Sometime in my childhood I seem to have taken on an environmentalist bent. I’m not sure quite when or why. It just seemed like the right thing to do and support, and still does. Thus, in my time I’ve read a lot of books, and watched hours upon hours of movies relating to this general genre. Despite all this information that has been out in the public sphere these past decades I’ve also watched things continue to decline. Who remembers the days when any sort of serious car trip involved stopping occasionally to scrape bug guts off the windshield so you could see out? When was the last time you REALLY needed to do that, and what does that say about the health of insect populations? If you’ve got enough years under your belt I imagine you can think of plenty of other similar examples yourself. So it would seem that all these past books and materials promoting environmental ideas haven’t been effective enough to overcome the increasing tides of destruction. Now here I am looking to review another book. Is yet one more going to be any different?
(Please note some of the links in this blog post are affiliate links. What this means is that should you click through them and make a qualifying purchase I will receive a commission which I’d certainly appreciate since it helps support this blog project. However, this shouldn’t increase your cost any, and certainly don’t ever feel like I’m pressuring you to buy things through the links I offer here or anywhere else. I’m all about being frugal first!)
Perhaps another question would be how has past material tried to enact change? There would seem to be a lot of effort defining the problems, telling us about all the horrid things that are happening until it feels hopeless and overwhelming. Usually there is also a “villain” in the story, some evil corporation or a group of “those people” causing all the problems. These are the bad guys to fruitlessly protest or be angry at. The calls to personal action so often tend to involve buying the latest “green” gadget, in other words consuming more stuff. Those that are being more honest acknowledge a need to consume less, generally suggesting you diminish your quality of life in some way. So to sum it up the common formula is to present a problem to emotionally upset and alarm, then direct you to be angry at “those people”, and do your part to fix things by either buying more products and/or lowering your quality of life. Laid out like this is it any wonder the messaging has had limited appeal with more limited results?
Sometime back I helped promote the Kickstarter to raise money for printing and publishing the book, “Building a Better World in Your Backyard Instead of Being Angry at Bad Guys” by Paul Wheaton and Shawn Klassen-Koop. At that point I hadn’t actually read the book, it just sounded like a really good idea. Quite a few of you agreed, supporting the Kickstarter along with me. The book did get published some time ago so it’s high time I wrote my personal review of it. Is it a good book or not? Did it really end up fundamentally different than all the ones that came before?
Well, the title alone should tell you that it’s not about “being angry at bad guys”. Are they instead just trying to sell you the next “green” thing? Well, I suppose you can say they are trying to sell their book. It’s kinda hard to publish a book and not seek to promote and sell it, especially if you really believe in its message and want to get it out to a wider audience. Still my take after reading this is that they are much more about helping you save money. In fact one section of the book is all about finding ways to generate wealth that would let you retire early. This is right along the lines of things I have written about here in some of my blog articles about reducing your needs so minimal income streams can easily meet them.
That probably sounds a lot like diminishing your quality of life doesn’t it? Well the authors actually like to call their approach luxuriant environmentalism. They even recommended turning UP the temperature on your water heater!! They aren’t suggesting you be cold in winter either, or give up having a car. They’d like you be able to have a swimming pool, a lush lawn you neighbors would envy, and tons of fresh nutritious food grown with a fraction of the effort normally spent on gardening. Combined with ample free time and a steady stream of income ample enough to meet your needs hopefully this is now sounding more like a luxuriant lifestyle rather than deprivation. Is this sounding like a book fundamentally different than most environmental books now?
At this point you might be thinking it’s really a crappy book as far as helping the environment is concerned. Sort of like how a chocolate chip cookie diet sounds wonderful to be on, but really fails if your goal is to actually lose weight. I promise you this book really is focused on trying to not just reduce our global problems but to actually solve them. In fact, on the back cover they state, “If 20% of the population implemented half the solutions in this book, it would solve the biggest global problems.” It’s hard for me to say if this is really true or not, but seems it would certainly have a reasonable chance.
