jim merkel: radical simplicity part 2

Personal Planetoid

We each get 4.4 acres

Excluding the needs of the estimated 25 million other species

Footprints

Nation or group Footprint – acres

USA 24

UK 13.5

Spain 11.5

Mexico 6.25

Humans use 6

Exists 4.4

China 4

Global Living Project 3

India 2

80% wild 1

Afghanistan 0.75

We are alive at a unique time!

Exponential Growth of Population and ConsumerismIPAT

What will we do about it?

 Projected Population in

2100

Footprint Goal with 80 %

Wild

One-child families

1 Billion 6 acres

Two-child families

9 Billion 0.7 acres

100 Year Plan

One New Idea

1. On average, single child families for the next 100 years.

2. Average footprints worldwide stable, but much better distributed.

3. In 100 years, 80 percent of Earth’s bioproductive space would be available for the estimated 25 million other species.

The primary factors that drive impactare in our control. (IPAT)

Impact=P x A x T

• A – Affluence. How much we consume.

• P – Population. How many children we have.

• T– Technology. How efficiently we employ tools.

• Sharing – Two in car (1/2 footprint)• Caring –Halve travel (1/4 footprint)• Conserving – 2 x the mpg (1/8 footprint)• More sharing – 4 in car (1/16) • Caring – Half travel again (1/32)

Bike Commuter

Car Commuter

Bus Commuter

#1 Impact Item: Transportation

Factor 24

Zero Emission Vehicle

#2 Impact Item: Housing (sq-ft. & embodied energy)

1/5 area/person X 1/5 impact/area = Factor 25

$1,500

Leveling foundation

First bale

Peeling rafters from the land

Alaska Mill – clear-cut free lumber

1st of 3 coats of adobe

Adobe – clay, sand, lime and a pinch of concrete

Scavenger species in action

#3. Impact Item:Utilities

One cordof Wood

(R45 Walls)

Micro solar homestead – Vermont

Thermo-siphon solar hot water

A solar cooker or a UFO?Playing with renewables demystifies them.

Wood-fired cob bread oven

Hand washing clothes

#4 Impact Item:Diet

Localvore FoodFactor 25

Vegan 1/15 – 1/30Local/Organic --¼ - ½

Organic -- ¼ -½Veganic

WINTERRoot Cellars

SproutingGrains

Canned and DriedSyrup

FALLWild Edibles

GardenRoot Cellars

Canning/DryingFermenting

SUMMERWild Edibles

GardenCanning/Drying

SPRINGWild EdiblesRoot Cellars

Purchasing (for Winter)Sprouting

Root cellar

Stores vegetables for 6 months without energy

Rutabaga wrestling

Sometimes you just have too many carrots

Sprouting – live food all winter.

PeasLentilsAlfalfaFenugreekSunflower seedsMung beansRadish

Harvesting rye

The threshing floor

Winnowed winter rye

February’s Blueberries

Gathering wild foods

Wild Sandwich

Common Edible and Medicinal plants

• Burdock - Use first year roots as a vegetable and second year roots medicinally. A powerful blood cleanser and overall tonic to the lymphatic system.

• Chickweed - Delicious and nutritious. Cooling, helps to absorb nutrients, neutralizes toxins and dissolves cysts.

• Dandelion - Helps to remove toxicants from the body through strengthening the liver. The delicious young leaves are packed with vitamins and minerals and the root is nice to eat in soup or stir-fry or roasted and used as a coffee substitute.

• Fiddlehead ferns - Formally known as the ostrich fern, this delicious spring treat. I love to sauté the young, unfurling heads with garlic and olive oil.

• Goldenrod - Fresh or dried leaves and flowers make a ice tea. Useful for dispelling flatulence and treating colds.

• Jewelweed - Best known as an antidote for poison ivy, it is generally soothing to the skin. Young shoots can be boiled in two changes of water and eaten as a spring green.

• Lambs Quarters - One of the most nutritious plants you can eat. Early, everywhere and delicious, lambs quarters will nourish you completely. Long live the weeds!

