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I was interviewed today by Tina Vasquez a writer who is working on a new website about home design. I am sure she is going to take the interview and turn it into an article but I liked her questions and had fun answering them so I thought I might share them with you here. Warning, there is a bit of a spoiler on our next announcement in the last question…

T.V. What are “eco-urbanists?”
L.B. We actually came up with the term in 2004. We were searching for a way to identify ourselves and our passion for both sustainability and urban living and finally landed on eco-urbanists.  An eco urbanist is someone who cares and decided its time to make a difference. Its someone who wants to lower their footprint on the earth but does not necessarily want to drive a vegetable oil powered Volvo.  They are people who realized that living out in the country consumes more energy and that cities are worth making better.

T.V. How did LJ Urban come to be?
L.B.Back when it all started in 2003 we were called Asante Homes. A development company who did land entitlement work out in the suburbs. But one day we woke up and saw that we did not like the end product. We were not proud of what we were creating and decided to come to the urban core. In doing so we needed to remake ourselves into a builder/developer. We wanted everything we built to be as sustainable environmentally as possible and found that we had to do everything ourselves to do it all right. LJ Urban was born and we are still striving today to do things the same way. [Read more →]

A letter from the European Union environment commissioner, Stavros Dimas, to Barack Obama calls for America to lead the way in an effort to stop global warming. He makes a point to call out that our economy is in peril but efforts to fix that should not derail the larger challenge we face.

He makes it clear that the rest of the world is depending on us and that no one else will feel compelled to fix their issues if America who contributes 22% of the carbon into the atmosphere does not get its act in order.

If someone’s basement floods and they lose their job on the same day it is certainly an unlucky day. But they would not wait until they found a new job before pumping the basement and fixing the leak. If they did, then not only would they be unemployed, but they would also have a house that is starting to fall apart. Common sense says that the longer you leave a problem unsolved the harder it becomes to find a solution. I am quite sure that even Joe the Plumber would agree with this. Climate change is similar. We know there is a problem and it would be short-sighted foolishness to not address it immediately.

Its a tough call for sure but one that we need to heed. We will either be remembered as the generation who stepped up and changed the world or the one who heard and ignored the greatest warning in the history of mankind.

You can read the entire letter here.

I like when good things get better, sort of like the when the iPhone 3G was released or even better when Toyota announced the totally redone Prius for 09′. It’s great, something that is very good already gets tweaked and rethought to make it more efficient and even better.

When we started getting ready for phase 2 of the Good project we decided it was time to do a little upgrading ourselves. So without any further ado….. its with great pleasure that I introduce to you Good, the 09′ models.

We spent the last several months listening to comments and talking with engineers about areas we can push the limits of sustainability. We tweaked everything we could, added more storage and took an already efficient design and made it even more efficient. Some of the changes are big, and some are just little touches to make the homes more user-friendly, many you would never even know about unless you were digging behind the cabinets or peeling back the drywall. (which we do not encourage). All in all Good just got better and we are darn proud of it.

• Solar – We love solar power, its clean efficient and here in Northern California we have sun light-a-plenty. So why not use it to generate your own electricity, right? The problem is the solar array costs so much to install you won’t start getting a return on your investment for several years. We think we have found the answer! We like what the folks over at Sun Run are doing. What they do is install the system at their cost and all you do is pay them for the electricity at a very discounted rate. So you get good clean power without paying the big bucks! Simple, efficient, clean, it’s sort of a theme for us.

[Read more →]

I have been waiting to write this just because I don’t really know enough to do the topic justice. The headline I read in the NYT this morning did it for me though.

“The economy shrank at an annual rate of 0.3 percent in the third quarter, as personal consumption spending fell for the first time in 17 years.”

Our over-consumption as a nation, from the top of government to the 9 year old with a cell phone, has led us straight into this pit we now find ourselves.

Environmentalists have been pleading with the American public to reduce consumption since the 70’s and apparently we just couldn’t do it (For the last 17 years anyway). Guess what, 17 years ago was another recession; prior to that one we had similar consumption through the 80’s. So in essence we have not been able to conserve resources as a nation unless under a recession.

I was really amazed when just last week we watched the price of oil plummet from its all time high near $150/barrel to somewhere in the $60 price range. What that tells me is that we as the American public have tremendous power in affecting the price of oil! We have cut demand by not buying Hummers, ski boats, and various other consumables and have cut carbon output by tons and tons. I guess the takeaway for me is that we definitely have the power to reduce consumption drastically and have just chosen not to do so until we couldn’t afford not to do so.

Micah

Have you seen this guy and the project he is working on this month? The whole thing makes you thing more about our dependence on plastic and the negative effects its having on the environment.

Very cool.

