Why the three-legged stool model of sustainability is a load of BS

If ever there was a wake-up call to those who like to spout off about sustainability being a three-legged stool, the devastating oil spill in the Gulf is it. Only because it's topical and top-of-mind, because there are plenty other signs that have been ignored.

Back to the spill. Here's a prime example of how people and their economy cannot exist without the environment, although the environment would be hugely better off without either.

Experts have been stating for years that the biggest threat to mankind is global warming - crops failing, flooding, droughts leading to wildfires. What does it take to get the message through that, without a healthy planet on which to live, humankind is doomed? With or without money and jobs. Doesn't matter - you kill the environment and humankind dies, too, no matter how much money you have.

So much to learn...

Our first trip to The Seagull Republic this year did not start well. Firstly, it was supposed to happen over the Victoria Day weekend, but in the end it happened the weekend after. Work and ferry reservations didn't work out.

With so much work and a milestone birthday in this particular week, I scrambled to get everything packed the day before, mainly food since we were booked into Cortes Island Motel for this trip and so we didn't need to pack camp gear (which is the easy part since it's mostly prepacked). Needless to say, this didn't work out so well. Lesson 1. Plan and prepare properly... no garlic for Nev's famous BBQ acorn squash is a major no-no. Never mind other essentials such as a spare pair of jeans (it was raining), the right boots for wading, you get the drift. It was way too cold still for my ATS's (All Terrain Sandals) which the locals certainly commented upon more than once. I'm sure we're the wrong kind of legends already.

Lesson 2 we learned or maybe didn't, we don't know. We thought we did everything right to start with. Suffice to say we got all the way to the Horseshoe Bay Ferry Terminal and then the boat trailer came off and crashed into the back of the pickup. Dinged the tailgate slightly, blew the whole canopy window out. Gave us a fright I must say, sparks all over the road and all that. But how could the trailer NOT have been on right if we got all the way down through the Village (including over the speedbumps at the school), all the way along the Sea to Sky, through the U-turn at Caulfeild, only to have the trailer come off when we were slowly cruising off the highway? We do recall there being autoglass in the prow of the boat when we bought it and now we think this has happened before. We'll never know, but we did replace the ball at Skipper's Marine in Nanaimo.

Lesson 3 was a reminder that no matter what, take everything you need plus some spares since buying on Cortes is not really an option a) because they might not have it and b) Squirrel Cove Store is even more expensive than the Lions Bay Store, which is quite an achievement. So when we got to the motel (same crappy room as last time because we have a dog) and found there was even LESS in the kitchenette than last time, life got just that much more difficult around dinner time.

Oh, and when I say take everything, I mean it - a spare watch would have meant a great deal indeed on Day 2. As the main picture shows, you gotta keep an eye on the tides, so if your watch says it's 10.03am, and when you look again it's still 10.03am and you haven't actually CHECKED on the boat with your own TWO EYES, this is what happens. That's LESSON 3 right there. It didn't really matter because we worked till late anyway. But it is an important lesson to learn. It would also help to learn it the first time since we managed to forget the boat twice (on day 4 as well). Not a problem of course when you have a dock, which we don't yet.

Good news is that everything was as we left it in September - the tarp hadn't budged (pic on left) and we did manage to get a lot done on the outhouse. Yes, I know it must be the longest building phase in the history of 6' X 8' structures, but it is perfect. We bought 3/8" sheathing so it's no longer a shed structure, but will be a complete mini-house once it's done.

We erected the three walls we had framed last year and stick framed the fourth. This provided me with the yurt (square) I have always wanted :) and a dry spot to keep lunch and other stuff.

It rained the entire day and we got pretty wet even though we used the tarp to mitigate the wet and did the roof sheathing first. Yukon was one soggy doggy indeed and he doesn't much like being wet. Once the roof sheathing was up, we convinced him to lie in the slightly dryer area inside the outhouse, but he was still so overjoyed to be leaving at the end of the day that he actually jumped into the boat ahead of us! Highly unusual although I must say on this trip he was in and out the truck and on and off the boat like he's been doing it for years.

This is what it looked like once the sheathing was on. And this is what 5 layers of clothing looks like on.

Lesson 4 was a little more serious: when we tried to leave the Republic and head back to Squirrel Cove on Saturday evening, I pushed the boat off before we got the engine started (lesson 4.1). The engine never started (lesson 4.2) and we had to row to get back to our little cove. Finally after much flooding, we did manage to get going and putter back to the Government Dock and we learned lesson 4.3 the next day, which was completely wasted work-wise because we couldn't start the boat until a friendly guy called Ben came home from work and got it going on Sunday night - wouldn't take any cash at all for helping us, which is one of the reasons we love the island.

