My current pre-PV-system lifestyle according to MyFootprint.com adds up to 2.5 terrons, but I'm not sure how they got at the number.

First, repeating the test with energy self-supply choice doesn't change the result.

The number for mobility is the super-low one I expected, what really stands out (almost half of my footprint) is goods/services. But there weren't many questions (to be exact, there was one: on rubbish) that ask about my use of those. I think detailed questions on my purchase would definitely put me lower.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

On the topic of heating:
I find that I don't mind much if the place I live in is cold. An extra sweater and a blanket can do much to keep me warm enough in the winter. I like sleeping in cold rooms a lot and find little reason to heat my bedroom, except for the very coldest days. What I do want to get is an infrared directional heater to turn on when I get out of bed. I find the time between getting out from under my blankets to having my clothes on quite unpleasant in a cold room, and I can spend quite some time dreading to get up and having to confront the cold, which slows me down on cold winter mornings. Electric IR heaters are very nice if one only wants warmth for a short time in one spot. They irradiate you, rather than insisting on heating the entire room. Once I get one of these and set it to turn on 5mn before my alarm clock, I think my quality of getting out of bed in the winter will improve significantly.

The hard nut to crack is the one of getting people to "sacrifice" now so that people in the future will be better off.

There is no current mechanism that rewards those conserving in the present. Depending on altruism is a weak straw to grasp, there are many who think altruism doesn't even exist. (That is what appears to be altruism also provides a reward to the person making the sacrifice - even if it is only psychological.)

I think this realization is why most politicians who favor conservation promote the anticipated rewards of more profitability and business opportunities for green firms. This is still an appeal to growth not to consumption restraint.

People in the past have been asked by their leaders to make enormous sacrifices (think Londoners during the blitz, or the Great Leap Forward) because they were told that the sacrifices were necessary and noble. We have no such leadership currently.

Policies not Politics
---- Daily Landscape

...to being a bit of a wastrel. I have electric heaters at home, though I like it about 17-18 C inside when it is -20 C outside. The heat goes off in May and comes on again in September. I have an electric sauna which I use for a couple of hours once a week, except for the summer when it might be twice a week - but that usually cleans more bodies than one.

I shower in the morning and it is fast. Our water is heated by a fairly efficient electric boiler in the cellar set at about 60 C. In my opinion it could be set lower - but there is a young kid upstairs. Laundry goes into a modern small washing machine set on the shortest setting at 40 C. Bed linen goes to a service. I have a half-size dish washer. I have no microwave and no oven. But I love cooking and make food from scratch every day.

All this is fairly reasonable, though the sauna is an expensive luxury. Then it gets more damning....

I have a small leased car, and, living in the countryside, would find it hard to survive without it, in my business. I live about 35 kms from Helsinki and often take the bus or train (leaving the car in the carpark) - but only if I have just one or two places to visit and no equipment to cargo. I go into town to work maybe once or twice a week, and very very rarely for recreation.

But then we have the equipment - and the only thing I can say in my defence, is that I work mostly at home and I would find it hard to continue to do what I do without the technology. There's some powerful computers, about a m2 of LCD screens, 2 DVDs, a VHS, a rather heavy sound system (c'mon - I was a record producer once), printers, and a UPS. Most of it is on all day, because I work all day and often through the evening. But, I admit, there is room for savings.

We do have a large compost which is used religiously April - October and I recycle everything (easy to do in Finland). We grow herbs only in the garden, but I wouldn't mind extending that to some non-staples. During the summer I buy quite a lot of local produce.

I do not have a newspaper, nor do I buy any magazines. But I do buy books. I am possibly the worst consumer in our village - the only toy I have is a PS2, now in a cupboard, from when the girls were younger. I rarely buy clothes - but when I do, I go for quality = durability. I do enjoy good wine and other natural substance abuse - the latter from local growers.