Levi

Jessie (My awesome wife) has been really digging this blog lately. We now have homemade hand soap, deodorant and laundry soap is on the way, all because EnviroMom is helping us think about our waste and consumption in a new way with her writing. Makes me think about what else we can produce at home…  Because its clear that a good portion of each of our carbon footprint sizes comes from the packaging wasted by the stuff we buy.

Here is the recipe if you want to get your hands dirty (or clean, either way).

1 cup water
1/4 cup liquid castille soap (like Dr. Bronners)
1 tsp vegetable glycerine

Levi

Always a big fan of measuring sustainable efforts I was pleased to see that the EPA is going to be putting labels on new cars sold in California showing the buyer the true impact of both its production and ongoing use. Its about time we knew the story about the cars we drive.  You can read more about the labels here.

Sometimes I get so wrapped up in defending well designed density that I forget some of the basic reasons for it. It was refreshing to see this post from a conference in Israel – where land is much scarcer and fought over than here. I liked this quote – “Transit, culture, creativity ­ none of these can survive in low density cities, and this means lower quality of life. Population growth is an opportunity. Mixed uses, varied buildings, small blocks, public transport ­ all of these will make our cities succeed. Otherwise, our cities will decline, and our open spaces will disappear.”

You can read it here.

Steve

The following is another excerpt from the story of our travels to Burkina Faso. Read along as we brave the Metro in Paris, become red with African Dust in Burkina Faso, and climb rickety ladders to reach rooftops. Our intent? To learn more about Earth Roofs in the Sahel and to see for ourselves the life-changing effect of this program. If you’re reading for the first time, you can see the other entries here.

It’s been a long time since I wrote about our life-changing trip to Burkina Faso. Wow. A lot has happened, and I find myself with my family in Canada, rather than in Sacramento, getting ready to fly to Turkey within a matter of weeks, en route to our new life in India. Not only that, but we had some pretty major losses in the last few months. You know about our friend Jason passing away. I guess it makes sense that writing took a back burner for a minute there.

But I just don’t want to stop writing about what we experienced in West Africa and about the incroyable program that AVN has facilitated there. Also, Jason really was the heart and brilliance behind the trip that Jessie and Cindy and I took to Burkina Faso, so let’s keep writing about the difference people are making on a different continent. Here we go, after a long pause.

The last part of our trip that I wrote about was meeting Minata, one of AVN’s entrepreneurs. I wrote about how a woman came out dancing, when we arrived, how Minata exuded strength, and then, how, surprising us, she jumped in our car to journey with us for a while. This is what happened next.

We are headed to a village called Oualou. (Pronounced Wa-loo, like Waterloo without the “ter”) But being the travelers that we are, we are dying to look at a little local craftsmanship, so we stop to check out the hand-thrown pottery that Tcheriba is known for. A few ladies have their wares spread out by the side of the road, on sheets in the dust. There are rows and rows of beautiful thick brown pottery; dishes and ornaments and tea sets. Cindy and Jessie begin to look at one lady’s pottery, while I look at the neighboring display. It is hard to choose, knowing that they probably all need the business. I buy a tea set and a bunch of other things. (Not really considering that all of this is coming in the car with us all.)

However, we are in a hurry. We need to finish seeing the villages we are supposed to see, before heading to Safane to spend the night. So Séri (the director of AVN in Boromo, remember?) tells our translator that it is no problem, we will simply leave the pottery here, and when we come back through they will have it packed in a box for us. Thinking of other places I have traveled, where possibly the vendors would deny ever selling me anything if I came back to pick something up, my jaw drops a little. Jessie and Cindy and I look at each other. And we leave with the others.

(Later, when we drive back to pick the pottery up, it is pitch black outside. The women are standing and waiting for us with a box packed up with all our pottery and a large quantity of straw, to keep it safe.)

In Oualou a large house rises out of the brown earth, striking because it is covered in black and white rune-like writing. It is beautiful, a home with two earth vaults, and when Cindy asks Moctar about the writing and what it means, he shrugs and says, “The women do it.” We are not really enlightened about what the writing means, but it sure is lovely. The owner of the house is not here.

We take a little tour of the home, and once again I am struck by the simplicity of the furnishings. Actually, I should say, there are no furnishings, other than a sleeping mat on the floor beneath a rolled-up mosquito net. People in Burkina Faso have so little. The overall feeling in the house, though is calm and cool, at the end of a hot day. The earth roofs have kept this home from the attack of the brutal Sahel sun.

Zati was the entrepreneur who built this house, with his team of masons, and he asks me if I would like to take photos of the back of the building. While we are back there, I spot a large pile of the empty karité shells, the nut whose oil is used to waterproof these earth homes against the monsoon. Of course I have to take a photo.

