Earth Ships: Sustainable, Affordable, Environmentally-Sound Climate-Change Havens
The answer to a prayer all those years ago. Yet, but for a few, the concept fell on deaf ears
I remember this as if it were yesterday, yet it was a long time ago.
I was watching the ‘Beyond 2000’ series on ABC, here in Australia. We’d just come to Canberra to live, and, (as you do), bought a house in a rapidly-rising market.
We couldn’t have been more unlucky, some may say foolhardy, but at the time, Canberra house prices seemed to be rising by the thousands per month.
We decided the best thing to do would be to buy a home under construction. Everything would be new and we could concentrate on other things.
Big mistake.
The house turned out to be the most jerry-built home in the neighborhood. The developer, bound by a three-month occupancy rule, refused to fix all the problems that he was required to do.
Turns out he was not a qualified builder, and nor were his employee trades people. I’ll spare you the details. Let’s just say we learned the art of fixerupping overnight.
Worse still, this man continues to work in Canberra, causing lots of angst for the unwary. But that belongs in another story.
So there we were, living in this cobbled-together brand-new house that we endlessly had to spend money on, and we stumble upon this ‘Toward 2000’ program, based on the work of Michael Reynolds.
Who is Michael Reynolds ?
Back in 1972, he was little more than a disgruntled architect graduate.
Today he has made his mark on an industry that is crying out for a revamp.
Imagine, you have just finished university. You have a degree in architecture, but your heart is not filled with enthusiasm for all that you have learned.
Nothing seems state-of-the-art, or futuristic, but more of a follow my lead.
All those years of study with so little to show for it.
Everything you have learned means using up the earth’s resources, fossil fuel, and trees, and you think to yourself: This can’t be right. There has to be another way.
Universities are supposed to produce thinkers, people who challenge the status quo and are prepared to back up their thoughts. Why would they exist otherwise?
Michael was certainly a thinker.
Unless I was living beneath a rock back then, there wasn’t so much environmental awareness. There was excitement about many time-saving appliances and the likes, but I suppose Blind Freddy could see that things weren’t necessarily improving, not so much for us, but for our poor planet.
The plastics industry had not quite ramped up in popularity, though I understand that Tupperware was first released in 1946, (What?) made popular by ingenious marketer Brownie Wise.
And when you think about the huge enthusiasm of women for Tupperware products, (I lagged behind on that one) it’s hard to imagine so many manufacturers not getting in for their slice of the pie.
The thirst for plastics scaled to a super- exciting level, so that one can only speculate on why suddenly opportunists ramped up their production of more and more, cheaper and more cheap, goods.
It wouldn’t take a Rhodes scholar to work out the inherent dangers of a planet swimming in junk.
It’s where Michael Reynolds stepped in.
His ideas for Earth ships built largely out of junk, had inclusions (some 50 years ago!) that would make an environmentalist weep over missed opportunity.
There are many ostensibly sustainable houses being built all over the world, a rotating one here in Canberra, designed to constantly capture the sun, and I have no doubt they are far superior to our first Canberra home, but Earth ships?
Earth ships challenge us to work towards an exciting level of sustainability.
I so wanted one!
Alien as they looked, these houses allow all residents to live off grid.
The houses are essentially made out of trash, the walls comprising old rubber tyres rammed with earth, the spaces in between filled with old bottles, or cans, also rammed with earth, after which the walls are rendered in adobe.
The earth absorbs the sun’s heat, this heat is then transferred back into the home with the changing seasons.
What thinking human could possibly stay their excitement?
“Fresh out of architectural school in 1972, Michael Reynolds immediately started to question much of what he had just learned. Why build houses with trees when forests are something we want to preserve? Why pay for electricity, water, and heat when all of it can be provided off-the-grid using existing materials and renewable resources like wind, rain, and solar?
“Reynolds set out to design a home built from dirt, tires, aluminum cans and other repurposed objects and so successful others began to take notice. Now, an entire community lives in these unusual homes called ‘Earthships’ in Taos, New Mexico. Filmmakers Flora Lichtman and Katherine Wells recently stopped by to learn more.”
“Why pay for electricity, water, and heat when all of it can be provided off-the-grid using existing materials and renewable resources like wind, rain, and solar?”
WHY?
Electricity, water, and heating bills are crippling many of us right now!
And stretching the planet’s resources.
I won’t even try to précis the following
Just do yourself a favor, and read it. It’s all about water conservation.
“First, rainwater is collected using a cistern on the roof and channeled into a water organizing module, where it is filtered and fed into the house for consumption. Wastewater from sinks, showers, and washing machines (known as gray water) is sent into an underground botanical cell, where it is used to water the plants in the indoor greenhouse. The gray water also goes back into the toilets in the house. After it’s flushed, the black water from the toilets is pumped into a septic tank, treated (separating solids from liquids), and then fed to an outdoor garden in the same way the gray water is used to water indoor plants. This means that the harvested water is being used four times — and it’s all fully automated.”
Imagine a home that actually takes care of us, and the earth, by sustainable harvesting of naturally occurring phenomena, and saves us huge amounts of money and time.
A home that works for us whilst we are dong other things.
Everything operates so well in these beautifully-inspired ships.
They’re the antithesis of the boxy structure of our first Canberra home, where we spent much of every weekend for ten years or so, fixing it up so that when we came to sell it, we could do so in good faith.
It cost us dearly!
Below I have added Michael’s story as well as YouTubes that are jam-packed with information on building an Earth ship.
His is a story of inspiration and courage.
Spitting against the wind is always dangerous, but somebody has to do it.
We can’t solve every environmental crisis, but by our actions and the choices we make, and with courage, we can reduce our carbon footprints in ways we may never have considered.
The day after I watched the Beyond 2000 program, I discussed it with my boss, and together we approached the building council in Canberra.
It was clear we were highly-unlikely to be approved in Canberra where the status quo was:
Little boxes on the hillside Little boxes made of ticky-tacky Little boxes on the hillside Little boxes all the same…
Thank you Malvina Reynolds
Brick-veneer homes in a harsh Canberra winter simply don’t work.
These days the homes are now gigantic versions of the previous ones, almost none of them oriented appropriately.
They cost money to heat and cool.
Yet even today, given all the climate issues we face, they probably would not be approved.
They don’t have the ‘look’ we Canberrans prefer.
They lack the visual finesse we’ve come to enjoy.
They’re a bit ‘out there’!
But I wonder
If people knew the savings of building an Earth ship (also once referred to as a Trash House), if they were aware that these homes could put a huge dent in their trash dumping, and if they could for a few moments understand the ease of living these afford, as prices for commodities ramp up, would they be willing to heavy councils set in their ways, to make them a reality?
We owe it to future generations that will have to respond, nay, turn around with actionable courage and determination, the results of the blind consumerism of both the past and today.
So what do you think?
Could you imagine living in an environmentally-controlled Earth ship that just keeps on giving?
Would you enjoy all the savings in having one?
In what ways could you put your own stamp on one?