Living in Peace and Wisdom on our Planet

The Internet has been vibrating along with the earth since the great quake in Haiti, and I have received quite  a few emails responding to this catastrophe, often with suggestions about ways to assist the Haitians. I'll quote from one particularly thoughtful response:

"I would like for you and your colleagues together to present our president (probably through USAID) with a proposal for rebuilding Haiti with earthbag and other environmentally sustainable technologies. Such a project would serve the dual purpose of providing affordable, earthquake / hurricane resistant housing for Haitians as well as to advance the global shift toward a more sustainable green paradigm by example. Due to this humanitarian catastrophe, both the monies and the political will for such...  See entire blog item

Every year I look for new books that have been recently published in order to keep our Green Home Building Web site as up-to-date as possible. I had been under the impression that the controversy over whether global warming is really happening as a result of human activity was finally dying down, and that even the nay-sayers were beginning to accept the overwhelming science that proves this is the case. I was shocked to see...  See entire blog item

The Cul-de-Sac Syndrome: Turning Around the Unsustainable American Dream is a timely book that analyzes the origins and eventual failure of what has been known as the "American Dream." John F. Wasik, the author of this very well researched and written book is a finance columnist for Bloomberg News, so he has his finger on the pulse of American finance and folly. Published in 2009, The Cul-de-Sac Syndrome is full of insight about...  See entire review

I am very encouraged by recent under-reported news about a significant drop in the consumption of electricity and oil in the United States this last year. In a November article in the Wall Street Journal it is explained that "an unexpected drop in U.S. electricity consumption has utility companies worried that the trend isn't a byproduct of the economic downturn, and could reflect a permanent shift in consumption that will require sweeping change in...  See entire blog item

A few months ago I was driving down Road T and noticed a house in the middle of the road. I didn't remember a house being there and thought that I was seeing a strange mirage. The closer I got, the more real it appeared, until I was forced to slow down and drive around the thing, at which point there was no doubt about its...  See entire blog item

Think about the people that you know and ask yourself how many of them fit into the "single family" model of chosen lifestyle. Perhaps you know an elderly person who doesn't want the responsibility of maintaining a big home and would rather live with other folks in a similar situation. Maybe you know someone who doesn't want to be married, but does want to live "in a relationship" with other people. How about...  See entire blog item

The idea of making walls by stacking bags of sand or earth has been around for at least a century. Originally sand bags were used for flood control and military bunkers because they are easy to transport to where they need to be used, fast to assemble, inexpensive, and effective at their task of warding off both water and bullets.

At first natural materials such as burlap were used to manufacture the bags; more recently woven polypropylene has become the preferred material because of its superior strength. The burlap will actually last a bit longer if subjected to sunlight, but it will eventually rot if left...  See entire blog item

Think of all the animals who dig into the ground to find refuge, comfort, security. Their ancestors discovered millennia ago that the earth could provide all of that, free for the digging. We humans have done this too, at times, but we tend to forget the benefits, preferring to follow the trend of building on the surface.

What the animals know is that the earth can shelter them from the extremes of temperature, from the wind and sun...  See entire blog item

California has adopted the nation's first statewide green-building standards, which will become mandatory in 2010. The new California Green Buildings Standards Code requires builders to reduce energy use by 15 to 30 percent beyond current standards and use more recycled materials. Some of the code will be mandatory,...  See entire blog item

Having just finished reading "A Declaration of Energy Independence: How Freedom from Foreign Oil Can Improve National Security, Our Economy and the Environment," by Jay Hakes, my mind is spinning with all of the issues that this brings up. Hakes was the head of the Energy Information Administration at the U.S. Department of Energy during the ...  See entire blog item