Part of what is different about their approach is that they are looking at whole systems rather than just tiny, isolated parts. They are looking into changes that would have major impacts instead of just feel good virtue signaling gestures. Paul and Shawn are crazy about permaculture, an approach of systems design aiming to be good for people and the planet. So this book is about environmentalism from the permaculture perspective.
I’ve written here in past blogs about the 3 E’s, the Economy, Energy, and the Environment looking at how all these interrelate on the macro level. I’ve also written about the 3 E’s from a micro/personal level. Though the authors don’t use this terminology directly to me the “Building a Better World” book is about tending to the 3 E’s at the micro level with the goal of creating such a fabulous lifestyle others will want to emulate it purely for selfish, pleasure seeking reasons. In the process as enough people make these changes then the macro level problems get solved on their own.
Let me offer up an example of what I’m talking about when saying they look at the issues from a systems perspective. There is one section what will probably raise a bunch of eyebrows because on the surface it flies in the face of what we’ve all be taught for the past several years. They suggest that in many instances the best type light bulb to use are incandescent ones. Wait, what!??! Did I just make a big typo? Aren’t incandescent bulbs supposed to be just one step removed from Satan himself? In the book they present a compelling case that in cold climates when you look at the whole system and not just the power consumption used by a bulb to produce light then incandescent wins out. They have less embodied energy in their manufacturing, less toxins involved too, produce a quality of light better for humans, and the “waste” heat simply goes into heating the home reducing what the other home heating systems need to put out. If we were really interested in reducing power consumption we would look much more closely at the WAY we light space instead of WHAT type bulb we are using. In other words, focused task lighting just where you need it instead of banks of bulbs illuminating every nook and cranny. They also point out that they really don’t even want to focus on light bulbs as a solution since in the overall scope of energy consumption lighting is minimal.
You may or may not agree with them, or your particular situation might be different. In my case living with an off-grid photovoltaic solar array connected to a battery bank providing all of my electricity getting my system to all sip from the batteries was critical, so I use LED lights. Being in a cold climate I could use the excess heat from incandescent bulbs much of the year, but that is also the time of the year when my panels are producing very little power. So I’m much better off getting my heat from sticks burned in my rocket mass heater. Now if I had studied whole systems more before I got the solar array it might have turned out that the most environmental, and least costly, option would have been to stay on the power grid and use incandescent bulbs. I don’t really know and at this point I already have the capital and materials invested in solar so I plan to stick with it.
Another fun section of the book that illustrates systems thinking is the one about conventional lawns and how to get a great one requiring less mowing, less watering, and no need for toxic stuff. Here’s a short quote from the book.
Mowing high is, by far, the most important thing. By far. Most important. I can say it louder if that will help.
Paul Wheaton/Shawn Klassen-Koop
This also gives you a sense of the humorous tone frequently used in the writing. Right now you might be wondering how mowing high could make that much difference, especially to reduce the amount of mowing needed. They then go on to explain the systems involved such that in the end you will probably be saying, “Well, duh, of course that makes sense.” That was a bit of a teaser since you’ll now need to read the book to find out why.
Early on in the book they present what they are calling the “Wheaton Eco Scale” as a way to help gauge where people are along a continuum of those who give no regard to environmental issues to the superstars bringing about significant change. An important observation they make is that we tend to see those a bit farther up the scale as being virtuous and cool, but too far up and they seem crazy. While those below us on the scale tend to be denigrated more and more strongly the farther back from you they are. Being aware of this tendency can hopefully help us avoid and overcome it, instead meeting people wherever they are and encouraging movement a bit farther up. To me this feels like a pretty important concept, esp. for those behind you. Successful change doesn’t usually happen by fostering contempt.
In terms of the Wheaton Eco Scale the main audience for the book was intended to be those on the lower end, beginners in the process. That said, I feel like folks farther up can find ideas and inspiration in it too. In fact, some of the more ambitious ideas, like the ideas regarding building designs that would heat and cool through annual thermal storage, are probably not going to be explored by any but those farther up the scale, at least not until such ideas are mainstream.
