Transforming Cultures

Over the holidays, one of the State of the World authors, John de Graaf is debating on The Economist’s website with Robert Gordon of Northwestern University on the following resolution:

This house believes that Europeans would be better off with fewer holidays and higher incomes.

I find it hard to even see this as a debate as the only way we’re going to create a sustainable economy is by working many fewer hours and better distributing work among people. Having some people work long hours while others are chronically underemployed is a loser many times over. Stress, ill-health, lack of time for family and civic engagement for those working too much, lack of security for those working too little, and as the data in this slide by Chris Jones of University of California, Berkeley shows, the more discretionary income a household or individual has, the larger their carbon footprint. Having some work fewer hours will mean security for those that would then be employed and less stress and more time (instead of more money to consume with) for those working long hours now.

But enough on this topic by me. Here’s a sneak peak at John’s State of the World 2010 article “Reducing Worktime as a Path to Sustainability,” and a link to The Economist debate. It’s going on until December 31st, so weigh in, but of course, not during the holiday break or John would be mad!

This past Sunday I, along with other Worldwatch colleagues, paid a visit to the National Mall to examine the 20 houses entered in the 2009 Solar Decathlon.

2009 Solar Decathlon

I was extra excited as the author of The Not So Big House, Sarah Susanka, was one of the judges. This suggested to me that this year’s contest would focus not just on cutting edge solar technologies, but on creating functional small homes. Unfortunately, I seem to have been mistaken.

Just as solar providers tell you to first weatherize your house so that you can buy a smaller solar power system, even more important is retraining ourselves to live in smaller spaces, and be happy doing it. But the student designers have not internalized that sentiment (or can only think in student terms), so the majority of houses looked like dorm rooms or studio apartments: one giant room with a bed that folds down from the wall, or in one case, actually descends from the ceiling on cables!

The bed in the background is suspended by cables and descends from the ceiling. (Really.)

While having a 15 x 30 ft room is great for entertaining guests at dinner, it’s probably not the best design for a couple or a family of three. Some even openly stated that this is for 2-people only, like the Iowa State University entry, which described its design as for elderly couples that want to build a little house to “age in place” in their community. And the University of Puerto Rico walked around the whole size thing by saying that this was the main unit and as families or incomes grow, the occupants could add additional units, like the garage unit (really), or the bedroom unit. So I guess 800 square feet (the maximum size allowed) is just not a size people can see as functional with more than a couple. Yet with a population of 6.8 billion and rising and increasingly constrained ecological systems, we need to reassess what we really need—which I optimistically (or perhaps naïvely) thought the Decathlon participants might get. But they didn’t.

After touring many of the houses (there were unfortunately too many to see in one day’s visit) I’m still wondering: why couldn’t the designers—with the 800 square feet they were allotted—make the equivalent of a 1-bedroom or even 2-bedroom house? This is certainly feasible (I live in a 600 sq ft 1-bedroom apartment with a lot of space that, due to poor design, is underutilized). And with their creativity, they could have easily achieved this. For example, one house had a bunk bed that allowed for an office space underneath. Perfect for a small 8 x 10 ft kid’s room, for example.

A Multi-functional Sleeping and Workspace (Cornell)

Then add a small bedroom for a couple and a kitchen/dining/living area and you’ve got yourself a functional small home. Even without solar, the ecological footprint of an 800 sq ft home for a family of three would be pretty good. Then add solar, a composting toilet system (or even a biogas generator), maybe a solar oven, and a few other bells and whistles and you’ve got yourself a home that Earth would be proud of. And if you have a second kid, well, convert the desk space into a second bunk bed.

The closest I saw to this was Cornell’s entry, which merged three silos into something like a Venn diagram. Yes, very ugly on the outside, nicely accentuated by the rust, but at least it had three functional rooms: a kitchen, a living area and a bedroom. So it can be done. (And if you don’t make your house out of silos, it can probably even look good and feel more spacious—the open kitchen/dining/living area is a good way to go for small spaces).

Cornell's Dual Purpose House and Granary

What is sad though, is that this one example of divided rooms received 16th place for architecture. Sarah: should everyone really live in one big room?

Perhaps one failure of the designers came from how the very living room has evolved over the past 60 years or so. At the center of every living room what was it that I saw? Could it be? Yes, it was…the television!

I recognize that this is a reality in most homes today, but if you can have your bed descend from the ceiling, why not a hidden television and a couch that easily rotates and slides so that when TV is on the evening agenda (though perhaps not every evening), you can shift the room for that? (And while you’re probably thinking, that’s too much work, Iowa State had their old couple having to lift up their bed to store it in the wall each day. Poor Grandma!)

