my grandparents were huge proponents of sustainability and even, to an extent, they could be accused of supporting communal living -- trading with friends and neighbors for produce, meat, and dairy products.
as our country (and world) is faced with an emerging energy and environmental crisis, my mind wanders into familiar territory... things i learned growing up, and things i now read about more and more. how do you heat your home? how do you stay warm? how do you entertain yourself? how do you feed your family?
sometimes, my dad doesn't seem so crazy, what with his dreams of solar and wind power, even back in the 70s. remember those "underground" houses? yeah, you know what? they don't seem so odd when you think about energy efficiency.
I was telling Nala about the "chest refrigerators" I've read about, and how a friend of a friend has now made one using even BETTER parts than I first heard of, making it 90% more efficient than a standard refrigerator, for less cost.
If you think about this for longer than a minute, you start to see some long term benefits. If you built yourself an "underground" house, (no jokes about living under a rock, please), your heating and cooling bills and overall energy usage would be greatly reduced simply by the insulation of the earth. Add to that energy efficient windows and doors, and using multiple insulating techniques for any exposed walls and roofs (depending on the materials used). Don't forget about the "natural" insulation of such things as hay bales. (We used to insulate the outside of our kitchen walls that way, along with the crawlspace walls, too.) Now, convert the whole house to use energy efficient lighting, and explore geothermal heating and cooling, supplemented by solar heating as well.
Take the energy reduction another step further -- build your kitchen with the chest refrigerator/freezer model in mind. It's the one device in your home that runs all day, every day, yet nobody is taking this challenge on. Nobody.
Consider the benefits of a dual-energy range, or even a supplementary wood stove, which could help offset heating costs and also allow you to do some cooking. (I grew up with wood heat, and I know the benefits are high, but also know you're adding pollutants to the air... not sure what the balance would be between this and using coal-produced electricity... also gives you the benefit of heat if your primary source of heat were to fail.) A coworker pointed out, manure can be burned for heat, too, although this, to me, seems like it might be going too far.
Underground living would allow you the benefit of more land for agriculture. Of course, to maximize your usage of your home-grown foods, you would have to consider both canning and freezing methods. Canning is probably more energy efficient, since you're using energy once and storing the results in a cupboard, instead of a freezer, but I'm not sure how that works out long term. Someone with a brain for energy usage should tackle that calculation... a pint of frozen green beans vs. a pint of canned green beans... calculate the energy usage to store them over 6 months.
And then there's the whole issue of composting toilets, which I recently discovered. There is a company who makes them now, who guarantees NO SMELL. Talk about cutting your water usage, damn. And as for hot water heat, see above mention of solar, and supplement it with one of those heat-on-demand thingies.
Back to the point -- are we that far from a real-and-true energy-based crisis? I'll bet we're closer than you might think. Economic downfall is just around the corner. Everything we do is influenced by oil prices, and if folks cant get to work, or buy groceries, get ready to return to the late 1800s/early 1900s. Get ready for your "victory gardens," too, only this time, it'll be victory over our own cultural stupidity and gluttony. Be prepared to protect them with a shotgun, because folks, we're in for an adjustment, and it ain't gonna be pretty.
Jesus, that sounds like Nala-preachy, only not as coherent.
