Ecotopia: Green Wedding Receptions

2011-05-22T06:13:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

There are many considerations in having a green reception. The largest part of a reception is the food and drinks.
You may want to consider having a vegetarian reception. A skillful caterer can create dishes in such a way that the absence of meat is not even noticeable. I have been to many parties that only served vegetarian fare. Invariably there are always a few guests at such parties who didn’t even realize that there was no meat on the table!
If you decide that you can’t live without meat at your reception, try to avoid buying meat, poultry and fish from companies that don’t raise their animals in a cruelty-free environment. Look for ‘free range’ poultry, and seafood harvested from sources that take care to minimize the environmental impact on our oceans. Try to avoid meat that has been enhanced with growth hormones and other drugs. If you plan to use a caterer, find one who is experienced in using organic foods. If you are lucky enough to find such a caterer in your area (or the area where you plan to have your wedding), they will be able to give you valuable input about using locally-grown, seasonal produce in interesting ways. If you and your partner want a ‘must-have’ local item to be included on the menu, a good caterer might even suggest moving the date of the wedding to such a time when your item might be at the peak of its growing season.
Once you’ve planned the menu, your next consideration will be the wedding cake.
Look for a baker who specializes in using only organic ingredients and natural decorations. An interesting twist is to use flowers or other plants as decorations instead of the plastic pieces commonly used. There are many varieties of flowers that are edible. Fruits and berries also make attractive decorations for your cake.
For the top of your cake, consider using a family heirloom from both the bride and groom instead of a plastic bride-and-groom piece. Using trinkets that have a special significance and history can add an element of tradition by including the past in the ceremony. The use of such heirlooms also underscores the idea of recycling by using old materials and objects in new ways.
A final consideration is the music for the reception. If you’re a purist and you really want to make a statement, hire musicians who use acoustic instruments. The unamplified sounds of an acoustic ensemble blend nicely with an outdoor setting, or with any wedding that has a green theme. If you are planning a church wedding, you may want to check with the celebrant to see that the choice of music is appropriate for such a setting. Some churches don’t allow secular music.
If you are planning an outdoor wedding, there are a couple of caveats. You should have a tent or overhang for the musicians in case of rain. Even on sunny days, sunlight can have adverse effects on the delicate surfaces of some instruments. So do yourself, and your musicians, a favor by keeping them in the shade. If your outdoor wedding is in a public place, and if you have chosen amplified music, check with city officials about the local noise ordinances. You don’t want to have your reception shut down for being too noisy! Finally, consider who will be attending and choose your site accordingly. If Grandma and Grandpa will be in attendance, you might not want to have your wedding on the side of a mountain.
Next week we’ll look at green choices for the honeymoon.

Building Ecotopia: Green Wedding Wardrobe Considerations

2011-05-22T06:10:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

A wedding dress made of hemp

The next step in planning your green wedding is considering the apparel that the bridal party will be wearing. Of course the wedding dress is the centerpiece in any wedding wardrobe, but all of the bridesmaids and groomsmen can be dressed in Earth-friendly apparel as well. Before getting into specifics, let’s take a brief overview of the issues involved in garment selection.
If you pay a visit to your local wedding shop, you’re likely to find many wedding dresses, tuxedos and other garments made from petroleum-based synthetic fibers. The passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) sent many of the textile manufacturing jobs overseas, where lax environmental and labor laws are in place. These laws are usually inadequately enforced if enforced at all. Even some natural fibers commercially processed rely heavily on industrial agriculture techniques that require excessive use of pesticides and other chemicals.
When choosing your wedding garments, think natural fibers such as silk, wool, organic cotton and hemp. Select fabrics that have been grown organically, without the use of pesticides. If possible, try to use fabrics that retain their natural color. Avoid clothing that has been processed using chlorine bleaches. Also try to stay away from synthetic dyes. Most fabrics are also treated with chemicals to make them stain resistant and wrinkle-free. Avoid such treatments if possible.
The Hemp Industries Association (www.thehia.org) offers extensive information on the use of hemp fabrics. Their site also contains a directory of hemp clothing manufacturers. Although hemp usually has a casual look and feel, it can be more finely processed for a more formal look. Finding formal wear made of hemp may be a difficult task, so you may only want to consider this material if your wedding is a casual affair.
Silk has always been a traditional choice for wedding dresses and formal wear. It has the advantage of being widely available in a variety of styles and colors, many of which are tinted using natural, non-toxic dyes.
Another excellent choice is linen. Linen is perfect for warm weather and outdoor events. It is made from flax and makes a lint-free fabric. It is a bit less wrinkle-resistant than some other fabrics, but unless your wedding is going to be an all-day affair, this shouldn’t present too much of a problem. If you’re planning a summer wedding, you might also want to look into organic cotton. It is soft to the touch, and ‘breathes,’ an important characteristic on hot days.
If you’re not planning a spring or summer wedding, you may want to look into something a little warmer. In that case, organically grown wool is an excellent choice. The shearing of wool doesn’t require killing the sheep. Even so, you might want to investigate the supplier of your wool to determine if the animals have been ethically treated. Another consideration when using wool is that many people have allergies to wool. You certainly don’t want your bridal party scratching throughout the entire service, so you may want to ask about allergies before planning the wardrobe!
Next week we’ll look at green choices for your wedding reception party.

Building Ecotopia: Green Wedding Rings

2011-05-22T06:08:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

In building an Ecotopian society, environmentally conscious practices should touch every aspect of our lives. Since many adult lives begin with a wedding ceremony, last week we looked at green options for wedding invitations. Once you’ve settled on your invitations, the next step is to consider wedding rings. As with virtually everything else in a wedding, there are environmental considerations in the selection of your bands. The ‘Blood Diamond’ issue has come to light in recent years, and became public knowledge with the release of a recent film by the same name. ‘Conflict diamonds’ are diamonds that have been seized and sold to finance hostile actions throughout the world, particularly in Africa. It’s the standard guns-or-butter issue. By financing wars with these conflict diamonds, resources that could be used to feed the hungry and protect the environment are squandered in destruction and violence. If these issues are important to you, consider buying rings that have been certified conflict-free.
The diamond-producing countries of southern Africa met in 2000 in Kimberley, South Africa to come up with a process whereby diamonds could be certified to be manufactured and sold free of violence. This accord led to the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS). A KPCS-certified diamond meets strict international guidelines for conflict-free diamond sales. When selecting a diamond for your wedding, look for KPCS certification.
You may also want to consider wedding bands made from recycled gold. A new recycling process was patented in 2004. Good Point Recycling extracts gold from junk computers. This gold is then recycled into wedding bands. It is not mixed with gold from old jewelry or other sources. Good Point Recycling bands are made entirely from gold that would have otherwise gone into the waste stream. Gold mining is the number one contributor to mercury waste on the planet. By recycling the gold from old computers, the Good Point Recycling process is doubly ecological. It reduces waste on landfills by processing old computers, and it saves the mercury waste that would have been caused by mining gold for rings. For more information on Good Point Recycling, visit their Web site at: http://www.retroworks.com.
There also many other alternatives to the traditional gold wedding bands. If you’re interested in exploring the possibilities for environmentally-sound wedding and engagement rings, Stacie Kirby maintains an excellent blog on the topic at: greenjewelry.blogspot.com.
Another possibility is to forego the wedding ring altogether, and find some other token symbolizing your commitment to your partner. One example I’ve heard of in recent years is the ‘commitment bracelet.’ Commitment bracelets are made by taking strands of hair from both partners, and braiding this hair together into bracelets. The bride and groom then wear these bracelets as a symbol of the intertwining of their lives and their commitment to each other.
As future Ecotopians find greener solutions to day-to-day living, our options are only as limited as our imaginations. Explore the possibilities with your future spouse as you create new traditions together with the environment in mind!
Next week we’ll look at green clothing options for your wedding.

Building Ecotopia: Green Wedding Invitations

2011-05-22T06:07:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

In the northern hemisphere, the wedding season is rapidly approaching. Traditionally, the foundation of the family begins with a wedding ceremony, and the family unit is the basis of any community, so I could think of no better way to start building Ecotopia than to begin with a green wedding!
Your wedding invitations will be the first chance your friends and family will have to see that you are planning an Earth-friendly wedding. By choosing invitations that are recycled or made from tree-free paper, you have set the tone for your green wedding right from the start. Remember to check your local area first when choosing a supplier. The less distance your finished invitations have to travel to be delivered to you, the less fossil fuel they'll use in being transported.
When selecting your invitations, be sure to consider tree-free papers. By using papers made from products other than trees, your wedding invitations will not contribute to deforestation. You will help reduce the demand on our forests while saving water and energy resources. There is a variety of papers available from alternative, Earth-friendly materials. Some of these include hemp, banana stalks, bamboo, cotton and vines. I live in the rural South of the United States, and there are many cottage industries here using kudzu to make lovely hand-made papers.
By using plant materials such as those listed above, trees are saved. Trees used for pulpwood can take as long as twenty years to replenish, whereas the vines and plants used in making these handmade papers can often be replenished annually. The shorter time it takes for these plants to mature makes them the more logical choice when looking for Earth-friendly papers.
Recycled paper is also a viable choice for a green wedding. Papers have been made from recycled paper products, recycled denim, and even recycled currency. By using recycled goods, you give new life to the materials while saving the energy and land space that would be needed to process what would otherwise be more garbage and waste.
There are other considerations for choosing your invitations besides the type of paper you'll be using. One of these is the dyes used to color them. One of the advantages of using natural fiber papers is that the finished product is often attractive without having to add any dyes or color additives. The warm, friendly earth tones that result lend themselves well to weddings with a nature-based theme. But if you choose to use paper that has been colored, be sure to get papers produced using natural dyes. You will also want to make sure that no chlorine has been used in the processing of your paper. Most papers that have not been bleached using chlorine will carry the ‘PCF' label, meaning ‘processed chlorine-free.'
If you are using a commercial printer for your invitations, ask if they use soy-based inks in the printing process. Petroleum-based inks are common throughout the industry. These inks pollute the atmosphere when burned, releasing hydrocarbons. Additionally, petroleum-based inks seep into the water table when the printers clean the presses. Soy-based inks are biodegradable and therefore safer for the environment.
Many of the small shops that offer handmade papers also offer calligraphy services. Most of these shops use natural inks. In some cases they manufacture the inks themselves using natural materials. In addition to the one-of-a-kind elegant touch of hand-lettered invitations, you also contribute to the environment by eliminating the need for potentially toxic printing altogether.
Next week we'll look at green alternatives for wedding rings.

Building Ecotopia: Becoming an ‘Expert’

2011-05-22T06:03:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

So far in our series on building Ecotopia, we’ve covered the basics on food, clothing and shelter in an Ecotopian society. Before we continue, I think we should pause for a moment and reflect on what it means to be a citizen of an industrialized Western nation in the 21st century.
As technology has become more readily available over the centuries since the Industrial Revolution, the day-to-day tasks of living have been broken down into specialized areas. Each of these areas requires a group of experts. For example, primitive humans built their own homes out of materials readily available in the natural environment, but as the technology for homebuilding became increasingly complex, it became more difficult for an individual family to build their own home. This meant that experts called ‘masons’ and ‘carpenters’ and ‘plumbers’ arose to meet the need.
This can also be seen in the way we now feed ourselves. There was a time when the human race consisted primarily of hunter/gatherers. Each family found their own food directly in the environment that surrounded them. With the rise of agriculture, food became a commodity that farmers could trade to other artists and crafters for goods. Thus the farmer became the ‘food expert,’ as did the husbandman who kept livestock for the same purpose. Technology has greatly improved our quality of life, but somewhere along the way the ‘experts’ took over. While we have reaped the benefits of our ingenuity, we have also sacrificed the confidence that comes with knowing exactly how to survive in nature on our own.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m not suggesting that the human race should abandon our cities and towns to go live in caves. What I’m suggesting is that in this over-reliance on ‘experts’ for our day-to-day living needs, we’ve sacrificed some of our freedom. This lost freedom most often translates into dollars and cents. Consider the example of building your own home. An average starter home in the U.S. costs around $100,000 to $150,000. A large part of this cost is due to the fact that machines run by ‘experts’ produce the building materials. Other teams of ‘experts’ assemble all of these goods into the final product. Along the way, each of these ‘experts’ takes a cut of the cost of the final home.
On the other hand, if you are able to provide most of the labor for a home yourself, you eliminate the need for all of these ‘experts’ who have to be paid for their expertise. While building your own home out of natural materials may be a labor-intensive process, sometimes taking anywhere from one to five years to complete, the tradeoff here is that you don’t have to pay all the ‘experts’ in the construction industry. Not only that, but when your home is finished, you have the satisfaction of knowing that you completed the entire thing yourself, without the help of any ‘experts.’
How inexpensive is it to build with natural materials like cob? Ianto Evans, a renowned cob builder, wanted to find out. His team succeeded in building a home for under $500! For an account of this project, visit: The $500 House.
One of the ideas behind Ecotopia is returning control of our lifestyles back to the people. By learning that we can do it ourselves by building our own homes, producing our own energy, and growing our own food, we take our lives out of the hands of ‘experts’ and put them back where they belong…safe in our own hands.

Building Ecotopia: Cob Homes Part 2

2011-05-22T05:59:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

Since cob homes are made from materials readily found in nature, they can be built very inexpensively. The tradeoff with a cob home is that it is a labor-intensive process. If you’re not a hands-on, do-it-yourself type of person, cob is probably not for you; but if you don’t mind getting your hands (and feet) dirty, then cobbing can be a very relaxing and meditative experience. Most of the cob structures I’ve seen were built by groups of people in ‘cobbing bees,’ where friends and neighbors get together for a weekend or two to share the experience. Since no power tools are involved, people often spontaneously break into song or conversation while cobbing together. It’s a great opportunity to socialize while doing something positive for yourself and the environment! In fact, people who have experienced cob building firsthand often talk about it in terms usually reserved for those who have undergone a religious experience. Cobbing brings people together at an instinctual community level.
Due to the fact that cob is labor-intensive; cob homes are usually smaller than the average stick-built home. This loss of space isn’t really that noticeable in a well-designed cob home because you can shape alcoves and shelving right into the walls to take advantage of vertical space. Round rooms also look larger than square ones. The organic shapes that are possible with cob also make it possible to use space more efficiently. Housing square footage is four times larger today than it was 40 years ago! Think about how much unused space you have in your home now and you’ll see the advantages of a smaller home. By building smaller, more space-efficient and natural buildings, not only can you save on building costs, but you also save on the energy required to heat, cool and light the extra space. Cob homes can be designed to make living more comfortable in less space.
Though they may take a little longer to build than a traditional home, a crew of six to twelve people can build up to a foot of height per day in a cob home of about 800 square feet or less. One advantage to cob building is that other than applying plaster to the finished wall, there is no finish work required. Plumbing and electrical fixtures are laid in place inside the wall as it is built, and there is no framing to be done. There is no need for insulation, sheet rock, taping, and finish framing. Once the final plaster coat is applied, the walls are done.
I have seen a small cob cottage (about 300 square feet) built in one weekend by a dozen dedicated workers. But racing to finish the home is missing the point. Half the fun in building with cob is in taking time to feel the materials take shape under your hands. It’s a very tactile experience, similar to sculpting with clay. If you have a ready stable of volunteers, you’ll find that your group will eventually settle into a rhythm that is almost like a dance. Cobbing is an activity that naturally lends itself to parties, since it doesn’t require a lot of skill, and who doesn’t like playing in the mud! It’s a chance to indulge your inner child; and if you have children of your own, they’ll love it! If you don’t mind putting a little sweat-equity into building your own home, it makes a lot of sense to return to nature’s most abundant, inexpensive and healthy building material.

Building Ecotopia: Cob Homes

2011-05-22T05:57:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

Cob building is the art of building homes using earth materials. Earth has been used for thousands of years as a building material, and is probably still the most common building material. The word 'cob' comes from an old English word that means 'a rounded lump or mass.' We get our word ‘gob’ from the same root word. Cob is basically a mixture of straw, sand and clay. These natural building materials are often available right on the building site, so transportation costs for materials are greatly reduced or eliminated altogether. Once the walls are built, they are covered with plaster to seal them. There are no forms, brick shapes or frames. Since cob is basically the same consistency as modeling clay, it lends itself to organic shapes that are more curved and natural. An artistically designed cob home fits in with its surroundings. These structures feel more at home and in harmony with natural landscapes. In addition to making beautiful homes, cob can also be used to build sculpture, garden walls and outdoor ovens.
Cob is literally 'dirt cheap' since it is made from materials readily found in nature. Many cob homes I’ve visited have been built for less than $5,000, and a few have been constructed for less than $500! Not only that, but it's so easy a child could do it. Ever make mud pies when you were a child? Then you've already got most of the basic skills to build with cob!
Cob is at home in most environments. Some of the earliest structures on Earth, in the Mesopotamian region, were made of a type of cob. There are cob homes in Western Europe that have been continuously occupied for centuries. With a little regular maintenance, a cob home is extremely durable. Christina Ott of Barefoot Builder built a cob pottery studio in Gulf Breeze, Florida. It survived two hurricanes, even when the surrounding buildings were demolished. Many cob structures in earthquake zones have demonstrated remarkable durability as well. No building system is earthquake-proof under every seismic condition, but a cob mansion in Nelson, New Zealand has survived two major earthquakes that destroyed the town around it. A cob building is one monolithic unit reinforced by straw, so it has no weak straight-line mortar joints.
Cob is also non-toxic and recyclable. It is made from natural materials that contain no toxins. This ancient way of building also doesn't contribute to deforestation, mining or pollution. Since it is a natural form of building, it does not rely on manufactured materials. Since it is made using materials directly from the building site, it doesn't use fossil fuels transporting materials to the site. When properly constructed, it is highly resistant to rain and humidity even in environments such as the Pacific Northwest and the British Isles. In fact, of the hotbeds of cob building right now in the United States is Oregon!
Due to the fact that walls in a cob home are one or two feet thick, they offer excellent thermal properties. When built with passive solar design in mind, these homes often don’t require extensive heating or cooling in temperate climates. The earthen walls capture heat from the sunlight in the daytime and radiate it at night. Such homes rarely need cooling in the summertime, and can be heated with a small wood stove in the wintertime.

Building Ecotopia: Sustainable Homes

2011-05-22T05:50:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

The good news with greener building methods is that such techniques are currently in vogue all over the world. The bad news is that many builders make a few changes here or there in standard industrial building techniques and call it ‘green,’ without going nearly far enough towards a truly sustainable building practice. Modern building methods are very taxing on the environment. Cement production is one of the most energy intensive of all industrial manufacturing processes. Cement production now accounts for over 8% of total carbon dioxide emissions from all human activities. Cement kilns in the United States are the third largest source of dioxin contamination. Part of this is due to the fact that kiln operators are allowed to burn toxic wastes as fuel. Concrete trucks require about 500 gallons a day of highly alkaline wash water to operate. This type of water is toxic to fish and other aquatic life.
Steel, another predominant building material, is made from iron ore and other non-renewable resources. Steel production is energy intensive due to the amount of heat required. The fuels used to fire steel forges are also a major source of carbon dioxide and other forms of air pollution.
Vinyl siding and other plastics used in the construction industry are made from non-renewable petroleum by-products. Plastic manufacturing requires toxic chemicals and produces more toxic waste. Plastics don't breathe like natural building materials. Many plastics emit toxic fumes. Some plastics can take up to 50,000 years to deteriorate!
Commercially harvested lumber products are usually treated with preservatives that are highly toxic. For example, arsenic is a component in many pressure-treated lumber products. Commercial forests harvested for lumber often use hazardous pesticides and preservatives. Irresponsible deforestation causes soil erosion, contamination of waterways from silt and pesticide runoff, and loss of biodiversity in the forest ecosphere. Composite wood products such as plywood and other particulate boards are often held together with toxic compounds which in addition to contributing to the degradation of the environment, are suspected to cause allergies and other health problems.
Commercially manufactured building materials cause problems for health and the environment at all stages of their life cycle, from production and manufacturing, to use in building, to disposal when buildings are razed. Additionally, long-distance transportation of building materials contributes heavily to transportation costs, not to mention the additional pollution caused by the large diesel-burning engines required to transport them.
Clearly our current methods of building homes are extremely taxing on the environment! But many natural building techniques go a long way towards promoting more sustainable living. By using materials readily found in nature, building supplies don’t have to be shipped great distances, or manufactured in factories that pollute the environment.
There are many natural building methods. Some of these would include straw bale building, earth bag building, and stone building. While all of these have their advantages, I prefer a method that uses materials readily found on almost any building site: clay, sand and straw. This ancient method is known as ‘cob building.’ Next week we’ll look at this versatile building style.

