AN IDEA FOR YOUR THOUGHTS

Nola Poirier is a freelance writer, living in Powell River, B.C.
She is the author of many wonderful stories, a campaigner, a leader and an inspiring presence. You can also read her home energy efficiency blog



I have moved, actually moved, 39 times. That doesn’t count the months I’ve spent traveling, or my frequent relocation during the four years I lived in my Volkswagen van, Olive.  I attended six elementary schools, two high schools, and I’m just about to begin studies at my seventh post secondary institution. For my most recent move, I left a main floor rental suite in east Vancouver and trekked up the Sunshine Coast to buy a four-acre lot with a rundown house, a small orchard of fruit and nut trees, and plenty of cleared space available for gardens.

The distance is not so considerable as when I moved from Victoria, BC to Plymouth, England. The contrast in weather is nowhere near as great as it was leaving the balm of Bermudian breezes for a bracing winter in Greenwood, Nova Scotia. And my lifestyle has not changed nearly so acutely as it did when I moved from the bucolic splendor of Smithers, BC, to the rugged urbanity of downtown San Salvador, El Salvador. Nonetheless this move has inspired a disproportionate shift in my thinking.

The move was planned. I mean, in the end it all happened in a span of five weeks: deciding definitely someday we (my husband and I) would buy land and move rurally, viewing land, putting in an offer, having it accepted, packing up the apartment, moving out of there, and moving into here. So it does feel quite sudden. But in the big plan for my life, living on an acreage, and growing much of my own food had been an aspiration since I finished high school.  So it also feels very familiar.

I have worked on organic farms as a labourer, a permaculture designer, and an educator. I have been a writer and researcher for educational programs on sustainable living, and I have learned from many amazing teachers about key concepts and technologies to support a more sustainable lifestyle. All of these experiences informed and further inspired the life I envisioned for myself.

Some people argue that people living in cities take up less space. I don’t agree. I think the urban/rural question isn’t the important one; the key is living well, wherever you are. And urban dwellers don’t necessarily use less space. No matter where a person lives, their footprint depends on where food is grown, where carbon goes and oxygen comes from, the energy type and amount they use and where it’s sourced, the transportation required for people and goods, and waste disposal and sewage.

As part of my own attempt to live well, I began right away to make energy efficient changes to my new house. I had an energy audit, switched to CFL light bulbs, used materials from the property for renovations, sealed up the gaps and cracks, and now I’m preparing to increase the insulation in the basement and attic. I have also been surveying the property to determine the angles of the sun for growing and passive home heating, the best location for my garden, drainage routes, soil type, and the prevailing winds. This information will help me apply permaculture principles to the property, to maximize production, benefit natural cycles, and minimize labour and resource input needs.

But as prepared as I thought I was, my thoughts took a turn when the snow melted and I walked my land last week. This space, this 3.96 acres, contains about two acres of arable land. With two of us living on it, we each have about the amount everyone could have if all arable land on Earth was all divided equally among the population. This is it. That means that in this space I should be able to grow ALL the food we use year round. As well, at 2006 population levels, there are 5.6 acres of total land per person. Therefore, this property is almost half the space that the two of us can use for all the resources and manufacturing we consume. And that amount doesn’t factor in ice caps, tundra, and deserts, nor does it leave any land in wilderness areas.

It wasn’t an entirely new concept for me, after years of reading about ecological footprints and the need to live less resource intensive lives, but it did suddenly (and quite literally) hit home. No matter how energy efficient I make my house, or how productive I make my garden, everyone couldn’t live like this. There simply isn’t room.

I hope I have never been self-righteous about my lifestyle, but I know that I have believed the way I lived my life so far, and my intention for living on this land, were sustainable paths. The recognition that aiming for self-sufficiency wasn’t going to be enough was at first an ominous one. While I am a firm believer in stepping up to the crisis we face, I don’t believe that gloom and despair are effective forces for change. So, after a moment’s pause, I contemplated the elements that I have always felt are crucial for positive change: diversity, innovation, community, and found them to be even more relevant in this context.

For years I sought a solution for “the” environmental crisis. This pursuit echoed through me like a Zen Koan until I finally embraced the insight that there is no one right answer. One answer would never work. There have to be numerous and diverse answers. Examples like biofuel and corn have demonstrated how if you multiply a sustainable idea by too much demand, the result can be disastrous.  My choices, my solutions, are not the solutions for everyone. Likewise, I can’t resolve issues in the same way as everyone around me.

I also can’t solve current issues using only technologies from the past. Going “back to the land” isn’t going to move us forward to meet present needs and situations. While I can and will borrow from old wisdom; it will take innovation to develop new ways to share space, source our energy, produce food and other materials, and construct our buildings. Innovation comes from blending ideas and creating combinations of fresh thinking. There is an adage I often think of:

If you have a penny and I have a penny, and we trade pennies, then we each have a penny. But if you have an idea and I have an idea, and we trade ideas, we each have two ideas.

Combining new thoughts in even newer ways is a necessary practice for making the kind of deep shift we need to reconcile our current crisis.  And that kind of combining and interplay of ideas arises out of community.

I have seen how working as part of a community expands the potential for all its members, and how living in some form of community can lessen the needs of each individual. I also recognize my responsibility to find ways to share the resources of this land among a community of people to balance out what I need to draw from other places.

I’ve felt a shift though, since I walked the land last week, a shift in my relationship with/in community. It wasn’t that taking account of community in my life and including community building as a key part of a good life were new ideas to me. And it isn’t due to the people I’ve met. Living 25 hilly kilometers from town, and working from home, meeting people is not a fast process. It’s that before my plans tended to be for me first, adding community later, like an herb in a stew. Somehow recognizing that self-sufficiency was an inadequate goal; that community-fulfillment better articulates a path toward global fulfillment, has subtly adjusted my approach.

The outward progression of things might still look similar around here, and, certainly, getting this house to be energy efficient remains essential work, but I have felt my thoughts about this land move from “I want” and “I’m going to,” toward more community-minded ideas about participation, integration, and cooperation. Making that shift in my thinking has changed - everything.

Nola Poirier is a freelance writer. You can check out her home energy efficiency blog