It’s coming. The tidal wave of green design, energy generation and lifestyle choices seems unstoppable at this point. According to iSuppli, for instance:
Worldwide investments in the production of Photovoltaic (PV) cells will rise to the same level as those for semiconductor manufacturing by 2010, due to booming demand for solar energy, according to iSuppli Corp.
Meanwhile, in Europe engineers are re-designing their power grids into Smart Grids (though admittedly they won’t be on line until 2050).
One of my favorite out-of-the-box design ideas is the Nano Vent-Skin designed by Agustin Otegui. His idea is to wrap existing and new buildings in a “skin” that is made of thousands of tiny wind turbines. Um, wow!
And then there are the smaller-scale changes, like those made by the Redmond family in Virginia. Those might still be the hardest to implement on a wider scale. When environmental activists shake their collective heads and wonder why more people aren’t making lifestyle changes and rallying in the streets for more alternative energy, I don’t share their bewilderment. Although we work hard to live simply in our own home, I am one of those who will admit to often being overwhelmed and paralyzed by the vastness of the problem. Still, the surge in stories like these have left me feeling much more hopeful lately.
Last fall, Miles and I attended an event in NYC featuring two of our favorite scientists — Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye (yes, that wacky Science Guy). During their presentation, there were a few main strands of discussion — the shocking decline in science education in the United States, the possibility of the existence of life on Mars (everyone should hear Dr. Tyson riff on this once in their lives), and climate change.
Nye is a passionate environmental activist, and you might expect him to wiggle an accusatory finger and admonish us all to radically alter our lives to save the planet, but you’d be wrong. First off, Nye reminded us that this is not even about saving the planet. “Earth will be just fine,” he reminded us, there just might not be any humans on it. So, he concluded, what we’re really talking about is saving our species.
But Nye is a realist, he understands American culture. He is sympathetic to the soccer mom with the minivan — after all, she might have once been one of the excited kids watching his show who proclaimed that “Science Rules!” back in the day. Instead, he scolded the scolders, noting that Americans don’t want to be told to “do less with less.” His mantra? “Do MORE with LESS.” He loves watching his electric meter run backwards as his house generates power, eating great food from his own garden. When you hear Nye talk about this stuff, it’s evident that doing more with less can leave one practically giddy, and really, is that a bad thing? It sure beats lying awake in bed at night imagining you can hear the latest unimaginably huge chunk of the Antarctic ice shelf break off.
Not that I’ve ever done that.
We’re still in the baby steps stage at our house, but we’re getting there. We’ll keep on recycling every single thing we can because it’s fun to see how few garbage bags we can put out each week. I’ll keep dragging my reusable bags to the store and having the same conversation over and over with the cashiers (yeah, I know, they’re bigger, so they get heavier — it’s okay!) because the house feels lighter and cleaner when I’m not surrounded by crinkly plastic sacks after putting everything away. And you’ll pardon me if you see me sneaking yet another prideful peek at the blue glow of my new solar powered LED porch lights.
