McMansion under construction by merfam

Remember when people where trending on such topics as “downsizing” and “simple living?”  It seems like just yesterday.  With untold McMansions listing in their weed-infested suburbs across the U.S. it would seem that the time was indeed ripe for reason to reenter our housing market and smaller footprints and more practical usage of square footage to be valued and rewarded.  The only problem is that downsizing is easy to talk about and hard to do.

American’s love things big.  As my wife and I have listed our 4 bed 3 bath, 1990 sq. ft. home in SLC for sale we have discovered that it is too small to demand top dollar (in our current crappy homes market).  I thought such a home would be ideal for all the people who have been talking about downsizing from their 3,000 sq. ft. 3 bed and 3 bath houses.  But, apparently there aren’t any such people.  What there are, are people who are looking for their first home and finding that 2,000 sq. ft. just isn’t big enough.

Redonculous.  Undergirding current U.S. home sales, or lack of them, is a symptom of our addiction to size.  Appraisers and Realtors still evaluate homes by dollar per sq. ft.  I realize this is a handy little tool to come up with a quick and dirty estimate of a home’s value.  But seriously.  Any builder can come up with stupid ways to waste square footage in order to drop this ratio.  The 1990’s stand as proof.  For decades now U.S. homes have attempted to find all sorts of ways to bloat themselves just for the sake of bloatage – no practical use at all.

I design a home with practical and usable spaces, small bedrooms, custom-built closets and multi-use family spaces and it gets undervalued in the market because it doesn’t waste space well enough.  Realtors advise their clients to steer clear, because after all, they can find a home with more square footage for the same price.  And we all know that bigger is better.  Well, my family’s is about to experience a gypsy’s square footage, if we can ever sell this just less than 2,000 sq. ft. house.  Maybe I’ll add a 1,000 sq. ft dirt room on the back.

Yeti by Philippe Semeria

The only question in regards to the death of the current green enthusiasm is, “Will the new green fad die via popular adoption, or via wholesale abandonment?”  Well, I guess this is the first question, not the only.  The second one would be, “What will green living look like when it is either abandoned or adopted?”

An intelligent reader (I know you are out there!) would of course respond, “Well, economical solutions will be adopted while unrealistic and utopian greening will be abandoned.”  And while making sense, this sort of reasoning with the American people is redonculous at best and dangerous madness at worst.  Just look at corn ethanol, still going strong all these years despite its fairly wide-known economic unfeasibility.  And we all know that the milk of the female Yeti could be a financial boon for holistic medicine if someone would just put in the hard work to create a Yeti milking program, or at least learn to synthesize the stuff.

All good fads come to an end.  Bad ones sometimes uncannily remain, but good ones, they always end.  Some of these fads become the next compact disc or Garth Brooks Juice Tiger juice diet – loved and embraced by all, effectively ending the fad.  Compact fluorescent bulbs have reached this level in the green world.  LED’s are currently still just a fad, but they may reduce CFL’s to vinyl status eventually.

On the other hand, some fads fade away like goldfish shoes and Scientology (ouch! I am such a insensitive jerk.  Luckily, jerkiness is hear to stay.)  Within the green living movement there will certainly be many such fads that never cut the mustard. (Mmmm, green mustard…)  A list of undecideds include smart home meters, ERVs (energy recovery ventilators), urban chicken coops, hemp diapers, anti-polyethylene-terephthalate and/or polycarbonate mania, cloth shopping bags, not wasting water on Kentucky Bluegrass in Utah, and duel-flush toilets.

New technologies are sexy, and they can make going green seem Hollywood.  Getting a green app for your iPhone can be a breathless affair, but this is all a bunch of who cares in the end.  Sure LED lights, if made affordably and practically, could once again radically alter energy consumption from structural lighting.  But so could turning off the lights when you don’t need them.  So why is it that buying flashy new bulbs is hip while insisting on turning off unused lights is totally fuddy-duddy?

I, for one, think that this latest fad of green living will actually die a death of wide-spread adoption.  It will no longer be a fad due to being mainstreamed more than forgotten or ignored.  While this makes my dirty, hairy toes all tingly with excitement like a cool squish in the mud on a hot day, I also fear it may not matter much in the end.  If the lasting heritage of this round of green living includes only a smattering of genuine technological innovations clumped together with a bunch of persisting yet questionable green devices, then who cares?  Really?

Behaviors have to change and Yeti’s must be milked if this new green fad is to become anything that will matter in the end.  If only our behavior would truly be driven by economic sustainability and a rational passion for sustainable free-markets, then we might see some wonderfully amazing and surprisingly simple ideas.  These could include wasting less, workable new energy sources, sweatshop-free labor, more shared-space and less consumer-product redundancy (a TV in every room and a lawn mower in every garage).

It ain’t sexy, but it would be a future enhanced by the fad.

Sweatshop in Chicago

Sweatshops.  Sounds kind’a nice as I watch the snow fall outside my window here in SLC, in April.  Oh, to feel the sweat trickle down the small of my back and then slowly spread along my waistband front and back until it looks like I have thoroughly wet myself.  Oh to feel a hard dirt floor with my blistered and cracked feet and to be able to gnaw on my swollen, spongy tongue longing for a cool drink of water.  Instead I just sit here at my fancy computer typing away with a hot mug of tea watching this freekin’ frozen crap cling to my grapevines and tulips.

Surely I jest.  But seriously, in my quest to discover the truth about global sweatshop numbers and stats I have discovered that this is an idiotic quest.  Much more important are the numbers and factors that make sweatshops not only flourish, but attractive.