Building Ecotopia: Recycled Clothing

2011-05-22T05:42:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

You don’t necessarily need to buy clothing made from organically grown materials to dress in a sustainable manner. Another possibility when greening your wardrobe is to consider recycled clothing. When you purchase your clothing at outlets like Goodwill and Salvation Army, you are not only contributing to charity, but also giving older clothing a second chance at life. Purchasing clothing in this manner is not only less expensive than new clothing, but it is also good for the environment because every pre-owned garment you purchase is one that didn’t have to be manufactured. I’ve been buying many of my clothes from Goodwill and Salvation Army for years now. Most of the clothing I’ve purchased from these charities over the years is virtually indistinguishable from the new clothing on the racks at the mall. I’ve also noticed lately that more and more clothing made from organic materials is showing up at these outlets, so the general public must be making the switch!
Another aspect of green garments is their care. Most organic materials can be washed in a machine or by hand, but for the few that still require dry-cleaning, there are now green alternatives to the foul-smelling and toxic chemicals used by traditional dry-cleaners. One method is to use carbon dioxide under high pressure to remove dirt and stains. The system is enclosed and pressurized so that the carbon dioxide cannot escape into the atmosphere, and some say that this method works even better than traditional dry-cleaning. Another method involves nothing but water. The water is forced through the garment at high pressure in a fine jet spray, taking the dirt and soil with it. The water passes through the fabric too quickly to moisten it.
It has been determined that washing and drying clothing has at least as much environmental impact as its manufacture does. If you can wear clothing at least twice before washing it, that’ll help. It also helps to dry your clothes in the sun if at all possible. There’s no sense in paying a higher electricity bill to dry clothes in a machine when the sun will do it for free! You can also make a difference by using an organic laundry detergent.
It’s interesting to see how fashions have evolved over the years, and to speculate what the impact of the organic trend will be. I’ve often felt at odds with the fashions of the day. I kid my wife that I must have been a Buddhist in a former life, because I like baggy, natural fibers and sandals. I wonder how often the choice of materials a designer has to work with dictates what the end design will be? There market is definitely shifting towards more natural, organically grown fibers, and the designers have picked up on it. Maybe in the future we can expect to see bright, hand-dyed organic colors, long flowing robes and ‘pajama’ pants, since natural fibers lend themselves well to these types of expression. That would be my idea of paradise! But whatever the future holds for the garment industry, you can rest assured that natural, organically grown fibers are here to stay.

Building Ecotopia: Clothes Made of Beer?

2011-05-22T05:41:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

Some of the most comfortable natural garments are made of linen. Linen is made from flax. Flax is another plant that needs fewer chemical fertilizers and pesticides than cotton. It does well when grown organically. Linen jeans are especially comfortable and durable, and many men’s suits have traditionally been made of linen.
A rather novel new approach to garment making is clothing made from beer and wine! In this process, the bacteria that ferment the wine are left to convert the wine into a vinegary substance. This slimy residue is then painted onto an inflatable mannequin layer-by-layer and left to dry. When enough layers are accumulated, what remains is a garment made of natural cellulose with a texture similar to latex. These garments have to be kept moist, or they become brittle and tear easily. The Bioalloy team at University of Western Australia developed this process and they hope one day to make the material durable enough for daily wear. So one day you could wear a shirt made of your favorite beer!
There are also natural fibers that come from animals. This is a somewhat controversial area, because traditionally the use of animal products has led to the cruel treatment and exploitation of the animals. If you don’t mind using natural fibers from animals that come from farms where they are treated well, you might want to consider some of the options listed below.
When buying organic wool products, check with the manufacturer to see how the animals are treated. In addition to allowing them to roam freely, consider whether they are given any growth hormones or other chemicals in their diet. Also check to see if they’ve been dipped in any chemicals on a routine basis. You can contact many manufacturers of wool directly to get this information. If they are unwilling to talk to you about their processes, you can rest assured that they’re probably not using organic methods for growing and harvesting their wool.
Traditionally, the manufacture of silk requires either boiling or gassing the silkworms to death. If this is an issue for you, there is an alternative. Tussah silk, a product of India, is harvested in the wild after the moths have left the cocoon. This means that there is no killing involved in the processing of Tussah silk. They also carry a great collection of natural dyes, if you’re an old hippy like me, and love to tie-dye.
There aren’t really any sustainable alternatives to natural fur or leather. Fake furs and leathers are petroleum-based, so buying fakes to save an animal is just trading one set of woes for another. Fur isn’t as much of a fashion statement as it once was, as more and more people become aware of animal exploitation, but leather might be more of an issue, especially where shoes are concerned. The good news is that besides being made of leather, shoes can also be made from hemp, cotton, or recycled materials. I have a pair of hemp hiking boots that I’ve worn on Appalachian trails for over a year now, and they’ve held up better than the genuine leather pair I owned previously.
As environmental awareness increases, the fashion industry has begun to respond. Major designers have begun to incorporate organic materials into their designs. Look for this trend to continue in the future. Materials like hemp and bamboo are enjoying increased popularity, but organic cotton is by far the fabric of choice for most green clothing designers. According to Organic Exchange (www.organicexchange.org), a nonprofit committed to expanding the use of organically grown fibers, global retail sales of organic cotton products increased from $245 million in 2001 to $583 million in 2005. This trend shows no signs of waning in the near future. Organic clothing is ‘in!’

Building Ecotopia: Organic Cotton, Hemp and Bamboo

2011-05-22T05:39:00.001-07:00

by Chuck Hall

When building Ecotopia, the principles of sustainable living touch every aspect of our lives. Dressing ‘green’ is an important part of living an Ecotopian lifestyle. The first thing you’re going to want to look for when dressing sustainably is products made from fibers that are organically grown. Just because a garment is made from natural fibers doesn’t mean that the fibers were grown in a method that is safe for the environment. About one-fourth of the insecticides used worldwide go into commercially grown cotton alone! So it is critical to make sure that you are purchasing garments made from organically grown fibers if you want to protect the environment.
Due to the comfort and durability of cotton, it is one of the most popular natural fiber choices. Cotton has been used for garments for centuries. The United States and Turkey are the world’s largest producers of organic cotton, so there is a ready supply available in the U.S. for manufacturing greener garments, but countries around the world, including Canada and Australia, are rapidly catching up. When choosing cotton clothing, it is important to make sure that it is grown organically. It takes nearly half a pound of chemicals to grow enough cotton for one t-shirt when the cotton isn’t grown with organic techniques. Think about that the next time you visit your favorite t-shirt shop!
Hemp is another readily sustainable crop. Hemp plants are highly productive, easy to cultivate and more tolerant of insects and other pests than cotton. It has been used to make ropes and garments for centuries. Unfortunately, although hemp cannot be used as a narcotic and has no hallucinogenic properties, it went out of favor in the 1930s in the United States for political reasons due to its resemblance to its cousin, marijuana. Apparently the U.S. government is afraid that Drug Enforcement Agents wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between commercial hemp and marijuana! There has been a renewed interest in this natural plant fiber due to the fact that it is so easy to grow and its fibers are so durable, so restrictions are easing up somewhat, but because of the short-sightedness of the United States in this area, China remains the world’s largest exporter of hemp. So if you buy hemp clothing, it will probably come from China or India, another large exporter of this fiber.
Believe it or not, bamboo is rapidly becoming a fiber of choice in the green clothing industry as well. It is hypoallergenic, absorbent, fast-drying, durable and naturally anti-bacterial. It is also very breathable and quite surprisingly comfortable to wear. Bamboo is a very fast-growing plant, as any gardener can tell you, making it easy to replenish. It is therefore another highly sustainable crop plant

Building Ecotopia: Green Clothing

2011-05-22T05:38:00.001-07:00

by Chuck Hall

Unfortunately, clothing is more about status these days than about utilitarian value. The more clothes you have with designer names on them, the more status you have in the fashion hierarchy. Thinking about green clothing involves thinking about the purposes that clothing serves in the first place. Is it about comfort? Is it about modesty? Is it about protection from the elements? Is it about looking stylish? Is it about ‘one-upping’ your neighbors? What does clothing mean to you, and how will this affect your own personal definition of ‘green clothing?’
I mention the style and status aspect of clothing because environmentalists aren’t immune to the dangers of clothing as a status symbol just because they choose greener alternatives. I’m sure we’ve all seen environmentalist fashion victims as well. The point is, that having a closet full of green clothing that you wear maybe one time a year is no different, and not much better for the environment, than having a closet full of commercially produced clothing that you only wear one time a year. It has been estimated that if everyone switched to natural fibers, the entire planet couldn’t keep up with the demand for new clothing at the current rate of consumption. Rampant materialism isn’t any more sustainable just because it’s green. When choosing to live sustainably, less is more.
The type of work you do will also be a factor in the type of clothing you can choose. Many places of employment have dress codes to consider. If you are required to adhere to a dress code where you work, look for green alternatives in your clothing choices. If you are required to wear a uniform, you may want to check to see if your uniforms are available in green alternatives. If so, talk to your employer about making the switch. You may be pleasantly surprised at the reaction. Given the awareness of and interest in environmental policies right now, it may be a good marketing strategy for your place of employment. It never looks bad on an advertisement to declare that your business’s uniforms are environmentally friendly!
If you’re not required to abide by any strict dress code at work, congratulations! You’re one step closer to greening your wardrobe. The next step would be to review your wardrobe to see what’s indispensable and what you can do without. Since sustainability is about simplification, it’s better to have a few favorite garments than a whole closet full of stuff you never wear. Design a few outfits for each season, make a list, and plan to purchase environmentally friendly versions of each garment in that list. Don’t rush out and buy a whole new wardrobe, though. Another principle of sustainability is to get the most use out of everything before recycling it. So unless you’re planning to donate your whole wardrobe to charity so you can start over from scratch, just replace items one-at-a-time as needed with greener choices. That way you’re getting the maximum utility out of clothing you’ve already purchased. You can also find out which designs and materials work best for you and your lifestyle. And please don’t throw away your old garments! They can be donated to a charity like Salvation Army or Goodwill, or they can be used for any number of household needs. You can make dust rags out of them, or quilt them into shopping bags, or if you’re artistic you can even shred them and make your own handmade paper with them. The possibilities are endless!

Building Ecotopia: Dietary Considerations

2011-05-22T05:37:00.000-07:00

Building Ecotopia: Dietary Considerations
by Chuck Hall

Building an Ecotopia requires redesigning our current consumer culture by starting over from the ground up. Our most basic needs are food, clothing and shelter. Today we’re literally going to start at the ground level by discussing the agricultural and dietary components of our Ecotopian society.
The ideal form of diet in Ecotopia would be vegetarianism. There are a number of reasons for this. The first and foremost reason is the independence such a diet offers. For example, growing your own food at home reduces grocery bills, or eliminates them altogether. When you grow your own food, you have control over pesticides and herbicides as well, so you don’t have to guess whether the food you’re eating is truly ‘organically grown.’
There’s also good news for those of you who think that you’d need a huge farm to grow your own food. A new form of gardening, called ‘biointensive gardening,’ has shown that it is possible to greatly increase the yield from the average home garden. John Jeavons and Alan Chadwick, pioneers in this field, have demonstrated that it is possible to feed a family of four vegans with only 1/8 of an acre. Jeavons gives an in-depth review of his methods in his book, How to Grow More Vegetables Than You Ever Thought Possible On Less Land Than You Can Imagine (2006, Ten Speed Press).
Another reason for vegetarianism in our Ecotopian society is the plethora of health benefits such a diet offers. I’ve already written about these benefits back in September of last year. Since that time, health studies continue to compile evidence that vegetarianism is the way to go! Neal D. Barnard, M. D president of Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, says that "For people battling overweight and heart disease, a vegetarian diet can be a life-saving prescription."
Finally, the environmental impact of a vegetarian diet, when examined against the environmental impact of a carnivorous diet, comes out way ahead. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations formed the Livestock, Environment and Development (LEAD) to study the impact of the livestock industry on the environment. In 2007, a report entitled Livestock’s Long Shadow was released by this agency. Some of the findings of this report included:

It takes up to 1000 pounds of water to produce one pound of beef
Americans who eat meat are responsible for 1.5 more tons of carbon dioxide per year than those who don’t
The beef industry is responsible for around 18% of greenhouse gas emissions
Rapid deforestation of rain forests is largely due to the beef industry (grazing lands)

Consider the fact that using biointensive gardening, you can feed a vegan family of four on 1/8 of an acre, but in order to feed one cow, you need 2.5 acres!
In spite of all of this, I know that there are those who won’t be able to give up meat-eating altogether. That doesn’t mean that those of you who won’t give up meat, can’t make an impact as well. For example, if everybody in North America skipped one hamburger per week, that’d reduce the world’s beef consumption by nearly 50 million pounds! Think about that the next time you’re at the drive-through…

Building Ecotopia

2011-05-22T05:36:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

Thomas More’s seminal 1516 work, Utopia, presented his vision of the perfect society. Since that time, many have attempted to create their own version of Utopia. One of my favorites was conceived by Ernest Callenbach. His 1975 work, Ecotopia: The Notebooks and Reports of William Weston. Callenbach’s book is the story of a skeptical reporter who visits a Utopian village built on the principles of sustainability. As the title suggests, Callenbach calls his ideal society ‘Ecotopia.’
As with most great ideas, the idea of Ecotopia took a while to catch on and build momentum, but 33 years after Callenbach’s book, mini-Ecotopias are springing up all over the world. His original vision predicted a separate country, independent of the United States, consisting of Washington, Oregon, and parts of Northern California. Today, the Ecotopian ideals are sweeping those areas. There are also Ecotopian communities throughout the world in places like Vancouver, British Columbia, Nimbin, Australia, and Newcastle, South Africa. It has indeed become a global movement.
The founding principle of the Culture Artist Organization is that of transformative change towards a more earth-friendly way of life. A ‘culture artist’ is an individual who is working towards consciously transforming the culture into a more sustainable one. Such individuals endeavor to make positive, proactive changes in as many aspects of their lifestyles as possible to move towards the Ecotopian ideal. When enough culture artists join together in a community, it is my belief that an Ecotopia will naturally follow.
A more sustainable lifestyle is good for the planet. We can’t continue to use resources without renewing them, so a non-sustainable lifestyle will eventually lead to economic and ecological disaster. Therefore a sustainable lifestyle is inevitable anyway, one way or another, if the human race is to survive in the long term. I like to think that we as a species have the wisdom and foresight to make this change consciously and deliberately rather than having it forced upon us due to circumstances caused by our own neglect and shortsightedness.
There is also a beneficial side effect of a more sustainable lifestyle. Research shows that human beings need nature. Nature enhances our peace of mind and our sense of wellbeing. If we design communities and lifestyles that are more environmentally friendly, we make room for more nature. So we reap the benefits in our personal lives.
Imagine for a moment that you have a giant magical eraser. Suppose you could erase the current culture, the one that relies on rampant materialism and non-renewable resources. What if you could start over? What changes would you make in your own lifestyle in order to live in a more sustainable way? How would your home be different? How would your transportation be different? What about your diet, your clothing, or the products you use on a daily basis? What assumptions about day-to-day life could you change?
In the coming weeks, I’ll be examining the sort of changes that could be made within our culture to move it towards a more Ecotopian lifestyle. As always, your questions, feedback and input on this series will be welcome!

Global Warming Objections, Part VII: The Bottom Line

2011-05-20T12:46:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

Global warming dissenters sometimes claim that climate change scientists are part of some vast global conspiracy. Apparently the goal of such demagoguery is to promote the idea that the global warming ‘conspirators’ somehow silence dissenting voices by not allowing them equal time in the media.
When I began this series on global warming, some editors informed me that they would not be carrying the series. Others informed me that they would no longer carry the column at all. If you are reading this column, please remember to thank your local editor for allowing you to decide for yourself based upon the facts I have presented. The point is that if there is any silencing being done by the media, global warming dissenters aren’t the only ones being silenced.
I think that a large part of the fear behind the dissent comes from the idea that accepting carbon emissions standards would mean making financial sacrifices. While this may be true to some extent, with careful planning a large part of this financial burden can be alleviated.
For example, as of this writing, the war in Iraq costs $275,000,000 per day, for a total of about $500,000,000,000! That works out to nearly $4100 for every household in the United States. If the U.S. had invested that money instead into alternative energy, then the U.S.’s dependence on crude oil from foreign countries would probably be a thing of the past by now.
We already have the technology to do away with fossil fuels altogether. Granted, being able to make the switch involves building a new infrastructure to support new energy alternatives, but building such an infrastructure would create much-needed jobs worldwide as new technologies become more readily available on the market.
Carbon emissions reductions have added benefits as well. Cleaner energy means a cleaner environment, not just in terms of greenhouse gases, but also in terms of acid rain from coal-burning plants, vehicle emissions, and waste products from refineries and industry.
The Stone Age didn’t end because we ran out of stones. It ended because we found better ways to make tools. It could be that we are learning better ways to power our homes and our vehicles as well. If oil prices continue to rise, the global warming crisis may take care of itself due to economic pressures. Some economists predict that gasoline prices may triple by the end of this decade. If that happens, people will be scrambling for alternatives!
Ultimately, if the majority consensus of climate scientists is wrong, but we take action anyway, we will have gained energy independence and a cleaner, more sustainable lifestyle. But if climate scientists are right, yet we take no action, our children will reap the consequences.

Global Warming Objections, Part VI: Climate Modeling

2011-05-20T12:44:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

One of the most useful aspects of science is that data can be used to make predictions. By collecting data and studying how systems interact, it is possible to extrapolate further using the data, and to thereby make predictions as to the outcome of future events. One of the tests of the accuracy of a theory is the accuracy of the predictions it makes.
Climate science uses mathematical modeling, based on climate models. In the early days, numbers had to be crunched by hand, using slide rules and pencils. Nowadays we have supercomputers capable of making millions or billions of calculations per second. The more calculations that can be made, the more accurate the model will be.
Scientists working in the field of climatology have been making predictions about global warming since as early as 1896. Back then, the calculations were slow because computers didn’t exist. Even so, they were able to make certain predictions about carbon dioxide and its relationship to global temperature. Svante Arrhenius was a Swedish scientist who predicted, in 1896, that carbon dioxide emissions due to human activities would raise global temperatures. Even though he was working with very primitive equipment by today’s standards, he attained some degree of success with his predictions.
Since Arrhenius’s time, science has progressed quite a bit. Climatologists have made a number of predictions based on climate data. The ‘proof of the pudding’ that their models are accurate lies in the accuracy of the predictions those models reveal. Some of the many predictions made by climate models include:
NASA scientist James Hansen, in 1988, predicted that temperatures would climb over the next twelve years. His predictions were remarkably accurate.
Models have predicted that increase in surface temperatures would be accompanied by a cooling of the stratosphere. This prediction has been confirmed by satellite data.
Models have predicted that a brief, but short-lived, cooling period would occur in the event of a large volcanic eruption. The eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1994 has confirmed this prediction.
Models predicted that global warming effects would be accelerated in the Arctic regions as snow melted. Snow reflects sunlight, but the earth underneath absorbs it. This prediction has been confirmed by observation.
Finally, models predict an accelerating increase in surface temperature, correlating to the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This has been amply demonstrated to be so.
In almost every instance, computer models of climate change have made accurate predictions.
Another way to test the validity of the computer models is a technique called ‘hindsighting.’ In hindsighting, the computer models are started from a known period in history, using atmospheric data available for that time period. They are then run forward to a later time. The results are then compared to the climate data for that later time period for accuracy. For example, using data from the 1880s, the computer model is set to run from 1880 to the present. The computer results are then compared to the actual observed data from the present time. The results reveal that the climate model is accurate, because the data from the computer model matches what is actually observed in real life.
A true test of a scientific theory is its power to predict future events. Climate models for global warming have demonstrated such predictability. Dissenters are stuck with the problem of coming up with an alternate theory that explains the data. To date, no such alternate theory exists.

