Worrisome At Best
Here are a few frightening links for you:
The problem, as I see it, is that fairly shortly, living they way we do will become too expensive for us regular folks to maintain. We will not be able to afford to heat our homes, power our homes, and drive our cars. The rich may be able to afford to live that way, but we aren’t going to. As it is, gas prices already hurt. I mean, good lord, when I can feel it, driving a frickin’ Festiva, then there are problems. We’re dropping $10 every other day into the van. If it weren’t for the fact that we’re on the “budget planâ€, we wouldn’t be able to afford heat without making some drastic cuts in our household spending. (Good-bye phone, Internet access, cable TV, and cigarettes!) There were a few months this past winter and the winter before when we would have been looking at $300 heating bills. I can’t make a $300 heating bill, plus an almost $700 house payment, and still afford “luxuries†like cable, Internet, etc. And, y’know, my husband and I work damned hard, and we deserve to be able to kick back and screw off on the Internet, or watch some HBO, just like anyone else.
I’ve said it before – we cannot expect Government (especially the current one) or Big Business to dig us out of this, because they are not going to. Both institutions are frighteningly shortsighted, and frankly, they’re making way more money with fossil fuels. They don’t care about us, or the environment. Neither institution has the incentive to begin making the necessary nation-wide changes we are looking at needing to make, to survive life without petroleum.
So if Big Brother and Big Business aren’t going to “save†us, who is?
Well, folks, we’re going to have to figure out how to do it for ourselves. And we’d better get cracking, because the Final Jeopardy music is playing, and I have a feeling that we don’t have a lot of time left.
The “Big Problem†is really made up of a lot of littler, personal problems with the way we live. We live in energy-wasting homes full of energy-wasting devices. We’re hooked on our “time-saversâ€, “ease-of-use†equipment, and lack of forethought. We don’t want to put in any extra work. When we think of what’s going on in the world, we get scared and lost, and can’t figure out how to fix the problems we see. And then, we stick our heads in the sand and hope some miracle will come along to save us, without us having to do any extra work, or change the way we live. It’s not going to work that way, and we are going to have to change. We can’t let ourselves get scared and discouraged. We have problems to fix, and we need to face them head on, and get them fixed.
The first problem I see is in heating our homes. I’m a Michigander, and it gets bloody cold around here. I need a home that will stay warm with little effort or power. I’ve looked into some alternatives, and I’ve fallen in love with the concept of the earth-sheltered home.
Earth-sheltered homes work like natural caves, only without all the wetness and mold and darkness. A natural cave keeps roughly the same ambient temperature all year round, due to the magic of physics and geology. Those same physics and geology are what allows an earth-sheltered home to keep a similar ambient temperature all year round, with no additional heating devices. (The average seems to swing between 50 and 70 degrees, depending on where you are.) Basically, what you are doing, is building your own little cave, only with all the fun conveniences we’ve come to know and love. You do this by building below the frost line, and building thick, thick walls by various means. You situate your big windows depending on whether you’re going to need to heat or cool your home (whether you’re in a northern or southern climate, really), and minimize windows on the other sides of your building. You provide natural lighting in non-windowed rooms with the use of sun tunnels, solar tubes, or insulated skylights. Utilizing passive heating through south-facing windows, you can keep your house at comfortable temperatures all year round, with no additional heating. If you do happen to want additional heating, like I probably will, there are any number of back-up systems to install, depending on how much energy you want to use. You can install anything from a regular furnace to a wood stove, to any number of excruciatingly “green†and/or “off the grid†options. In short, we have the technology to live in comfortable, naturally heated or cooled homes without using any fossil fuels to achieve this.
It’s taken me two years, but I’ve finally talked my husband into the idea of an underground home. (Didn’t you just buy a house, Java? Why, yes, yes I did. And I’ll fix it up nice, sell it at a profit – with luck – and use the profit to build an earth-sheltered home somewhere else.) And, as a bonus, earth-sheltered homes are gorgeous. Particularly, the ones that are completely earth-covered, and basically look like a hill with windows and doors, are the ones that most appeal to me. They’re so lovely and organic-looking. The insides can look any damn way you want them too, from conventional to fantastic. The only limit is your imagination.
