If you don't know what earthships are, let me tell you, they are how we should be housing ourselves. They contain everything we need to lead sustainable yet still comfortable lives. Check out earthships and prepare to want to live this way.
However it seems to be just a few who are able to get involved in this "movement", ones with money to invest into the teaching programmes the earthship academy provides or large swathes of time to drop everything and go volunteer on a build somewhere.
This is not to disparage the relief work that Michael Reynolds has done in places such as Haiti and India. These are certainly to be commended. But we need change to be happening at a faster speed, not at isolated points on the globe.
Here I address these points in my open letter to Michael Reynolds
Dear Michael,
Let me start by saying, that I
think earthships are truly amazing feats of ingenuity
and design. If every new house
was built like this, we would have probably a whole
lot less problems on the planet.
I really admire the vision that you have shown and
the dedication you have put in to
see many projects through. I had the opportunity to
see you speak when you visited
here in Dublin, Ireland for a seminar and your
passion, after many builds is
still clearly evident.
But let's take a step back and
have a look at the objectives of the earthship
"movement" which I
suppose it could be called. It has been likened to a "good virus"
which is great. The easier and
faster this virus spreads, then the less carbon we
would be emitting and the less we
would be tied into massive and continuing debts,
working simply to pay to keep a
roof over our heads and houses lit and heated.
The way that you have approached
"spreading the virus" i.e. the skills and knowledge,
thus far has been to travel the
globe giving talks and workshops, assisting in
particular builds and starting
the earthship school in the US. This is neither
efficient in reaching the most
amount of people, green due to all those airmiles or
particularly fair, rather a
little more elitist.
Only a particular few will be
able to go to the earthship academy due to financial
restrictions, inability to
relocate or they just don't have the time to give up for a
few months, maybe they have
family or other responsibilities.
To see you speak, you must also
pay for the privilege. If you are further down the
road and want to find information
or blueprints, you must pay several hundred dollars
for this.
All of this smacks of some kind
of privileged club, building their arks like Noah
when the end of the world comes.
(This is an analogy, I'm not the religious type) I
believe you yourself own more
than one earthship. I remember watching a scene in
garbage warrior where you declare
yourself to "be free", so we can gather from this
that may you don't quite have to
quite make ends meet, and could probably get by
comfortably without charging for
everything earthship. Surely that is one of the more
secondary benefits of a build,
that they give you the freedom not to be a wage slave?
So what is the alternative? Well
a great start be be to make the blueprints, plans
and information open source.
People could access them from anywhere in the world and
people could test and modify with
their own locations in mind. Developments and
realisations about this
innovative type of building would happen much sooner. People
could cooperate, create and
improve together. Perhaps more earthships would be built,
leading to them to be more
recognised and more people building, the ball would get
rolling and momentum created.
Also free online classes from
Reynolds, other earthship builders and people doing it
themselves would spread the word,
allow unfiltered access and create the change we
urgently need to start seeing.
Simply travelling from place to place, gets a little
information out there to a few
people, giving it away for free will get it out to a
lot of people. Let's look to the
examples of MIT who give away free course material
democratisation of education and
knowledge. It should no longer just be for the few.
The other issue is that up to
know, you have on the whole been focusing on detached
houses in rural locations or at
least places with a nice parcel of land attached. For
many, this is perhaps
unattainable, unrealistic and unsustainable. For those of us
who live in Europe, the price of
land is very expensive. Here an average person would
need to save for many years, get
saddled with huge mortgage debts or maybe, if they
are lucky, inherit it, that is if
you are not one of the rich buying up every
available inch.
It is estimated by 2050, that 70%
of the worlds population will be city dwellers. So
to focus on single earthships on
plots of land is irrelevant for the majority of the
world's future population. By
then cities will have to have changed radically,
growing food there, different
energy systems, different and more public transport
options, getting away from
individual car use. I see earthships as part of the
solution to the problems we face,
but only if we look sensibly at how we are going to
implement them. Living in
isolated spots or at least land patches that require a car
to get to the nearest town, are
what has lead to many of our current problems -
overuse of cars, pollution and
suburban sprawl. While I think it is to be applauded
the work that has been envisaged on the
earthship in New York, I believe more time and energy
needs to be divested into how we
can incorporate them into our cities.
I do not want to detract from the
brilliant, determined and exhausting work you have
done so far, I believe howthe
earthship "officials" do business needs to evolve just
like you believe our houses needs
to. We are all in this together, the problems we
face affect everyone on this
planet. A few individuals acting alone are just a drop
in the ocean, and will not spread
this idea fast enough.
So this is a call to you, Michael
Reynolds, a plea, that you stand beside your green
credentials. Sharing ideas and
plans on an opensource platform will greatly increase
exposure, will cut down airmiles
and level the playing field for many. Is it profits
you wants to make, follow a
greenwashed version of the American dream, and earn
yourself a reputation as a
pioneer, all the while charging for knowledge that could
improve the lives of many and
change the faces of our cities or will you stand up and
lead a true revolution?
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