Global Warming Objections, Part V: The Scientific Consensus

2011-05-20T12:42:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

Quite often you’ll hear from global warming dissenters that ‘many leading scientists object to global warming.’ This argument is often used to demonstrate that there is no major scientific consensus that human activities are contributing in any significant way to global warming. While it is true that some have dissented, in order to gain a sense of perspective on what the scientific consensus really is, we must first define what we mean by ‘many’ and ‘scientists.’
For example, a recent U.S. Senate report had about 400 ‘scientists’ stating that they did not believe that human activities played a significant part in global warming. A Canadian group of 60 ‘scientists’ also signed a letter to that effect in 2006. However, on closer examination of the credentials of these scientists, many of them were retired, and the majority of them had areas of expertise unrelated to climatology. Asking a scientist in another field to render an opinion on climatology is somewhat akin to going to a pediatrician for advice on how to treat cancer.
Added together, the U.S. and Canadian dissenters who made statements number about 500. In contrast, about 11,000 scientists who are actively engaged in climate science research around the world signed a petition protesting U.S. President George Bush’s stance on global warming. When you do the math, this means that only 1 in 22 scientists object to the consensus that climate change is caused largely by human activities. And of this 1 in 22, the majority has specialties in fields other than climate sciences.
Rendering an opinion is quite a bit different than publishing actual research in a peer-reviewed journal. The process of peer-review means that the article meets rigorous requirements for scientific accuracy. Such papers are examined thoroughly by a panel of experts in the field to ensure accuracy. So what do the peer-reviewed journals have to say on the subject?
In 2004, a study by Naomi Oreskes looked at over 1000 peer-reviewed scientific journal articles that referenced global warming in some way. The papers examined were all published in the last decade, and all were subject to vigorous review by experts in climatology. The study found that not a single one of these papers denied that global warming was happening. Furthermore, not a single one of these papers denied that human activities were responsible in a large part of climate change.
In addition to this unanimous consensus in the scientific literature, The American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and various scientific organizations of Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, all have issued statements in recent years that the evidence for human modification of climate is compelling.
In fact, the evidence is so compelling, global warming has produced a consensus that is rarely seen in the skeptical world of science. Scientists are trained to be skeptical by nature. So if skeptics worldwide overwhelmingly agree, it is safe to conclude that there must be a reason. That reason is most likely that humans are responsible for global warming.

Global Warming Objections, Part IV: Water Vapor

2011-05-20T12:41:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

Big Oil has launched a propaganda war against the science of climate change. In all this propaganda, they’ve attempted to find alternate explanations for global warming. Last week I addressed the myth that sunspots cause climate change. This week we’ll be looking at the myth that water vapor is responsible.
No proponent of the water vapor theory has yet been able to explain why no sudden increase in water vapor has been observed, nor why the amount water vapor in the air doesn’t correlate with average global temperature. The water vapor myth has also not been able to explain what supposedly started this increase in water vapor in the first place. Nor has this myth been able to explain the correlation between increased carbon dioxide and increased global temperatures. The water vapor theory says nothing at all about carbon dioxide.
So is it true that water vapor is a greenhouse gas? If it is, what does this have to do with global climate change? While water vapor could contribute to the greenhouse effect, it simply does not persist in the atmosphere long enough to do that much damage. Water vapor remains in the atmosphere for just a few days, while carbon dioxide lingers for hundreds of years. Not only that, but the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere creates a synergistic effect. That is, the more it accumulates, the more damage it does.
In addition to the fact that water vapor only stays in the atmosphere for a few days (remember rain?), in order for water vapor to be a significant factor in climate change, scientists would first have to demonstrate that humans had caused a significant increase in the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere. There is no evidence that this is true. If water vapor were indeed responsible for global warming, there would be an observable slow buildup of water vapor in the atmosphere. No such buildup is occurring with water vapor, but it is occurring with carbon dioxide. This buildup of carbon dioxide is an observed, measurable fact. Not so with water vapor.
If you’ve had a basic secondary school science education, you know that water vapor is highly dependent on temperature. Any excess water vapor in the atmosphere is rapidly lost in the form of rain, snow, fog, or other precipitation. There is no buildup of water vapor over time. On the other hand, carbon dioxide continues to accumulate in the atmosphere. Even if all carbon dioxide emissions stopped all over the world today, it would still take hundreds of years for the atmosphere to return to pre-industrial levels of carbon dioxide.
To think of it in another way, there is no limit on the amount of rain that can fall, but there is a limit to the amount of carbon dioxide the Earth’s plants, animals and oceans can absorb. The surplus carbon dioxide that doesn’t get absorbed goes into the atmosphere to accumulate.
There are other greenhouse gases, such as methane from ‘cow burps’ and other sources, but the amount of these gases that are currently in the atmosphere pale in significance to the amount of carbon dioxide. When analyzing for relative effects of all the current greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, scientists have determined that carbon dioxide caused by human activities is responsible for over two-thirds of observed climate change.
So the short answer is that water vapor could be considered a greenhouse gas, but when compared to carbon dioxide, water vapor’s capacity for warming is the equivalent of a lit match to carbon dioxide’s atomic bomb.

Global Warming Objections, Part III: Sunspot Activity

2011-05-20T12:39:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

Research from climate scientists all over the world increasingly demonstrates that human activities are playing a part in global warming. Still, there are those who object to the idea that human activities are responsible. These critics of climate change science must answer the question: “If carbon dioxide isn’t responsible for the increase in global average temperature, what is?”
Those who wish to deny the prevailing scientific opinion have attempted to come up with alternative solutions to the question of climate change. Two alternate explanations for global warming seem to be gaining popularity.
The first explanation is that water vapor is a greenhouse gas, and that increases in water vapor across the globe are responsible for global warming. No proponent of this particular theory has yet been able to explain where the sudden increase in water vapor came from, nor why it began in the first place. The second explanation is that sunspots are causing it. In other words, ‘hot spots’ on the surface of the sun produce more heat, and as this heat travels to Earth, it causes increases in global temperature.
Note also that neither of these theories explains why the increase in carbon dioxide emissions in our atmosphere is positively correlated with the increase in global temperature. In other words, both the sunspot theory and the water vapor theory ignore carbon dioxide altogether, even though it is a demonstrable fact that carbon dioxide in our atmosphere has been steadily increasing.
On the sunspot theory, solar astronomer Peter Foukal says, “There has been an intuitive perception that the sun's variable degree of brightness, the coming and going of sunspots for instance, might have an impact on climate."
Foukal says that most climate models (including ones used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) already incorporate the effects of the sun's waxing and waning power on Earth's weather.
According to a study by Foukal (Nature Magazine, September 2006), the difference in temperature caused by sunspot activity is simply far too small to contribute significantly to global warming. Foukal and his team of researchers gathered sunspot activity data from as far back as 1874 and attempted to correlate these records with temperature records gleaned from ice core samples. They found that the data simply did not match up.
The bottom line is that there is an only 0.1% temperature variance in sunspot activity. According to Foukal, this variance is far too small to have any major impact on the overall global average temperature of the Earth. It also doesn’t explain the correlation between increased carbon dioxide in our atmosphere and increased global average temperature. In short, the sunspot theory is not a credible or plausible explanation for global warming.

Global Warming Objections, Part II: Weathermen & Climatologists

2011-05-20T12:36:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

A question or comment you often hear a lot when talking about global warming is this question: “My local weatherman can’t even tell me what the weather will be like tomorrow. How can I believe scientists when they tell me that global warming is happening?”
To start with, meteorology and climatology are entirely different sciences. Meteorology looks at short-term events and tries to predict the outcome. Even though they can’t nail it on the head all the time, they still have a pretty good average. Climatology, on the other hand, looks at long-range patterns.
Suppose you have a nickel, and I ask you to predict the outcome of a single coin toss. You have a fifty-fifty chance of correctly predicting the outcome. Now let’s say I ask you to predict the outcome over five coin tosses. Let’s say you go out on a limb and predict that all five tosses will be ‘heads.’ If all five coin tosses came up ‘heads,’ it would be unusual, but not outside of the realm of possibility. With each additional coin toss, however, the average would begin to approach the fifty-fifty mark. The more points of data you have, the more accurate the result will be.
Meteorology is attempting to predict the outcome of a single coin toss. Climatology, on the other hand, has much more data at its disposal. Climate scientists now have ice core data from 650,000 years of core samples with which to make their predictions. The more data they have, the more accurate their predictions. This huge amount of data upon which to make predictions over long spans of time is much more accurate than trying to predict a single day’s weather, simply because the amount of data used to make predictions is so large.
NASA scientist James Hansen states that the ‘tilting point’ for global warming is 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide. Beyond that point, climate change can be demonstrated beyond all reasonable doubt to be caused largely by human activities. Scientists studying atmospheric carbon dioxide now routinely observe figures of 383 parts per million or higher. Ice core data on trapped atmospheric carbon dioxide shows that throughout most of the 650,000 year history of the ice core data studied, carbon dioxide levels ranged from 100 parts per million to 300 parts per million, but at roughly the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere began to slowly increase to the present range. It is an established fact that carbon dioxide contributes to the greenhouse effect, so it is only natural to assume that more carbon dioxide equals higher temperatures.
While it is a scientific axiom that correlation does not prove causality, global temperatures have been rising in parallel with the amount of carbon dioxide in the air. Those who claim that ‘correlation does not prove causality’ are stuck with providing an alternate proposal. If carbon dioxide isn’t responsible for the increase in global average temperature, what is?

Global Warming Objections, Part I: Is Science Ever 100% Certain?

2011-05-20T12:33:00.001-07:00

by Chuck Hall

In spite of an overwhelming amount of evidence that human activities play a part in global warming, there are still quite a few people who think that global warming is some sort of vast government conspiracy concocted by scientists. The goal of this ‘conspiracy’ remains unclear. There is still enough opposition to taking action on global warming that it is a major concern for those of us who care about the environment. This week I begin a series of columns examining some of the major objections to global warming and climate change.
Let’s start with this idea of ‘certainty’ about scientific data.
Imagine you’ve gone to the doctor for your annual physical. She runs the usual tests. When the results come back, she has some bad news for you: you have some of the symptoms of cancer.
You ask your doctor, “Can you be one-hundred percent certain that I have cancer?”
She tells you that she cannot be certain without further testing and possibly exploratory surgery. She wants to refer you to an oncologist. You tell her that unless she can be one-hundred percent certain that you have cancer, you’re not going to visit the oncologist, nor are you going to submit to further tests.
Some politicians don’t want to take action on global warming because they say that scientists cannot be 100% percent certain that human activities are contributing to climate change. Yet with each new study, we come closer and closer to the conclusion that human activities are playing a part. Would any reputable scientist come out and say, with 100% certainty, that global warming is caused by human actions? No. This does not mean, however, that there is not an overwhelming amount of scientific evidence. This is just a fact of how science works. Science is not arrogant enough to assume that anything can be known with 100% accuracy. This does not mean that a scientific probability is therefore false.
Let’s look at an example. Suppose I show you a pistol. The pistol appears to be in good working order, and properly loaded. This doesn’t mean, however, that the pistol is 100% guaranteed to fire. The firing mechanism could jam. The cartridge could misfire. A meteor might strike me before I could pull the trigger. There is any number of things that could prevent the pistol from firing. Since you cannot be 100% certain that the pistol will fire, does that therefore mean you would feel safe standing in front of me while I point it at you and pull the trigger?
As more and more evidence on climate change comes in, it becomes more and more certain that human activities are playing a part. Global warming was first conceived of in 1886. Back then they only had slide rules with which to crunch numbers. The supercomputers of today use climate modeling to make increasingly accurate predictions. One of the ways that we know these supercomputers work much better than the slide rules of a century ago is that the predictions made by climate scientists become increasingly accurate over time as the process is refined. In short, while it is impossible to ever know anything with 100% certainty, climate scientists of today are rapidly approaching the 99.999% certainty mark. And the news doesn’t look good.

Composting Toilets

2011-05-20T12:30:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

If you’ve ever thought about building a home using natural materials such as cob, straw bales, or earth bags, you’ve probably realized that building such a home would be better accomplished in a rural area. Let’s face it…zoning restrictions in urban areas are generally far too rigid to accommodate alternative building styles, and green building methods are the new kid on the block in most industrialized nations (even though people have been building with natural materials elsewhere for thousands of years).
One of the issues in building a home in a rural area is waste management. Currently the preferred method of dealing with human waste is to install a septic tank. While this may be the easiest way to get a building permit, it is not the most environmentally sound way to go for a number of reasons. If you have a building site with a lot of trees that you wish to keep, a septic tank might not be an option. This is because septic tanks require leach fields, and these fields can be up to a half-acre in size, depending on the underlying soil. So if you don’t want to bulldoze that grove, you’ll have to look at other options.
Another consideration is that flush toilets use large amounts of water, and as droughts continue in many places throughout the world, water conservation will become more and more of a necessity. Any waste management system that can conserve water will have the advantage. A composting toilet provides such an advantage.
Composting toilets are basically toilets that are self-contained and use little or no water. There is a composting compartment attached either below or behind the ‘bowl’ to catch waste material. This human waste naturally decomposes, or composts, into odorless humus, which can then be used for organic fertilizer for home gardening projects. While the composting chamber does have to be emptied on occasion, this only has to be done about once every three to six months, and is not nearly as messy and unpleasant as you might think. Composted humus from human waste is virtually indistinguishable from commercial peat in texture and odor.
Commercial composting toilets are odor-free and at least as sanitary as a septic tank. Some studies would indicate that composting toilets are even more sanitary, because waste from a composting toilet isn’t released into the ground water system, whereas germs in a flush toilet are mixed with water in a septic tank, which then flows out into the leach field to be absorbed into the ground.
Commercial composting toilets are a bit expensive, ranging in price from $1500 to $3500 or more, depending on the model. This still makes them cheaper than the average septic tank installation. If you’re a hands-on type of person, you may be able to build your own for far less.
If you’re considering building your own green home, a composting toilet could be an integral part of your home design. For general information on composting toilets, visit Dean and Andi Hazelwood’s website. You may also download a free 114-page book on making your own composting toilets from the EcoSanRes Organization’s website.

Nature Deficit Disorder

2011-05-20T12:26:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

If you grew up in a rural environment like I did, you probably remember the joys of playing in the woods. Building forts, taking hikes or collecting plants not only allows children an opportunity for fresh air, it also stimulates their imagination and curiosity. But as video games and television become more important in the lives of our children, they have less and less time to spend in nature.
Author Richard Louv thinks that our children are suffering from Nature Deficit Disorder. In Louv’s book, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder (2005, Algonquin Books), he argues that kids are so plugged into television and video games that they've lost their connection to the natural world. Louv believes that the hunter/gatherer is still very much a part of our collective psyche, and that people need nature in order to develop fully as human beings.
While video games and television may have some educational purposes, they do not allow for full use of the senses. The sights, sounds, smells and textures of the woods allow children to experience the world in ways that video games cannot. There is a growing body of evidence that children with Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD), a disorder in which children misinterpret signals from their senses, may benefit from sensory integration training. SPD can lead to symptoms like lack of coordination, difficulty in concentrating, and behavioral problems. A growing body of evidence suggests that allowing children to experience nature stimulates all of the senses, and therefore facilitates sensory integration, decreasing symptoms of SPD.
Parents may be fearful of visiting state or national parks, due to perceived dangers of abduction or assault, but those fears are probably exaggerated and exacerbated by the media. John Winters supervises 350 safety officers for the Department of Natural Resources. These safety officers are the uniformed rangers who oversee 96 state parks and recreation areas and 600 boating access sites. According to Ranger Winters, of about 1,000 incident reports that visitors filed with rangers last year, just 16 were technically classified as assaults. Compare that to the estimated 10,000 annual assaults that occur in homes, towns, and city streets, and you can easily see that the woods are a far safer place to be!
You don’t have to take the kids to Yosemite to reap the benefits of nature. Most cities and towns have parks. You can even find nature in your back yard. An Ecotherapy exercise I do with my children in therapy is called ‘A Closer Look.’ I mark out a six-foot in diameter circle on the ground, then have them sit in it with a notebook and record what they see inside that circle for fifteen minutes. Many tell stories of insects interacting. Others describe blades of grass or leaves in great detail. Some talk about the wind and the sun. In every case, they use their imagination to examine the world around them more closely.
The opportunities to help your children overcome ‘Nature Deficit Disorder’ abound. The possibilities are only as limited as your imagination, so teach your kids to put down the X-Box and explore the world around them!

Cob Equity

2011-05-20T12:23:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

As we head into a new year, and people begin their annual resolutions, some may be thinking about a new home in the coming year. Many parts of the world are experiencing an economic slump in the housing market. Homeowners are feeling the current mortgage crunch in many ways, and first-time homebuyers may be rethinking traditional financing for a new home, given the current difficulties in obtaining a home loan.
For first-time homeowners who want to go green in a big way, there is an alternative to shackling yourself to a thirty-year mortgage. That alternative is to build a home using natural materials. For example, a home made of cob can be built using materials readily available on most building sites. Cob is simply a mixture of clay, sand and straw, similar to adobe, but stacked free-form without shaping it into bricks first. Once the cob walls are built, they are covered with a plaster to make them water-resistant and weatherproof.
A family of four can built a small cob home of around 800 to 1000 square feet in a little over a year, working on the weekends. Cob is a labor-intensive form of building, but the work is a fun activity for a family. There’s something about playing in the mud that touches the child in all of us! Granted, taking a year or so to build a home might be a long time for those of us accustomed to seeing a stick-built home go up in two or three months, but the advantage of cob is that since most of the materials can be obtained from the building site itself, a cob home is literally ‘dirt cheap.’ In fact, if you own a suitable building site, it is entirely feasible to pay as you go, so that when your home is finished, it is already paid for. Isn’t it worth a year or so of your weekends to have a home built by your family, that is paid for once it’s completed? Compare that to slaving away to pay off a mortgage for the next thirty years!
Another advantage to cob is that since the building materials are about the same consistency as modeling clay, you can incorporate artistic touches yourself, if you have any sculpting talent. Rather than the square, box-like look common to most stick-built homes, cob allows you to curve the walls and to add interesting shapes to the final design. The result is a beautiful structure that must be seen to be fully appreciated. If you lack the skills to build with cob, there are workshops throughout the world that offer classes. A partial directory of cob instructors and workshops can be found at: http://www.cultureartist.org/CobDirectory.htm. If you don’t see a cob workshop near you, a simple Internet search will help you to locate one. Don’t be discouraged if you can’t find a nearby workshop. Cob builders are gypsies. They love to travel, so it may be possible for a teacher to come to your location for a workshop.
What if you don’t want to build it yourself, but would still like a cob home? Ask around. Many cob instructors hold workshops at various locations. Some would probably be willing to hold a workshop on your building site. They get the fees for any students they bring with them, and you get a home made of natural materials in exchange. The possibilities are only as limited as your imagination! If you would like more information on building a home of cob or other natural materials, email me for more information at: info@cultureartist.org.
Good luck and happy cobbing!

