Simplicity and sustainability

I went to a number of talks yesterday. I heard Robert Sweetgall speak at a local middle school. Sweetgall is a motivational speaker on the subject of walking. He has walked across America, and he got the crowd of 150 moving by throwing frisbees into the audience, creating competitive groups of walkers by age, and encouraging us to reveal our health concerns to the person we were sitting next to. The sweet simplicity of walking is something we all need to get back to.

The solutions we need to pay most attention to, in order to deal with the challenges we face, are the simplest ones. It would help if our elected officials and business leaders paid attention to these solutions, but most of them aren't, so it's up to all of us.

Our converging challenges, as I see it, are these:

• Poor health, chiefly obesity, which is going to put a huge strain on our own pocketbooks, as well as those of government and employers. Sweetgall said that for the first time, the life expectancy of Americans is now expected to decline, due to our low physical activity levels.
• Peak oil--which doesn't mean that oil is going to run out, but that the cost of extracting it will become increasingly expensive.
• Global warming, which at the very least in the Upper Midwest will lead to increased cooling demands during the summer months.

Among those who accept these propositions as real threats, there are many who hope technology will provide the answer. While I agree that technology could provide some answers, on an individual level, the more productive solutions will be the simple ones.

Why? Let's just look at a household like ours. We would like to cut our electrical use. Most of our electricity comes from coal burning power plants, which contribute to global warming. Over the past year and a half, we have been investigating alternative energy solutions. Our home consumes roughly 570 kwh (kilowatt hours) of electricity per month. We have a nice, south facing roof that would be perfect for a some solar panels. A solar installer came to our home, and told us that we could get a 2 KW system for $18,000. This would cover roughly half of our electrical usage. The State of Minnesota offers a $2,000 rebate per KW solar system, and the federal government offers a $2,000 tax credit. This would reduce the cost to $12,000. But this is not a financially sustainable solution for a household that only spends $700 a year on electricity.

Wind power is also not a financially viable solution for an existing residential household. Even though our home is on top of a hill, surrounding vegetation and low prevailing winds in this area of the state make wind power a marginal proposition. When this is combined with the still emerging state of rooftop wind systems, wind is a technology that doesn't measure up to the pragmatic tests.

So the homeowner interested in reducing household energy use must fall back on the simple solutions, largely passive cooling strategies in the summer. Next spring would be a great time to plant trees on the south and west sides of your house. Until the trees get large enough to provide real shade, consider blinds that reduce the amount of sunlight coming into your house.

Cities also need to get behind tree planting. Many of our neighborhoods lost massive number of trees from Dutch Elm disease. There is no better time than the present to start growing a replacement forest.

My real complaint is about our belief in technology. As long as we believe technology will bail us out of our fixes, we remain locked in a passive attitude towards our energy future. Simple, cost-effective solutions move us into an active role as problem solvers, contributors to the collective solution.