Fight the gas prices

[Doc]

Hi,
Simple little math problem for you, Doc. Take the acreage you use to get your sustainable living, divide it by the number of persons you're sustaining there, then multiply it by the population of the USA. Compare the result with the *viable* acreage of the USA. What percentage of the population could live that way, assuming they would want to?

As for me, I'm modern enough, and intelligent enough, to distinguish between 'wife' and 'dishwasher'. Hint, only one of the two is property.

--Pete

But somehow, in spite of being intelligent enough, you missed that I was joking. :PRelax man, that comment was made in fun.

Really though... The dishwashing agreement has been a good thing for a near trouble free marriage. She can't cook. So, I cook, and do all of that hard work in the kitchen, she washes a few plates. She's happy, I am happy, the kitchen is clean, and there has never been anything remotely close to fighting or angry words. As per our agreement, she does the dishes... All of the small lightweight stuff. The cast iron pans and what not? The heavy stuff used for cooking? Guess who does that... Yeah, that's right, me.

And I know that there are problems supporting a population as large as ours. My point, if there is one, is that the people who can drop off the grid, should. It is possible. Responsible living is entirely possible.

As for large populations, do a little googling about earthships, and there is an entire subdivision being built of nothing but earthships. Literally thousands of homes, all of which will generate their own community electricity, recycle all of their own wastewater, live a sustainable life, and generate more food than all of them could possibly eat. Sure, small scale now. But if this community proves viable, and there is no reason why it shouldn't, it means that in the future, it would be possible for us to live a little more responsibily. It will show that all that wasted space, things like the roof on your home, doesn't need to be a waste of space. It could have solar panels, or better yet, a garden. Of course this wouldn't work on a regular home, but on an earthship type home, or the right kind of housing, a garden roof, with several layers of dirt up there, is a great insulator. All that food grown can feed people, or, should the right things be grown, be contributed to community processing for fuel. Bio-diesel or moonshine for combustion.

Instead of all those tires filling up our landfills and dumps, those tires can be filled with compressed earth, made in to bricks, and used to build houses. Naturally insulated houses, with thick walls. And did I mention it was CHEAP? Really. Packed earth in to couple thousand tires, arrange them in to the proper pattern, stack them so you have walls, cover them in recycled wire mesh, and hose them down with adobe or concrete. Walls that are several feet thick, in a home deeply sunk in to the earth for stable temps. You don't need air conditioning. Most people will not need heat either. The stable earth temp as well as the cistern where blackwater and household waste decomps (which generates a LOT of heat passively) will keep the inside of the house at a stable temp of 55 to 65 degrees or so.

Earthships and dome homes are not the perfect answer either, but they are a start. Efficient use of living space to create more than you consume. Really, it is a very simple concept. Even on an acre lot, you can build an earthship type home, house a family there, and create more than you consume. But it requires work, sacrifice, hard work, and dedication. (And more work)

In France, they want to go one step farther than a subdivision of earthships, I was reading in a magazine about this plan to make an entire town of earthships... For both living and working. Biofactories and what not. The idea, as it currently exists on paper, is to create everything that the people of that town need right there in town, within reason. Fuel for the cars will be manufactured on site. Clothing will be made from animal and vegetable fibres. (Hemp maybe? ) All of the food will be grown and processed locally. They want to build a model town that is capable of near sustainability. Some goods, like computers, electronics, cars, stuff like that, of course you will need things like that. But day to day living stuff, it is entirely possible to do that locally.

This kind of bio-economy would also be more humane... Disabled people and people on well, no nice way to say this, but people existing in the perpetual welfare states, it would be economically viable for the government to give them an earthship or some kind of bio-home, so they too, can create more than they consume. The homes would be made out of entirely recycled goods, be dirt cheap to build, and would return a huge amount of resources for the time invested in their creation. Food, fuel, electricity, resources... It would give those folks a chance to actually do something with their lives... They would have the means to be productive members of society and return something. They could be care takers of their little sustainable plots... Which would sure beat living off the government teat and watching tv all day. Hunger could be wiped out... Social programs like foodstamps wouldn't be needed. Sure, these people would have to learn how to live on fresh fruits and veggies, instead of the preprocessed crap most folks buy, but that would be good for them. It would improve their general health, decreasing their medical costs, which are paid for by the welfare system. Heck, I dare say it would be economically viable for the government to pay people to stay at home and be full time caretakers over highly productive plots. Locally grown food means lower costs, and less fuel burned in transport. We have acres and acres of currently empty roofs on ineffecient homes, all that wasted space... Replace that with sustainable bio-friendly housing over time with a dedication to change, and all that wasted space could be put to better use. We could actually wage war on poverty and take back a lot of ground.

Heck, if we really wanted to stick to combustion for power purposes, instead of endless solar panels on the roofs of every home, how about gardens... Gardens filled with things like hemp. Things grown that could easily make bio-fuels. There are ways to deal with the problems we have now, it just takes some vision and creative thinking at a scale most people can't deal with.

:D

And serious Pete, relax. You'll live longer.