This is in response / support of Athada's post Why Should I (WU) Care?
I'm not an environmentalist and I don't hate the earth; I'm in the common middle. I think the environment is a problem but the current solutions either amount to taxes or are a nuisance. For example I would buy a hybrid car but my lifetime fuel savings doesn't add up to my additional upfront cost. I would have recycled while living in an apartment but the closest place to recycle was a 30 minute drive from where I lived.
There are however solutions that neither cost tax payers money nor create an extra burden however they often involve difficult social boundaries. I'm going to discuss a few areas of possible environmental savings.
Housing - Our current home designs aren't energy or environmentally efficient. They are hard to light, they are expensive to heat and waste a good deal of material to build. There are Energy Star rated new construction homes, but that isn't a very high standard it deals with r-value and appliances. Beyond construction because a home is built Energy Star rated doesn't mean it's lived in by those standards, an Energy Star heater run at 76 degrees is still wasting energy.
A big problem in housing is waste, which can be corrected changing habits and making a few cheap upgrades. Purchasing efficient appliances, CFLs, LEDs, turning off lights, turning down the thermostat (or up in the summer), using ceiling fans, purchasing a programmable thermostat (if you have a gas furnace). If everyone cut a little waste the big picture impact would be enormous.
All of the houses in my subdivision have exterior carriage lights that automatically turn on at sun set. If my entire neighborhood (200 houses) switched to CFLs (400 bulbs) we would save $42,000 over the lifetime of the bulbs which is 368,480 kwh of electricity. To put it in perspective that would pay the average us electric bill ($88.60 / month, I'm rounding up to $100 to account for natural gas usage) for 35 years.
The biggest housing obstacle is social norms. Homeowners want houses with square corners and 7 inch wide walls. They want houses to look like house, the problem is it's very difficult and expensive to make an efficient house look like a normal house. Earthship encourages people to make houses "a utomobile tires rammed with packed earth", soda cans and other by products. The houses are efficient but don't look like traditional houses. They can be (depending on sweet equity) a bit more expensive but save a good deal of energy. Earth friendly / true green / environmental neutral houses are the future but it is going to take a while to get here. The government needs to adopt construction standards that reduce the amount of red type for true green construction. Owners need to move away from the standard housing look and decide a different looking house is a good investment.
Mortgage companies are starting to offer green mortgages. To qualify for a green mortgage an buyer must put certain energy and cost saving products in the house. For example if a buyer building a new house opts for a geothermal unit the monthly savings (when compared to a standard) heater is added to the mortgage to offset the initial additional cost of the unit. At the end of the month if the unit saves $50 a month the amount is added to the monthly mortgage payment so the owner ends up breaking even (in theory) on a greener house.
I'm not an environmentalist and I don't hate the earth; I'm in the common middle. I think the environment is a problem but the current solutions either amount to taxes or are a nuisance. For example I would buy a hybrid car but my lifetime fuel savings doesn't add up to my additional upfront cost. I would have recycled while living in an apartment but the closest place to recycle was a 30 minute drive from where I lived.
There are however solutions that neither cost tax payers money nor create an extra burden however they often involve difficult social boundaries. I'm going to discuss a few areas of possible environmental savings.
Housing - Our current home designs aren't energy or environmentally efficient. They are hard to light, they are expensive to heat and waste a good deal of material to build. There are Energy Star rated new construction homes, but that isn't a very high standard it deals with r-value and appliances. Beyond construction because a home is built Energy Star rated doesn't mean it's lived in by those standards, an Energy Star heater run at 76 degrees is still wasting energy.
A big problem in housing is waste, which can be corrected changing habits and making a few cheap upgrades. Purchasing efficient appliances, CFLs, LEDs, turning off lights, turning down the thermostat (or up in the summer), using ceiling fans, purchasing a programmable thermostat (if you have a gas furnace). If everyone cut a little waste the big picture impact would be enormous.
All of the houses in my subdivision have exterior carriage lights that automatically turn on at sun set. If my entire neighborhood (200 houses) switched to CFLs (400 bulbs) we would save $42,000 over the lifetime of the bulbs which is 368,480 kwh of electricity. To put it in perspective that would pay the average us electric bill ($88.60 / month, I'm rounding up to $100 to account for natural gas usage) for 35 years.
The biggest housing obstacle is social norms. Homeowners want houses with square corners and 7 inch wide walls. They want houses to look like house, the problem is it's very difficult and expensive to make an efficient house look like a normal house. Earthship encourages people to make houses "a utomobile tires rammed with packed earth", soda cans and other by products. The houses are efficient but don't look like traditional houses. They can be (depending on sweet equity) a bit more expensive but save a good deal of energy. Earth friendly / true green / environmental neutral houses are the future but it is going to take a while to get here. The government needs to adopt construction standards that reduce the amount of red type for true green construction. Owners need to move away from the standard housing look and decide a different looking house is a good investment.
