One of the biggest factors that affects personal resource use is home size. According to Size Matters, we have seen average home sizes increase in the United States from 1,100 square feet in 1950 to 2340 square feet in 2002. And the number of household members has dropped from nearly 4 to close to 2.5. 

A note on small structures:

“Building small makes ‘natural sense.’” says Duo Dickinson, a Connecticut architect and author. “First, you build what’s needed and then what’s wanted. The problem is that many people don’t know the difference.”

It would be impossible to get universal agreement on how “small” a small house should be. Prison cells are small, but hardly livable. “For the designer, the key is to make the house fit the clients,” says Dickinson. “A house fits when living in it is effortless.” Like a tailor fitting a garment to the exact dimensions of a human form, a designer should strive to size building elements for the occupants’ values and way of living.

After attending a Little House on a Small Planet workshop at the Crestone Sustainable Energy Fair, I’m not actually a fan of the idea of “building” anything, but I like the general ideas about small spaces. I think most of what we need is already built. Shay Solomon, workshop leader (and author of Little House on a Small Planet) gave great tips that work even if you live in a big house.

Space use is a tough sell because you can’t go out and fix it today (like a leak on a kitchen sink to decrease water use or like unplugging a cell phone charger to decrease electricity use). And small spaces aren’t without some actual costs. It was a pain to get a mortgage for our small space (the amount of the mortgage and the size of the space made it difficult). And it looks as though it’s a bit more difficult to adopt children in a small space. However, I think the size of our homes is something that should be on your mind (and my mind) as we make choices in the future in our resource use.

Resources

Global Ecological Footprint Calculator

Carbon Footprint Tips

Calculate your impact

This is the second in a series of posts on resource use.

It’s my belief that most people just don’t understand the water cycle and this is to blame for just about most of our problems with water policy and practice (that and outright greed) in the United States. And I say this as someone who majored in earth science in college, who has edited a considerable number of hydrology chapters on groundwater and surface water for textbooks, and someone who has been on the local water board. I think about water a lot. I’ve talked to people about their water quite a bit. And I think that many people don’t get where water comes from. They don’t get how scarce it is. And they don’t get that we are going to run out.

Take a good look at this diagram from the USGS. Where is most of the water? It looks like most of it is stored in groundwater or freshwater or the atmosphere. However, most of the water in the water cycle is stored in the oceans as salt water. How much? Like more than 97%.* (The diagram is misleading in hopes of being illustrative.) And then just about 2% (or less as they are melting) is stored as glaciers. That leaves 1% divided between groundwater, surface water, and soil moisture. That’s 1% of the water that’s available for our use.

Why do I care? I basically came of age in a drought, so my habits are naturally thrifty with water. As a teenager in Santa Barbara/Goleta, I took 3 minute showers with our low-flow shower head, turned off the water while soaping and shaving, let the lawn die and planted cacti, and just about never washed the cars. We only did full loads with the dishwasher and laundry and we never let water run down the drain if it could be repurposed.  Unfortunately, to “alleviate” the drought, Santa Barbara voted to import “state water,” which is really water stolen…um…removed from other places.

Our current home is rather unique in California in that we actually use community well water. Several years, all of a sudden, the wells couldn’t provide enough water for the community and we had to truck water in.  Trucking in water for a few months was expensive, we had to raise the water rates, and everyone had to learn to conserve.

Conservation  is a really good idea, but domestic water from wells and public water supply is only about 10-12% of the water used in the United States. What uses the rest? Check out the scary bar graph from the USGS, which indicates that as of 2000 roughly half of all water in the United States was used in thermoelectric plants. See the connection to yesterday’s post on electricity use? Use less electricity and you actually use less water.

So how do you know how much water you use at home (or at work for that matter)? It should be recorded in cubic feet or gallons on your bill. You could also just read your meter, though most meters are the property of the water service provider so you don’t want to tamper with it. You can play around with this calculator from the USGS to get an estimate of how much water you might use. And check out the resources from your local water company. Many offer a free “water audit” in which someone will come to your home and give you suggestions for how to conserve.

Resources
Save Water in 49 Ways
Water Saving Tips by Region
Water Saver Home Tour
Everyday Water Saving Tips from Consumer Reports

*According to F.W. Fetter’s Applied Hydrogeology

I think this is a series of posts on resource use. I have another post on water coming soon. But onward to electricity!