We sit outside in the late afternoon sun, chatting and asking questions. The owner of the home comes back. He is a tall, striking man in Muslim garb. He and Zati sit on a rug and exchange greetings of blessing. They laugh and chat, and we hear a little about how this man loves his home (it is obvious, the only home in the village so carefully painted) until a third man approaches them. I notice with interest that the man is carrying a chicken behind his back. (!)

He says a few words, and then whips the chicken in front of him and presents it to Zati. It is a gift for Zati, the man who built the vault style home of this man. Jessie has heard since then (although we had a small inkling) of how large-hearted a gesture this is. To give a man a whole live chicken is an incredibly generous way to honor someone, since livestock is so valuable.

Zati laughs as he takes the chicken, and we all laugh and clap with him. I turn to Moctar and ask, “Will the chicken be coming with us now too?”

He laughs and nods. “Yes. The chicken will come with us now also.”  And now, after seeing another example of a man’s life changed by improved housing, we all hop back in the car… with the chicken.

The following is another excerpt from the story of our travels to Burkina Faso.  Read along as we brave the Metro in Paris, become red with African Dust in Burkina Faso, and climb rickety ladders to reach rooftops.  Our intent?  To learn more about Earth Roofs in the Sahel and to see for ourselves the life-changing effect of this program. If you’re reading for the first time, you can see the other entries here.

When we leave Zati’s village, he comes with us, climbing into the back of the 4×4 with Djeliba and Moctar. Looking at the three grown men folded into the back, I am glad again that we cut down on our luggage before we left.

After driving again for a while, we come to a village called Zeikuy. As we step out of the vehicle, Djeliba begins his song of arrival, and an older woman with a baby held in a cloth on her back comes out to dance. After a minute, needing to dance more freely, she takes the baby off and hands her to a friend.

As she finishes her dance, we all applaud, and she holds up her hand triumphantly, laughing.

We are here to meet Minata, another woman who lives in this village who is an entrepreneur for AVN, and as Moctar tells us, a very powerful woman. She has markings that have been carved into her skin a long time ago. They designate her tribe, and are very striking. Although the markings are outlawed now, we meet many older people who still have them, having received them as children. We shake hands with Minata briefly, and then don’t see her again as we walk the rest of the way into the village, to meet the chief. (We find out later that Minata jumped on a bicycle, to tell as many people as possible that there were visitors.)

We all shake hands with the chief, who is sitting under a shaded structure in a sort of courtyard in the village. Many people make a small curtsy, almost, like a slight knee bend, as they shake the chief’s hand, and Djeliba and the chief exchange customary greetings. The greetings are a sort of back and forth blessing, with few pauses, one person speaking and the other agreeing, almost on top of the first person’s words.

It is beautiful to us, ritual-starved people that we are. There really is something about rituals of blessing or honor like this. To know what is necessary, to fill in the right blanks, to make a small knee bend to honor an older man who looks out for the good of his village… these things are simple and lovely.

This village is so remote. And yet it is here that Zati came and saw his first VN method house, with the vaulted, airy roofs, and decided that he would be an entrepreneur. The house is the chief’s house, and he takes us on a brief tour. Even being the chief, he has very few possessions. And I mean, very few. Fewer than you might think of, when you think, “few.”

On the wall in the front room is a collection of photos, and Cindy points our a photo of Thomas standing with a few Burkina men, near the top, in a place of honor. The chief loves AVN and Thomas, and the home that AVN has made possible for him.

Minata joins us again as we sit in the shade together. She is comfortable and confident- a woman in charge. The incredible thing about Minata is just herself, who she is and what she is doing with her life, here, in this remote village, far from many things, as a woman with many grandchildren, as a woman. When Jessie asks her what it is that she likes about the VN method homes, she repeats herself often. “She likes that they last a long time,” Moctar, the translator, tells us. The work that a family needs to do, upgrading their homes and fixing the leaks, putting the roofs back on when a gusty storm blows the corrugated metal off, all this work is time spent that could be spent on something else. It is things like this that make the difference between a people group merely existing and a people group thriving and advancing.

Minata now is contracting VN method buildings, hiring and overseeing young masons as they form the vaults, brick by brick. She tells us that she has permits for six building in the next building season. Six more homes built by this one woman in remote Burkina Faso, six more buildings that will withstand rain and heat without needing to be rebuilt. As we get to know Minata over the next few days, I can imagine that she simply saw something she liked, something of value, and made up her mind to help it spread. She is a strong woman.

Because, of course, when we leave Zeikuy, Minata comes with us. And the beauty of the culture and of our traveling companions is that they don’t tell her, “There is no more room, we are already full.” Instead, they say, “Sure! Hop in.” And the ten of us drive away.