The last few years I have severely cut back on flying (mainly due to a change in the business i do), and make maybe one or two personal flights a year, and perhaps only 5 business flights. The rest is by ship to Sweden, or by train, bus or car within Finland.

Compared with most Finns, I have a small footprint (I believe). But that doesn't excuse anything. I sure use a lot of electricity. I've done the obvious things of switching to CF lighting, and  must start killing power whenever possible - so what is the next step?

I think the next step is to use what I know - my trade - to try to persuade others that there are simple 'baby steps' by which we, as a society, could save 10 - 20% of our energy consumption by thoughtfulness. At least it would be a start, and I wouldn't have to grow vegetables or become one. To this end, TGB and I continue to work on a TV format that might make some small contribution.

We will report on progress in due course - probably sometime in August.

Well that was good to get off my chest ;-)

You can't be me, I'm taken

Our living situation is in flux so computing the current terron would be of limited value, and embarassing too boot.  

so I won't do it.  ;-p

The new-to-us house¹ is a two story adobe built in the 1910s so it's a real adobe with 20 inch (50.8 centimeters) thick walls.  That thermal mass is a real boon and keeps the interior temperature such that only minor energy input is needed to cool  (ceiling fans) and heat (wood stoves)the place.  Most so-called adobes being built now only use a half-brick as a facade.

A serious problem I faced when I started the re-model was the building codes.  The location is ideal for wind power and we really wanted to get 'off-grid.'  Alas, I would have needed (1) to get a variance which meant going before the county board (a bigger collection of buffoons t'would be hard to beat) and (2) spend $25,000 to establish the system.  

No go.

So I built the electrical system such that we can easily retro-fit to wind when we can slip it past the board and we have the capital.  

We will use propane for cooking and water heating.  I really wanted to put in a solar hot water heater but it would have taken a complete rebuild of the roof and a total retro-fit of the plumbing to do.  

We do have a well tapping the local water table.  Solar powered pumps are readily available so we intend to replace the current grid-based system and install solar to irrigate our gardens and orchard.  Along one south-facing wall I plan to establish pear, fig, pomegranate, peach, and cherry trees.  Pistachio trees will be planted.  I'm going to try to grow oranges, limes, and lemons.  They are marginal but hope is eternal.

We will put 4 raised gardens on the east side of the property.  A movable hoop greenhouse will be used for food production during the short winters.  I haven't decided where to put the herb garden but on the east boundary I plan to establish a rosemary hedge for privacy and as a source.  If our distillation equipment has survived the various moves - I haven't dared to look - we will be able to supply organic tinctures to the local herbalists as barter goods.

Less than an a half a mile (1 kilometer) away are two apple orchards.  They irrigate so I'm hoping to be able to talk them into letting us raise some baa-lambs on their grass.  We don't eat much meat so 4 lambs would more than cover that requirement.

Several people already raise chickens so we hope to be able to tie into that network.  I'd like to find someone who raises ducks, geese, and other 'exotic' poultry.  

No diary that we can find, dammitall.  Unless we can find someone, or talk someone into it, we're going to have to buy our milk and milk products: butter, cheese, yoghurt, kefir, & etc.  mumble-grumble  We prefer sheep's milk, that's past hoping for.  Goat's milk is seasonal and only at obscene prices.  Jersey moo-juice is third and in many years haven't found a supply of that either. We can't even purchase a cow and have it miked for us.  I guess the state of New Mexico is afraid we'll turn into IslamoCommieTerrorist cheesemakers.  "Submit to our demands!  We have mozzarella balls² and we're not afraid to use them!"  So it looks like we're going to be stuck buying that damnable, watery, tasteless, Holstein garbage.  

The point here -- what is the point? -- oh yeah ...

Our Terron rating will be bad from an energy demand/use standard but we should more than make that up on the food supply side.

¹  The place is huge.  The house is over 4,000 square feet on six large lots.  The purchase price was well below $30k.  It needed much work but we were able to buy it so cheaply only because my fellow Americans are insane.  Also we got lucky - we found out it was for sale before anyone else and made our offer quick, quick, quick.

