Priorities – Three heavy topics for this month!
Gord quit his job; Ann’s Wise Island home is officially on the market; Decision to build a load bearing cob home
If you knew that in ten years your life would dramatically change what would your priorities be? Did you read the report on climate change put out by the BC government this month? To summarize, the report covered retreating glaciers, drier soils in the summer, increasing weather hazards, decreasing water flows in rivers leading to increased salmon species extinction, decreased hydro electricity, and decreased fresh water for communities, agriculture and industry. They also acknowledged the inevitable increasing sea levels, flooding of low level areas, intrusion of salt water into low lying agricultural land and well systems, increasing invasive species, and spread of opportunistic diseases. This was a 330 page document put out by the BC government in collaboration with Fisheries and Oceans, University of BC, University of Victoria and Environment Canada that took two years to research and write. Did you happen to see “An Inconvenient Truth” with Al Gore whose main focus was dispelling the myth behind the science of global warming? This documentary discussed the facts of global warming and what the scientific community is saying. Global warming is real…the only debate is how extreme the consequences will be and how fast we will encounter change. I guess the newspapers, radio, or TV networks have not mentioned the newest research on Greenland, its ice flows and what happens to the local currents as the fresh water dilutes the salinity of the Gulf Stream. I bet you wondered why the Federal government is pursuing military patrol of the Northern Passage. Because for the first time in history they can; it is becoming a shipping lane, and the Panama Canal can be avoided. Everyday Ann and I are reading about the science and news on global warming, but not from the mainstream media. The final push for Gord to quit his job and focus full time on building our home was the realization that it is highly probable that in ten years we will see the most dramatic changes in climate that has ever been seen/recorded/studied on earth. It’s time to change our priorities and begin working towards our dreams of creating a sustainable home that we can show to others. Finances will be tight and we have cut and trimmed our expenses to what is the most important. We have signed up with a local farm for a box of organic local produce every week and will be eating a mostly vegetarian diet with lots of beans, lentils, and rice…food we already love.
Food, one of our basic necessities, will be impacted by rising oil prices in numerous ways. The demand for cleaner fuels will mean that farm land will be used to grow crops for bio-fuels rather than for food. A growing demand from fuel companies for crops means that competition for farm land develops between energy and food – This will cause prices for food crops to rise. As fuel costs rise so does the cost of making the machinery to farm it, the cost of gas used in the farm equipment, the cost for manufacture of petroleum based fertilizers and pesticides, and the cost to transport food. The bottom line is that beer will be more expensive.
We can grow enough food locally, right? If there is an increasing loss of agricultural land to development then I expect a lot of manicured front lawns will evolve into something more useful. Then again I wouldn’t want to eat from places where the residues of the lawn chemicals linger. What about the Fraser River delta as it floods and becomes salty. Langford looks progressive right? It will have made its mark by trying to get rid of the ALR altogether, but what the heck we can still go shopping at the mall to feel better! Too bad we will have spent our entire budget on the gas to get to the mall.
We won’t lose our standard of living will we? Cars will be increasingly more costly to run, houses more expensive to heat and cool, and electricity/energy more expensive across the board. Increased natural weather related disasters will drive up insurance costs (like the Kelowna fire, and hurricane Katrina), droughts and hail storms will impact crops which will impact all living things in their wake. It looks like we’ll have a dramatic reduction in our disposable income. In Victoria’s not so distant future more income will be going into filling the tank, heating/cooling the home, and buying the food. And then there’s the mortgage on the family home with only 5% or zero down. What happens when interest rates go up or property values fall? What about all the other stuff we need like vacations, two cars, TV’s, racing at western speedway, movies, nights out on the town, gifts, getting the car fixed, getting our teeth fixed, getting our kids teeth fixed? I suspect there will be less people making and providing the products and services as well as fewer people selling them because we will not be able to afford it, meaning increased unemployment. That’s not good in the old economic model, though it means more people will have a lot more time off. We could just wait and see what happens and then try to figure out what to do…or we could be proactive and have some control by making changes now. In our life, we have decided to make some changes and build and power our home in a sustainable manner. By doing this we can potentially help to be a small part of the solution by sharing our knowledge with others that are interested in learning.
This project comes with a hefty price tag and not everyone has the resources for a project of this magnitude. It is interesting how we are called rich by some and poor by others depending upon the observer’s perspective. We are essentially three families’ that came together and pooled resources to make this project financially viable. Ann’s parents sold the family home of 34 years, Ann is selling the waterfront home that she helped create and lived in for many years, and all other assets have been liquidated. We are now one three generation family living as a single unit. We all have different reasons for being here and embarking on this project, but we are a family and are working together to create our home.
Selling the Wise Island home required a year of soul searching for Ann. It was my sanctuary. The place where I discovered who I was and what was important. This decision makes sense on all levels…but it is the emotional attachment to the place which is so hard. Wise Island was my dream, but after I completed it now what…there were no more challenges and it just made me hunger for more. It gave me so much and now it will continue to give to me and my family in the creation of our new family home. I learned about off the grid living, community, family, how to confront fears and loneliness, how to work hard to achieve goals, and how happiness is about giving. My time on Wise without the clutter of TV and commercialism allowed me to view the world differently and I began to become aware of what we humans are doing to our home the Earth. That little island home and the learning that occurred there is what helped to create this idea here. Life is a progression and evolution of ideas. So much of our culture is about growth or increases in material wealth rather than development and change. Growth is not sustainable; whether we are talking economic growth or personal growth it is actually destructive. Growth implies getting bigger. A personality develops, learns and evolves. To call it personal growth implies that the individual becomes bigger and more important. Our choice of words as a society has deeper underlying implications.
And now, the heaviest subject of the month; we decided to go with load bearing cob for our house. In our investigations, it looks like this would be the first self supporting cob residence in Canada. Kris Dick, an engineer from the University of Manitoba came by for a visit, and we discussed the possibilities. Load bearing cob means no post beam framework. This means more that can be done with local natural resources by relatively unskilled workers, and more done by a crazy couple in their late thirties with little regard for the status quo.
One final thought for the month. As I was hanging out the laundry today and contemplating discussions with the folks at Energy Alternatives about the design of our solar/wind system for our house, it became clear that our family views power requirements much differently than the norm. We will hang out laundry out when it not raining and we will vacuum or run more power tools when it is windy or sunny. In other words we will balance our schedules to what nature provides. This is not a strange concept to me for I lived for five years on a tiny boat access only island with only 2 solar panels. I could not travel by boat to work on Salt Spring Island when it was really windy. I limited my internet use when it was cloudy. I rationed water use when it was hot and dry. I could not unload my boat out front when the tide was low and I parked the boat at different docks depending on the tide and wind. I ate crab when I was lucky. In fact, nature determined much of my schedule and for some reason this was comforting to me. I fit in and I felt a sense of belonging. There was no battle with my environment. Why do so many of us find this unacceptable not have complete control. It seems we cater to our every instantaneous whim and in so doing lose our connection to nature. We do not eat local and seasonal food; we speed up our hair drying; and when we have too much rain we fly to some tropical beach. We have become accustomed to do what we want, when we want, and how we want and who cares about the consequences. Well, the consequences are here.
Check out our web log at www.eco-sense.ca to see the cost break down for the cob workshop. Most expenses have come in except for the engineering.
Gord and Ann