Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Save Land, Trees, the Planet: Let's Retrofit and Re-use

[Tom Ponessa (tomp]

 >The desire to have one's *own* house, built 
>from scratch, to match one's *own* private dream is common, and 
>understandable.  However, if you stop to truly consider what the real 
>cost of this dream is going to be, you will be forced to recognize 
>the arrogance, greed, selfishness and hypocrisy of that desire to build.

Susan Johnston raised some valid points with obvious emotion and love
for the planet. That's what we need more of in my opinion. I just want to
point out that there are green ways to build new (or almost new). Two
ways to save trees are 1) DEMAND hemp paper- and those of you who
work in big companies can agitate for this if you are so inclined- 2)build
with straw bales.

If a coho group decided to build on marginal farmland (with straw and
reclaimed wood), raise food, heat with passive solar and high efficiency
masonry heaters, generate electricity from the sun, use composting
toilets and collect rainwater, I think they would be doing at least as
much for the environment as an inner city group connected to the
various grids. And they would have better air to breathe.

Yes this is a fantasy, but I wanted to point out that there are many
ways to look at the problem and building new is not necessarily
a bad thing.

Tom