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Sustainable development meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
- definition of sustainability known as the Brundtland Report.
World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987
We begin by acknowledging the simple and often overlooked truth that anything that is not sustainable will eventually not be sustained! The question then is, do we wait to see when our unsustainable practices will end by dint of exhaustion of resources? Or, do we look to a future where we can take responsibility for our actions and begin to engage in practices that seek to renew, restore and replenish the resources we use?
All of the choices we make in how we leave our tracks upon the Earth should filter through the criteria of multi-generational sustainability. We are now entering an era where our unsustainable actions and those of our ancestors are resulting in a potentially catastrophic ecological rebalancing of the books.
This proposal is about coming to a place where natural builders who often build outside the legal building permit process, and code officials who enforce codes that are in some cases outmoded, can work cooperatively to integrate sustainable and regenerative building practices into the permitting process to maintain safety and reduce our ecological footprint. *
*Your ecological footprint is an estimate of the area the earth needs to provide for your needs, depending on your lifestyle. This footprint makes it possible to assess the direct impact you have on the environment and is becoming an increasingly accurate tool for monitoring humanitys impact on our planets vital life support systems.
In the United States, buildings account for:
36 percent of total energy use and 65 percent of electricity consumption
30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions
30 percent of raw materials use
30 percent of waste output (136 million tons annually)
12 percent of potable water consumption
Source: U.S. Green Building Council
The Current Problem
Our Buildings and the Way We Construct Them Contribute to Global Warming
Our dwellings contribute to the release of greenhouse gases. This is broken down in the chart at right.
The priority now is to ensure that our homes are safe and sustainable as we face the inevitabilities of fossil fuel energy depletion, resource exhaustion, water quality problems and scarcity, economic fluctuations, and extreme weather events that come with human-created climate change.
Sustainability and Regenerative Technologies Are Not Yet Part of Building Codes
Initially the regulatory systems were intended to protect the health and safety of people within the built environment, as well as to protect the environment from actions of the people. Unfortunately, although the idea of safety is still paramount, the codes also enforce the use of conventional materials to the exclusion of alternatives. New products that are introduced often times are included based solely on the immediate safety and convenience of the use of that product. Without calling out these potential harmful products by name, suffice it to say that when the entire life cycle of the product is analyzed including manufacture and disposal, the product has a much higher embodied cost in energy and effect to human and environmental health. Thus, the net effect of existing regulation is to require homes and communities to often be built in a manner that is not consistently healthy or sustainable and is dependent on an infrastructure that is both wasteful and toxic to the environment and the people in it.
Current regulations and financial institutions often make the following difficult or impossible to implement:
Rainwater and surface water catchment and storage systems for domestic, fire safety and emergency back up use
Resource circulation systems (i.e. greywater, blackwater, roof rainwater, surface water)
Use of natural building materials with low ecological footprint
Ability to sustainably harvest natural and recycled materials locally
Salvage and reuse of existing resources
Appropriate technology and landscape integrated building and site design
Low technology construction applications, i.e. self and community built
Alternative energy use, consumption reduction, and passive energy (ie. including biogas digester systems, solar, hydro, alternative fuels)
Retrofitting of existing buildings for passive solar benefit
Thermophyllic humanure composting and soil production
Home food production
Tiny houses
Co-housing
Phased building
Building with salvaged materials
Housing is a Security Issue and It Is At Risk
The most effective means of reducing our contributions to global environmental degradation and our dependence on non-renewable resources are simple, sensible, inexpensive, and often illegal. If homeowners are not allowed to be self-sufficient, the means to make ones family secure are hobbled.
What is needed?
Citizens working alongside regulatory officials must develop standards for ecologically sustainable (as a baseline minimum) and regenerative buildings and the accompanying systems that take into account a broad picture of health and safety for future generations within our immediate, local, regional and planetary ecology.
Research and Development into the Safety of Natural Building.
This would be a collaborative effort with those officials entrusted with the daunting task of guarding public safety. As part of this effort, a team of leaders in the Natural Building Trades met this November, 2006 at Occidental Arts and Ecology Center to investigate strategies and the viability of proposing legislation that would allow for property owners to take part in a well coordinated research and development effort to substantiate the safety and sustainability of various natural building and infrastructure systems. (Please see the report on this meeting by Michael Smith in this issue.)