• Milkweed - Edible in all phases of its life cycle. Early shoots can be cooked like asparagus, the flowers can be steamed or stir fried, and the seed pods can be boiled. When cooking young shoots and seed pods, cycle it through a few changes of water..

• Nettle - Overall one of the most nourishing plants out there. Gentle enough for everyday use, it strengthens and fortifies kidneys, adrenal glands, lungs, intestines and arteries. Also stimulates digestion, good for urinary tract. Nettle is especially good for women during pregnancy, childbirth and lactation.

• Ox-eye Daisy - Very common, the leaves are a delicious addition to salads.• Plantain - The young leaves are tasty in an early spring salad.• Raspberry - A yummy tea can be made of the leaves - good support for women's

reproductive systems. The root is helpful for digestive issues. The berries are not only delicious, but are also mildly laxative.

• Red Clover - High in protein, the whole plant can be eaten, preferably cooked. The flowers make a lovely tea good for respiratory issues and stimulating to the liver and gall bladder.

• Rose - The hips contain a lot of vitamin C - infuse in honey for optimal nutritive value.

• Sorrels - Wood sorrel and sheep sorrel - both very common. The leaves are a nice, tangy addition to salads.

• St. John’s Wort - Useful in treating nervous conditions such as insomnia. • Violet - The leaves are nourishing (two of them contain your daily dose of vitamin C)

and are great in early spring salads. They help support digestion, the immune system, nerves, lungs and the reproductive system.

Barbequed road kill deer

Sandy

likes it!

#5 Impact Item:General Consumerism

• Refuse

• Rethink

• Reduce

• Reuse

• Recycle

The Global Living Project

Medicinal plant workshop

Making tinctures

Sustainability Must Becomethe Default Option

EasierAnd Less

Costly

Dartmouth College’s first Sustainability Coordinator

The Task:

•To embed principles of sustainability in all of Dartmouth's roles…

•To make Dartmouth a model of sustainability.

IVY Sustainability Coordinators

• Brown University – Teichert, Kurt

• Columbia – Mesa, Nilda• Cornell – Koyanagi, Dean • Dartmouth – Merkel, James• Harvard – Sharp, Leith• Penn – Riley, David• Princeton – Weber, Shana• Yale -- Newman, Julie

Dartmouth CO2 Emissions

0

50

100

150

200

250

1971

1973

1975

1977

1979

1981

1983

1985

1987

1989

1991

1993

1995

1997

1999

2001

2003

2005

2007

2009

2011

2013

2015

2017

2019

2021

2023

2025

CO

2 E

mis

sio

ns

(106

lbs

per

yea

r)

Recorded emissions Kyoto target by 2012 Projected emissions

Reduction per year 0.5% Reduction per year 1% Reduction per year 2%

Reduction per year 5% Chicago Climate Exchange Fuel oil contribution

2005 emissions = 164.8 106 lbs/year

Missing data1993-1994

Kyoto target = 7% below 1990 level = 101.6 106 lbs/year

Reductions could come from efficiency, behavior change, switch to renewables, carbon offsets, etc

Emissions from burning #6 heating oil and purchased electricity, accounting for 96% of emissions

Carbon neutral by 2025

Dartmouth’s CO2 Emissions

Cash Flow for implementing Carbon Neutrality at UCSB

$1 Million/yr. Positiv

e Cash Flow

Possible Solar Thermal Applications:

•Make-up water for steam plant

•Heating pools and hot water in the gym

•Leased equipment with positive cash flow in one to two years.

Learning from Nature

Tending the inner fire

Sustainability asks us to look at the

world differently.

Can we take back some Proxies?

Is it possible to meet some of our needs without Corporations and Oil?

But… How will we get around?

Who will feed us?

How will we stay warm?

Where will the sweetness for life come from?

In 1939 Gandhi concluded,

You cannot build non-violence on a factory civilization,

but it can be built on self-contained villages.

The Winner?