A New Mindset for the New Year

2011-05-20T12:16:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

As the Western world winds up another year, many people are considering the annual tradition of making New Year’s resolutions. This week’s column started out to be a laundry list of things that you could do to live a greener lifestyle in the coming year, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that such information is widely available on the Internet and from various other sources. Instead of writing yet another column of lists, I think it’d be more meaningful to examine the motivations behind green living. Why does it matter? By looking at our relationship to the environment, green living becomes a way of life instead of just another list of things to do.
We interact with the environment, and the environment interacts with us. For those who know how to listen, the wind in the trees can sing to us. The view of a mountain range or a moonlit ocean can tell a story. The smell of the first flowers of spring can speak just as clearly as a loved one’s voice can. On the other hand, a crowded, polluted city street can communicate as well. The messages we get from our environment have an impact on us, whether or not we are consciously aware of that impact. It changes our sense of self, and our sense of wellbeing.
When I first starting speaking in public on the topic of sustainable living, there was a great deal of interest in the topic, but there was also a lot of resistance. A lot of the comments I got were along the lines of, “What you say sounds great, but I just don’t see myself being able to make a change right now,” or “Wow, that sounds expensive.”
People thought that sustainability was a great idea, but they saw it as something they didn’t have the time to work into their already busy schedules. It was then that I realized that what was needed was a complete paradigm shift.
When I speak of a paradigm shift, I’m talking about a fundamental change in the way we view life. I mean a change in values; a new way of thinking about what’s important. I personally think that applying a few sustainable ideas here and there in our spare time is the moral equivalent of sticking a band-aid on a cancer patient. The time for system-wide change on a global scale is rapidly running out. The more people who can change their way of thinking about and interacting with the ecosystem, the better off the future of this planet will be.
So for this New Year, instead of simply adding a few ‘green living’ tasks to your daily agenda, try re-examining your assumptions about the world and your place in it. Think about how you interact with the environment around you.
Ultimately, what happens to the Earth happens to its inhabitants. We are all part of many circles that make up the greater circle of life, and the Earth is our home. What we do to the Earth, we do to ourselves. In the long run, sustainable living means treating ourselves in a better way by treating our home, the Earth, in a better way.
Have a Happy New Year, and a greener tomorrow!

Wind Farming

2011-05-20T12:14:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

As the demand for alternative forms of energy continues to increase across the nation, American farmers are discovering a new ‘crop.’ All across America, farmers are now harvesting wind energy and reaping the rewards.
As of today, wind power is the fastest growing form of alternative energy in the world. Between 1998 and 2002, wind power grew at an average rate of 32%! According to a study by the Department of Energy (DOE), since 1980 the cost of producing electricity using wind power has dropped as much as 90% as turbines have become more efficient and less expensive. If current trends continue, wind power will be less expensive than electricity from conventional power plants by the year 2010.
The ‘Wind Powering America’ initiative, sponsored by the DOE, hopes to produce 5% of America’s electricity with wind by 2020. To do this, the DOE will be providing $60 billion in investment capital to rural locations across America. Of this capital fund, $1.2 billion will go to farmers and other rural landowners to help establish wind farms across the United States.
There are three basic methods that a potential wind farmer may use to generate income from farming the wind. The first and easiest is to allow a developer to install a large wind turbine on the property. This requires no up-front costs to the wind farmer, and can generate royalties of up to $5000 per year, per turbine, depending on the size of the generator.
The second basic method is to connect your wind turbine to the grid. In this arrangement, you can either check with the local utility company to see if they’ll help you pay for the turbine, or you can finance the turbine yourself. Federal law then requires that the power company buy any surplus electricity from you.
The third method is to buy the turbine yourself, then sell the electricity generated to the highest bidder. The end user in this case doesn’t have to be a power company. You could sell your power to factories, to homes, or to rural subdivisions.
The best part about wind farming is that even large turbines have small footprints. This means that you may still use the bulk of your farmland for growing crops, while supplementing your income by harvesting energy from the wind!
If you would like to learn more about wind energy in general, visit the American Wind Energy Association at: http://www.awea.org. You may download a fact sheet about wind energy from the Union of Concerned Scientists.
You may learn more about farming the wind here.

Living in the Woods, Part 3

2011-05-20T12:12:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

In the final part of this three-part series on living in the woods, we’ll be examining safety issues. Several readers have already written in, expressing concern about going off into the woods alone. Many have worried about being abducted, assaulted or even killed while visiting a State or National Park. The good news is that the incidence of crime in parks is often greatly exaggerated. We seem to have an ‘if it bleeds, it leads’ mentality in the U.S. when it comes to reporting news on television and in the press, and this sensationalism has left a false impression of the dangers of public parks.

According to Phil Linsalata of the Detroit News, crime rarely visits state parks. Our parks are usually secure because they are patrolled frequently by wardens and park rangers (You may read Linsalata’s report in its entirety at: http://members.aol.com/femnet/det696.htm). John Winters supervises 350 safety officers for the Department of Natural Resources: the uniformed rangers who oversee 96 state parks and recreation areas and 600 boating access sites.

"Nothing is ever guaranteed," said Winters. "Isolated incidents can happen, but the parks are very, very secure."

How secure? Of about 1,000 incident reports that visitors filed with rangers last year, just 16 were technically classified as assaults. Compare that to the estimated 10,000 annual assaults that occur in homes, towns, and city streets, and you can easily see that the woods are a far safer place to be!

This of course doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take the proper precautions before setting off. It’s far better to have a traveling companion for such a journey if possible. And you’ll want to take a cell phone or some other means of communication with the outside world before you begin. It’s a good idea to scout out your location ahead of time to make sure you can get a signal. If you’re planning to visit a state or national park, talk to the rangers ahead of time to let them know your plans. Many primitive campgrounds are constantly patrolled, so it’s a simple matter to get in touch with the local ranger station in case of emergency.

Make sure you include a first-aid kit in your provisions. It wouldn’t hurt to take a basic first-aid safety course at your local Red Cross either. In any case, don’t venture off into the woods without letting someone know where you’ll be and for how long.

The ideal situation would be to own the land upon which you plan to stay. In such a case, you can inform the local authorities where you’ll be so they can routinely patrol the location. If you own the site, you will also be able to prepare it extensively ahead of time, stocking it with provisions, communication equipment, and if needed, personal safety devices such as mace, pepper spray, Tasers, etc.

If there are any natural predators in your area, learn how to look for signs of their presence. Most wildlife will leave you alone if you leave them alone, unless you happen upon their natural habitat by accident. So knowing the territory is imperative. If there are poisonous snakes in your wilderness home, you’ll want to include a snakebite kit in your provisions. Make sure you know how to use it!

Finally, if safety is a major concern for you, and you’d prefer to be around people while enjoying nature, check with a relative who lives in a rural setting. You might also be able to borrow their back yard for a few days. The important thing is to be able to experience what nature has to offer while assuring your own peace of mind.

Living in the Woods, Part 2

2011-05-20T12:01:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

Last week I discussed some of the spiritual aspects of going off to live in the wilderness as a means of self-discovery and growth. Such experiences can be very rewarding, but many readers wonder about the practical aspects of survival during such a journey. This week’s column will examine how to prepare yourself physically and mentally so that there are no surprises when you set off on your adventure.
The first consideration is how isolated you intend to be, and for how long. Hiking deep into a national forest for a month or two will require different preparations than going on a primitive camping trip for a week at a campground. Both experiences have their values, and a little nature is better than none at all. It’s up to the individual to decide how much is enough.
If you’re planning a longer stay with more isolation, you’ll have to figure out how much you can carry and how much you can live off the land. In any case, you should never go off into the woods without letting someone know exactly where you intend to be and for how long. I’d recommend carrying a cell phone or some other type of GPS locator device in case of emergency. It’s also a good idea to scout the area you intend to stay in first so you can make sure your cell phone will work in a remote location.
If you plan to be in a remote location for an extended time, it’s a good idea to have a physical exam. Tell your doctor what you plan to do. You don’t want to be stranded alone in the woods during a major illness or other trauma. It might also be beneficial to engage in some sort of exercise program for a few months before you go. Hiking in the woods is a physically demanding activity, and it’s not easy if you’re not in shape, especially if you’re carrying a backpack full of supplies. Make sure your supplies include a first aid kit!
The next step is to become an expert on the local flora and fauna. It helps to know what is safe to eat and what is not. You can supplement your food supplies with fruits and vegetables that grow wild in nature. I wouldn’t recommend hunting unless you know that the animals you kill are free of diseases. And of course, if you plan to hunt, you’ll need the proper permits and weaponry. When I had my wilderness experience, I ate only vegetables and fruits. Buying meat at the grocery store is an entirely different experience from having to kill and field dress an animal yourself. Going through such an experience makes becoming a vegetarian a lot easier!
If you own the parcel of land you plan to camp on, you might want to clear an area for a small garden in the early spring, plant some fruits and vegetables, and return during the summer for an extended stay. That way you can be reasonably sure that you will have enough food for your adventure.
The most important consideration is having a fresh supply of water. There's plenty of online info about where to find fresh water and how to purify the water from streams or springs. Practice finding your own water and purifying it before you go.
Another consideration is the timing. It's better to make such an excursion in the spring, when most of the native plants are at their peak. Buy several field guides and prepare yourself for at least six months beforehand by studying the local plant life. Be careful that you know the difference between poisonous plants and edible ones. Stay away from mushrooms unless you've had at least a year of training from someone who's an expert in edible mushrooms.
Once you feel confident that you have mastered all the challenges of a wilderness experience, set off on your journey. Keep a diary or a journal so you may share your experiences later. If you make such a journey, I’d love to know how it turns out!

Living in the Woods, Part 1

2011-05-20T11:47:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

In my latest book, Green Circles: A Sustainable Journey from the Cradle to the Grave, I devoted a chapter to my experiences living in the woods of the Appalachian foothills. At that time I had gone into the woods on a quest of self-discovery. I built a small cabin on a three-acre parcel I owned, and lived off the natural resources around me. As I became adjusted to this lifestyle, I noticed that my perceptions about the world underwent several permanent and life-altering changes. I learned a great deal about myself, about the natural world around me, and about what it means to live as a spiritual being having a human experience.

A lot of people began their spiritual journeys by going off into the woods. Buddha did it, Jesus did it, Mohammed did it, Moses did it, the Native Americans did it, and so did most of the great spiritual leaders throughout history. There is something about seeing the wild places firsthand that awakens our deeper, more intimate and personal levels of awareness.

Science in recent years has begun studying the psychological aspects of wilderness experiences. In a 2005 study, van den Berg & Heijne researched some of these characteristics. The study, Fear versus fascination: An exploration of emotional responses to natural threats, explains that there are two basic types of attentional focus: focus and fascination. Focus is the type of attention we experience most often in artificial environments. Human hands make most of the things we see indoors. Since we evolved in the wilderness, but have only been living in artificial environments for a few thousand years, our brains are wired to be ‘on guard’ in unfamiliar surroundings. The more primitive parts of our brains recognize artificial places as somehow alien. Because of this, we tend to use more energy to focus our attention while indoors in order to avoid these man-made distractions. Fascination is the type of attention we tend to experience more outdoors. The deeper, older parts of our brains recognize natural environments as something familiar, so we tend to use less mental resources for focusing attention. This means that more mental energy is available to generate more meditative states. So unless a bear is chasing you, you’re calmer and more relaxed in the woods or on a beach. Serenity is a prerequisite to spiritual events, so experiencing nature is highly conducive to spiritual awareness.

While nature helps you to achieve serenity much more easily, it’s hard to be serene when you’re cold and hungry. Many of the people who’ve read my book have written to ask about the practical aspects of living in the wilderness. They want to seek their own spirituality in nature, but they’re not sure how they would manage to survive in the meantime, so I thought I’d address some of the more mundane tasks of having your own Walden experience. Next week we’ll look at how to prepare yourself for your own journey of discovery in the wilderness.

A Year of the Culture Artist

2011-05-20T11:43:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

The first Culture Artist column was published on November 9, 2006 in my hometown newspaper, The Press and Banner, in Abbeville, South Carolina. Only a year later, this column has grown from a readership of a little over 5000 to over two million readers in nearly seventy newspapers on three continents! It has succeeded beyond my wildest expectations. The fact that readership of this column has grown so quickly tells me that there is a great global hunger to live in more ecological ways.
As I’ve gotten feedback on the past year’s columns, I’ve noticed a trend developing among the readers. In addition to a desire to manage natural resources in a sustainable manner, many readers talk to me about managing their lives sustainably. I found this to be an interesting and intriguing idea. What if there is a sustainability of the soul? What would that look like?
I believe that if there is any such thing as the human spirit, it is a renewable resource just as valuable as any other. Everyone needs some time in a special quiet place to replenish their spiritual energy.
I believe that a truly sustainable society would respect the inherent worth and dignity of all of its members, encouraging human growth and development. We all have a favorite person or group we love to oppose, whether that opposition is based on race, religion, politics, favorite sports team, choice of musical taste, favorite ice cream, or any other label we choose to hang on that amorphous "they,” but a sustainable culture would work diligently to minimize such differences by focusing instead on the things we have in common.
Far too often clashes of beliefs and perspectives lead to misunderstandings, arguments, fights and even wars. To prevent such events, all we need to do is to keep talking to each other and trying to understand each other. By respecting the person behind the belief, we will come a lot closer to a peaceful world.
With that in mind, a group of people who are concerned for the environment have banded together to form the Culture Artist Organization. This organization will be a non-profit dedicated to being a positive force for change in educating the general public in the importance of nature, ecology, and sustainable living practices. The Culture Artist Organization will do this through working with the local community and the world at large to establish educational programs and practical solutions to environmental problems, guided by the philosophical principles of Deep Ecology and sustainability.
One of our long-term goals is the establishment of the Forest Moon Ecovillage. In addition to being a village modeled on the principles of sustainability, Forest Moon will also be a teaching community, allowing people interested in such communities to visit and gain hands-on experience in green living. By sharing with each other, we help to create not only a sustainable ecosystem, but a sustainable human spirit as well.
If you would like to learn more about the work of the Culture Artist Organization, please visit our website at: www.cultureartist.org.

The Last Tree

2011-05-20T11:39:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

When Polynesian settlers arrived at Easter Island, they found a tropical paradise waiting for them. Archaeological evidence shows that when the Polynesians landed on that island, it was covered with a thick forest of abundant flora and fauna. A new study suggests that these settlers didn’t arrive until about 1200 C.E. At the peak of their civilization, the island supported nearly 7,000 people. Yet by the time Dutch colonizers arrived in 1772, all they found was the eerie stone statues that dominate the island to this day, and a few dozen starving survivors from the original Polynesian colonists. In less than six centuries, the original settlers turned the island into a wasteland. Today, the island is nothing but a barren field covered with grasses and those enigmatic stone statues.
I wonder what happened that would lead these islanders to think that their rapid and massive deforestation was a good idea? Surely at some point in time they must have realized what was happening to the forests around them. There are no trees at all on the island today. Someone had to have been the one to cut down the last tree. I wonder what went through his mind as he put the axe to the last tree trunk on the island? Did he look upon his action with regret and remorse for what once was, or did he just look at it as a way to squeeze the last ounce of productivity out of the last resource on the island? Did the islanders realize that the destruction of the forest meant their own destruction, or did they just think that the cutting of the last tree was “business as usual” and that anyone who objected was needlessly being an alarmist?
The sad story of Easter Island is not unique in history. For decades, historians wondered what happened to the Mayan civilization. The Mayans had a sophisticated urban culture that in many ways rivaled our own, and in some ways (astronomy, for example) exceeded ours. Yet in 900 C.E. they all suddenly abandoned their cities for the jungle. For years the reason for this abandonment had been a mystery, but archaeologists today have reached a general consensus on what they think happened.
The largest of Mayan cities had a population of between 10,000 and 20,000. All of those people had to be fed. The preferred style of Mayan agriculture was to slash and burn the jungle to create arable fields for planting. By planting the same crops year after year, the nutrients in the soil were quickly depleted. After a few decades of this practice, the soil within walking distance of all the cities had been exhausted. The fields had to be moved so far away from the cities that it was easier simply to abandon the cities altogether. In other words, the cities were abandoned because of an ecological disaster caused by non-sustainable agricultural practices.
There is evidence that other great cities of the past, such as Rome and Alexandria, had an element of ecological disaster in their falls as well. Throughout history, when civilizations have failed to live in a sustainable manner, the inevitable result has been the collapse of those civilizations.
We stand on the brink of another potential ecological disaster that would make the collapse of an ancient city-state pale in significance. In the past, when civilizations fell, the refugees could always move elsewhere and start over. The problem now is that we are a global civilization. There is nowhere else to go.
Are we, as a species, staring at the last tree with an axe in our hands?

Sustainable Communities and Second Order Change

2011-05-20T11:26:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

Ecopsychology is a fairly recent concept in mental health. It is a philosophy combining elements of psychology and ecology. The theory behind Ecopsychology is that mental health is contingent upon the health of the environment. In other words, humankind and the environment are part of an interrelated system.
I became interested in environmental issues in the late 1970s, largely because I grew up playing in the woods. The forest was my retreat when things got too stressful at home. I could take a walk down by the creek for an hour or so, and suddenly everything fell back into perspective. So when I entered graduate school for Marriage and Family Therapy, it was only natural that I would research nature’s impact on mental health. When I first learned of Ecopsychology, it was natural that I would become involved in research in the field.
There is a wealth of research demonstrating that nature and wilderness experiences are beneficial to mental health. Just a few examples:

Kaplan and Kaplan (1993): Study of over 1200 employees revealed that those who had a window overlooking a natural environment consistently performed better at work and gave higher overall job satisfaction ratings.
Antonioli & Reveley (2005) found that swimming with dolphins was more effective for treating depression than traditional treatments.
Therapy and educational activities conducted in outdoor settings reduces symptoms of ADD/ADHD (Kuo & Taylor, 2004).
Nature and outdoor activities reduce stress and restore energy (Sponslee et al, 2004).
Smith-Sebasto & Walker (2005) found that wilderness survival skills training gave adolescents increased self-esteem and self-confidence, skills necessary for a good education.
Lazar et al (2005) demonstrated that meditative states stimulate neural growth in the cerebral cortex. Nature experiences have been demonstrated in several studies to produce meditative states (fascination, relaxation, mindfulness).
Meyer (2001): A literature review of outdoor experiences as educational tools revealed that ‘outdoor classrooms’ enhanced many critical factors of the educational experience, including: enhanced retention, better focus, more attention to detail, less hyperactivity, more relaxation, increased confidence and self-esteem, and better cognitive functioning.

I am currently involved in research into how living environments influence mental health. Since nature has been demonstrated to have a positive influence on mental health, I was curious as to how incorporating nature into our living environments might affect our resiliency.
Sustainable communities are planned communities that make a conscious effort to live in a greener manner. Such communities often incorporate nature into their design. In theory, the more nature that a living space incorporates, the better off the people who live there should be in terms of mental health.
My current research project examines various living environments and the adaptability and resiliency of individuals who live in these environments to see if there is a correlation between the amount of nature in their living environments and their mental resiliency.

Al Gore Wins the Nobel Prize

2011-05-20T11:23:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

Earlier this week, former US vice-president Al Gore was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He shared the prize with the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The prize was awarded by the Nobel committee in Norway for Gore’s work in promoting awareness of the dangers of global climate change.
The Nobel Peace Prize is in addition to Gore’s Oscar earlier this year for best documentary film. Gore’s documentary on climate change, An Inconvenient Truth, won that award earlier this year, becoming what some jokingly refer to as the ‘highest-grossing Power Point presentation in history.’
Gore will share the Nobel Prize with the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This group consists of over 2000 of the world’s top climate and meteorology scientists (http://www.ipcc.ch/about/about.htm), who study data on climate change gleaned from peer-reviewed scientific journals from all over the world. Much of the data presented in An Inconvenient Truth was provided by studies conducted by the IPCC.
The Nobel Prize committee said about Mr. Gore’s work: "His strong commitment, reflected in political activity, lectures, films and books, has strengthened the struggle against climate change. He is probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted."
Mr. Gore is to be congratulated for the impressive work he has done in raising awareness of the dangers of climate change, but I sometimes worry that his personal lifestyle tends to damage the message he is sending. Like Mr. Gore, I agree that if we don’t make some drastic changes in the near future, we could be headed for a global disaster; however, I don’t think that attempting to excuse a lavish, energy-hungry lifestyle by simply buying carbon offsets as Gore does, sends the right sort of message to the public.
Gore is enjoying the public eye right now as one of the foremost environmental spokespersons in the world, and this would be a great opportunity for him to demonstrate how individual citizens can make a real difference for the environment. Unfortunately, his lifestyle doesn’t match his message. For example, public records reveal that Gore and his wife Tipper live in two properties: a 10,000-square-foot, 20-room, eight-bathroom home in Nashville, and a 4,000-square-foot home in Arlington, Virginia. He also has a third home in Carthage, Tennessee. This is hardly congruent with a ‘less is more’ environmental message.
Could you imagine the impact that Mr. Gore would make in the political arena if he sold all his mansions and moved into a 1500-square-foot straw bale home somewhere in the hills of Tennessee, where he could then grow his own food organically while converting wind and sunlight to energy for his power needs?
I agree with Mr. Gore that drastic change needs to be made if we want to avert an ecological disaster in the future. I just think that it damages Gore’s credibility if he is unwilling to make those changes himself, yet asks others to do so.

