Even in Kyoto

Last Wednesday evening, D, L and I attended an event put on by the Phoenix Permaculture Guild. It was a presentation by a guy named Scott Kellogg, who is a co-founder of an Austin-based organization called the Rhizone Collective.

Do you ever have one of those experiences where at first you feel like the information that is presented is relatively simple and straightforward, and only later realize that actually learned a whole lot? Well, that was kind of what this presentation was like. It was a presentation/workshop called Radical Urban Sustainability Training, where the overall idea was to teach us about cheap and innovative methods to make urban living more sustainable.

One of the most interesting aspects of the whole thing was how it incorporated knowledge about microbiology and other living systems into design plans. Kellogg pointed out, for example, that drinking water is chlorinated to kill bacteria/harmful microbes, but that this also affects beneficial bacteria in soil ecosystems. So when people irrigate with chlorinated water, they often do as much harm as good. He also said that one of the main reasons why worm castings are so great for gardens is because worms don't kill microbes during digestion, so their castings are still rich with all sorts of delicious bacteria.

But Kellogg also talked about the opposite side of dealing with microbes, particularly the case of composting human waste (which can be pretty dangerous if done incorrectly) and also simple systems for water sterilization. And I should mention that he also described some systems that can be used to treat most types of household wastewater, keeping it from unnecessarily undergoing the extensive municipal treatments that are designed for treating everything from household wastes through industrial wastes.

One subject that he commented on towards the very end of his lecture really stuck with me. Someone in the audience asked about the application of many of the ideas/methods to other countries, and Kellogg said that, based on his experiences, such applications won't be nearly as cheap/simple in developing nations as they are in the United States. That's mostly because of the amount of excess waste that Americans produce--companies here pay to dispose of still-valuable resources, which makes those resources cheap/free for people who can creatively repurpose them. In contrast, landfills in so-called developing nations are thoroughly picked-over, so that little reuseable material is ever left behind. The described technologies could certainly be applied, but they won't be nearly as cheap as they are here.

And the last aspect that I want to mention is Kellogg's perspective on alternative energy, because it's in marked contrast to the emphases that are receiving a lot of public attention these days (systems that seem designed to line the pockets of corporations inasmuch as they provide alternative energy sources). He pointed out that alternative energy sources that are heavily technology-dependent will never become very widespread, because they are dependent on advanced technology for their manufacture. For example, even if we could get solar panels shipped out to some place in the middle of the Amazon rainforest, they would eventually become difficult/impossible to repair. And such technologies often break before they manage to pay for themselves in purely monetary terms anyway.

No, the energy solutions will have to come from elsewhere. Instead, Kellogg said that the Rhizome Collective has been focusing on low-tech alternative energy sources. For example, they created a solar water heater by taking a regular water heater, stripping it of its insulation down to its black iron core, and placing it into a stripped-down refrigerator. When this system is kept in the sun, the dark metal does a fantastic job of capturing energy from the sun to heat the water. The refrigerator insulation then keeps the water warm enough through the night so that one can take a warm shower in the morning. At present, old water heaters and old refrigerators are abundant in the US of A, and here's a system that's cheap and simple to build (=also simple to repair) and could replace one of the devices that consumes the most electricity in many households.

And all of that is probably just the tip of the iceberg. I believe that we need more people capable of this kind of thinking/innovation/inspiration if we truly seek to create a sustainable future.

Lately, I feel that I have been a terrible gift-giver, if one looks to material goods as gifts. But on the other hand, I'd rather give gifts borne out of careful thought and not tied to particular occasions than thoughtless junk. There's an extra bonus for handmade things, because those show a commitment of time and the mark of the maker's hands, as well as a different sort of thoughtfulness (what can I make that would be the right thing for that particular person?).

Ceramics has turned into an act of such gift-giving. To be sure, I make many things for myself, but at a certain point I think that sort of making will wane and the gifting will expand. I've tried hard to be careful to make things thoughtfully, in consideration of function and in great contrast to my earlier makings of many useless shapes (a good number of these will find new life in different functions, as shards). It's an interesting shift in thought.