UPDATE: I've re-published the "Affordable, Sustainable Housing" series to the Intentional Communities Research and Development Group because the series led to interest in and the formation of the group.
If you google "buildings" and "greenhouse gas emissions", you will find numerous sources reporting that building construction and use accounts for 40-50% of all greenhouse gas emissions.
Direct Action can create exceptionally compelling forces for change. Some examples of direct action on the Class and Climate Wars include:
Eat less meat to cut demand, production and associated greenhouse gasses, which are a major part of each meat-eater's carbon footprint.
Buy (or grow) organic food to move the market to healthier choices for people and the planet, by increasing carbon sequestration capacity and reducing fossil-fuel intensive practices and pesticides, hormones and GMOs in our foods. See also...
Move your money from a Big Bank to a local credit union to defund and isolate the banksters and their gambling schemes, abuse of taxpayer support and penchant for disaster capitalism.
Shop locally to support more sustainable business practices (reducing transportation energy usage), embrace businesses with owners and employees that are personally attached to the local community and environment, and keep financial resources from flowing to distant, disconnected, sometimes hostile interests.
There is an enormous, mostly untapped Direct Action target with tremendous socioeconomic, environmental and cultural implications. Effectively pursued and executed, action here could create game-changing weapons for the Climate, Class and Culture Wars, at a point at which they intersect: HOUSING. The weapons are VERY SPECIFIC KINDS OF HOUSING.
AFFORDABLE HOUSING is a constantly active battleground in the Class War. Not only would greater access to affordable housing empower many of the more vulnerable, it would create options for those who don't want to be bound to the kind of jobs or small business models that can service large, long-term mortgages, or the banks that carry them.
"SUSTAINABLE" HOUSING -- housing that is constructed, maintainable and powered in a sustainable manner -- is a major weapon for the Climate War. Lack of sustainable housing, by definition, forces us to use fossil fuel energy sources, to be unwilling contributors to Climate Change.
Lack of AFFORDABLE, SUSTAINABLE HOUSING is in no small part a product of the Class and Climate Wars, one which substantially diminishes our ability to pull the reins in on Consumer Culture, another powerful force behind Climate Change.
Lack of affordable housing exacerbates and perpetuates existing socioeconomic problems arising from lack of jobs, access to the kind of lifelong job training and education the market now requires, living wages, and sufficient safety net programs. It forces people to live in poor conditions and bad situations. The alternatives at the bottom end include homelessness and exposure to all manner of elements; living in degrading, unhealthy or unsafe shelters (through no fault of those working with meager resources to provide them); squatting in vacant lots or buildings; living in large, often transient groups crammed in houses; living at the whim or mercy of someone providing space. For most, personal dignity and self-esteem is impacted at its root under these conditions. Even more so if one is in the role of caregiver and provider. And low self-esteem is a breeding ground for social ills and human tragedy. It's terrific to hear when someone overcomes these circumstances, and laudable indeed. But it is not a given. And it's impact must not be under-estimated.
Lack of affordable housing in places where jobs exist compound socioeconomic problems and introduce additional environmental impacts. This circumstance perpetuates unemployment for those unable to commute the required distance. Among those who are able to commute, the expense of transportation reduces the net gain from employment, sometimes preventing workers from earning a "living wage", assuming a living wage is being paid, thus perpetuating under-employment. In addition, the commute required by lack of housing near work increases transportation-related emissions.
Understandably, poor employment and economic conditions impact the attitudes and behaviors of the affected individuals, caregivers, dependents and others. If we understand the full import of human interconnectedness, we know that this is not good for the individual or society. Whether this is intuitive or evident or not, it affects outcomes for us as well as the individual.
The quality and health of our lives, individually and collectively, share a feedback loop with the biosphere. Bad conditions perpetuate and spread a jungle of economic, physical and emotional want, neglect and ignorance that further impairs our ability to recognize, appreciate and act appropriately in our true relation to nature.
Just as we are unable to choose to purchase renewable energy from power plants, we are largely unable to purchase cradle-to-grave sustainable housing on the market (as distinguished from conventional housing with renewable energy technology). This circumstance creates tremendous pressure on us to purchase homes constructed with materials and products with high levels of embodied energy (the energy taken to harvest, process, transport, market and sell them) and, in some cases, toxic attributes. Homes using these materials and products are largely constructed with energy-intensive methods. The materials used to repair, maintain and power these homes, unless solar panels and/or wind turbines have been installed, are similarly energy-intensive and in some cases toxic. From the provision of materials to repairing, maintaining and powering the finished home, this kind of housing requires resource depletion and ecosystem destruction, produces greenhouse gas emissions and Climate Change, which in turn leads to more destruction of the biosphere in which we live.
One of the major reasons why we find ourselves in this situation and impeded in changing it is the continual bombardment of crippling anti-Science mis- and disinformation,
produced and distributed by commercial interests vested in the carbon fuel industry, which eliminates the sense of urgency that would hasten efforts to address emissions in housing as well as every other major source.