Some nifty links on the subject for you:
- Davis Caves — Featured on HGTV, even.
- Rocky Mountain Research Center — I’m not so sure about these folks. Sounds good, looks good on paper, but something about them triggers my “scam alert”. Don’t know why, could be just me. Maybe it’s just the cheap-looking website. They do a good job of explaining passive heating, though, and the science behind it seems fairly solid.
- Earth Sheltered Houses — Some general information, and additional links to other sources.
- Earthship — And, of course, the Earthship people.
Of course, heating your home isn’t the only thing to consider. You’re going to need to be able to cheaply power your home, as well. Fortunately, there are a butt-ton of options for this, also. Unfortunately, most of them seem to rely on solar power, which looks good on paper, but doesn’t work out quite so well in practical use.
Solar4Power.com — “Solar power works well for most items except large electric appliances that use an electric heat element such as a water heater, clothes dryer and electric stove - for example - or total electric home heating systems. It is not cost effective to use solar power for these items.” There are ways around the restrictions, but they call for a few lifestyle changes, which I’m not entirely sure somebody would want to make.
For example, you don’t need a dryer. You could line dry your clothes, which sucks in the winter (unless you have a wood stove, and don’t mind laundry lines in your living room), and is difficult in urban living. There are such things as solar water heaters. And, you could always switch to a wood-burning cook stove (which can also be used to heat your house).
Most of the “off-grid†and/or “green†power systems for homes that I’ve seen, that look even remotely feasible, involve two or more power systems, solar, wind, and hydro. Many of them remain connected to the power-grid as an additional back up, and the fun part of that is that you can sell back your excess energy, or “bank†your excess energy to be used later. Here in Michigan, Consumers will hook you up to do that for free, I’ve been told, and in many places, there are all kinds of incentives and tax breaks for living this way (particularly California).
More links:
And, there’s also the idea of biodiesel generators. Biodiesel all by itself seems like an incredibly sexy idea to me. And, since I work in a restaurant, where there is a ready supply of used vegetable grease, and you can make biodiesel yourself, out of used vegetable grease, I might just look into this.
So, next problem: being able to drive your damn car. There are no easy solutions for this, yet. There’s biodiesel, which you can apparently use in any diesel engine, with little or no conversions. There are halfway solutions like the Ford Prius or the Honda Civic Hybrid. (Why these aren’t hybrid diesel engines which could run on biodiesel is beyond me. Maybe they could be converted if you had the know-how and parts.) Or, there are electric cars (1, 2, 3, or 4), but those have their own sets of limitations and problems, mostly having to do with speed, and range. For example, I’d have a tough time taking one of those to GenCon, in Indiana, starting off here in Michigan. I’d have a lot better luck with a biodiesel or hybrid car. Number four looks like it would easily get me back and forth to work, though. (Note To Self: Look into that.)
Another thing you’re going to want to look into is ways to minimize your grocery bills. Start a garden, and look for a local meat supplier – some farmer that you can buy beef and chicken from, locally. Learn how to can and properly store food. Learn how to bargain shop. Get into hunting, even. A couple of big deer will get you through the whole winter if you don’t eat a lot of meat.
Finally, and most frightening, comes paying your bills. The real doomsayers are predicting a depression that makes the Great Depression look like fuckin’ nothing. To be honest, I don’t know how to handle this. Minimize your debt, and hold on tight, is all I can say. All the preparations in the world are not going to help you if you lose your job, can’t find another one, and are living on the street going from soup line to soup line. Of course, if you can hang on to a job, have minimized your debts down to a house payment and maybe a couple of bills, and have taken steps to live in a comfortable home like I mentioned above, then maybe, just maybe, you can squeak through.
Of course, there’s always the “hope” that Big Oil has noticed that we’re running out. I mean, you’d think they would be the first to know, right? A friend of my husband suggests that they’re probably already researching alternatives, but that they’ll wait until the very last minute to implement them, making sure to beat that oil horse all the way to death before switching to something else. It makes sense, which means it probably isn’t happening. Heh.