Container Gardening

2011-05-20T11:21:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

Over the last year or so, I have been experimenting with growing my own food in order to determine how much time and effort are required to feed someone who doesn’t eat meat. Traditionally, the only people who have grown their own food have been people who live in a rural setting, because they are the ones who have the most ready access to land, but what about people who live in urban environments? Should they just give up on growing their own fruits and vegetables, or is it possible that even apartment dwellers could supplement their grocery budget by growing some of their own fruits and vegetables?
This spring I began an experiment in container gardening. I bought a dozen flowerpots, 12 inches in diameter, and planted vegetables in them. The goal was to see if I could grow at least one-quarter of my food in containers. If such a thing is possible, then people who live in urban environments can also enjoy the benefits of organic gardening.
As a result of this experiment, I have learned that a dozen flowerpots are more than enough to produce a quarter of my vegetable needs. In fact, next year I plan to attempt to grow at least half of my food using a dozen containers.
There were a few drawbacks along the way; for example, I have learned that next year I may make my own containers. The benefit of making my own is that I could make them square, and they would fit together much easier than the round ones I have right now. I also discovered that if I put chicken wire around the base of the plants, the cats won’t try to use the pots as a litter box!
The result of this experiment has been that I spent about thirty minutes, two to three times a week, caring for my container garden, and in return I got nearly half of my food from a dozen flowerpots. I plan to try this experiment again next year, and this time I will keep detailed records of the cost of my container garden vs. the cost of the same amount of vegetables if purchased at the local grocery store.
While vacationing in Cherokee, North Carolina over the summer, I heard of a planting technique that the Cherokee called the Three Sisters. They would plant corn, beans and squash in the same hole. The corn stalk acted as a ‘pole’ for the beans, and the broad squash plant’s leaves shaded the roots of the other plants, minimizing the growth of weeds. I’m not sure how well corn will grow in a container, but next year I plan to experiment to see if it is possible. If any of you home gardeners have any experience with this, I’d love to hear from you!
Ultimately, sustainable living is all about minimizing our ecological ‘footprint;’ that is, reducing as much as possible the amount of land and resources required to exist on this planet. The goal of my container gardening experiment is to eventually determine just how much (or how little) soil is required to feed a vegetarian. So far, it’s not as much as you might think!

Carbon Offsets: Boon or Boondoggle?

2011-05-20T11:19:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

One of the proposed ‘solutions’ to global warming is the sale of carbon offsets. The basic idea behind carbon offsets is that if you have a lifestyle that produces a lot of carbon emissions, and you don’t want to change that lifestyle, in theory you can instead buy carbon offsets to make yourself ‘carbon neutral.’
The money paid to buy carbon offsets goes to fund projects that reduce or eliminate greenhouse gases. Your carbon-offset money might go to a reforestation project, or towards increasing the energy efficiency of a public building, or to help a public utility purchase greener equipment to produce greener energy.
Right now, carbon offsets are voluntary. You can purchase an offset equivalent to one ton of carbon dioxide for about $4. This means that the average family can become carbon-neutral for around $100, but does this program effectively reduce greenhouse gases?
I suppose that it’s a good thing that carbon offset money is used to fund environmental projects, but my concern is that the message conveyed by the carbon offset program is that you can buy enough carbon offsets to become ‘carbon neutral,’ then go about business as usual. In effect, you’ve excused your carbon emissions by passing the buck on down the line, rather than by making any major lifestyle changes to address the problem firsthand.
I believe that if we are to survive on this planet, sweeping change has to be made at a grassroots level. We have to rebuild our lifestyles from the ground up, a step at a time. The carbon-offset program feels a little too much like a ‘band-aid’ solution. Voluntary offsets seem to be a way to overindulge and not feel guilty about it…sort of like the practice of the Church selling ‘indulgences’ in the Middle Ages. And we know how well that turned out.
Another problem with carbon offsets is that since this is a new, emerging market, there is little or no regulation. Providers may not always do what they say they do, and it’s difficult if not impossible to evaluate whether they’re keeping their promises. There have been a few moves towards establishing a certification process for carbon offsets, but so far not much progress has been made.
I suppose that carbon offset programs are a good thing in that they have raised awareness of the problems of greenhouse gas emissions, but at best such programs are only temporary solutions until industries worldwide learn to drastically reduce their greenhouse gas emissions through improved technology and wiser, more sustainable business practices.

Hidden Costs of the Status Quo

2011-05-20T11:09:00.001-07:00

by Chuck Hall

I get a lot of feedback from readers of this column. By far, the majority of these comments are positive, but I occasionally get negative ones as well. These negative comments almost inevitably surface when I write about global warming. There is a lot of intense anger about this subject out there. I’m a bit puzzled about why this is so, especially when you take into consideration the fact that the changes being suggested to fight global warming are chances that we will eventually have to make anyway if we are to survive on this planet.
I wonder if some of this anger comes from the fear of giving up convenience. The chief objection I hear about making choices for green living is that such choices take too much time and money. But do they really? Have we really considered the hidden costs of ‘status quo’ living?
For example, consider making your own biodiesel fuel. It takes an hour or so to make enough fuel for a week. This is an hour you wouldn’t have to spend if you bought fuel at the local gas station. Since biodiesel costs much less, you’ve saved more than enough money to make up for the lost hour, when you consider the amount of time you’d have to give up to your job to buy diesel from a service station.
The time value of money can even be illustrated by something as simple as washing dishes. Most people nowadays have dishwashers, for the convenience. They seem to save time, but do they really? I can wash a load of dishes by hand in about fifteen minutes. It takes another five minutes or so to put them away once they’ve dried. When we had a dishwasher, it took about five minutes to load, and about five minutes to unload. It would seem that the dishwasher saved about ten minutes of time, but the hidden costs include the amount of time that I had to work to buy the dishwasher in the first place, plus the amount of time I had to spend at work to pay the extra utility costs (electricity and much more water) to run the dishwasher.
The time value of money works the other way around too. For example, compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) cost four or five times as much as regular incandescent light bulbs. This sounds expensive if the only thing you’re considering is the up-front cost, but if you dig a little deeper, you find that while CFLs may cost up to five times as much as incandescent bulbs, they also last five to seven times longer than incandescent bulbs, and they use much less electricity. The average CFL can save you as much as $30-$50 over the life of the bulb!
There are many more examples of the hidden costs of status quo living vs. green living. Next time you pass up a more sustainable choice because you think it’ll take too much time or money, ask yourself first if you’ve considered all the hidden costs of both alternatives.

LIvestock's Long Shadow

2011-05-20T11:07:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

A. Whitney Brown said, “I’m not a vegetarian because I love animals. I’m a vegetarian because I hate plants.”
All kidding aside, some people give do up eating meat because they love animals. Others do it for health reasons. There are many health benefits to a vegetarian diet, but did you know that there are also benefits for the environment? The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations formed the Livestock, Environment and Development (LEAD) to study the impact of the livestock industry on the environment. The report released by LEAD was startling.
One way that cattle production impacts the environment is in the availability of fresh drinking water. It takes up to 1000 pounds of water to produce one pound of beef. This is forty to fifty times the amount of water needed to produce a pound of vegetable protein! As the human population of the planet continues to rise, the water supply remains finite. Fresh drinking water available for human consumption will become more and more scarce. Additionally, as the planet continues to heat up, weather patterns are shifting, making it harder and harder to find fresh water sources. The less water we can use in feeding ourselves, the more water will be available for other uses.
Carnivorous eating habits also contribute to the loss of woodlands and rain forests worldwide. Americans who eat meat are responsible for 1.5 more tons of carbon dioxide per year than those who don’t, according to a 2007 report by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. Deforestation for the purpose of creating pastureland for grazing cattle plays a large part in this figure. Fewer trees mean more carbon dioxide.
The use of energy from fossil fuel power plants is also a major factor in beef production. The beef industry uses this energy to produce fertilizers used to grow grain for cattle, to pump water for the cattle, and to run slaughterhouses and processing plants. According to the FAO report, the beef industry is responsible for around 18% of greenhouse gas emissions. This is more greenhouse emission than caused by all other transportation put together. Researchers Gidon Eshel and Pamela Martinat the University of Chicago concluded that when weighing all the factors of the FAO report, the average meat-eating American produces 1.5 tons more of carbon dioxide than the average vegetarian American. Reducing our meat consumption can clearly cut down on greenhouse gases.
"It doesn't have to be all the way to the extreme end of vegan," says Dr. Eshel. "If you simply cut down from two burgers a week to one, you've already made a substantial difference."
You may read the LEAD report in its entirety here.

Benefits of a Vegetarian Diet

2011-05-17T13:05:00.001-07:00

by Chuck Hall

There are many reasons to consider a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle. Some people choose a vegetarian diet because they want to minimize cruelty to animals. Others do so to lessen the environmental impact of growing food animals. Still others enjoy a vegetarian diet because of the health benefits. The American Dietetic Association and Dietitians of Canada listed several of these benefits in its position paper on vegetarian diets. Some of the benefits listed in the report include: lower levels of saturated fat, cholesterol and animal protein and higher levels of beneficial carbohydrates, fiber, magnesium, boron, folate, antioxidants such as vitamins C and E, carotenoids, and phytonutrients (nutrients used by the body to help fight diseases).
These nutritional benefits reveal themselves in the many ways. Some of these are:
Obesity: Vegetarians have a lower Body Mass Index (BMI) on average than non-vegetarians.
Cardiovascular Disease: An analysis of over 76,000 subjects showed that death from heart disease was 31% lower among vegetarian men than non-vegetarian men and 20% lower among vegetarian women than non-vegetarian women. Even when comparing obese vegetarians to thin non-vegetarians, the vegetarians had much lower cholesterol.
Hypertension: Several studies have demonstrated that vegetarians routinely have lower blood pressure than non-vegetarians. They also have much lower incidence of hypertension than non-vegetarians.
Diabetes: Rates of self-reported diabetes among vegetarians were less than half the rate of the general population.
Cancer: Non-vegetarians have a 54% increased risk for prostate cancer, and an 88% increased risk for colorectal cancer.
Dementia: A study in the United States revealed that those who ate meat were twice as likely to develop dementia as those who did not.
Gallstones: Non-vegetarians are more than twice as likely as non-vegetarians to develop gallstones.
Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA): This type of arthritis is believed to be an autoimmune disease involving inflammation of the joints. A vegetarian diet may contribute successfully to treatment of RA, according to a study conducted in Finland.
Until researching the many health benefits of a vegetarian diet, I was a meat-eater myself but the more evidence I accumulated from various studies on the subject, the more I lost my carnivorous appetite. If you want to reap the benefits yourself, you don’t have to go ‘cold turkey.’ You can gradually decrease your meat intake. Even a partial reduction will gain some health benefits, so pass the salad!

Vegetarians and Vegans

2011-05-17T12:44:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

What’s the difference between a vegetarian and a vegan? The crux of the matter is in how you define the term “vegetarian.” To some people, “vegetarian” means that they don’t eat anything that an animal had to die for. The common phrase is, “I don’t eat anything that had a face.” To others, “vegetarian” means that not only do they not eat anything that once had a face; but they don’t eat anything that came from an animal, period. This includes animal by-products like eggs, cheese, and other dairy goods.
The word vegan, usually pronounced "vee-gun," was originally derived from the word "vegetarian" in 1944 when environmentalists and founders of the United Kingdom Vegan Society, Elsie Shrigley and Donald Watson, became frustrated that the term "vegetarianism" had come to include eating dairy products. They combined the first three and last two letters of "vegetarian" to form "vegan," which they saw as "the beginning and end of vegetarian." The British Vegan Society defines veganism in this way:
"The word "veganism" denotes a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude, as far as is possible and practical, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of humans, animals and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals."
Incidentally, Donald Watson lived to be 95 years old, so he must have been onto something…
So in modern usage, a vegan doesn’t eat anything that came from an animal (there is some controversy over honey though, which some vegans, including myself, eat). A vegetarian, on the other hand, may eat animal products as long as there is no animal death involved. Such a diet may include dairy and eggs, so a few more terms were coined. A lacto-vegetarian is a person who doesn’t eat meat, but who eats dairy products. A lacto-ovo-vegetarian eats dairy products and eggs. A pescaterian eats fish, but does not eat other animals. Some pescaterians also eat dairy and eggs, while others do not.
Confused yet? I have a theory that most people become vegans just so they don’t have to call themselves “lacto-ovo-pescaterian vegetarians.” But seriously, in spite of all the labels out there, there are a lot of benefits to limiting or eliminating animal products altogether from your diet. Next week we’ll look at some of the studies on the benefits of vegan and vegetarian diets. In the meantime, if you’d like to learn more, you may visit the Vegan Society’s site at: http://www.vegansociety.com/html.

Is the Global Warming Debate Irrelevant?

2011-05-17T12:41:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

For the last two weeks where I live, the average high temperature has been greater than 100 degrees. Record high temperatures are being recorded in many places throughout the world this summer. Surely nobody would disagree that global warming is happening. Anybody who has been outside has experienced it. Instead, the current debate centers on whether human activities are contributing to the problem and to what degree.
Most climate scientists who have studied the problem agree that human activities play a large part in climate change. There have been a few detractors, mostly funded by oil companies and other dubious interests, but the majority opinion in the scientific community is that greenhouse emissions caused by human activities contribute a great deal to climate change.
But just for the sake of argument, let’s set that information aside for a moment and just focus on the fact that global warming is real and it is happening, whatever the cause.
Since global warming is obviously happening, what can we assume the ecological results might be? One effect is the loss of polar ice. Studies continue to verify the fact that the polar ice caps are melting. To see a graphic illustration of this fact, click here.
As the polar ice melts, sea levels will continue to rise. If the seas continue to rise, that will obviously have an impact on humanity, since some estimates say that up to 50% of the world's population lives near the sea. I have a friend who bought a beach house on Ocean Isle, NC in the 1980s. When she bought it, it was three blocks back from the ocean. When she sold it last year, it was oceanfront property. The rest of the houses between her and the ocean had to be demolished as they sank into the sea. Consider the impact of moving half of humanity within the next century or so. What will that do to the global economy?
Another issue is that of rising temperatures. As temperatures rise, the demand for energy will increase, due to increased air conditioning alone. Our current energy grid is growing at less than 25% of the rate of growth of the demand, according to the Department of Energy. How will we keep up with even more demand?
Eventually all the fossil fuels will run out. The more we need energy, the faster this will happen. So increased demand means more rapid depletion. They aren't making any more fossil fuels. Crude oil and coal aren't renewable resources, unless you bury a few billion tons of plant and animal material and wait a few million years.
In other words, whether humans are causing global warming or not, we're still going to have to have sustainable alternatives. The sooner we get moving on it, the better. If we wait until the last minute, the current war in Iraq will seem like a fight on a kindergarten playground compared to the wars over resources that will happen when the oil runs out and we don't have anything to replace it with.

Deep Ecology

2011-05-17T12:38:00.001-07:00

by Chuck Hall

Norwegian philosopher Arne Næss coined the phrase ‘deep ecology’ in 1973. Deep Ecology is a philosophy of ecology and green living. In Næss’s opinion, the science of ecology is a separate entity from the philosophy of ecology. While the science of ecology concerns itself with facts and figures regarding the environment, Deep Ecology examines the philosophical underpinnings of learning to live with nature. The goal of Deep Ecology is to formulate an ethical basis for living that is environmentally sound.
Næss didn’t think that organisms could be ranked in terms of their importance. He believed that humankind saw itself as the pinnacle of evolution only because it is humans who do the ranking. While we think that we are the height of civilization and intelligence, could it possibly be that other organisms are ahead of us in this regard? Most organisms eventually find a state of equilibrium with their environment, living in harmony with their respective biospheres, but the human race tends to overwhelm and destroy the environment in which it lives.
Our religious underpinnings define humans as superior to other beings because we have souls; however, who is to say that animals don’t? Even the word ‘animal’ comes from the Latin word for ‘soul.’ We also tend to think that we are the only beings who have consciousness and self-awareness, but we’re the ones who define what those phrases mean. A lot of recent research, especially work by scientists like Jane Goodall and Franz de Waal, would seem to indicate that some of the higher primates have a measure of self-awareness and consciousness.
Author and humorist Douglas Adams said that humans feel themselves superior to dolphins because all dolphins do all day is swim and play in the ocean, and dolphins feel themselves superior to humans for exactly the same reason. Næss says that, "the right of all forms [of life] to live is a universal right which cannot be quantified. No single species of living being has more of this particular right to live and unfold than any other species."
What this means is that humankind is not separate from nature, and our personal philosophies should not reflect the idea that we are somehow ‘above’ nature or superior to it.
Taking this broader view of the world around us, we can see that sustainable living is more than just the things we do. It is a philosophy of life. If we learn to respect nature, maybe even to hold all living things as sacred in some way, then our lives and our actions will automatically fall in line with deeper ecological principles.
Deep Ecology is about making a paradigm shift towards a way of life that is in harmony with nature. If we view ourselves as somehow separate from nature, then green living seems to be just another task to accomplish in our list of daily activities, but if we see ourselves as a part of nature, then it becomes apparent that what we do to nature, we are ultimately doing to ourselves as well.
Green living is more than just a sound principle. It should be a way of life. Deep Ecology is the philosophy that, if adopted, will allow us as a society to make the paradigm shift necessary to live in harmony with nature.

A Bipartisan Environment?

2011-05-17T12:37:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

As yet another record heat wave sweeps over the United States, I find myself flabbergasted at the fact that concern for the environment is looked upon as a partisan issue. If global warming continues unabated, it won’t just be the Democrats, or the Republicans, who suffer the consequences.

I’m also frustrated at the actions of those who claim to be environmentalists, yet take puzzling actions. A recent example would be Senator Ted Kennedy’s opposition of the Cape Cod wind energy farm. This wind farm would be constructed five miles offshore, yet Senator Kennedy seems to think it would damage his property values. This ‘not in my backyard’ attitude is not the way to solve environmental problems.

Another example would be former Vice President Al Gore. While he has done much to educate the world on the dangers of global warming, the only personal lifestyle change he has made seems to be the purchase of carbon offsets to fund his lavish lifestyle. Carbon offsets are simply a way of passing a hot potato. They do little or nothing towards eliminating the ‘hot potato’ of carbon emissions in the first place.

Consider also that although we possess the technology to convert to alternative fuels and other alternative energy sources, we have a sitting Republican president who has a heavily vested interest in Big Oil, and it becomes readily apparent that there are politicians on both sides of the aisle who could do a lot more to help the environment.

While many pundits in Washington excuse their inaction on environmental policies by claiming that switching to alternative fuel sources would be too expensive, the Union of Concerned Scientists (http://www.ucsusa.org) recently conducted a study to determine the true economic impact of alternative energy. This study used a figure of “20% by 2020,” meaning that they assumed a goal of having 20% of the energy in the U.S. generated by alternative sources by the year 2020. Using a model from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) examined the long-term effects that a national 20 percent by 2020 standard would have on the economy and the environment. Some of the findings of that study included:

Job Creation - 185,000 new jobs from renewable energy development
Economic Development - $66.7 billion in new capital investment, $25.6 billion in income to farmers, ranchers, and rural landowners, and $2 billion in new local tax revenues
Consumer Savings - $10.5 billion in lower electricity and natural gas bills by 2020 (growing to $31.8 billion by 2030)
Climate Solutions - Reductions in global warming pollution equal to taking 36.4 million cars off the road

(If you would like to see a breakdown of this analysis, you can download the studies from: http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/clean_energy_policies/cashing-in.html).

