Earth Haven - The Energy Crisis

Whow!

I just spent a week living in a solar home and in a community that is trying to be self-sufficient, Earth Haven in NC. Since they are humans, they have a bucket of problems just like the rest of us. Nevertheless, I consider the experience life altering. I feel like Moses when he was given a glimpse of the promise land from high a top a hill.

This Moses is not qualified by his virtue, but by his technical skills. The people in Earth Haven are qualified by their personal courage to run an experiment with their lives for the rest of us to benefit.

I am going to be writing about what I saw and thought for years to come. But just a glimpse. If you live in a solar home on a week when it rains three days a week, guess what. You have to adjust your life and consider what energy consumption is required. Guess what, you turn off the tv, actually they didn't have a tv, but they did have a great system to watch movies on, DVD, screeen, etc. Guess what. We had to talk to each other and play board games. We watched the news from Democracy.Now on a laptop. We turned lights on in the vicinity of where we they were needed, no where else. No hair dryers (use a towel), no toasters, no microwaves, no electric mixers, no Foreman grills. And guess what, it was fine. It was more than fine, it was great. The family actually has to plan and talk to each about their day.

Now this house used propane for their heat. Others used wood stoves. Others did better with passive solar. More on all the technologies at another time.

Guess what. When you have to manage your energy consumption it forces you to make the decisions necessary to alter your lives. Imagine if all Americans had to live for a few weeks with a limited amount of energy coming into their house. Imagine a small wire coming into your house to charge your batteries. A fixed supply of energy to be used as your family deemed important. Most families are dysfunctional at some level, so the initial drama could be huge.

I can hear you now. I am not giving up my living style. Its too good. I am too happy with the life style myself and my family have. I have a right to waste as much energy as I choose. Screw the food shortage, those poor bastards who need the food that we are converting to ethanol be damned. Jehovah Bush just told us it was okay, in fact, it is good for America. If you believe Jehovah Bush, then go find another blog.

This is the beginning of a long journey, first in my mind, then hopefully in my life, to apply what I just learned this week. It is not that I saw a perfect world at Earth Haven, far from it, but I saw the rarest of events, a new concept for my life. Today I felt the first stirrings of that seed, trying to send out a small root into my consciousness. I hope to encourage the growth of that seed until it push a bud right through the top of my thick skull.