Why is the TV, and Not the Family, the Center of the Family Room?

So, after all that bile, you’re probably not going to be surprised with my conclusion: we need to shift cultural norms around home sizes, and even what appliances are standard. If Decathlon participants had skipped the dishwasher, they could have freed up several more feet in the kitchen for example. And if they had skipped the TV…well, perhaps that’s too revolutionary to consider. Hopefully, next year’s Solar Decathlon won’t reinforce stereotypes that 800 sq ft homes are meant only for old people and young professionals pre-family, but that this size home can be quite comfortable even for a family of three, or, dare I say, four.

And readers, if any of you were involved with the Decathlon or visited, please pass this post along. I am throwing down the gauntlet: this is officially a challenge to the participants of the next Decathlon to design a 2-bedroom solar home with just 800 square feet to work with.

What do we do when we’ve used up all of the earthly resources that sustain our lives? “Hold your breath, don’t eat” until they regenerate, was the joking suggestion from Mathis Wackernagel, executive director of the Global Footprint Network (GFN). Wackernagel, in New York for Climate Week NYC, declared that Friday, September 25, was Earth Overshoot Day – “the day when humanity begins living beyond its ecological means.”

This can be a difficult concept to wrap one’s head around. After all, Friday has passed and we’re still breathing and eating. Is Earth Overshoot like running out of wine at a party? Not exactly. Since nature’s resources are generally regenerative rather than finite, Earth Overshoot is a rate comparison: our rate of consumption exceeds the Earth’s rate of resource generation.

Using over 5,000 data points, the Global Footprint Network calculates two basic numbers: World Biocapacity and World Ecological Footprint (EF). The first is a measure of how much water, food, fiber, timber, and carbon sequestration is provided by the Earth in a single year – all converted to a land area in “global acres.” The second is a measure of how much water, food, fiber, and timber humans use, plus how much carbon we emit – also converted to global acres.

The Ecological Footprint translates the above components into "global acres."

According to 2009 estimates, the World Ecological Footprint is roughly 40 percent higher than the World Biocapacity. Thus, 268 days into the year we “celebrate” Earth Overshoot Day. Although little publicized currently, this is something that could be more widely recognized and talked about – even used as a teaching tool.

While GFN has developed a spiffy logo for Earth Overshoot Day and a range of images to convey the significance of the day, the explicit message of reduce your footprint and here’s how is noticeably absent. This is not an oversight on GFN’s part, but rather a signal of their effort to frame the Ecological Footprint concept in a positive light. The goal, as Wackernagel puts it, “is not just to tell people to cut their ecological footprint, but to ask, ‘How can we have the best lives possible?’”

Wackernagel is insistent on this approach, citing the need for people, businesses, and countries to realize their own self-interest in reducing their footprints. The messaging around environmental and climate action is often focused on telling us how to act rather than explaining the root reasons for changing our ways, but Wackernagel says, “We give you the data and the trends, and you make the decisions.”

But how can you guarantee that simply spreading knowledge will also spread behavior change? This job is being done by individuals, organizations, and even governments that have found unique ways of using the Ecological Footprint. Educators are teaching about environmental impact by having their students take the Ecological Footprint Quiz, and the organization Redefining Progress provides a list of Footprint Education ideas.

In just the past year, a host of reports on the status of the planet and human wellbeing have included the Ecological Footprint as a main part of their equations. The New Economics Foundation’s Happy Planet Index (HPI) measures a person’s life satisfaction and longevity against their environmental impact, yielding “happy life years per global acre.” While the HPI may seem a little out there, WWF’s Living Planet Report, published periodically since 1998, uses the EF as its primary indicator of environmental impact.

More recently, the French government-sponsored Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress (a.k.a., the Stiglitz Commission) made news in September with the release of a report on the limits of GDP and possibilities for other indicators oriented toward a sustainable future. The report examined the Ecological Footprint extensively and acknowledged its potential value in international statistics reporting. In fact, GFN has now set a goal of getting 10 countries to adopt the EF as a central national statistic.

If the world needs greater recognition of our ecological impact, whether it be in official reports or in individual daily lives, it must be brought about in a positive manner. Earth Overshoot, then, is not about doom and gloom but about looking forward to the changes that will come when more people realize the benefits of reducing their footprints. As Earth Overshoot Day moves further and further back on our calendar, we are in dire need of ramping up the rate of behavior change because, barring a miracle, the emptying wine jugs won’t refill themselves.