Clearly, alternative energy sources are a win-win situation. By switching to alternative sources, we can stimulate the economy while protecting the environment and reducing our dependence on foreign oil. All that remains is to develop the bipartisan political will to do so.

Either that, or we can continue to spend our fuel dollars in parts of the world that continue to sponsor terrorism. The choice is up to us…and our representatives.

The Bottled Water Boondoggle

2011-05-17T12:35:00.001-07:00

by Chuck Hall

People are thirsty for bottled water. Plastic bottles of the stuff have almost become a fashion accessory. The world’s taste for bottled water more than doubled from 1994 to 2004, with demand reaching 41 billion gallons per year. At first glance, bottled water may seem to be a healthier alternative to tap water, but according to a study by the U.S. Natural Resources Defense Council, which carried out a four-year review of the bottled water industry, "…there is no assurance that just because water comes out of a bottle, it is any cleaner or safer than water from the tap."

At any rate, if health is a concern, there are dozens of manufacturers who make water filtration systems that attach to your faucet at home to filter out any chemicals or other hazardous materials. So bottled water’s popularity shouldn’t really be due to health issues.

In virtually every location throughout the industrialized world, tap water is as healthy or healthier than its bottled counterpart. There may be health benefits to drinking bottled water in developing countries where the local supply may not be safe, but even so, the long-term solution would be to improve the quality of the local supply rather than to import more packaged water.

So health issues don’t really explain bottled water’s popularity. Could its popularity be explained by assuming that bottled water tastes better? I’ve conducted my own impromptu ‘taste test’ on several occasions, comparing bottled water to tap water. Try it yourself sometime. In most cases, people prefer the tap water. In the cases where people didn’t choose tap water, they often expressed no preference, stating that they couldn’t tell the difference. So bottled water’s popularity isn’t due to the taste.

If it’s not due to the taste, or to the health benefits, what else could account for the popularity of bottled water? The only thing I can come up with is the ‘fad’ value. Drinking bottled water has become the ‘cool’ thing to do. But is it the environmentally conscious thing to do?

Of the estimated 40-50 billion plastic bottles of water sold every year, only about 15% are recycled. This means that the rest, some 35-45 billion bottles, ends up in landfills. These plastic bottles can take up to 1000 years to disintegrate. They are also almost all made of plastics derived from fossil fuels.

So how do we protect the environment and kick the bottled water habit? Prepackaged water is largely a matter of convenience, due to the portability of the container. The secret to kicking the habit is to buy your own container. We water drinkers can learn a lesson from coffee drinkers who carry their travel mugs with them wherever they go. An inexpensive water bottle can be purchased at nearly any sporting goods store. Once you have your own bottle, it can easily be refilled at any public water fountain or any convenient tap. By buying your own bottle, you can reap the health benefits of water without contributing to the waste stream created by billions of disposable bottles.

Net Metering: A Win-Win Situation

2011-05-17T12:33:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

If you install your own energy production facility in your home, you will probably need some sort of storage medium for times when your power needs are greater (i.e., days when the sun doesn’t shine or the wind doesn’t blow). A lot of solar and wind power generating systems use batteries for this purpose, but another alternative is to connect your system to the local power grid. By doing so, you are actually using the power grid as a storage medium. If you use the local power grid in this manner, your public utility might actually have to buy your surplus power from you!

The process of selling your surplus power to a utility company is called ‘net metering.’ In net metering, equipment installed on your connection to the power grid measures the net difference between the power you use and the power you produce. If you use more power than you produce, you are billed for the difference. If, however, you produce more power than you use, the utility company will actually owe you money.

Net metering works off of a regular power meter. When you are using power from the grid, the meter adds it up as if you were a regular customer. When you are producing more power than you are using, the meter turns backwards, subtracting from your total power usage. In most cases, to make use of net metering all you need is a properly installed power meter. If you were a regular power customer before installing your system, you may already have a power meter that will work. If not, you’ll have to purchase one at your own expense.

Before connecting to your utility’s power grid, you will have to undergo an inspection to assure the utility company that your equipment is up to code. They naturally don’t want to risk any liability for any improperly installed equipment. Once you have passed this inspection, you should be ready to connect to the grid.

While not all utility companies universally offer it, most will offer some variation of net metering because it’s a win-win situation for both the power company and the customer. The power company gets a source of power that it didn’t have to purchase new equipment for, and you, the customer, gain a place to store your surplus energy without having to go to the considerable expense of purchasing a battery storage unit. This savings might even allow you to purchase even more solar panels or wind generators, thereby allowing you to sell even more energy to your local utility.

If net metering sounds like an option you would be interested in, check with your local utility company to see what options they offer. If they are one of the few public utilities that don’t offer this valuable service, ask them why not.

Microhydro: Your Own Hydroelectric Station

2011-05-17T12:31:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

One of the more popular forms of power generation is hydroelectric. Hydroelectric plants generate clean energy by damming up a river or other water source, then using the stored energy of this water to turn a turbine. This turbine rotates a generator that produces electricity. The Hoover Dam does this on a grand scale, but the principle is just as sound for smaller, home-sized hydroelectric stations.

You don’t hear much about these home-sized stations, known as micro hydros (a micro hydro is any hydroelectric station that generates less than 100 kW), because not many home sites meet the requirements for installation of such a system. You need a ready source of flowing water that flows consistently at around 18-20 gallons per minute (gpm) for the entire year. This 18-20 gpm figure isn’t etched in stone. It is affected by many variables, including as the ‘head’ of the stream, your power consumption, and the distance of the stream from your home. The stream’s ‘head’ refers to the difference in height from the water source’s highest point to the location of your turbine and generator. This determines how fast the turbine will spin, and consequently, how much electricity will be produced.

Your power consumption requirements will dictate the size of the generator you will need to incorporate into your micro-hydro station. You may want to plan for future growth should your power demands increase over time. It is far easier to install a system ahead of time with more power than you need than it would be to modify a system once it is installed. Also, the further the micro-hydro station is from the home, the more power will be required to transmit it over the power lines.

Most of these variables are beyond the layman’s ability to calculate effectively, so if you have a readily available water source on you home site that might work for a micro hydro; you may want to consult with an electrical engineer. It may be difficult to find an engineer with micro hydro experience, so before taking that step, you may want to do a little reading on the subject. I would recommend The Micro Hydro Design Manual: A Guide to Small-Scale Water Power Schemes by Adam Harvey and Andy Brown. It’s a bit pricey at $69.95, but it contains a wealth of information on micro hydro installation. If you’d like some more basic information before buying this hefty manual, you can download a free pdf on the basics of micro hydro from Home Power: The Hands-on Journal of Homemade Power at: http://www.homepower.com/files/beginner/MicrohydroBasics.pdf.

While costs will vary widely depending on the variables associated with your own home site, such a system could provide all of your energy needs for as little as $5000…a small price to pay for energy independence, especially when you divide it out over the life of the system! With a little routine maintenance, a micro hydro station will last for decades.

If you’ve done your research, consulted with the experts, and have discovered that you have a site that would be suitable for a micro hydro station, congratulations! You are on your way to providing energy for your home that is clean, safe, non-toxic, and free, once the system has paid for itself.

CFLs and Mercury

2011-05-17T12:29:00.001-07:00

by Chuck Hall

Compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) can greatly reduce the amount electricity used to light your home. An average CFL uses only 15 watts of energy to produce the same amount of light generated by a 100-watt incandescent bulb. However, several readers of this column have written to express their concern about the fact that CFLs contain mercury.
While it is true that CFLs contain mercury, and that mercury is toxic, there is no danger of the mercury escaping as long as the bulbs remain intact. That means that unless you break the bulb, the mercury is safely contained. In the event that a bulb breaks, a few basic precautions should keep your family safe: first, open doors and windows in the room so that any potential mercury vapors may escape; next, sweep up the fragments (don’t vacuum, as the blower in the vacuum will vent the mercury into the room and disperse it into the atmosphere); finally, secure the fragments in an airtight container (a tied plastic bag works well) until they may be properly disposed of.
To reduce danger of mercury contamination, never dispose of your CFLs in the trash. Instead, find a recycling center that will accept CFLs for reprocessing. If you are unsure if there are CFL recycling centers in your area, Earth 911 maintains a database of recycling centers at: www.earth911.org.
How serious is the danger from mercury contamination in CFLs? A standard CFL contains about 5 milligrams (mg) of mercury. There are several other common household items that contain more mercury than a CFL. Here are some examples:
A standard lithium watch battery contains about 25 mg of mercury. That’s equivalent to 5 CFL light bulbs.
Older dental fillings contain about 500 mg of mercury. That’s equivalent to 100 CFL light bulbs.
Old-fashioned home thermometers contain up to 2000 mg of mercury. That’s equivalent to 400 CFL light bulbs. If you use the new battery-powered ones, these usually run off of lithium batteries, so you’ve cut the mercury down to the equivalent of 5 CFL light bulbs.
Automatic safety shutoff switches in steam irons (the ones that shut off the iron if it’s accidentally knocked over) contain about 3500 mg of mercury. That’s equivalent to 700 CFL light bulbs.
Some other common household items that may contain mercury include greeting cards that play music, shoes with lighted soles, pilot light sensors, electric switches, barometers, analog blood pressure devices, stoves, ovens, water heaters, space heaters, clothes dryers, furnaces, ball point pens, latex paint manufactured before 1992, pesticides manufactured before 1994, older children’s chemistry sets, batteries, and anything with a safety shutoff switch.
This is not to suggest that mercury is a safe thing to have around your household, but if you are concerned about mercury contamination, there are plenty of other items around your home that pose a greater risk than CFLs. If CFLs are properly handled and properly disposed of, there is less risk of exposure to mercury than posed by other household items.
One final thing to consider with CFLs is the energy savings. Since CFLs generate the same amount of light as a 100-watt bulb for only 15 watts of power, they save a tremendous amount of energy. Most energy generated in the United States comes from coal-burning power plants. Burning coal releases mercury into the atmosphere. So it is conceivable that using incandescent bulbs poses a greater risk of mercury contamination than using CFLs,

What's on the Horizon for Independent Energy

2011-05-17T12:27:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

Several companies are manufacturing hydrogen fuel cells that will eventually have the capacity to run both your home and your electric vehicle. Some of these companies are offering power stations that are now available on the market. The problem is that many of these cannot meet the demands of the average home. Not only that, but they operate on hydrogen that is made from natural gas. Natural gas isn’t a sustainable resource. While it is possible to split hydrogen from regular tap water, none of these companies is currently offering such a system. This is probably because with the current technology, the process of splitting hydrogen from water isn’t very efficient. This may change in the future as the technology progresses.

If an efficient way to manufacture hydrogen can be found, it could be the perfect energy source. The only by-product of hydrogen as a fuel is water. This water can then be converted back into hydrogen. The best way to do this would be to use free energy from the sun to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. Although it takes about nine times more energy to split hydrogen from water than you get back by burning the resulting hydrogen, if you’re using sunlight to do it, does it really matter? So far, the government hasn’t found a way to tax sunlight, so it’s still a free commodity. Nine times zero is still zero, so using sunlight to manufacture hydrogen fuel is, to my mind, the way to go.

Another alternative source of home energy is a biodiesel generator. This works just like a regular diesel generator, except that it runs on renewable biodiesel fuel. You can get more product information on biodiesel generators from Powered Generators at: www.poweredgenerators.com/biodiesel-generators.html.

The drawbacks to using this as a primary source of power are similar to those of using a regular diesel generator: they can be noisy, require routine maintenance, and need a steady source of fuel. A more reasonable option for biodiesel generators would be to use them as an emergency backup for a solar, wind, or micro hydroelectric station.

Ultimately, the best way of achieving off-the-grid energy independence with a stand-alone system is probably by using a mixture of technologies in a combination that works for you. For example, you might use a hybrid solar and wind system with a battery storage unit, supplemented by a biodiesel generator for emergency situations. You can mix and match technologies in any way you choose. The more you diversify, the less you run the risk of your system going down when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine.

Free Energy from the Sun

2011-05-17T12:25:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

A solar power system produces DC power directly from the sun using panels of photovoltaic cells. When the sun isn’t shining, solar panels don’t work. That's a problem for homeowners, who are usually away from home in the daylight hours. This problem is solved by battery packs. The solar panels generate electricity while the sun is out, then this power is stored in batteries for use in times when the sun isn't shining. One of the major expenses of installing a solar power system in your home is the purchase of an inverter. Inverters convert DC power to AC power. Although photovoltaic cells and battery packs produce and store DC electricity, most home appliances run on AC power; therefore you’d have to convert from DC to AC to use solar power in most commercially available appliances. A typical inverter runs anywhere from $3000-$5000. There are smaller inverters that can be used for each individual appliance for around $150, but the problem here is that you would have to purchase an inverter for every appliance you intended to run.
Generally when homeowners plan for their energy consumption needs, they base their power needs on the rates of consumption found in traditional AC-power homes (around 8900 kWh per year). If you are starting from the ground floor by building your own green home, power consumption needs can be greatly reduced. The average power consumption in a green home is only around 900kWh per year. The more energy cuts you can make, the more affordable your system will be. The possibilities are only as limited as your imagination and resourcefulness.
It may be that you are not ready to take the plunge and go all-out in creating a sustainable home. If that is the case, there are still many alternatives available to you that would reduce your need for non-renewable resources. One possibility is to use your local power company as a storage facility for your solar home. In this arrangement, you are still on the grid, but you have access to your local power company for peak times when your usage may exceed your energy production capacity. Conversely, during your downtime when you're not using much electricity, a federal mandate requires that your local power company buy from you any electricity you produce but don't use. Unfortunately in many states, you have to pay the retail rate for their electricity, but they purchase any you sell to them at wholesale rates. Check with your local company if you're interested in this approach.
How much would a good stand-alone solar power system cost? The prices vary greatly depending on available sunlight in your area, consumption demands, and system options, but as a ballpark figure, if you’re planning to buy a solar power system based on the average power consumption of an American home (8900 kwh), plan to spend anywhere from $25,000 to $30,000 for a stand-alone system. If you can reduce your consumption to the 900 kWh range, you can expect to pay as little as $5000 to $10,000 for the system. So you can see that it pays to make as many cuts as you can. This may sound expensive up-front, but when you consider that you’ll be eliminating your monthly power bill, it can actually be less expensive in the long run.
It's up to you to decide where you can make cuts and how much you're willing to invest in sustainable power. One thing is for certain, on-the-grid power rates will continue to rise, and so any changes you can make will pay off over time, not only by decreasing your power bills but also by reducing our demand on non-renewable resources that damage the environment.

Slipform Stone Building

2011-05-17T12:20:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

Nothing says ‘stately elegance’ like a home made of stone. Stone has been used as a building material for thousands of years, but traditionally homes of stone have been built by highly-trained masons with years of experience. But in recent years, a technique called ‘slipform building’ is regaining interest, making it possible for people with little or no stoneworking talent to build their own stone homes.

Traditional stone masonry involves a laborious practice of selecting and fitting stones by hand using mortar. Each stone is carefully cemented into place individually. Slipform stone masonry uses a much easier approach. Forms about two feet tall are placed directly on the foundation, then about three or four inches of concrete is poured into the form. Stones are then put into the form, more concrete is added, and so on until the top of the form is reached. The walls are allowed to dry, then the forms are removed and ‘slipped’ up another two feet, where the process is repeated.

One major advantage that slipform stone building has over other do-it-yourself green building techniques is that most building inspectors will accept it as a form of masonry. Masonry is covered by all building codes, so you may not have to obtain the services of an architect or engineer to get your plans passed. Another advantage is that if you have a lot of suitable stone on your property, and don’t mind a little sweat equity, you can build your own home very inexpensively.

While stone is a poor insulator, it has a lot of thermal mass. The denser the stone, the more heat-storing properties it possesses. It stores heat when it’s not needed, and radiates it back into the building when it is needed. When this property is used in conjunction with passive solar techniques, it can greatly reduce your heating and cooling costs if you live in a temperate zone.

Now for the bad news…while stone homes have a lot of thermal mass, are durable, attractive and insect-proof, building such a home is not for the impatient or the frail. Moving stones all day is a labor-intensive process. Some stones approach a weight of 100 pounds per square foot, so it helps to have a strong back. The most you can hope for is about two feet of wall height per day, since the walls have to set before you can move the forms up to the next level. But if you have patience and endurance, a beautiful home of stone can be yours.

A good site on slipform building, with lots of pictures, is Heartbeat Nursery’s site in New Zealand at: www.heartbeatnursery.co.nz/stonehouse/index.html. I would also recommend Tomm Stanley’s book, Stone House: A Guide to Self-building with Slipforms.

Building with Straw

2011-05-17T12:18:00.001-07:00

by Chuck Hall

In spite of any childhood stories you may have heard about the Three Little Pigs, homes made of straw are actually quite comfortable, affordable and safe. Straw has the added advantage of being highly sustainable. The types of straw used in straw bale construction are by-products of grain harvesting. Straw that would otherwise be used for animal bedding, landscaping, or just for kindling can also be used to build homes. Straw is also an annual crop, unlike lumber, which can take several decades to replenish.

Building with straw was used in the plains of the United States way back in the 1800s. Some of those structures are still standing as a testimonial to the durability of this building technique.

Straw bale buildings are made by stacking bales of straw inside a framework. A stone or masonry footer is built first to keep the straw dry by preventing contact with the ground. The framework supports the roof and adds stability to the structure. It can be made of wood or metal. Openings for windows and doors can easily be cut using a chainsaw. Once the straw bale walls are in place, they are finished with a coat of plaster. Concrete stucco is not recommended, as it doesn’t allow the walls to breathe. Moisture can potentially accumulate inside the straw, and it needs a way to escape so that the straw does not mildew. It is therefore recommended that you use an earth or lime-based plaster to improve breatheability.

Amateurs with little or no experience can build straw bale homes. The finished result looks similar to adobe, and straw bale homes can be built very inexpensively. These homes have been built for as little as ten dollars per square foot. Additionally, straw has a very high insulating factor, estimated at between R-35 and R-45!

The first question people generally ask about building with straw is, “Isn’t it highly flammable?” While straw itself is flammable, once it is coated inside and out with plaster it is very safe. The plaster prevents the fire from getting into the walls from the outside, and should a spark find a way inside the wall, the plaster keeps the straw from getting enough oxygen to burn. When properly constructed, a straw bale home is at least as safe as a traditional stick-built home, and straw bale can be less expensive (if you don’t use a contractor and do it yourself) and more energy efficient.

The main factor to consider with straw bale construction is damage due to humidity. If moisture gets into the straw, it can cause mildew or water damage. So if you are building yourself, take extra precautions to limit moisture within the walls. A good beginner’s guide to minimizing water damage in straw bale construction can be found at: www.skillful-means.com/strawbale/papers/moisture.htm.

For more general information on straw bale building, including a directory of homes built with straw, visit the Green Builder’s Straw Bale Construction site at: www.greenbuilder.com/sourcebook/strawbale.html.

Moon Cocoons

2011-05-17T12:07:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

Back in the 1980s, when NASA started planning for a permanent base on the Moon, it was decided that it would be far more economical to use materials already on the Moon than it would be to go to the expense of shipping all the necessary building materials there. So NASA started looking for designs that could be built from lunar materials. Enter Nader Khalili, a California architect. At the 1984 NASA symposium, "Lunar Bases and Space Activities of the 21st Century," Khalili presented his unique design concept, the ecodome, nicknamed the ‘moon cocoon.’ Ecodomes are made of dirt-filled tubes. If you were to build one of these structures on the Moon, you’d only need to take the cloth tubes with you…you could use moon dust for the rest.

Ecodomes are constructed using tubes of cloth filled with a mixture of sand and clay or concrete powder. The tubes are then stacked, coil-method, in much the same way we made pottery in grade school. Barbed wire is placed between the rows of tubes to hold them in place. Once they are stacked into the shape of a dome, they are covered with stucco, adobe or plaster. Chicken wire can be inserted between the tubes to give the plaster something to adhere to. Windows and doors are incorporated into the buildings by simply stacking the tubes of earth around them. This method of building is similar to the earth bag method, but theoretically more sturdy and stable because you’re using one long coiled tube instead of many bags. You can also build accents into the domes using the coiled tubes. For example, Khalili has built benches by stacking them, like logs, until reaching a comfortable sitting height.