In considering that the audience might not be super passionate about ecological issues they don’t delve deep into technical issues of the many ideas presented. Rather this is a relatively short book, quick and easy to read. It lays out a large buffet of ideas you might explore further, providing links to various threads at the Permies.com forums (Paul Wheaton’s website) where people are discussing these ideas and one might learn more. (I should note that the forums are free in case you are thinking this is all about funneling you into a pay for access membership site.) I think this has been one of the biggest criticisms I’ve read about the book, that it doesn’t flesh out all the ideas presented in the actual book. If they had done that though, it would have been a huge, intimidating tomb, perhaps several volumes long. Such a massive treatise isn’t likely to draw the casually interested person in.
That said, I don’t want to suggest that everything in the book require more research to put into practice. Lots of it you could act on right away, like the part about lawns I mentioned earlier. There’s a part about making “worm towns” to restore areas of poor, compacted soil that I plan to do myself based just on what I read in the book. It sounds simple enough, and when explained makes complete sense to me.
At this point you might be thinking, “I don’t have a backyard. Is this of any worth to me?” The building a better world in your backyard line is partly literal but also metaphorical. The book is very much for those living in apartments, urban areas, or the like. It’s about things we can do in our own lives right now. Not all of them will viable for everyone, but you can just consider the ones that are. Maybe at some point in the future your circumstance change and more things open up.
I feel like I’ve written a bunch here, but not shared too much of just what is in the Building a Better World book. Though it is relatively short there is a lot in it. I think perhaps the best way to hopefully peak your interest and give a sense of the authors writing style would be to share the table of contents. (I’m making an assumption that it is ok to do so since they have freely posted it for public viewing elsewhere.) So here it is:
One final little bit I wanted to share was an insight that struck me as I was reading through the book again in preparation for writing this review. I’m thinking you have probably already heard about CAFOs (confined animal feeding operations), the big agribusiness approach to meat production where way too many animals are crammed together into a space leading to all sorts of problems not the least of which is being forced to stand in feces all day and the diseases that result from that. In the book they talk about growing crops monoculture compared to polyculture. Monoculture is what we tend to be more familiar with when thinking about farm field. It is the acres upon acres of one single crop, be it corn, potatoes, soy beans, or carrots. Polyculture is an approach that has many species growing all together in the same space. Anyway, they noted that all plants have their own waste that gets excreted, called exudates, otherwise known as “poop”. In a polyculture the poop of one species can become the coveted fertilizer for something growing right next to it. In a monoculture there isn’t another species growing right next to the plant eager to take in that poop. The plant next to it is the same type pooping out the same things. The insight that came to me, though the authors didn’t say this directly, is that monoculture farming is rather like a CAFO for plants. They are forced to stand around in their own poop, likely increasing the risk of disease for this reason alone. What should be food and fertilizer for something else instead just sits as waste while other fertilizers need to be brought in to feed the single species crop.
Well if you haven’t gathered this already, I really enjoyed “Building a Better World in Your Backyard Instead of Being Angry at Bad Guys“. I highly recommend it! If you are part of a book discussion group I think you’d find it a superb book, easily generating a lively, interesting discussion. The group at my library was going to read it, but then Covid-19 hit. Hopefully once we start meeting again we’ll read it as a group as planned. In that vain I promised our group leader that I’d put together a set of discussion questions. I’ll share those in my next blog post so any other groups could use them if they wish to help facilitate discussions.
The book is available in paperback, and ebook formats. Because the kickstarter campaign was so successful they were also able to get it made into an audio book. Since they are hoping this will be a book people are excited to share with others there are deep discounts if you purchase by the dozen, making them more affordable to give away.