Amnesty and Observation of Existing Natural Buildings.
Under this program, existing natural buildings, through the smart development of new systems used for promoting natural building practices, can be introduced into the mainstream with the goal of social acceptance and subsequent promotion through the building regulation system. As it is now, only a few people on the periphery, relative to the overall human population, are choosing to build and inhabit this Earth sustainably.
Communities Working Together to Make Safe Choices.
Unless sustainable living is a wide scale practice, we are all moving down a trail of ecological catastrophe. This must be the impetus for us to set aside ideologies and pull together on a grand scale under the uniting and self-defining banner of engaging only in that which is truly responsible and sustainable. It is important to remember that we now have the available resources and diverse skill sets within individuals and systems that can quickly become catalysts for timely, massive, and appropriate change. We just need the will!
Tenets of Sustainable Development for Human Habitation
Promote diversity Know and honor the origins of that which sustains you Think through seven generations of cause and effect Make personal choices that contribute to building soil Support sustainable systems and discourage toxic materials, services and systems Develop and use technology responsibly Promote mutual interdependence
Why we need to REBOOT OUR HUMAN OPERATING SYSTEM
We are in a place in our history where a re-evaluation of our impacts is crucial to ensuring our survival.
1. Responding to Environmental Imperatives
Carbon dioxide is a global warming gas. Normally, this is a good thing if levels are kept stable because it keeps our planet habitable. However, by clearing forests which help to uptake carbon in the atmosphere, and by burning fossil fuels such as coal, gas and oil which pumps carbon into the air, we continue to dramatically increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the Earths atmosphere, and as a result, temperatures are rising.
Climate change affects all of us. The vast majority of scientists agree that global warming is real, that it is occurring at an increasing rate and that it is the result of our activities and not a natural occurrence. The evidence is overwhelming and undeniable. Were already seeing changes- glaciers are melting, plants and animals are being forced from their habitats, and the number of severe storms and droughts are increasing.
The latest projections, based on state-of-the art climate models, indicate that if global heat-trapping emissions proceed at the current medium to high rate, temperatures in California are expected to rise 4.7 to 10.5°F by the end of the century.
Higher temperatures are already causing increased flooding and drought, more extreme weather, rising sea levels, and the spread of infectious disease, all of which pose significant risks to terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems everywhere.
Over the last century, the average temperature in Fresno, California, as an example has increased from 61.9°F (1899-1928 average) to 63.3°F (1966-1995 average), and precipitation has decreased by up to 20% in many parts of the state.
The past 10 out of 14 years have shown to be the hottest on record according to national climate statistics.
Natural building, as a way to dwell sustainably and regeneratively on the planet, is part of this needed change.
2. Were Choosing the World Our Children and Grandchildren Will Inherit
Preparing for these unavoidable climate changes will require minimizing further stresses on sensitive ecosystems and implementing management and regulatory practices that integrate climate risks into long-term planning strategies. Because most global warming emissions remain in the atmosphere for decades or centuries, the quality of life our children and grandchildren experience will depend on if and how rapidly we reduce these emissions.
3. The Measure of a Healthy and Safe Home Must Include Its Impact on the Planet
Buildings and their construction account for nearly half of the energy consumed in this country and a third of all the greenhouse gas emissions. Globally, the percentage is even greater. How has this happened? The current building and health regulations require industrially processed materials (which often emit highly toxic fumes) and construction practices that are highly carbon dependent in the processing of the materials and in keeping the buildings at a livable temperature.
4. Regulatory Mandates Need to Tax Toxics and Subsidize Regeneration
The regulatory conditions that exist in our over-developed world have been slow in responding to current social and environmental imperatives that should define health and safety now. Californians need to be able to build homes that are affordable, healthy, highly energy efficient, built by community effort, with local materials that have low embodied energy, are highly energy efficient, and have an overall sustainable ecological footprint. Current governmental programs subsidize unsustainable practices and often penalize sustainable systems. This needs to be reversed. Citizen mandates should create an environment that necessitates the taxing of systems and practices that are toxic and unsustainable and subsidize ecologically smart and sustainable practices.