The unique and beautiful result of this method in the hands of a master builder must be seen to be believed. Khalili’s site, www.calearth.org, has a gallery of photographs of a village he designed using this method.

Khalili offers a kit for those interested in building their own ecodomes. A 400 square foot kit sells for $2400, and an 800 square foot kit is $3200. Ordering information for the kits is available at: http://www.calearth.org/EcoDome.htm. Although the kits meet code requirements in his home state of California (according to Uniform Building Code standards), you might want to check with your local building inspector before ordering, just to make sure you don’t have any nasty surprises further down the road.

Although a 400 sq. ft. home is a lot smaller than most of us are accustomed to, one of the principles of sustainable living is simplifying. By getting rid of some extra ‘stuff,’ you may find life in your ecodome quite comfortable. Another benefit of ecodome kits is that they are expandable, if you find you just can’t live in 400 sq. ft., you can always add on.

If ecodomes tickle your fancy, Khalili offers building seminars, open houses and workshops at his village in Hesperia, California. For more information, visit: www.calearth.org.

Earthships

2011-05-17T12:02:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

Way back in the 1970s, architect Mike Reynolds got the crazy idea of building homes out of used tires and beer cans. Shortly afterwards, Earthship Biotecture (www.earthship.org) was formed. The idea for the Earthship is simple enough. It is designed to be a home that exists in perfect harmony with the environment. Ideally, the Earthships generate all of their own utilities. They heat and cool themselves by using passive solar technology and the earth’s thermal properties. They generate their own energy using solar and wind systems, and harvest their own water from rainwater catch systems and cisterns. Sewage is contained and treated at the home site. The earth-covered roof can be used to grow fruits and vegetables, and many Earthships incorporate a greenhouse into the design.

Earthships also recycle materials that would otherwise end up in landfills. The outer walls are made of tires filled with rammed earth. The dirt is hammered into the tires by hand using a sledgehammer. The interior, non-load bearing walls in an Earthship are usually made of aluminum cans. The cans are stacked, honeycomb fashion. Stucco is then applied to the surface of this aluminum-can wall, using the pull-tabs instead of stucco grating to help the plaster to adhere to the surface. Other recycled materials, such as scrap wood from building sites, or old discarded windows and doors, can also be incorporated into an Earthship design.

Earthships take advantage of the solar and thermal properties of the building site in that they are buried into the side of a hill or otherwise covered with earth. Here in the northern hemisphere, they are oriented to be south-facing in order to capture maximum heat and light from the sun. The northern side of the building is incorporated into the hill, using the earth as a natural insulator to regulate the interior temperature both day and night.

Older Earthships had problems with heat loss during the winter months. The south-facing wall of an Earthship is mostly glass, so the heat radiated out during the winter. In newer Earthship designs, this problem has been taken care of by adding an overhand that, due to its angle, shades from the sun in the summer months, but allows the sun to enter during the winter months. Also, since Earthships were designed for the rural Southwestern United States, they may have to be extensively redesigned by a qualified architect or engineer in order to function properly in other locations. Finally, Earthships generally perform better if constructed of stone or earth bags. While the idea of using tires to eliminate waste is sound in principle, hammering dirt into tires is a labor-intensive process, and in a truly sustainable world, tires would be recycled as newer tires, not as building materials.

Stuart Simmons of Durango, Colorado, has built an Earthship, and documented his adventure on his Web site. If you’re interested in learning more about Earthships, I’d highly recommend his site: www.earthships.com.

Building with Earthbags

2011-05-17T12:00:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

A fairly recent idea in green building is the earth bag technique. As the name implies, this novel approach uses bags filled with earth to build structures. The bags are stacked just like bricks, except that instead of using mortar, barbed wire is placed between courses to hold the bags in position. These walls are over a foot thick and have excellent thermal mass. They have the added benefit of being easy to work with, as long as you can fill a bag with 50 to 75 pounds of dirt, and lift it into place.

You can use any type of dirt if your bags are durable enough, but for best results you should use a mixture of about 30% clay to 70% sand. For added durability, you may add a little lime or cement to each bag. Alternately you can pound each bag with a sledgehammer. Pounded earth solidifies like concrete. Just be careful not to pound a hole in the bag!

A trick commonly used in order to save money when building this way is to obtain misprinted polystyrene feedbags from your local feed and seed store. These bags are the ideal size, shape and material for this building method. Once the bags are filled, they can be covered with a stucco plaster just like adobe. If you plan to plaster your walls, you might want to incorporate chicken wire into the walls to help the plaster adhere better.

When using this style, windows and doors are framed up separately, and then simply inserted into the walls when the proper level is reached. The remaining bags are stacked on top of them until the roofline height is attained. An additional benefit to using this method is that you don’t have to frame up a separate roof. With a little skill and practice, you can make a dome roof by starting with a circular wall and gradually decreasing the size of the courses until they meet overhead.

When building with earth bags, long walls (over 20 feet in length) will have to be buttressed for support. The best way around this is to simply avoid building walls over 20 feet in length. The smaller the structure, the less energy is required to heat and cool it.

As with most earth-friendly building styles, you will have to work closely with your local building inspector to make sure you are meeting code requirements. If you’re planning to build a house this way, you should probably practice a little first by building a tool shed or a workshop. Once you’ve built up your skills and confidence, you can tackle a larger structure. Since there is no mortar in this method, you can always take the bags apart and restack them if you make a mistake.

Does this sound like the building method for you? If so, you may learn more at Caico’s Dream at: http://www.caicosdream.com/build/ebag.html.

Green Transportation: Public Transportation

2011-05-17T11:57:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

One way of ‘greening’ your daily commute is to consider public transportation. I know, I know, nobody wants to ride the bus. But have you considered the benefits? Even if you can only commute by bus one day per week, you’ll have contributed by reducing emissions for that day. If every American commuted one day per week, it is estimated that we could reduce our fuel consumption in the U.S. by as much as 40%!

In addition to being a greener form of transportation, buses are much safer than automobiles. You can also catch up on work, read the newspaper or a novel, take a nap, or just chat with your fellow passengers while skipping traffic jams and road rage.

Riding the bus means less carbon emissions per passenger vs. the average automobile. It also means more efficient use of fuel per passenger. Not only that, but progressive communities are beginning to replace the diesel fuel in their buses with biodiesel. This means even less emissions while burning a sustainable fuel.

For an even greener form of transportation, ride the rails. As airlines continue to have financial problems and troubles with security, trains are looking better and better. France just set a world speed record for a conventional rail train at 357.2 miles per hour. The all-time speed record for a train was a Japanese magnetic-levitation (maglev) train that reached a speed of 361 mph in 2003. Most jets cruise at speeds of 450 mph or less. Trains are catching up to airline speeds! When you consider the amount of time required to drive to the airport and pass through security, the advantages of travel by train begin to add up.

Unfortunately the United States has lagged behind the rest of the world in providing super high-speed train service to its citizens. The only super high-speed trains in operation at the present are in the Northeast Corridor between Washington, D.C. and Boston. Political infighting usually kills any bill that would fund such projects at the federal level, but the National Conference of State Legislators (http://www.ncsl.org) has decided to take matters into their own hands. Florida is working on a train system using a mixture of public and private financing. The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) began the project on January 1, 1997. Until 2022, FDOT will provide an annual average of $70 million for the development of this project. If Florida is successful, maybe the United States will catch up with the rest of the world in a generation or two.

Another green transportation choice that might not be so obvious is taxis. A regular gasoline-powered taxi has about the same emissions as your own car, but taxis are available at all hours of the day and are therefore used constantly instead of just sitting idle in the driveway. Additionally, as more communities become environmentally conscious, hybrid taxis and pedi-cabs are increasingly popular. Taxicab companies find that when they add greener options, they tend to beat out competitors who do not offer such choices.

Finally, if your community doesn’t offer public transportation, or if your public transportation is inadequate for whatever reason, you can take action yourself to change it. Write to your local newspaper. Notify your congresspersons. Start a grassroots movement. Let the people in charge know that you want public transportation and you want it now!

Green Transportation: Hybrids

2011-05-17T11:55:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

Hybrid vehicles were fairly expensive when they first arrived on the market, but as gas prices and environmental concerns continue to rise, hybrid prices are on the decline. Automobile manufacturers are responding to consumer interest by offering more and more hybrid models. There are even hybrid SUVs that get around 35 mpg!

Hybrids are good for anyone accustomed to gasoline or diesel-powered vehicles. They have about the same amount of passenger room and performance as their more traditional counterparts. The difference is they use much less fuel. Although the average mpg rating for hybrid cars is between 60-80 mpg, some hybrids can get as much as 100 mpg on the highway. Hybrids are an excellent choice for consumers who are concerned about the environment but who don’t want to give up luxury and convenience.

Hybrids work by using a combination of electric motor and gasoline or diesel engine. Basically the electric motor works to move the vehicle, assisted by the gasoline engine when more power is needed or when the batteries need charging. For a detailed explanation, the Web site How Stuff Works has an excellent tutorial on hybrid vehicles at: www.howstuffworks.com/hybrid-car1.htm.

The major problem with hybrids is that they still rely on fossil fuels. They do use less fossil fuel and have higher emissions standards, but they are not truly sustainable. Manufacturers seem to be catching on, though. Saab is planning to release a biofuel hybrid in the near future. This hybrid will run on E85 ethanol, which is much better than either a vehicle powered totally by fossil fuels or a hybrid vehicle powered by gasoline, but is still not totally sustainable.

The ‘Holy Grail’ of hybrids is the biodiesel hybrid. Such a hybrid would combine the durability and power of a diesel engine with the fuel economy of a hybrid. As of this writing, there are no companies who manufacture biodiesel hybrids, but according to Treehugger’s John Laumer, “DaimlerChrysler's future diesel hybrids will be based on the hybrid technology being developed with GM and would be available in late 2007 or early 2008.”

If we used flexible fuel vehicles alone, the United States would need a farm the size of roughly the size of Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma and Louisiana combined, dedicated solely to the production of crops for biofuels, to meet fuel demands. If we converted to biodiesel hybrids instead, we could meet our current fuel needs with only one quarter of that acreage!

Another advantage of biodiesel hybrids is that they would run on either biodiesel or regular diesel fuel. This means that if you’re traveling and cannot find a station that sells biodiesel, you’re not stranded. You can always use regular diesel, while informing the station owner that he should be carrying biodiesel as well, of course. If you’re the hands-on, do-it-yourself type, you can even make your own biodiesel.

Of all the choices available for green transportation, biodiesel hybrids would be my top pick. If they are truly offered commercially in the near future, you can be assured that I will purchase one for myself, and I will be fueling it with my own homemade biodiesel, recycled from local fast food restaurants. If you ever want to find me, just follow the scent of french fries!

Green Transportation: Biodiesel

2011-05-17T11:41:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

Did you know that the inventor of the diesel engine, Rudolph Diesel, intended it to run on pure peanut oil? His original vision for the diesel engine was as a replacement for the steam engine that could be run off of fuels that farmers would have readily available. Peanut oil was one of those fuels. It was later discovered that his engine could run just as well off of what later became diesel fuel, a by-product of the gasoline distillation process. Since diesel fuel was less expensive than peanut oil, Diesel’s original vision for his engine was cast aside.

Diesel vehicle owners worldwide are rediscovering Diesel’s original intent as they search for sustainable fuel alternatives. A sustainable alternative to petroleum-based diesel, known as ‘biodiesel,’ is gaining popularity as more people learn about it. Even celebrities are getting in on it! Woody Harrelson of television’s Cheers is a vocal supporter of biodiesel (www.voiceyourself.com) and guitarist and songwriter Willie Nelson even has his own brand of biodiesel, called ‘Biowillie’ (www.biowillie.com).

Biodiesel can be used in almost any car or truck with a diesel engine. It is non-toxic and biodegradable. Certain types of biodiesel may damage gaskets in older vehicles, so before trying to run it in your diesel vehicle you might want to check to see if yours is biodiesel compatible. You can find a list of biodiesel-compatible makes at the National Biodiesel Board’s site at www.biodiesel.org.

One drawback of biodiesel is that it tends to gel in the engine fuel lines in cold weather. A way around this is to use a heater on your engine in cold weather. This heater assures that the engine remains at a high enough temperature to keep the fuel from gelling in the lines. Another method of dealing with this problem is to mix biodiesel with regular diesel fuel. The problem here is that mixing it with a fossil-fuel based product reduces its sustainability factor, but since you’d only have to do this in the winter months it shouldn’t be much of a problem.

If you’re a ‘hands-on’ sort of person, you can even learn to make your own biodiesel at home from recycled fryer-vat grease! The complete instructions are available at many places online. A good place to start is http://www.homebiodieselkits.com/hobikit.html. I personally know several people who have worked out deals with local restaurants to cart off their used fryer grease so they can make their own fuel at home. A word of caution if you go this route: you might want to let the local sheriff’s department know what you’re up to so they won’t think you’re making moonshine!

Another drawback is that if you’re not the do-it-yourself type, it may be hard to find biodiesel in your area. The National Biodiesel Board maintains a list of filling stations that carry biodiesel, so you can check with them first if you’re considering making the switch. The advantage to burning biodiesel is that if your vehicle will run on biodiesel, it will also run on regular diesel. This means that if you can’t find biodiesel, you can always use regular diesel in a pinch.

If you don’t have a diesel vehicle right now, but are considering purchasing one so that you may use biodiesel, I’d suggest buying an older model first, after checking the National Biodiesel Board’s list of compatible autos. The reason for this is that using biodiesel will void most manufacturers’ warranties. An older vehicle won’t be under warranty, so that won’t be an issue. Manufacturers are slowly coming around, though. B20 (a blend of 20% biodiesel and 80% regular diesel) was just approved under warranty for some makes and models; however, progress is slow and it may be some time before B100 (pure biodiesel) won’t void your warranty. If you don’t mind taking a chance on an older vehicle, biodiesel might just be your key to sustainable driving.

Green Transportation: Flexible Fuel Vehicles

2011-05-17T11:37:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

Flexible-fuel vehicles are designed to run on more than one type of fuel; usually either gasoline or E85 ethanol or both. The advantage of flex-fuel vehicles is that they come in the about the same sizes and have about the same performance as their pure gasoline-powered counterparts. If you can’t find E85 ethanol while you’re traveling, you can also burn regular gasoline in flex-fuel vehicle.

Ethanol is a type of alcohol, usually made from corn or other grains in the United States and from sugar cane in many South American countries, most notably Brazil. The designation ‘E85’ refers to the amount of ethanol content in the fuel. The higher the E-number, the higher the percentage of ethanol content. For example, E85 ethanol contains 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline. You can learn more about ethanol from the American Coalition for Ethanol at www.ethanol.org.

Ethanol as a fuel is a mixed blessing. While it is sustainable in that it comes from plants that can be grown again every year, the process of converting it to fuel takes more energy than you get out of it. Of course, this is ultimately true of any fuel, including gasoline. The difference in fossil fuels is that the energy used to make crude oil was expended over millions of years. Other methods of producing ethanol and other types of fuel alcohol are currently under development. Many of these new methods have the potential of reducing the energy input required to produce fuel, so ethanol may become more economical in the future. There are also other types of alcohol (methanol, for example) that may be more economical in the long run.

In South America, sugar cane is used to produce ethanol. Sugar cane is much easier than corn to convert to ethanol. This means that the price for ethanol from sugar cane is considerably lower than that of ethanol from corn. Unfortunately there aren’t many suitable places in the United States to grow sugar cane right now. Perhaps one of the very few benefits of global warming is that more of the U.S. may have the proper climate for the growth or sugar cane in the future.

The only way that flexible fuel vehicles would be truly sustainable would be if they could burn E100 ethanol with no gasoline whatsoever. Some flex fuel vehicles can also run on E100 ethanol, but in general it would void the car’s warranty to deviate from the manufacturer’s recommendation of using E85.

Another thing to consider in using ethanol as an alternative fuel is the amount of land necessary to grow enough corn to meet our fuel needs at present consumption rates. The Earth Policy Institute estimates that in order for the United States to meet its current energy needs with ethanol alone, we’d need 250 million acres of land dedicated to growing corn for ethanol production. This is an area roughly the size of Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma and Louisiana combined! Of course, we could reduce this amount considerably by practicing fuel conservation or by producing more efficient vehicles, but even if we didn’t reduce our consumption demands, consider what a boon to our farmers this would be!

An advantage to flexible-fuel vehicles is that they are available right now. In fact, over 70% of the cars sold in Brazil last year were flex-fuel, and the trend seems to be catching on in the United States as well. If you are interested in purchasing a flexible fuel vehicle, or would like more information, visit the National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition (http://www.e85fuel.com/). This site also has information on where you can purchase E85 ethanol near you.

Green Transportation: Compressed Air Vehicles

2011-05-17T11:24:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

Way back in the 19^th century, novelist Jules Verne predicted that cars of the future would run on compressed air. Well, the future is here! Motor Development International (MDI) has developed just such a vehicle (www.theaircar.com). If you drive less than fifty miles per day at less than forty miles per hour, these inexpensive vehicles may just be the green alternative for you. The current prototypes, the MiniCAT and the CityCAT, both run on compressed air. The CityCAT will have a longer range than the MiniCAT, but the operating principle is still the same: a tank of compressed air runs a two-cylinder engine that propels the vehicle. The MiniCAT has a maximum range of about 120 miles and a maximum speed of 40 mph. It runs exclusively on a compressed air tank that may be refueled in about three minutes at any station that has a high-capacity air compressor. It may alternatively be refilled by using the car’s onboard compressor, which runs on electricity and may be plugged into any standard outlet. Using this method requires about four hours for a recharge.

The CityCAT is a duel-energy vehicle. It runs on compressed air for short trips under 60 mph, and when more power and longer range are needed, it can be run on its internal combustion engine. It has a maximum speed in excess of 100 mph and a range of approximately 200-250 miles before refueling. While either of these cars is a bit small for the entire family, they are perfect commuter cars for urban travel.

Either model produces zero pollution when operating in compressed air mode; however, the CityCAT has the same emissions problems as any other internal combustion engine when running on gasoline. The slight advantage here is that since it is a smaller car than most standard production cars on the market today, it would presumably use less fuel and therefore generate less pollution. There is another precaution to consider with CAT vehicles. Whether recharging the tank by plugging into a convenient outlet or by a commercial compressor, the electricity used would have to come from a green energy provider in order for the car to be truly non-polluting. If the electricity used to recharge the tank is coming from a power plant that burns fossil fuels, the pollution is just being transferred up the supply chain. The simple solution to this would of course be to purchase your electricity from a green power facility.

The current projected price for these vehicles is surprisingly inexpensive, at around $7000 to $10,000 each. When compared with the cost of hybrids and other alternative energy vehicles, these minis appear to be an amazingly good value for your transportation dollar.

After several false starts, MDI has cautiously estimated that both the MiniCAT and the CityCAT will be commercially available sometime in 2009. They are currently undergoing a lengthy licensing process to make the vehicles available to the general public worldwide. To chart the progress of the air car, you may visit MDI’s Web site at www.theaircar.com.

Green Transportation: Solar Powered Vehicles

2011-05-17T11:00:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

One of the great dreams of the alternative energy revolution is to create a car that runs totally on solar power. Unfortunately, with our present state of technological development, cars that run only on sunlight must remain a dream…for now. The principle behind a solar vehicle is to create enough energy to drive the car by converting sunlight into electricity through the use of photovoltaic cells. The problem is that the amount of energy available to run a vehicle depends on the surface area of the car itself. More surface area exposed to the sun means more sunlight and therefore more electricity, but it also means added weight. And added weight means more electricity is needed to move that weight. There is an optimal ratio of surface area to operating weight, and at the present time that ratio only allows for one person per vehicle. Most solar-only vehicles seen in competitions and at universities are basically glorified bicycles, with no room for passengers or cargo.

By putting batteries onboard the vehicle, additional stored energy is available for the motor, but once again the batteries contribute to the overall weight of the vehicle. There is also another problem to consider, however, if you leave the batteries off in order to conserve weight. If there are no batteries at all on the vehicle, then it can only operate when the sun is shining. This means that if you are out on a date in your solar car, you have to be home before sunset! And don’t even think about driving on a rainy day!