While Neville tried to start the boat, I whiled away some moments taking pics because it was one of those beautiful silky-grey mornings with not a ripple in sight.

Of course, Sunday was the day it hardly rained, but on Monday as we headed off to resume our work, it was raining again. But we did get the roofing felt on and now we're set to finish off the door and cladding on the next trip... and get the composting toilet in, I hope, because THIS time we're going to spend the night on The Seagull Republic. Unless of course anything goes wrong. The really exciting part is we can leave all the camp gear there next time, which makes each subsequent trip SO much easier.

But the biggest lesson we learned this time is how little we really need to be comfortable on our land: a tiny bunky is our next big goal... life is so much better when one can get out of the rain and enjoy it! Of course, while we were getting ready to leave, the sun came out. What you can't see in any of our pics is the eerie sound of the wolf pack howling. Quite something to experience - it's chilling even in the middle of the day. So maybe that bunky is a prerequisite to spending the night on The Seagull Republic!

Sustainability begins with me

There was a chilling story on one of the TV news broadcasts last night. Can't remember which one. When I tell you, you're going to think it's one of those end-of-the-worlder's fundamentalist stories, but it happened in Africa - Somalia, I think - and it's probably the first time I've seen such a story reported in the international media and it almost makes me want to start stockpiling things.

In short, it was about a man in one of those drought-devastated areas who was attacked by men with machine guns - they shot up some of his family and (wierdly) his animals that had not yet died from starvation and drought to get hold of his land, which is one of the few pieces of land around that neck of the woods (woops, no woods there) that still has some grass and a little well or stream providing water. THEY KILLED HIM FOR HIS FOOD AND WATER. Got that?

One only has to look around for stories about unusual weather that has destroyed the food crops we're used to finding in our stores - tomatoes from California, oranges from Florida, wheat from the prairies, garlic in Asia, you probably heard many more and watched food prices jump accordingly, or saw some products disappear off the shelves.

In Vancouver, it is hard to convince anyone that water will be the next oil, not only for drinking, but for irrigation and hydro power, because, well... we have so much of it. But in August this year, Vancouver was hotter and drier than ever before in history. Scary thing is, here in Lions Bay, the new Village Manager reports that water usage levels in August remained exactly the same, even after water restrictions were introduced. Of course no-one ENFORCED these restrictions, heaven forbid we "whip" people into complying, as one resident termed it. It's as if no-one can see that only a united effort will ensure a future for us all... CO2 knows no borders, so climate change isn't about one country or another, same as it's not about one neighbour doing his bit, but not the guy next door.

The point is, we're in this together, like it or not. We only have this one planet. No matter who destroys it, we all are doomed unless we start making it well enough to sustain us going forward.

Irritating, to say the least, for those of us who are doing our bit. Nope, that's not nearly the right word... infuriating, maybe? Terrifying, in those wee wakeful hours of the night?

But even if you "don't believe" in climate change, if you extrapolate the story of the African man above to its logical conclusion, if we don't act now and food crops fail and water resources dry up, there will come a time when some will kill others for food and water all around the world in order to survive, just as polar bears are now known to be resorting to cannibalism in order to survive.

How can you not see this? And how can you not do your part? It's not difficult, truly.

So here's a little ditty in the making from me. It has no music yet and there are only a couple of verses (or maybe a verse and a bridge, or verse and chorus, I don't know yet). And those who know me know I am not really advocating we forget about the polar bears and the whales, in fact, a percentage of my business profits will go to World Wildlife Fund Canada to help protect the polar bears and more.

In this song I am trying to appeal to those selfish individuals who think "they" should do something about climate change, or more commonly, they chide "the government" for not doing anything (including you, Mr Ignatieff and Mr Layton).

Who cares what happens at Copenhagen? Each one of us has the power to make a difference, no matter how simple, and cut our CO2 emmission and energy usage. Drive less, switch off the lights, reduce your waste, recycle, grow food not flowers, cook in a pot on the range and not your oven, hang clothes to dry and get rid of the dryer, select the recycled paper in Staples above the other stuff, it's all about simple choices, and it starts with me, and it starts with you. Tell a friend (or a stranger, except mostly they don't like it very much, but your friends will still love you).

Anyway, here's the song thus far. Feel free to suggest some verses.


Yup, I could wait for "they", or wait for "them",
Maybe I should wait for the govern-ment?
But in the end, in reality,
Sustainability begins with ME.

Forget about the polar bears, forget about the whales...
what you gonna do when YOUR food crops fail?
What you gonna do when your water's all gone?
It's already real, just look around.

If I were to pick a builder right now...