A while ago, we were discussing phantom load, which is the electrical power you use from having something plugged in, but not turned on. I suggested based on my experience with burning out a generator in the wilderness that having a few simple items plugged in (but not on) that all items used power when plugged in.

Anne P. and Scott wondered if phantom load only existed with items with the “wall wart,” like cell phone chargers or fancy lamps, not simple items. So, eventually, I borrowed a Kill-a-Watt from my dad to measure energy consumption of simple items.

Here’s the Kill-a-Watt measurement before I plugged in anything. It shows just around 120 Volts (120.1Volts) right at the outlet, which is appropriate.

Now I plugged in my cell phone charger, which has a “wall wart.” The Kill-a-Watt reads 123.4 Volts, which is what we expected. There’s nothing at the end of the cell phone charger. No phone. Nothing. The Kill-a-Watt shows that the cell phone charger is just using electricity because it’s plugged in.

And then I plugged in a series of other simple objects (all set to off), including a lamp. This cheap lamp apparently does use a little bit of electricity when plugged in, but off (120.9 Volts). Not as much as a cell phone charger, but still some. And this explains how I was able to burn out a generator in a cabin in the wilderness having only simple appliances plugged in and not on (a CD player and coffee pot without any visual displays).

Now this wasn’t particularly scientific. We have an old house with some old wiring. And the Kill-a-Watt seemed to record different amounts when I ran this little experiment again. So with my dad’s permission, I can lend you the Kill-a-Watt through the mail to expand our sample size of items with and without wall-warts. It’s made in China, of course, and is the sort of toy you can use for a couple of weeks before you’ve measured everything in the house three times; it’s ideal for lending. Just leave a comment here if you want this great device.

And why does anyone care about phantom load? Many people are trying to reduce their use of electricity because most electricity power plants in the United States burn coal, which releases greenhouse gases, which in turn warm the planet. So by using less electricity, you are trimming your own electricity bill as well as contributing a bit less to global warming.

How can you apply your knowledge of phantom load to the workplace? I’ll tell you what I do, and you can adapt from there. I simply unplug appliances that I rarely use (like the dreadful fax machine and printer). If you share an office with many people, you’ll need to check before doing much unplugging. Being mindful of your energy use seems part of general mindfulness at work.  

Earlier this year, Jim and I decided to make gifts for each other’s birthdays. I made Jim an elaborate meal for his birthday. I don’t have any idea what he’ll do for mine. But it was satisfying to think that we didn’t need to go to Target in order to make each other happy.

I don’t buy a lot of Christmas gifts, but I’m going to do my best to buy handmade goods this season and I took the Handmade Pledge through Buy Handmade. Most of our friends are artists and artisans and I would much rather buy their stuff (or stuff from artists and artisans that I don’t know) than stuff made through questionable means in questionable conditions.

Buy Handmade is a consortium of crafts makers that you may have heard of, including Etsy, Craftster, Indiepublic, Craft:, Austin Craft Mafia, BurdaStyle, and Interweave.

Via Treehugger

Yes, a clever person has found a use for dead pens. Never a shortage of those around most offices.

And the runner up ideas for used pens are equally clever.

I know many people are actually winding down their Christmas shopping, but for those of us who don’t actually shop until it gets a bit cold outside, there is still plenty of time.

Boy in the Bands has a great new (to me) list from Quakernet of No Sweatshop Clothes. I started making a list before of Sweatshop Free Clothes, which I should probably expand. It seems to me that as important as it is to make a fitting gift choice for someone, it’s also important to make sure that the gift wasn’t made in slave-like conditions.

A while back, Kristie asked for recommendations on where to shop. While reading The Vegetarian Times, I came across a site that can help Idealswork, which rates companies on the conditions you select (animal-welfare, gay-lesbian issues, women’s issues, nuclear energy, etc).

It seems to me that careful spending of your money at places that support your values is one way to take your sense of spirituality (i.e., your sense of connection to the world around us, to other human beings, and to God) out into the world.

Here’s some information worth considering if you’re doing any purchasing with your hard earned dollars. Scroll down for violations of human rights, environmental principles, reallocation of funds in directions you’d be surprised, and much, much more

Philip Morris
Exxon
Nike
McDonald’s
Monsanto
General Electric
Sara Lee
Gap
Nestle