Races for total solar vehicles like the World Solar Challenge (www.wsc.org.au/) and the North American Solar Challenge (www.americansolarchallenge.org/) promote the use of solar vehicles by offering a yearly competition where the best and brightest (no pun intended) of solar engineers throughout the world can show their stuff. While the designs on these state-of-the-art solar vehicles are aesthetically pleasing, they leave a lot to be desired in terms of practical highway use. The main problem with having the solar cells attached directly to the vehicle is that photovoltaics work best when facing the sun. Since vehicles constantly move, the cells on these cars will very rarely be at an optimal angle for power generation. In terms of efficiency, if solar power cells were to be used at all, it would be better for them to remain in a stationary location facing the sun. So if solar-powered vehicles were to become a reality, it would be far more practical to charge the vehicle by leaving the solar panels at a fixed location. These solar panels would then have a hookup that could be attached to the car to charge the onboard battery pack when the vehicle is not in use.

Although the days of onboard photovoltaic vehicles are still a long way off in the future, that doesn’t mean that we can’t operate electric vehicles by using sunlight. It just means having the solar panels as a separate ‘filling station,’ no different from buying gasoline today.

Green Transportation: Human Powered Vehicles

2011-05-17T10:53:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

In 1817, Baron Karl von Drais invented a prototype bicycle called the velocipede. This was a bicycle without the pedals. He used it to get around his extensive gardens more quickly. It was propelled much like a skateboard, by pushing off of the ground with both feet. Incidentally, the reason von Drais focused on inventing a horseless form of transportation is that the price of grain (used for horse ‘fuel’) had suddenly risen in his native Germany. Could history be repeating itself, considering our current ongoing price increases for crude oil?

The bicycle may just be the most efficient form of transportation ever invented. Even a person who is only moderately fit can make a trip of ten or fifteen miles in less than an hour on a good bicycle. With only an afternoon’s education, even technically inept people (like myself) can learn to do basic repairs on a bicycle. They are very affordable, even for people of modest means. And they are so easy to operate that a child can do it.

One drawback to the bicycle is that while it is excellent for getting an individual from one place to another over relatively short distances, it’s not much help at carrying cargo. If you have to take anything bigger than the average briefcase with you, it’s going to be difficult to do so on a bicycle. Fortunately, tricycles aren’t just for children. In fact, the tricycle was invented for well-to-do adults in the middle 1800s so that bicycle enthusiasts could take passengers along with them. Today’s tricycles are highly efficient, mult-geared and lightweight. Most come with a cargo basket attached to the back, and they can be purchased for as little at $300-$400. There are even four-wheeled ‘bicycles,’ called ‘quadricycles,’ with even more cargo capacity than tricycles. Such vehicles are perfect for those trips to the corner market or just for cruising around the neighborhood. There are collapsible models that can fit on an automobile bike rack too. This makes such vehicles perfect for family vacations. You can use the family car to get to your vacation destination, then use the tricycle or quadricycle to see the sights.

Bicycles haven’t traditionally been as popular in the United States as in Europe, simply because here in the U.S. things are spread out a great deal more, but even in the U.S., if you live in the right location you can replace your car with a bicycle for most close-to-home travel. There are even tricycles and quadricycles that come with roofs so that bad weather isn’t as much of an issue. Ideally a small-town resident could rely on a bicycle to get to work, a tricyle or quadricycle for grocery and shopping trips, and an automobile for those long-distance trips to visit relatives or for vacations. And of course, the greatest advantage of a bicycle is that there are no emissions whatsoever…unless you count a little sweat on those uphill climbs!

If you’re interested in getting back in shape for summer while doing something positive for the environment, think about buying a bicycle, tricycle or quadricycle. Good luck, and happy cycling!

Green Transportation: Electric Cars

2011-05-17T10:45:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

The 2006 documentary Who Killed the Electric Car? might have led you to believe that totally electric cars no longer exist. Contrary to popular opinion, electric vehicles (EVs) are alive and well! So is an EV for you?

There are three basic categories for electric cars: Production electric cars (factory-made and ready to drive); conversions and kit electric cars (for the do-it-yourselfer), and neighborhood electric cars (good only for short trips). In order to determine which type is right for you, consider how you plan to use it, whether or not you’re willing and able to sacrifice some ‘sweat equity’ to save money, and whether some other alternative fuel vehicle might be a better choice for you.

While electric cars have no tailpipes and therefore no vehicle emissions, they may still contribute to pollution if you buy electricity from a power plant that burns a lot of coal or other fossil fuels. Most electric vehicles are recharged by plugging into your home power supply. If carbon sequestration eventually becomes a reality, this will be less of a factor. And of course, if and when more solar and wind power generators come online, the grid will get cleaner.

In the average EV, you can travel about 25 miles on 5 kilowatt-hours of electric power. Based on today’s average utility prices, that works out to approximately 1.5 cents per mile! If your gasoline-powered car gets 25 miles per gallon at $3 per gallon, that works out to 12 cents per mile. That means that electric cars cost about 1/8 as much as gasoline-powered cars to operate! Many owners of electric vehicles (EVs) use solar panels to recharge their vehicles. In such a case they are literally driving for free (once the solar panels are paid for) because their energy is coming directly from the sun.

How about the range on EVs? The average commercially-produced EV has a range of about 50-100 miles before needing to be recharged. The majority of Americans drive less than 50 miles per day. For those of us who don’t drive that much, an electric car may be a clean, affordable alternative. If you drive more than 100 miles per day, you may want to consider a hybrid or other alternative fuel vehicle rather than an EV.

What about all those batteries? Are they a problem? Not really. The batteries used in EVs are totally recyclable. In fact, some municipalities have mandatory recycling laws for batteries from EVs. Even before being recycled, the batteries from EVs can be used as secondary storage for home solar or wind –powered stations. Even if your area doesn’t require the recycling of batteries, you can easily find a company that will recycle them on a volunteer basis.

Is an electric vehicle the right choice for you? You can learn more at: http://evworld.com.

Ecotourism

2011-05-17T10:43:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

With summer fast approaching, many people are in the process of planning their vacations. A relatively new idea in vacationing is ecotourism. According to the International Ecotourism Society (www.ecotourism.org), ‘ecotourism’ is “Responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the well-being of local people.” Ecotourism is about connecting conservation, communities, and sustainable travel.

Ecotourism packages are designed to minimize the impact of travel on the local ecosystem. Instead of tour buses, such trips often use bicycles, hikes, canoes or other non-polluting forms of transportation. Once you arrive at your destination, you get to experience life in the local culture. You might participate in a tribal festival or help with the harvest. You might build a church, school or other needed building. You might use your expertise and training to help the local villagers dig a well, improve their healthcare, or plan their village’s development. Ultimately ecotourism is about learning from and contributing to the local culture; gaining mutual respect, education and maybe even friendship.

Many ecotourism adventures take place in more rural settings in agrarian communities, where people are more in tune with nature and have a deeper appreciation of the growing cycles and seasons of the year. They have learned to take care of the land because they depend upon it for their survival. By vacationing in these locations, you have the opportunity to immerse yourself in cultures that have a deeper appreciation for the benefits of nature. In many ecotourism vacations you will also gain firsthand experience in implementing conservation measures, and the cost of your vacation package will contribute to sustainable development for the people who live at your destination.

Another benefit of ecotourism is the cultural exchange. By participating in the local culture, you become aware of the political situation there. You become sensitive to the political, environmental and economic concerns of the region. With such sensitivity comes awareness. This awareness helps to build community and understanding around the world. You are in effect an ambassador of goodwill, learning about the customs and concerns of other peoples in other nations.

A particular type of ecotourism that environmentalists might be interested in is sustainable travel. Sustainable travel is designed in part for the benefit of the locals. If you have special skills or education that they could benefit from, a sustainable travel package would allow you to volunteer for a brief or extended period to put your skills to work for the local community. For example, if you are a teacher, you might teach a class. If your specialty is construction, you might plan a building for use in the community. If you are a health care specialist, you might set up a clinic. If your specialty is agriculture, you might educate the locals in sustainable crop development. A skilled travel agent can take an inventory of your talents and put them to work in many locations throughout the world. If you don’t have any specialized skills, don’t worry. There are still many hands-on opportunities that require little or no skills. You might find yourself building a home for a needy family, digging a garden, or making a road. The possibilities are endless!

Ecotourism is a hot topic right now, therefore most travel agents have ecotourism packages. Check with your local travel agent for details. If your town’s agent doesn’t offer ecotours, you may also visit The International Ecotourism Society’s site at: www.ecotourism.org.

Bon voyage!

Raising Green Kids

2011-05-17T10:41:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

One of the by-products of living in a throwaway society is that our children spend a lot of time in automobiles eating fast foods from disposable containers. They also spend most of their time indoors in front of the television, computers and video games. Not only do these activities contribute to the continual pollution of the environment, but they also contribute to a more sedentary, less active and therefore less healthy lifestyle.

Our junk food diet can have many negative effects on our children. Hormone residues in commercial beef products could contribute to the early onset of puberty in girls, while bovine growth hormone has been linked to increased risk of cancer. Obesity is an epidemic in the United States, especially among our children. According to the American Diabetes Association’s current estimate, one in three children born in 2000 will be at risk for diabetes. We’ve taught our children to sacrifice nutrition for the sake of convenience, and now we are reaping what we’ve sown.

Diet isn’t the only source of problems for our children. Teen suicide is becoming more common every year in the United States. Could it be that one of the causes of the increase in teen suicide is that our teens have discovered that buying more ‘stuff’ isn’t the key to happiness? Media messages bombard our children with the idea that if they have the right clothes, listen to the right music, eat the right food and drink the right sodas they will be happy and popular. Our children are given the illusion that happiness lies in owning and consuming more. Our children buy more and more material goods in a quest for happiness and popularity. When they discover that these things didn’t make them any happier, the impact can be devastating.

The influence that television and mass media have on our children is so great that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children two years old and younger shouldn’t watch television at all. After the age of two, they recommend a maximum of one hour a day. But in the real world, children go to school and have friends with televisions, video games, and material goods. How can you raise a child to want to live sustainably without becoming a family of hermits?

One way is to teach them to occupy their time with activities that offer opportunities for learning and personal growth. You can find local environmental organizations that offer activities for children. By taking your children to such activities, they’ll meet new friends who have been taught similar lessons about sustainability and the environment. If there aren’t any such organizations in your area, why not start one? What better way to get your children involved in environmental issues than by having them participate in creating a green organization for children!

The more green events you can attend that are family-friendly, the more opportunities your children will have to interact with positive role models and peer influences.

Don’t forget that children learn more by example than by what you tell them. If you want to raise green children, you have to live a green lifestyle yourself. As my children have gotten older I’ve often been pleasantly surprised when they have shown me that they were paying attention after all, even though at times I felt as if I were talking to a post. They’re watching and paying attention more than you know. If they see you expressing concern for the environment, then they will too. Be a good example, and you and your children will reap the rewards!

Ecopsychology: Joining Ecology and Psychology

2011-05-17T10:38:00.000-07:00

copsychology: Joining Ecology and Psychology
by Chuck Hall

Last weekend I got a chance to drive through the rural countryside where I grew up. Much of the land has been clear-cut for rural subdivisions and shopping centers. The loss of the forests and fields where I grew up hit me hard. It was like losing an old friend. When you grow up in a rural environment, the nature that surrounds you becomes a part of you. It changes the way you think and feel about yourself.

In March I will be presenting research at the University of South Carolina on the topic of Ecopsychology. Ecopsychology ties ecology and psychology together. The basic theory behind the field of study is that the environment around us impacts our mental health. I first got interested in the subject when I read that people who live in urban settings are twice as prone to depression as those who live in rural settings. Ecopsychology show us that nature has the power to heal us mentally as well as physically.

In researching the many beneficial effects of nature, I discovered that therapists throughout the world have used the healing power of nature to enhance therapy for their clients. Facilitated wilderness trips have been used to successfully treat everything from depression to addiction. Experiencing nature has been demonstrated to lead to enhanced relaxation and better functioning of the immune system. Nature experiences have also been demonstrated to enhance self-awareness and self-actualization. Many people have deep spiritual experiences in the woods.

The benefits of nature are not limited to those who live in a rural setting. Studies have found that patients in hospitals who have a view of a garden heal much faster than people who don’t have such a view. People who decorate their homes with living houseplants are less depressed than people who don’t. Those who have the space for a backyard garden can also reap health benefits from tending their fruits, vegetables and flowers. Home gardens have been linked to greater levels of overall relaxation and reduced stress.

If you don’t have a backyard and don’t have the room for houseplants, you can still reap the benefits of nature. Dr. James Gramann of Texas A & M University, in a 1999 study, demonstrated that simply listening to the sounds of nature (recordings of birds singing, waterfalls, etc.) might significantly reduce stress.

The human race lived for thousands of years in nature. The urbanization of humankind is a fairly recent development. By experiencing nature as often as possible in our lives we are placing ourselves back into our natural world. Losing our wild places can sometimes be as traumatic as losing a family member. Considering the many benefits of nature, when we fail to take care of the environment, we are failing to take care of ourselves.

The Precautionary Principle

2011-05-15T13:32:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

A new approach to sustainable living and the environment is being tried in many cities and states across the country. This new idea is known as the Precautionary Principle. The Precautionary Principle is new in that it doesn’t ask, "How much harm is acceptable?" but instead asks, "How much harm is avoidable?" The advantage of this approach is that it encourages us to set goals, and to consider environmentally sound ways of achieving those goals.

This is an especially effective method for state and local governments to use because it takes a proactive approach to environmental issues. Think of it as using a little ‘preventive medicine’ to prevent problems before they occur rather than trying to play catch-up once the damage has been done. The Precautionary Principle gives us something to be ‘for’ instead of something to be ‘against.’

There are a few basic concepts in the Precautionary Principle. These are:

Preventative anticipation: Meaning that if a policy or action could potentially be harmful to the environment, the burden of proof lies with the industry or institution to prove that it is safe. This means that the government and the public would not have to prove that such a policy is harmful in order to prevent its implementation.

Safeguarding: This of this as ‘erring on the side of caution.’ This principle says that safety margins should not even be approached, much less breached.

Proportionality: Basically this means that the risks of an action should not outweigh the benefits. In other words, if there are a lot of unknowns about the potential harm of an action, these unknowns are assumed to be risks of harm until proven otherwise, instead of vice-versa, as is common policy today.

Duty of Care: The agency proposing the change has the duty to demonstrate that it will not harm the environment. This is more proactive than most current systems, where those who protest an action must prove that it is harmful in order to stop the action.

The basic theory behind the Precautionary Principle is that in complex systems, such as ecospheres and/or biospheres, there may not be enough data to correctly judge the environmental impact of a change. In such a case, the Precautionary Principle states that the best way to ‘do no harm’ is to avoid any chance of risk. While every new technology carries with it some inherent risk, the Precautionary Principle automatically assumes a worst-case scenario before implementing a new technology.

It is a way of looking at things, rather than an absolute hard and fast rule. In general, it means assuming that any new technology could be potentially harmful until proven otherwise, as opposed to assuming that a new technology is safe until proven otherwise. As a general guideline, it is now being considered in environmental legislation throughout the country. If you are active in environmental issues in your local government, ask them about the Precautionary Principle. If they’ve never heard of it, now’s the time to introduce them!

Gambling with the Future

2011-05-15T13:29:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

In his State of the Union address on January 31, President Bush stated, "America is addicted to oil." Although the United States makes up only five percent of the world¹s population, we use an estimated 25% of the world¹s energy resources. A large percentage of this is oil and other fossil fuels. Clearly there is some truth to the President¹s words. We are addicted.

One of the characteristics common to addiction is denial. An addict does not want to admit he has a problem, so he finds creative ways to rationalize his addictive behavior. This may be the case with people who deny that humans are playing any significant part in global warming. Increasingly, scientific evidence demonstrates that human activities are having a considerable impact.

On February 5, 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published its latest findings on global warming and climate change. You may read the entire report for yourself at: http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf . The study compared atmospheric samples with ice core samples up to 650,000 years ago. The contents of the atmosphere are trapped in polar ice caps, and by studying ice core samples, the atmosphere may be analyzed for thousands of years in the past. The study concluded that, "The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide in 2005 exceeds by far the natural range over the last 650,000 years (180 parts per million to 300 parts per million) as determined from ice cores. The annual carbon dioxide concentration growth-rate was larger during the last 10 years than it has been since the beginning of continuous direct atmospheric measurements."

The report also concluded that it is more likely than not that man-made factors are contributing substantially to the increase in average global temperatures, and that it is very unlikely that the changes in climate during the past seven centuries were caused by natural climate variability alone. In other words, human activities are contributing significantly to global warming.

In the section of the IPCC report on predictions (based on climate modeling), the study concluded that it is very likely that in the future we will experience more frequent heat waves, periods of heavier precipitation, more intense hurricanes and cyclones, major changes in wind, precipitation and weather patterns, and constant rise in sea levels. Even if carbon dioxide emissions were stabilized today, the damaging effects could continue for up to 1000 years.

The IPCC is made up of top scientists in the fields of meteorology, climatology and other related sciences from 113 countries worldwide. Over 90% of the scientists who work with the IPCC are in agreement that human activities are playing a significant part in climate change.

Those who deny that man-made greenhouse gases are making an impact are therefore considerably in the minority. It may be that the majority of scientists in the field are mistaken, and that this small minority is correct in their assessment that humans aren¹t contributing to global warming. The majority is sometimes wrong; however, with the world literally at stake, are you willing to bet your children¹s future on the outcome?

Ten Things We Can Do to Reduce Global Warming

2011-05-15T13:28:00.000-07:00

by Chuck Hall

With both the President and Congress considering legislation on the issue of global warming, many people are wondering exactly what we can do to minimize greenhouse gases. Here are a few proposals:

1. There are 2 billion cars in the world. In the U.S., the average fuel economy is 22 mpg. We have the technology to increase fuel economy to between 30 and 60 mpg. Automakers should consider offering a wider range of more fuel-efficient vehicles until zero-emissions vehicles can be designed and manufactured (see item 10).

2. Decrease car travel through using public transportation, telecommuting, biking or walking. The latter two choices have the added benefit of providing daily exercise.

3. Use energy-saving measures such as compact fluorescent lighting, energy-efficient appliances and added insulation to decrease energy consumption in all existing buildings by up to 25%. Design future buildings using green-building techniques to create no harmful emissions and to be as energy-efficient as possible. The new Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification is a step in the right direction.

4. Stop clear-cutting our rainforests. Double the rate of new tree plantings. More trees mean less carbon dioxide. This is something anyone can do. All you need are a few seedlings and a place to plant them.

5. By using ‘conservation tillage’ techniques, soil erosion could be slowed or even stopped in many farms throughout the world. Less soil erosion means more plants. More plants means less carbon dioxide. Encouraging local and organic farming decreases transportation costs to and from distant markets (and therefore carbon emissions caused by the trucks used to transport produce) and eliminates pesticides from the atmosphere.

6. Switch to wind power wherever possible. The newer wind turbines can function in winds as little as 3-5 mph. Wind energy is totally emission-free. Also, once the turbine is paid for, the only cost for the electricity it generates is a little routine maintenance.

7. Increase use of solar power whenever possible. Prices continue to come down on solar panels and accessories, and city, state and federal governments offer many tax incentives for purchasing solar systems. Some banks are loosening lending criteria for purchasing home solar power systems.

8. As solar and wind power become more available, phase out coal-burning power plants. Set standards for efficiency and carbon emissions, and close down any plants that don’t live up to the standards.

9. Practice carbon dioxide sequestration at existing coal plants until they can be phased out as more solar and wind farms come online.

10. Develop zero-emissions vehicles, including hydrogen fuel-cell technology, plug-in electric vehicles that recharge overnight at home, and hybrids powered by renewable biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel.

We already have the technology to do many of the things on this list. All that is missing is public will. If any of these suggestions make sense to you, let your local members of Congress know by getting in touch with them!