New Blog!

Find me on my new blog www.DecentralizedFrontier.com where I'm exploring how Earthship concepts like decentralization and autonomy are expanding to different industries in technology and society.

Photo Courtesy of www.ValhallaMovement.com

Earthship Tour

Well, my Earthship tour has come to an end for the year and it has been quite the eventful year. I had an incredible time at the Earthship Academy as well as my interning opportunities in Northern New Mexico, Vermont and New York State. The Three Day Earthship seminar held at the ROM was a great success, it gave people from all over Canada the opportunity to listen to Mike Reynolds speak in person and it gave me an opportunity to demonstrate my newly aquired skillls to a large group of people. My goal now is to work towards buying a piece of land and starting to build my own Earthship, which I know now is possible.

Earthship Biotecture Academy Week 1

My experience at the Earthship Biotecture Academy so far has been incredible. I've already toured many beautiful Earthships around Taos, slept in an Earthship 9000ft. above sea level on the side of a mountain, listened to three captivating Michael Reynolds lectures, accumulated a ton of useful information on how to build my own Earthship and met many intelligent, interesting and motivated people from all around the world.

There are so many noteworthy things happening everyday it would be impossible to document them all, so I've decided to focus on documenting the focal point of our Earthship Academy Spring Session: building the first ever Simple Survival Model Earthship from the ground up.

Day 1: We layed out our jobsite with string lines to determine where our first tires would go. We oriented the building 15 degrees East of South to allow for maximum solar gain - that's the optimal position for a building at our latitude. Once all of our string lines were square we began pounding tires which was exhausting at first, but you quickly learn how to make the 8lb. sledgehammer do all the work.

Day 3: We continued pounding tires - ensuring that they were level with themselves and their neighbours beside them - and made space for our cooling tube at the back of the building which we installed at a slight pitch running away from the building.

Day 5: We pounded our last course of tires, hooked up the cistern, installed the thermal wrap behind the tire wall and "packed out" the gaps between the tires with concrete and recycled bottles.

We project that the building will be complete in 5 weeks and when it's done it will look like this

Northern New Mexico Global Model Earthship Build

From May - June 2012 I will be in Northern New Mexico working alongside the Earthship crew on a Global Model Earthship Build. I'm excited but it's going to be sweltering!

Earthship Academy Update

Finally, it's almost time.

In a couple weeks I'll be flying down to New Mexico to begin my training at the Earthship Academy. I'm very excited to learn new skills, meet interesting people from around the world, and share exciting ideas about the possibilities for this way of living.

On March 1st at 10am we have a 2 hour tour of the Greater World Community and from there we will go to our assigned houses and have the rest of the day to explore Taos. I'll be staying in The Canon, which is the first house that Michael Reynolds ever built. It's made of can "bricks" and was the initial inspiration for the Earthship concept and is only a 15 minute walk away from the historic Taos Plaza

I'll be updating my blog regularly with video, pictures and details of our daily happenings.

The Canon

Freeville, New York Earthship Build

From August 13-31 2012, I will be helping to build a Global Model Earthship in Freeville, New York.

I'm really looking forward to working with the Earthship Crew on a project so close to home.

For more information on this specific build click here.

Michael Reynolds Nominated for Prestigious International Energy Prize

From the Earthship Biotecture Blog:

Earthship creator Michael Reynolds has been nominated for the Zayed Future Energy Prize Lifetime Achievement Award. The prestigious international prize was created to honor the late ruler of Abu Dhabi and Founding Father of the United Arab Emirates, HH Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. The prize recognizes business and individuals across three categories: small business, large business and Lifetime Achievement. From the website for the prize, “By honouring and rewarding those people who are tackling the energy crisis today, we hope to educate and inspire future leaders and innovators. Creating a sustainable energy future is the surest way to combat the impending threat of climate change and global warming, and to ensure a clean, livable environment for future generations.” The Lifetime Achievement Award includes a $500,000 cash prize. Winners are honored at an awards ceremony in January.

For the full release from the official Earthship blog click here.

Earthship Academy Acceptance

I am very excited to announce that on Monday I received a letter of acceptance to the Earthship Academy.

I am very excited to be given the chance to get deeper into Earthship Biotecture.

My highest hope is that by becoming involved with Earthship Biotecture I will help bring awareness to the potential of manifesting a post-scarcity economy, where all material needs are met and people are able to exclusively pursue their own creative and innovative interests, and on a hippier note, revel in the evolutionary journey that we are all on.

Here is a video reinforcing the capability of Earthships to exist in extremely remote locations - Buffalo, Wyoming 2011.

The Completed Earthship in Buffalo, Wyoming 2011.

Another Excerpt from my Earthship Academy Application

"I believe that the evolutionary process is one of the fundamental forces, if not the fundamental force that underlies all reality and I sincerely believe that the more we align our lives with this fundamental process, whether physically, spiritually or both, the more rewarding and long-lasting life will be. The Earthship lifestyle is extremely interesting because it allows us to align more closely with the evolutionary process: it affords us the spiritual freedom to work on what we truly believe in, while at the same time providing a comfortable space that not only allows us, but forces us to align with the rhythm of the natural world."

Excerpt from my Earthship Academy Application

"Sustainability to me is a no-brainer, I mean, if we are to survive as a species continuously into the future we must commit to becoming a sustainable society and do it as quickly as we can. And we all know this. And we all want this. But, it is only the most responsible and visionary among us who set aside their selfish desires, look at the bigger picture, and actually commit to minimizing our impact on the ever-changing climate through direct action. A sustainable society will only come about through the act of creating a space that forces us to live sustainably.

I believe there is no better way to promote and become sustainable than to start from the ground up and reformulate the way we live on this planet--though it may not be the most practical considering the infrastructure that we have already built. Earthships have re-imagined how we manage our basic biological needs and fit them neatly into a completely sustainable, self-sufficient package. The Earthship lifestyle provides a stable and comfortable foundation from where we can revamp society to fit a sustainable model. We understand in our minds that we have exhausted our current social model—though we can’t directly feel it yet—and to ensure our survival as a species on this planet we know we have to change and evolve out of old traditions into sustainable ones."