Zero Energy Development

[frosty]

I suppose my post did sound a bit judgemental and I appologise if I offended anyone.

Cetainly I do agree the existing IC are certainly on the right track and trying very hard to do the right thing.

I like the idea of living somewhere where I don’t have to fear the neighbours poisoning me and where we can meet people who care about the planet and sustainability.

Mark I really am unable to actually visit any communities there are not many in WA, none that sound suitable and organising travel is nearly impossible when you milk goats everyday :lol: :lol:

I do subscribe to a newsletter of Summerville and through that have completed some questionaires related to new villages being established in the ES . So I have made my thoughts known even if no one showed much interest. I have been going to contribute to your topic but somehow havent got around to it. I would be interested to know more about what you have in mind. We may eventually consider a move interstate but it would take a long time to organise ( years ! )

Cathy I think your idea of people sharing you property sounds excellent ! I even looked up where Canowindra was but there is just too much farming ( and hence spraying )in the area. :cry:

I have sounded out other chemically sensitive people over a number of years but most prefer to stay in a city and say having land is too much work. None that I know seem to have much interest in sustainability or trying to be self sufficient.

Tezza I agree there do seem to be lots of arguments - like everything it is people that stuff a good idea :lol: :lol:

I don’t know the solution but it make me very wary especially when many of the iC I have investigated seem to be oganised by and built for city capitalist minded people. To me there is too much emphasis on making money and as you say a lot of silly rules which ignore the bigger isues I mentioned in my first post. eg fom inquiries I have made it seems out steel famed house built of lal termite resistant non toxic would not be acceptable yet some of the homes at IC I have seen in photos seem enormous ( unsustainable ? ) and full of toxic materials.

frosty

[ecodharmamark]

G'day frosty

Sorry, I misread your earlier post. I thought you said that you had actually travelled to many different IC's, and no, you certainly didn't offend me - I'm unoffendable :lol:. Please allow me to say that I have read everything you have posted since I joined the forum, and I'm truly sorry that you have received such a rough deal in life with the chemically-induced illness' that you live with. The goats must bring you much comfort and joy each day? I think they are beauitful beings.

Concerning the IC that I'm involved in: We are still in the very early stages of pre-planning. I say 'early', but it is actually a process that has never been far from my mind for over 7-years now . Building strong, egalitarian, and consensus-driven community takes time, lots of time. And of course a community is only a reflection of the people that live within it. So in order to find the above community traits, one must first band together with a group of people who personally exhibit those very same traits. Slowly we are coming together, from all walks of life, from all socio-economic backgrounds. The actual community that I hope to one day live in may never see the light of day while I'm alive, but I do know that all the hard work of the members thus far means that one day our community will bear fruit of the most wonderous kind. And of course in the meantime I'm helping others find their dream community:

Page 78; paragraph 'Future Developments' in:

http://www.bcvic.org.au/pdf/profile_and ... in_vic.pdf

and

Item 4.8 in:

http://www.bendigo.vic.gov.au/Files/021 ... EETING.pdf

I'm back at uni now, and my time has become so squeezed, so I must sign off for the day. I truly hope that you are able to find a suitable compromise in your desire to find an eco-village given your present circumstances, frosty.

Thank you for telling the world your story, and may all that follow in our footsteps live long enough to see the end of chemical pollution in our beautiful universe.

May peace, love, joy and hapiness burst forth into the lives of all sentient beings.

Cherio, Mark.