Hence, just as most of us do not know how extremely concentrated income and wealth are in this country, most of us also do not know that we live in a world in which all living and life-supporting systems are in decline. We do not know how critical the next fifteen years are in determining the long-term quality of life on earth.
Available housing options and lack thereof can also affect lifestyle and happiness. Even people who can afford conventional housing may desire inexpensive housing in order to avoid the short- and long-term commitment of a large down-payment and a much larger, lifelong mortgage.
Some people are also not interested in the time, energy and expense of furnishing, cleaning and maintaining (or paying the mortgage on) large homes. Today, however, the predominant ownership option to serve these market needs are condos, condos which typically are neither inexpensive nor sustainably built, maintained or powered.
Thus, limited options for affordable, sustainable housing can also prevent people from living the lives they choose, not because alternative options are financially unrealistic, but simply because they are not currently supported. As a result, some people who need or want affordable, sustainable housing are forced to engage in careers and lifestyles that they otherwise would not choose in order to be able to afford to live in the housing types/areas that they least dislike; others are forced to live in housing types/areas that they dislike so that they can engage in careers and lifestyles that they prefer.
There is a tendency to assume that this is just the result of unavoidable market conditions. I don't believe it is and I will be investigating this further. On the surface it does not appear to me that the obstacles are financial viability or consumer demand, but instead simply conventions established by private interests that currently have little incentive to produce affordable or sustainable housing -- especially sustainable housing that is affordable -- and the lack of policy to anticipate and provide for low-profit public interests.
The current market fails to support cradle-to-grave affordable, sustainable housing at the following major contact points:
1. Building departments/codes, which prescribe codes relating to specific, conventional materials and dimensions;
2. Zoning commissions/regulations, which prescribe the acceptable subdivision (and, hence, affordability) of land;
3. Developers, whose interests are focused on profit, which have little to do with affordability or affordable sustainability;
4. Lenders, ditto;
5. Prospective communities are simply not familiar with these materials and methods and require education and assurances...
Note: The International Code Council will hold hearings in Dallas on either Monday, April 30 or Tuesday, May 1 regarding the Fire Resistance of straw bale construction, and a week later on structural considerations.
For the most part,
this situation does not reflect malevolent intent but the absence of for-profit interest and/or ingenuity and robust public policy.
Beyond these current obstacles, affordable and sustainable house-building go together in several ways. Find out how and why in
Affordable, Sustainable Housing II: Construction Materials and Methods.
I should clarify that more sustainable construction of homes that are more sustainable to maintain and power is not always less expensive. Many decisions are required and one's choices can reduce or even eliminate cost savings and even increase costs. Shipping container homes, for example, can be built for $20,000 or $120,000 or more, depending on design, source of labor and finishing. If you install high-end space-saving fixtures -- many developed in Japan for cities like Tokyo, where money is easier to come by than space -- you can run up a bill. Of course, you'll have an incredibly efficient, livable, sustainable abode for your money.
And then there's the cost of land.
In many metropolitan areas, where the jobs are, land is expensive. Especially in areas that are safer than most. This is why subdivision is critical to achieving affordability, especially for single family homes. Being able to put a $20,000 to $50,000 10x40 shipping container home or a Fencl Tiny Home on a .05 acre lot (e.g., 35x62sft) could be a critical component of creating an affordable option for some people, especially in areas in which acres go for six figures. In fact, for someone with some savings, a desire for financial flexibility and freedom, and no particular requirement for conventional housing, a solution such as this could allow them to live mortgage free. Imagine how that would change our culture, masses of people with that kind of financial freedom. And for many others, a small down-payment and a low-interest loan on a sustainable home with low or no energy costs is a great option that simply does not exist today. And small lots are key.
There are numerous efforts across the country which are taking various approaches to affordable and/or sustainable housing. Theses include intentional communities, individuals, non-profits and others. Inroads are being made. Alternatives are becoming available. People are freeing themselves from conventions so they can afford a home, live sustainably and/or make different lifestyle choices.
For more information about communities that are involved with affordable, sustainable housing, I will be posting "Affordable, Sustainable Housing III: In Communities" in the next day or two.
Each person that participates in some way in this area of affordable, sustainable housing can help further the goals of the movement and thus lend a hand in the Class, Climate and Culture Wars. The more participants reach out to each other to share and collaborate, the more leverage can be gained from the efforts of each for all. Some of the ways in which you might consider participating:
Gathering and distributing information
Nurturing networks among various parties
Creating local chapters of involved organizations
Creating a start-up local organization
Leading or assisting in the navigation of state and local gov. entities
Participating in design and construction
Providing related design and construction training
Afterword: On Conventional Homes And Renewable Energy Technology
I am not suggesting that we tear down existing conventionally constructed homes, unless of course they present detrimental threats and/or for other reasons cannot be appropriated for uses suitable to the world ahead. Certainly the better course is to make use of the embodied energy within these existing homes and update them for the future with renewable energy power systems.