Notes from the road to sustainability

Home... but all I see is white. Meteorologists forecast a huge winter storm for today and it seems to have arrived, but so far the power is still on. We can hole up here, eat Mandarin oranges and drink Ovaltine, and the holidays will have begun. But if the power goes out it will get cold pretty quickly. I watch the heavy flakes falling like white butterflies spinning out of control, and I wonder how we came to be so vulnerable to an uncertain future. The future I grew up with is so outdated, a future where everything can be carefully controlled - this isn't our reality anymore. Deep recession, climate change, running out of oil, these are all possible, and even likely to happen. My great uncle once asked me where I see myself if five years, I didn't have a clear answer at the time. Now I understand the question better, it's about meeting the future head-on instead of backing into it blindly. Now I know I want to be living in an efficient little house that meets my needs, with a big garden. This journey is about the process of imagining that home, and that future, as I build on a mosaic of other peoples' experiences.

Build your house out of mud

In the mid-1990's Patrick Hennebery saw an ad in a magazine that proclaimed "build your house with mud." That sounds about right, he thought to himself. Pat had been building in British Columbia's Gulf Islands for more than 10 years using modern materials, sometimes combined with driftwood and other salvaged materials, and the move to building with cob (a mix of clay, sand and straw) was a 'natural' shift. Cob is one of the most ancient building materials, and cob homes in Britain are still standing hundreds of years after they were built. Pat Hennebery learned this ancient building technique from the Cob Cottage Company, based in Oregon, who had placed the ad that inspired him. He is now part of Cobworks, and is a recognized expert in cob, having built 26 houses in the past 9 years. I visited Cobworks and the Cob Cottage Company, and was impressed by the living beauty of cob. Because the entire house is hand-sculpted, it becomes a work of art.

The oldest trees on the planet

A long steep climb from Bishop California left my car over-heating, but after a cooling-off period I drove on towards the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest in the Inyo National Forest. You don't turn back lightly from the oldest trees on the planet. One of the trees found here was aged at 4789 years old, making it the oldest known tree that is currently living, and the second oldest tree ever found. The sun was setting over the deserted hills, and as the chill and the stillness descended on trees gnarled and weathered by millenia, I felt humbled. Here, at last I had found sustainability. Standing next to a nearly 5000 year old tree, I'm sure that this is the timescale we need to consider before we can ultimately reach sustainability.

Using what you've got

In a Colorado winter there is lots of cold, but also plenty of sun. This is an opportunity for solar pioneers such as Doug Graybeal and Paul Shippee. Paul Shippee's is the only house I've visited in a cold climate that has no backup heating system other than a tiny woodstove that is rarely needed. The house runs on solar heat gained both directly through the windows and also from solar hot water panels on the roof.