[gardenlen]

dunno to me most of these "sustainable" quoted type things are little more than the inefficient macmansions designs that we already have they design to fit into the indoctrinated well within the square and comfort zone of peoiple minds.

if we are going to even look like getting a design that is truely capable of keeping you as warm as! and as cool as! then we need to look outside the design pattern, and just using different and way out cladding ie.,. straw bale, compacted earth is not the answer.

i see on those links cottage ramantic feeling and looking places with little mention of land aspect and orientation of the home on that land and layout.

i don't see the use of timber, straw bales compacted earth as sustainable, straw bales comes from inefficient agriculture that destroyed habitat to be there and is very attractive to a lot of termites in the wild, and again if everyone used staw where will it all eventually come from more habitat destruction to create straw. using earht requier that the material has to be generated from somewhere again the soil is habitat or where once trees stood and you end up with a hole in the ground imagine if every one went that way??

we built an eco' home that works the basic design should be adaptable to all our climes but like any home claiming these feature it must be built on the correct aspect or near to and the orientation must be right. the cladding can be any materila that suits the climatic zone ie.,. in the tropics light material basically except for the western end, in the very muggy hot tropics more of a rake on the roof, in the cooler to cold climes block walls.

this home needed no termite barriers, there are almost no materials in it attractive to any termite breeds (apart form a little dressing timber around windows and doors, but the design draws little attention as do any others who have similar design because it is outside the square and comfort zone of the romantic indoctrinated ideas. and at the very least also was fire rsistant.

our home needed one light to illuminate sufficiently the whole interior except on full moon periods it needed none.

too much yuppie influence from what i have seen on the whole, and use of the term "sustainability" as a fell good measure.

nothing in this life is perfect and we all want to live in homes so we need our mathematically minded to do the math on what is the lowets impact keeping in mind there aren't enough caves around for all of us to live in.

we now live in one of those inefficient macmansions, and in my life i guess i'll never get to live in real comfort again, there are some things we can do to this place to make it a little more comfy, but i now understand the need for lots of support band aide inustries to sell people after market expensive advantages that should be part of design.

plantation timber grows where once habitat grew.

len

[frosty]

G'day Mark and hanks for your reply

G'day frosty

Please allow me to say that I have read everything you have posted since I joined the forum, and I'm truly sorry that you have received such a rough deal in life with the chemically-induced illness' that you live with. The goats must bring you much comfort and joy each day? I think they are beauitful beings.

firstly I reallly appeciate you taking the time to say this - thank you

and yes goats are wonderful and beautiful beings .... a lady I have met online through having goats wrote a book about goats called "if only we could listen" and that is so true .........

Concerning the IC that I'm involved in: We are still in the very early stages of pre-planning. I say 'early', but it is actually a process that has never been far from my mind for over 7-years now . Building strong, egalitarian, and consensus-driven community takes time, lots of time. And of course a community is only a reflection of the people that live within it. So in order to find the above community traits, one must first band together with a group of people who personally exhibit those very same traits.

this statement makes absolute sense and maybe is here we are going wrong ........ we keep "looking" ( online ) at existing communities trying to find one that suits our ideals .........I guess what we need to do is get involved from the grassroots and find the people first

as I said above we have tried to find other chemically sensitive people without success and decided the only general group we could fit in with is pemaculture/ green people.

Unfortunately we are very cynical and suspicious of people's motives :lol: being a disabled chemically ill anti military campaigner, environmental activist does tend to bring out the worst in the average materialistic aussie :lol: :lol: because everything we represent and work for threatens their "way of life " Locally we are the only Greens party members within 100km and in a predominately very right wing area :evil: we are always looking for somewhere better and safer but so far without success .........

anyway I better stop waffling

we would like to eventually join a community of like minded people bringing with us the beginnings of a herd of dairy goats plus hubby has lots of useful skills ! another consideration with our goats is that they consider us part of their herd and as such they always "camp" where they can observe our comings and goings and know that even when we are inside we are close ........ they call to us whenever we come outside and at times when things go wrong - like when a doe got caught up in the string holding up a branch tied on the gate for browsing - they all called until hubby got up in the middle of the night and released her it is very special being an honoury goat

they would hate to have us live somewhere away from them and in fact this social need of goats is one of the main reasons why they dont do well in commercial factory farm type situations

unfortunarly I cant open those links on a very slow dialup connection but will keep trying as some days it is a bit better

thanks again for your reply


regards
frosty