²  Sounds like a "social disease" don't it? "Not right now, dear.  I have mozzarella balls." ;-)


She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

wonderful diary, folks...

the long tail addressed here...jerome's doing the heavy lifting at the short head...

i hope to have lots to share over the next few months, with the installation of minimum 2.5 kw of pv panels, and possibly a add-on greenhouse to help heat in winter.

i also need to install/build water containers to store rainwater and solar-pumped water from the well, to water plants and trees. using water that's too cold fresh from the well is not good for them, plus it just feels right to catch more rain.

just got a a++ rated new fridge/freezer, and have ordered a woodstove which will heat the water in winter, the whole house, and provide an oven for casseroles and bread.

am getting permit to build outside pizza oven.

there ai so much free wood to burn, it makes sense to use it, plus the old method of piling brush and burning it seems wasteful, and in summer is illegal, obviously.

i bought an electric shredder, but have used it only a little, as it pulls 2 kw, and i want to get that juice coming from the sun before i get it going bigtime.

having tried it out, i'm really happy with its ability to create instant mulch from branches up to 4cm wide, excellent for aerating compost piles too. this will be a huge benefit in my soil building, and will make short work of sunflower stalks too.

sunnies grow really well...as in: toss seeds out onto untilled ground and have them come up, but in tilled soil and with watering they thrive like crazy.

apart from usefulness in appetite-suppressing healthy nibbling, a hydraulic press could provide me with good oil, for eating, massaging and even for running a tractor.

i don't hardly use the tractor a few days a year anyway...

monday an bio-engineer is coming to spec out the property for all the potential, and he confirmed that there are some very favorable new laws in the pipeline, to encourage solar energy farming and for add-on greenhouses.

i was just about to plonk down 30% of the solar panel money, had a flash to call a friend, who turned me on to this engineer.

...who told me the panels i was about to buy (chinese) lasted half as long as the ones he sold (german), which also produced up to 5 times the power!

cost a bit more, and he wouldn't be pinned over the phone to the percentage diff.

besides he was raving how i wouldn't have to put out any capital, and good get paid to produce with others' investment, with immediate unlimited free electricity from now on..

will sift through all this new info added to the soup tomorrow and report.

i have a small 5m day-sailboat moored on the lake half an hour's drive away i can sleep out on in the summer, it's fun to go out to the nature preserve bird sanctuary on isola polvese and camp out, as no-one lives there, and all you hear is the beat of big wings, the lapping of the water and the wind in the trees...

so i may be able to generate some extra income renting out the house summertime, and stay down on the water, which makes the ever-warming summers a lot easier to handle.

some great info, thanks, people

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

Wondering which language to write "Wow" ... honestly, too tired to do justice in reading this but will return to this (hopefully time and again).

Thank you.

Blogging regularly at Get Energy Smart. NOW!!!

I'm sure this idea has been brought up on Eurotrib at some point in the past, though I mention it here because it's a new thought to ME, anyway, so:

One way of getting people to reduce their water/gas/electricity use would be to determine a "mean" usage for a household based on the number of occupants, period (NOT square footage or anything else.)  Then if a household used less than the mean, they would pay a smaller rate for that useage (gallons, KwH, etc) but if they used more than that average, they would pay a higher rate, and if they used a LOT more than the average, they would pay a much higher rate for it.

Same thing should apply to car size.  I know in some places people have to pay a tax on their vehicles based on the weight of them, and this should be universal as well, I think.

(We've gotten our electrical consumption down to about 700 KwH per month.  I don't even know if that's very good.)

Nothing new, I suppose, but please don't troll rate me.

Karen in Austin

'tis strange I should be old and neither wise nor valiant. From "The Maid's Tragedy" by Beaumont & Fletcher

I am so happy, proud, amazed and excited by these examples, I don´t know what to say!  Inspired and envious too, that your plans are so much farther along than mine.