Mortgage companies are starting to offer green mortgages. To qualify for a green mortgage an buyer must put certain energy and cost saving products in the house. For example if a buyer building a new house opts for a geothermal unit the monthly savings (when compared to a standard) heater is added to the mortgage to offset the initial additional cost of the unit. At the end of the month if the unit saves $50 a month the amount is added to the monthly mortgage payment so the owner ends up breaking even (in theory) on a greener house.
The big obstacle for most people is the issue of road trips so maybe the forward thinking car company would sell me the Smart Car and give me two weeks free car rental each year I own the car. That solves my vacation problem. And the government needs to get serious about mileage, the need to draw a strict mileage line in the sand and tell the auto companies to make it happen. (I'm not in favor of big government but when big business inability to change is hurting everyone a solution must be had.)
Carpooling would be better (especially if combined) but I don't see this as a good solution for most people. I need the flexibility of my car at work. I would like to see employers provide showers so employees can ride their bikes.
Energy - I just touched on it a bit but the government needs to get involved. They need to mandate a strict gas mileage, and offer incentives. If the American auto makers worked together and shared knowledge they could make world changing new cars.
The key here is renewable energy, I'm not a scientist but I'm positive it can be done if the proper money is poured into it. For a while the issue is going to be a Beta Max vs VHS style dilemma (or HDDVD Vs. Blue Ray for the younger crowd) some companies and individuals may choose the wrong power source now but in the end I think we will see a leader in the renewable energy field.
Waste - There is to much waste should is a simple fact. I create a good deal of garbage each day. Some of it could go right into building an Earthship.
My parents have a consumption tax on garbage (currently $3.10 per trashcan) recycling is free. I pay a flat tax no matter how much garbage I produce, recycling has to be requested. I'm in favor of the consumption tax, it encourages reducing and recycling.
To show how well this works when I was growing up my dad resented what he called the Christmas tax (it took 1 extra trashcan to throughout the wrapping paper). After Christmas one year he and my mother went to the fabric store and bought a bunch of clearance Christmas fabric. Mom spent the winter sewing bags. Since then all of our Christmas presents come wrapped in fabric pull string bags, sure over my 15 years since the wrapping change hasn't saved that much money but it has helped reduce my parents trash creation.
Waste - There is to much waste should is a simple fact. I create a good deal of garbage each day. Some of it could go right into building an Earthship.
My parents have a consumption tax on garbage (currently $3.10 per trashcan) recycling is free. I pay a flat tax no matter how much garbage I produce, recycling has to be requested. I'm in favor of the consumption tax, it encourages reducing and recycling.
To show how well this works when I was growing up my dad resented what he called the Christmas tax (it took 1 extra trashcan to throughout the wrapping paper). After Christmas one year he and my mother went to the fabric store and bought a bunch of clearance Christmas fabric. Mom spent the winter sewing bags. Since then all of our Christmas presents come wrapped in fabric pull string bags, sure over my 15 years since the wrapping change hasn't saved that much money but it has helped reduce my parents trash creation.
What does this mean to IWU:
IWU has more of all the above than I do. They could lobby for wind farms like Roscoe, Texas did, and get big business money to build them. Sure they may have to sell off some land but imagine the impact of if IWU had it's own power source. IWU could buy Smart Cars and electric golf carts to shuttle things around campus.
For a more personal impact IWU could cut tuition $800 a year and let students pay the own power and water bills. They do it with cable why not with power. Since individual dorm rooms dont't have meters they could just split the cost evenly around the dorm and let peer pressure reduce costs.This would reward students who reduced their water and electricity usage.
IWU should keep their green space, they have a good deal and should keep it. They should build eco-friendly buildings, they fun kind with gardens on the roofs. They could have science majors tend the gardens and business majors could set up a farmers market to sell the produce.
IWU should use their size and community stature to introduce Earthship style buildings into Indiana, they could let their political science majors work through the legislation and red tape. They could appeal to the community with help of marketing majors.
Did you catch what I did?
I looked at environmental issues from a point of view that everyone at IWU can understand (business, finance, education). What political science student wouldn't like to help create legislation allowing and rewarding these solutions? Every business major could benefit from setting up and running a business. I ignored the core issue of the environment and crafted reasons why changes would be beneficial to everyone involved..
What about the spiritual side?
I'm not ready to go there. It's to hot button right now. The old guard won't give and will keep saying the environment isn't a spiritual issue. Wrong or right broaching this argument to soon and too often will cause division.