... this would be them. I wrote an article on these guys for Cottage Magazine and I love the way they work, and what they build. I think the pics speak for themselves.

Personally, I would like an open-plan home where the timbers are exposed on the interior, so you can enjoy the organic texture of the wood (how tactile is that?!) and combine that with a clean-lined, more contemporary style.

Tis the season to plan and dream.

Until we have a place to stay other than a tent, there is not much we can do over the Fall and Winter months to further our dream Republic. However, 'tis the ideal season for planning and design, so we thought a quick overnight trip to Cortes Island on a relatively good weather weekend would be a good thing (see previous blog re site measurements/plan) so that I can begin on our (currently favoured) design for the main house (sketches above - no comments on how on earth I'm going to deal with snowload on this roof, pse).

Unfortunately, we have guests in the B&B for 3 nights this weekend coming (think of the money, Penny) and the weekend thereafter, looks like Nev and the work crowd are finally going fishing (hard to begrudge this). Weekend after is Thanksgiving, a vague possibility for a trip except we accepted a booking on the Monday evening (lady coming back from Cortes!), so it will have to be a quick trip indeed.

In the interim, I have switched from presenting Green Building at Lighthouse to manning the resource centre once a week, which is an amazingly timeous opportunity, because that's where their library of sustainable materials are kept, along with lists of suppliers and other interesting contacts. And at least I will feel like I'm contributing while learning more, even though I am nuts about materials and finishes, so am pretty clued up, even if I say so myself.

This also ties in very fortuitously with my decision (at last) to start a small "green" design business. It is after all why I went back to school, and presents the same opportunity to change old, unsustainable design and renovation practices one homeowner at a time. Wish me luck and watch this space!

More learning.

I started my Construction 1A Course on Wednesday and I am stoked. It is really basic, and fortunately I do know some of the terminology and techniques involved already, so I think I will be OK. Put it this way, I was way more worried about passing the Built Green exam and that turned out OK.

What's exciting is knowing that in a few weeks' time I will be able to put together a set of drawings for a house. That's the thing with BCIT courses - you start out wondering how you will ever learn everything on the course schedule, but by around week 9 you think "wow, look how much we've learned!".

We saw a house on the Extreme Homes TV show today. It's in Phoenix, AZ so obviously a whole other weather area, however, it was exactly how I would build the main cabin if budget permits. It's built into the rock of a mountain, and it would work fantastically on our gully site. The trick, they said, was to cut a laser line into the rock to the depth of around 3" and then scribe the glazing into it using lots of silicone. The end result is a rock wall inside the house, which merges seamlessly into the rock. Wish I had a pic of it to stick in my design sketch book.

The latest Dwell mag features a house in California with stunning bare concrete floors. That's it at the top of this posting. It also has the front door I dream of having. Sooo... how do we make THIS happen? It would help to have accurate site measurements on the main building site. We haven't done this yet. We actually started doing a site map for the teeny cabin site: we did it on the visit earlier this year when Delia gave us a ride. It's a standing joke between us now. I took ONE measurement to avoid having to cut down a scrawny young arbutus tree and the joke is that even though I only took one measurement, I drew the dimension incorrectly... the 10' is to the FRONT of the rock, not the back. That's it.

Norpine Cabins

I decided to follow up on those prefab cabins they are selling through Home Depot, my most UNfavourite bog-box store. You know the joke - HD employs 3,000 people (or whatever) and they're all at the same store somewhere else... hate going in there.

Anyway, worth a quick price check for the bunky. The Norpine website is http://www.norpineproducts.com/. I checked on the Fraser, Mackenzie and Palliser because we really want something with a small footprint. I think the Palliser might even be too big.

Called 2 HD stores: at Campbell River everyone was "helping other customers" (yeah, yeah, all other customers are more important than me), but I managed to establish all HDs charge the same for the cabins.

I then called the Abbotsford branch, because having bought the composting toilet there, I know they have a number of older, experienced, English-speaking employees who are very helpful. However, they had no prices and no phone number on record, but the kind chap I spoke to told me to look them up under Winton Global, which is how I arrived at Tammy. Who was FULL of info and advice and gave me all the prices and then some.

Since we will be building on a pier and beam foundation, it looks like the cheapest we can go is the Fraser (16' X 20') at $20,749. We can do our own siding if we don't want the log-look - subtract $4,080 and buy your own siding plus Tyvek instead. I do like the metal roof and it comes in BLUE! Ha! Of course, there are other colours as well.

But when I look at it, I could probably buy enough lumber for my own design for less. If I design it right, I can have minimal waste on materials too. Interesting though.

For the record, the Mackenzie came in at around $27,887.