In less than a month, we’ve had two snowstorms that shut down the city for days at a time. Though the biggest hassle turned out to be nothing more serious than unplowed streets–the electricity never went out, the sewer system still functioned, the water still ran, the gas still heated our water–it’s now more sobering than ever to me to think how a common utilities outage can so impact people’s lives, and how avoidable it all is.
Think about some of the news items you’ve seen: Last summer’s heat wave killed 11,000 people in Moscow alone. Already this month there have been more than 1500 cold weather deaths in Scotland. Every day, 6000 people–many of them children–die simply because they don’t have access to clean water. Closer to home, 36 states face water shortages within the next three years. Blackouts and brownouts are common, whether due to severe weather or high demand. The list goes on.
Consider how many heat- and cold-related deaths could be avoided by living in homes that don’t require energy-sucking HVAC systems to maintain a temperature hospitable to life. People die–die!–because of how we build our homes.
Consider that free, reasonably clean water falls from the sky–in most places, if properly cached, it’s enough to keep people, animals, and plants happy.
Consider how bare your local supermarket shelves are in the aftermath of a major weather event. Now consider what would happen if they couldn’t get shipments of fresh food for another few days, a week, a month. Consider how many people in this country alone don’t even have access to fresh food to begin with.
Consider how awesome it would be to keep your lights on, your stove cooking, your water running, and food in your belly regardless of what might befall the utility company or its overloaded, aging infrastructure.
Consider that the monstrous amount of discarded tires, plastic and glass bottles, and cans that we generate. They can end up in a landfill, the Pacific gyre, or an incinerator… or they can be put to use. Use and useful are two of my favorite things.
These are some reasons that our plan has come about as it has. The list is much, much longer. And the longer that list gets, the more absurd and stupid and fundamentally wrong “normal”–normal houses, normal food systems, normal energy production and consumption–seems.
Don’t mistake my enthusiasm for zealotry. I’m not a evangelical; I’m just a gal who’s figuring a few things out, and is intoxicated by the happiness to be had. This is only one approach to a sprawling, complex web of problems. But it’s one that makes sense to me, that fits with my personal philosophies, and feels attainable.
The big shining goal is to build our own Earthship, so we can be crotchety but good-natured hermits, living according to our consciences. But there are many, many little pieces that go into making a life align with one’s values, and those–from very small adjustments that you might be interested in trying yourself, to bigger projects that we’ll be learning as we go along–will appear here too. One day, I’ll be posting photos of myself packing tires or planting our gray-water-system-cum-garden… But for now, I’ll regale you with the saga of all the work that must be put in before we break the ground we don’t yet even own. You’ll also find a bit on food, bikes, wilderness, and some of the other topics that have already appeared in this blog–because, when it comes down to it, damn near everything I love fits under this homesteading/right living/DIY umbrella. And that’s been a powerful realization: de-compartmentalizing, making my life one thing, rather than segregating work, home, and the other parts into their corners, feels almost revolutionary.
Let’s begin.
Look forward to reading your work on this subject!
James