EnviroLink Forum

I read in interesting statistic that of all the people surveyed who had installed solar energy, less then 1/4 of them did so for the environment (as their leading reason). I was never very worried about the environment and never heard of peak-oil (or peak-anything) until decades after I had been designing possible solar energy projects. The first thing that got me interested was wanderlust. Wanderlust is the desire to travel the world. I wanted so bad to live in a vehicle and maybe even an amphibious sea-worthy submersible vehicle. This would have been when I was 4 years old that I was trying to design such a vehicle. My family bought a camperized Volkswagen van and when the engine blew, my dad offered it to me for free as long as I had the engine replaced. Before getting the van though, my family was involved with another family and hoped to start a religious group that taught our children with home schooling and lived like modernized Hutterites. We had a lot in the middle of a forest on the north side of a mountain that we wanted to make into a home. No electricity for miles and the road up there gets washed out for weeks at a time and not maintained in the winter. Being surrounded by trees and being in the shade meant no solar and no wind. I crunched the numbers and figured we could store summer heat for winter use. I later found out a guy in Montana did so with his building and wrote a book on it "Passive Annual Heat Storage" by John Hiat. Then in social sciences I learned how fragile the economy was and the movie "Mary Poppins" showed that to me at a young age. Reading about the events leading up to the horrible situation of Hitler, the German and Austrian peoples were more free and democratic then we are now but with a small hiccup in the global economy and a bit of strategic killings of political competition and Hitler was voted in by a landslide. The people who could not be conquered in history became my focus and as you might expect, being independent of money and of outside economics was the key aspect to maintain freedom. Finally I wanted to become a filmmaker and specifically animation. The costs of production are likely under $1000 for a feature film if the workers could wait a few years to be paid. Post production would be more expensive but with a completed film, a producer can be found much easier by winning an award for the film at a festival. The question then became how to eliminate all costs of running an animation studio and a half-dozen houses for staff and a year-round greenhouse and common kitchen. The freedom to create films was gained by being self-sufficient.

so, my reasons to go green:
1) freedom to be creative much like the new Star Trek shows where they got rid of money
2) protection from economic and political disasters and other causes of the loss of freedom
3) leave more wild spaces for bears and wolves and whales and other large carnivores by concentrating humans in cities including agriculture.
4) to be a gypsy some day and travel the world without bringing a cent of money with me.
5) it might be good for animals and plants around the world if the weather did not change fast so just in case we are changing the weather... for the animals lets stop making so much CO2 and methane.

What are your reasons to go "green"?

I grew up spending a lot of time out doors. We went camping a lot and I was taught how to hunt and fish. I grew up eating wild game and fish. I was a whiz at biology and went into advanced biology and ecology as a gifted student. I was also observant of the expanding suburbs from our hill top house, taking away the wild lands, farms, and ranches. It felt wrong. I also learned to fly at an early age and saw it from the air.
I chose, for some reason, to do my thesis for advanced biology/ecology, on mammal populations. I noticed that the human population curve was exactly like that of "stimulated" mammal populations, on a generational scale. I understood exponential math, and completed the human population curve like those crash curves of various previous lab and field studies.
At first, I thought humans were too intelligent a species to let that happen. I saw my city become unbearably overpopulated. I saw it in Europe, and in SE Asia. Then in progressively various cities I lived in. Phoenix, Seattle, Grand Junction, and Colorado Springs. I also observed it in cities I had visited over the years. I watched clear skies turn to smog.
Further study made me realize the "Star trek" future I had hoped for was a pipe dream. Further study showed how right my 1967 study had been, and something not foreseen then---malevolent global warming.
I waited until I was 39 to have one child (1988). There was still hope that people would do the same and there would not be a horrible population crash circa 2050 that many more than I were seeing. Several years later I joined NPG and began my environmental activism(1993). I read Earthship and the Solar living Sourcebook, and that became my dream. I saw the forests destroyed from the air, and had felt the effects of ozone loss and partial recovery from international cooperation, from being out doors so much.
The solar and Earthship dream I made real with hard work, professionalism, discipline, energy, and an artistic bent. 1997-2000.
I am green because it is in my moral conscience to be so. I am green because I think it is the way God wants me to live. I am green because I had to walk the talk, and lead by example.
There have been great advantages, also.
I was able, with sweat equity, savings on no electric bills, savings from growing a lot of my own food, and financial discipline, to pay off my mortgage in 2006.

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"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”― Chief Seattle
“Those Who Have the Privilege to Know Have the Duty to Act”…Albert Einstein

it is our moral duty to protect the place that we live in.