5. Our Long Term Housing and Ecological Viability are at Stake
The definition of human rights should include availability of shelter, water, energy, and food in a manner that maintains ecological equitability. This can be accomplished within a performance-based regulatory model for residences.
There are both immediate and long-term dwelling and ecological degradation issues in requiring homes to be connected to the grid of an elaborate, costly, wasteful, and even dangerous infrastructure that transports energy, water, raw materials, food, and waste products vast distances to process and reprocess instead of allowing people to shelter, warm, heat and feed themselves within a more efficient, more localized setting.
6. Public Health
Every Californians health is affected by air pollution, intensifying heat waves, an expanding range of infectious diseases, and diminishing available basic energy and water resources.
Our health is put at risk when we are forced to live in houses, occupy buildings, and live in communities that are heavily embedded with toxic substances. It should be our goal to reduce the release of persistent bio-accumulative toxic chemicals found in many of the materials required by current building regulations including, chlorinated building materials, PBT based material treatments, formaldehydes, polyvinylchlorides (PVCs), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and heavy metal additives or components.
Our homes would ideally be built with local and global health in mind and require very limited energy inputs. Sustainability is intricately linked to human and ecological health, by using materials that are non-toxic and natural and appropriate to the region. A natural building and sustainable site infrastructure accommodates most of these basic human needs on-site or nearby with no or low-impact and low resource consumption techniques.
Naturally built homes and sustainably designed living environments with daylighting and plants measurably improve the health and productivity of the occupants.
7. Water Resources
Continued global warming and population growth will increase pressure on water resources, which are already over-stretched by the demands of our growing economy, industrial practices and population, not to mention policies resulting in inadequate water collection and wasteful usage.
Innovative solutions to drought proof homes by harvesting rainwater and reusing precious and increasingly scarce water resources face regulatory and institutional barriers. These regulations prohibit the use of surface water catchments and storage for domestic use and greywater collection and distribution systems that can be major contributors to landscape fertility around the home for growing shade and food trees, gardens, etc.
One-third of all precious and limited drinking water goes towards flushing toilets. Safe, proven alternatives are available. Research on waterless excreta management would yield very large dividends.
8. Energy Resources
As temperatures increase, the Sierra snow pack will decrease even further, which will reduce Californias hydroelectric power by as much as 30 percent by the end of the century.
Higher temperatures will likely increase electricity demand due to higher air conditioning use, as was seen in the 2006 summer heat waves throughout North America. Even if the population remained unchanged toward the end of the century, annual electricity demand could increase by as much as 20 percent.
Average household energy costs are projected to continue rising dramatically in the next several years. Many homes and buildings require large amounts of diminishing energy resources to build and maintain. In contrast, the use of appropriate natural building materials can serve to moderate extreme temperatures, in a low resource-consuming and far more cost-saving manner.
Much of the climate crisis we are experiencing can be lessened by building homes that require minimal industrially processed materials and conservative energy design; Examples include passive solar design, materials that store energy and insulate naturally, simple living systems that require little energy input, and locally harvested building materials used to build in a simple form.
9. Other Natural Resources
Our forests and soil-building landscapes are being stripped faster than they can regenerate which greatly contributes to global warming and leads to less productive long-term sustainable agriculture systems.
The average new home requires 13,837 board feet of lumber (thats more than 70 trees on average!) and 19 tons of cement, among many other highly processed, toxic, and high energy embodied materials. Every ton of cement produced releases one ton of CO2 into the atmosphere, increasing the greenhouse effect. Research on alternative building materials could be highly beneficial.
Our current use of sophisticated technology, industrially-processed materials, and specialized component design ignores the consequences of their impacts on natural systems.
An average of 23,000 pounds of carbon dioxide are emitted annually by each American home.
With diminishing essential natural resources, an effort to change public perception/legal requirements to build smaller square-foot homes (500 sq. feet or less), allows for the use of mostly local, natural (non-or minimally processed) materials, and a reduced demand for the resources themselves. Right now we cannot legally build a primary residence in California that is under 800sq. feet.
The abundance and health maintenance of our forests are vital for remediating global warming. In addition to reforestation strategies, there must be a concomitant reduction of the use of forest products in building construction. One way this can be achieved is through the legalization of the use of other natural materials such as cob (clay, sand and fiber), strawbale, waddle and daub, earth brick, rammed earth, or other such technology, without requiring industrially-processed materials be included in any part of the building construction.