My footprint right now may be 2, but I resist calculating it and I try to live by guidelines I make up as I go along.  No dishwasher, no dryer, no vacuum (no carpet), no car, no ironing!, almost no chemicals, heat only the living room (and morning shower) in the winter, bring no "stuff" into the house, but food and drink...

I have a long ways to go to a sustainable, rural community life.
 

Our knowledge has surpassed our wisdom. -Charu Saxena.

I still cannot see those tinypic urls...

The difference between theory and practise in practise ...

No here are some people getting real...

The UK could cut carbon emissions to zero in 20 years, but only if people accept a virtual end to air travel and stop using fuel-driven cars, a report claimed yesterday.

    Meat would also need to disappear off many menus and an "armada" of wind turbines would be required to be built around the coast to achieve the goal, according to the new research.

    Money would meanwhile be overtaken in importance by carbon credits traded by everyone using special smart cards.

    The radical vision was put forward by researchers and scientists from the Centre for Alternative Technology (Cat) and was announced as details were revealed of the UK's longest protest march to call for action on climate change.

    The 1000-mile trek around the UK will take in 70 towns and cities and involve an estimated 50,000 people.

    The scientists from Cat set themselves the task of seeing if the UK could cut fossil fuel emissions to zero by 2027.

    They claim achieving such a drastic cut in emissions is possible and may be the only way to tackle climate change.

    Paul Allen, the development director of Cat, said: "What we are saying is that we need a huge programme, a bit like the US space project in the 1960s.

    "When that was launched it was known to be a huge target, but the driving force to make it work was there. We think that zerocarbonbritain can do that again; it can give us a positive future."

    In its report, CAT suggests people would be given their own carbon credits called Tradable Energy Quotas (TEQs) and carry them on the environmental equivalent of the London transport Oyster card. Each year the free allocation would decrease as the country moves towards zero carbon, with the effect that the value of the quotas will go up.

    But every time consumers use fossil fuels, say by filling their cars up with petrol, they would lose valuable credits, forcing them to choose low carbon alternatives.

    The resulting market would drive environmental change, providing the economic incentive to produce green products. One major effect, according to the authors, would be that electric, battery-operated cars would quickly overtake use of the internal combustion engine.

    Households would be forced to invest in ways to make their homes energy efficient, and switch from gas to biofuels or renewable electricity.

    But there would also be "negative" effects in terms of the lifestyle that people currently enjoy.

    Air travel would become far too expensive unless the industry "pulls something out of the hat" and finds a green fuel.

    And the diet of the country would have to change to include far more organically-grown, locally-produced vegetables, and less meat.

    Tens of thousands of wind turbines would be built, mainly around the UK's shores, to provide 50% of the country's new energy needs.

    The rest would come from a combination of biofuel "combined heat and power" stations, wave power, hydroelectricity and tidal schemes.

    Meanwhile, walkers from around the world are preparing to embark on what organisers believe will be the UK's longest protest march to call for action on climate change.

    Campaigners will set out from Northern Ireland next Saturday on a 1000-mile trek around the UK taking in 70 towns and cities, finishing at the London Stock Exchange 11 weeks later.

    An estimated 50,000 people are expected to join the walkers at different points, gathering signatures for a petition calling on Gordon Brown to bring in a new law forcing companies to reveal their carbon dioxide emissions.

and the usual suspects proposing too-little-too-late self-serving bandaids.

    In another move to tackle climate change, Boeing has unveiled its new "green" 787 Dreamliner aircraft powered by Rolls-Royce engines. The 250-seat plane will fly for the first time this autumn and will go into passenger service in May 2008.

    With Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines, the Dreamliner is 25% British-made.

    Boeing boasts that the plane will use 20% less fuel per passenger than similarly sized aircraft, will produce fewer carbon emissions and will have quieter take-offs and landings.

wow, a 20 percent reduction, I'm so [not] impresssed.

game over -- reset... one way or another.

The difference between theory and practise in practise ...