Green-Living at UC Berkeley
Yahoo! News featured a story on the Green Apartment at UC Berkeley that focused on the students living in the housing. Initially a “green room” created by a campus Green Committee (and drawing 230 visitors), the concept was expanded to an entire eco-friendly apartment. Now four students live in the pad: Travis Zack, Jonathan Hu, Tim Edgar and Edward Chen.
It puts the co-ops to shame. Look at everything they’ve got:
the room is also decked out with energy-saving televisions and refrigerators, water-miser showerheads, low-toxicity shampoos and detergents, non-disposable razors, aluminum water bottles, and bedsheets made from birchwood instead of chemically processed cotton.
But the best part of the article details Zack pulling “a worm from a dark, decomposing mound in a compost bin topped with scraps of food.” Compost itself can get a little grody…but worms? In the kitchen?
Green-living is a bit too extreme sometimes. The model that the apartment sets isn’t realistic for the general population. Then again, it’s Berkeley — this isn’t the general population. You’ve got to start somewhere, but it’s doubtful the trend will pick up outside our bubble. Americans love comfort and convenience, and they won’t be ready to sacrifice these to save a few trees.
Sure, there’s the consideration that conservation makes you a better human being (yadda yadda yadda), but sometimes throwing away that perfectly-recyclable soda can makes you feel so strong, so defiant. You’re sticking it to the anti-Man.
I cannot agree that green living is a bit too extreme. If we employ modern technology like renewable sources of energy and we use products which are recyclable, our lives will not change a bit. Well, a little bit yes because we will need to recycle much more than we do now, but that’s all.
I believe that we can do that for our children.
As a proof that I’m talking seriously here, me and my partner have set up a website called www.ourecohouse.info
http://www.ourecohouse.info
We’re raising money there to build an ecological house and to support 40 other people in green living by giving them $19,000 (£10,000, EUR 14,000) for their ecological needs.
Everybody can help us build an ecological house by posting there own ideas, experiences, possible solutions, etc. And we will help others with their green living as much as we can.
Comment by Our Eco House — March 8, 2007 @ 12:08 pm