Is this book capable of changing the world and solving many of our biggest ecological problems? If enough people read it and act upon ideas within it I can imagine a worldwide shift. I’m not holding my breath for this though as I feel like it is really hard to transform an entrenched culture like we have. That said, what I love about this book is that the benefits to you don’t rely on enough people making changes. Sure that would be awesome if it happened, but the book is really about ways you can transform your life right now to enjoy more health, financial security, luxury, and time. In terms of immediate personal benefit it doesn’t really matter if anyone else follows you. You don’t need to wait for politicians to pass any bills. You don’t have to overthrow some corporate entity. No critical mass of obstinate humans needs to be converted.
This book aims to help you build a fabulous life that leads by example. It’s not looking to shame people into being more environmentally conscious. Rather it’s trying to show how beautiful and desirable these other ways of living can be. These are the sorts of things I’ve been striving to do myself for many years now. That’s probably why I connected so strongly to the book right away. Would you like to incrementally build a better life too, and at the same time be helping to build a better world?
Studio Snippet
I’ve made what might become a major shift in my work lately. Back when I was a young boy I used to spend hours upon hours playing with wooden blocks and dominos, setting up little tricks and gadgets in tip over runs with them. Towards the end of my college “career” I returned to this for a while, noting that many people, seemingly from all walks of life, responded to and were intrigued by this sort of thing. The problem I’ve always had with it from an artistic career standpoint is that I don’t see clear direct paths to making much of an income with the project.
Well, thanks to all my efforts with my finances over the years, which I’ve been writing about in other posts here on my blog, I am in a fairly secure place in terms of meeting my very limited monetary needs. Since Covid has already greatly reduced my income I figure my “lost opportunity” costs are minimal right now to devote some time to this tip over block project again. I wasn’t likely to be making much money anyway. My plan is to take a year or so and explore this direction seeing what I can develop it into. I do still expect to be making some vessels during this period, but it will likely be a drastically reduced number.
What I’ve been focusing on the past month or so has been coming up with a system I can use to create structures to play with these blocks on. I wanted something that can be broken down and reconstructed in different ways, something versatile. Years ago I bought a book about a construction approach called grid beam. I never really did anything with it, but it lingered in the back of my mind as a something that would be fun to explore. It seems like it could be the perfect fit for this project so I’ve been drilling lots of holes lately making my own grid beam sticks! It feels sort of like making my own Erector set or Legos.
I still have boxes of tip over blocks from my foray into this during college. I made them from piles of scrap wood, most of which were pieces too small to be used for anything else. In the photo above you can see a test set up I did to both play with the grid beam and then to see how the blocks look on it. Unfortunately the photos I have right now don’t show this off well at all. I need a nice clean, empty room without a bunch of distracting background clutter to really allow visual attention to be focused on the project. I don’t have that currently. Right now I’m thinking that I’ll be developing all the parts for a while, but the first real presentation set up will have to be in some other venue.
I feel I should also note that what you are seeing in the photos is just a rough beginning. I haven’t made any of “fun” stuff yet, these being the gadgets that allow the falling line to move up, down, around corners, etc. I’m also planning to have lots of added decoration that will serve no purpose other than to be beautiful and interesting (I hope). My guess is that future installments of the Studio Snippet will feature some of these gadgets as I develop them, slowly bringing this project forward.
If I’m lucky then a year from now I’ll have developed a really cool kinetic installation to share with everyone. If I’m even luckier then viable means to monetize it in some way so it’s sustainable will become apparent too. Images of a nice set up do seem like a perfect fit for a couple more jigsaw puzzles at least. Oh, and yes I realize this project will certainly need some short videos at some point to show it off. I will be doing that in at least a basic fashion, if not something with more polished production values. This could all crash and burn too. That’s what happened with the earlier attempt to resurrect it during college. We shall see!
I’m happy to have a site where I can again allow comments. (I had to shut them off on my old website because the spam was simply uncontrollable!) So please I encourage you to share thoughts of your own. My general rule about comments though is just to play nice. Differing views are fine, but I’m not interested in engaging in or moderating verbal fights. If I feel things get out of hand, by whatever criteria I decide, I’ll just start blocking or deleting things.
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