An often-overlooked invaluable resource is indigenous knowledge and understanding. In building sustainably, indigenous knowledge draws on hundreds and thousands of years of relationship with a particular site and/or bioregion where people have experience with appropriate technology that works within the delicate resource web of the area.
10. Affordability
Natural building materials and small homes because of the lower costs could potentially bring home ownership within reach of more people.
The design engineering and legal wrangling required to negotiate the permitting process to build simply and sustainably creates a financial burden. Without official recognition and approval of alternatives, people are forced into undesirable expediencies that damage their environment and quality of life, such as living with toxic housing conditions, increased commutes, longer work hours to support homes that are increasingly expensive to the people and the environment to build and maintain. People who desire simple, sustainable alternatives are frequently forced into outlaw builder status, causing alienation rather than integration into communities. Often the solutions arrived at by these builders suffer in their execution and sustainability without the advice of community and regulating officials whose input and experience with local conditions could be immeasurably useful. Eventual discovery often taxes the already overburdened local enforcement community, and causes costly legal battles and remediation.
It is imperative to move away from regulations that have allowed economic gains for a few people at the expense of sustainable habitation for the majority of the population. In addition, this proposal seeks to emphasize quality building over the quantity of enclosed volumes. As Albert Einstein said, No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.
By using natural building techniques, a family with basic skills can build a natural, comfortable, safe, healthy and affordable home for less than the cost of the permit fees in most counties in the state of California.
IMPLEMENTING CHANGE
Our ability to implement change as a species comes from individuals living the change in their own lives, not from placing our hopes on political reform nor from an attitude that monumental catastrophe is needed for broad scale human change to occur. As we heard one attendee of the OAEC meeting comment, It is of no use rearranging the deck chairs and bickering about the toxicity of the carpet in the ballroom of the Titanic when we need to run to the bridge to steer around the looming iceberg.
It is time to steer a new course. It may seem strange to propose cooperative measures with code officials who have been perceived to be yes-men for an unmerciful system, but when we open our ears and minds we find that we all want to make the best decisions for our future generations.
Warren Brush
Quail Springs and
Trees for Children
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Dafyd Rawlings
Wellspring Design Consultation
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Warren Brush lives with his wife Cyndi at Quail Springs and is a storyteller, poet, permaculture designer, writer and applied ecologist who co-founded Quail Springs, Mentoring for Peace, Wilderness Youth Project and the True Nature Society. He teaches and mentors individuals and groups in tending the family fire, mentoring for peace, permaculture design, and other elemental learning bundles. He shares his gifts in a unique programs that "nurture the Peacewalker and promote sustainability" in local, national and international forums.
Dafyd Rawlings lives with his wife Yolanda in Santa Fe and is a LEED accredited professional, intern architect with an MA in Architecture, permacultural designer and Natural Building Network member. He has taught natural building at The Farm, Lama Foundation, Ecoversity and Spirit Pine Sanctuary. He was the director and general contractor of the Dempsey House Rejuvenation Project and operates his own design consultation firm. His interests lie in challenging existing paradigms and engaging individuals in new modes of thinking beneficial to future well being.
SOURCES
Wackernagel, M. & Rees, W. Our Ecological Footprint: Reducing Human Impact on the Earth. Canada, New Society Publishers. 1996.
Our Changing Climate, Assessing the Risks to California, California Climate Change Center, 2006
Our Changing Climate, Assessing the Risks to California, California Climate Change Center, 2006
IPCC- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Retrieved on August 30, 2006 from [Online] www.designe2.com
Jenkins, J. (2005). Humanure. Retrieved Sept 1, 2006, from [Online] www.joseph-jenkins.com
Our Changing Climate, Assessing the Risks to California, California Climate Change Center, 2006
Our Changing Climate, Assessing the Risks to California, California Climate Change Center, 2006
Materials for new home: National Association of Home Builders, "Housing Facts, Figures & Trends 2004"; NAHB Research Center, "2001 Builders Practices Survey."
The Cement Industrys Role in Climate Change by Dr Robert McCaffrey, Editor, GCL: Global Cement and Lime Magazine
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
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