Wikipedia defines a sweatshop as “a working environment with unhealthy conditions that are considered by many people of industrialized nations to be difficult or dangerous, usually where the workers have few opportunities to address their situation. This can include exposure to harmful materials, hazardous situations, extreme temperatures, or abuse from employers. Sweatshop workers often work long hours for little pay, regardless of any laws mandating overtime pay or a minimum wage.

Sounds great, right?  So what sort of madness causes these things to thrive around the world (even in the U.S.)?  Simply put, greed and poverty.  Nicholas Kristof raises a good point in his op-ed for the NYTimes from last year.  Sweatshops are real nice options for people who would otherwise live and work in a garbage village.  Hmmm.  So what you are saying, Nick, is that while sweatshops suck, poverty is a bit broader and can suck even more?

A study done by the Wold Bank shows that in 2005 20% of the world’s population lived in what is considered extreme poverty, on just $1.25 a day.  Around 50% live on $2.50 or less a day.  If we stretch it to $10 a day we can include 80% of the world’s population.  This, ladies and gentlemen is poverty.  Estimates say that around 12% of those living in the United States fall below the national poverty line.

The real bummer is that, like most of us, I enjoy the things that poverty makes for me.  I have a connection with my mug.  I like my computer and all the rest of the stuff cluttering my desk.  Even though I like not to think about it, I know that most of it was made by people living off of jack-crap and a cracker.  Heaven forfend, some of the crafters of my crap probably labor for a sweatshop.

So how can we combat sweatshops when so many people around the world would leap out of their garbage pile for such a swanky job?  Well, first of all, we have to share.  My two-year old gets it most of the time.  Forget the complicated economic systems and formulas.  If something is “mine,” then it ain’t “yours.”

Secondly, it is time to realize that low, low prices usually means low, low morals.  When I spend $39 for a DVD player several people just got screwed in that transaction.  When I spend $29 for a pair of jeans a bunch of people just got paid a fraction of a penny for their labor.  Crap, I know!  Sharing sometimes means we have to play fair when we use our purchasing power here in the States.  And the real stick in the eye is that I have to bother to search out commercial goods that help me share when I buy them!  Fair wage they call it.  Sweatshop-free labor.

But it’s true.  We live in such a screwed up world that it is our responsibility as consumers to ensure that we don’t get the best price on a product, but that we share our surplus wealth with those who need it.  This is one case when buying can be saving.  By buying socially-aware goods we can save human lives, dignity and health by freely offering up what we can afford to live without when we are buying the things we choose to live with.

The answer, of course, is nobody knows.  But I have to write about something, so… let’s say… meaningful and fulfilling lives.  But first, where are they moving?  States like Texas have had a positive population gain over the last couple of years mostly due to strong energy sector jobs.  But let’s face it.  As an former resident of Texas, I realize not everyone wants to move to the armpit of hell, Houston.

Many are decrying the fact that young people are fleeing the country like scripted drama from prime time television.  But just like prime time TV, there are pockets of CSI, er, young people still finding home in the country.  Others, like a recent Wall Street Journal article, talk about the opposite trend.

The Journal’s story is entitled, “Green Acres is the place to be,” and it represents the perspective that people are migrating back to the country.  ”Motivations can vary, but typically there are three groups: young people buying land as an asset or investment, with vague hopes to live on it someday; exurban commuters who have jobs in big towns or cities but want to escape the sprawl; and back-to-the-land types who want to dabble in hobby farming.”

Honestly, if i were a God-fearing country boy, I would have to admit that the Wall Street Journal doesn’t make these folk sound very appealing.  Land speculators, commuters and hobby-farmers sound like the sort of people I would harass with bottle rockets or small arms fire, or perhaps some mailbox baseball. All said, it seems obvious that young people are leaving Rural America.  This is not exactly a new trend.  The recent book, Hollowing Out the Middle, addressed this issue in candid detail.  A splendid blog, Reimagine Rural, also dedicates much time and energy to the topic.

While most movement is out of the country and toward the city, there is a significant movement in the opposite direction.  While many of those individuals moving back to the country may not be representing country folks’ interests, I believe that some are.  Because of the longevity of the trend to flee the country many God-fearing country boys and girls are waking up every morning to the sounds of honking, train whistles and sirens.  With the help of a dream-crushing economy, many of these country-gone-city folk are also waking back up to their childhood memories of a simpler life.  By simpler I mean more straight forward: no gym fees, no commuter traffic, no HOA fees.

I see these folk as not so much pretenders or redneck wanna’bes, but rather prodigals returning home.  After spending so much of their formative years desiring nothing more than escape from a provincial life, now they wonder if the city was a harpy, a siren luring them to destruction.  After all, if you are going to be unemployed, why not be unemployed back home surrounded by family and homegrown food and cheap property prices.  But seriously, some of these people are returning to the country with actual skills and a passion to make Rural America great again.

The question still remains on where they will end up.  Certainly things like broadband and coffee shops will play a part.  More importantly, where will they find open arms and a welcome embrace?  Which small towns will decide that the Prodigal deserves a fatted calf after all?

I will call upon someone with a modicum of professional talent in Salt Lake City to make the prototype of “One True Pants.”  Yes, the pair of pants that all others will one day bend the knee towards and acknowledge as king.  How could I expect this pair of pants to be found wondering the savannas of retail America?  No, the one true pants has yet to be woven together in the womb of its father’s mind.  Too far?  Yeah, I don’t even understand myself anymore.

Recently though, I found more helpful insight from Eric VandenBerg, the founder of the Hemp Barn.  What will really blow your mind about a place called the Hemp Barn is not that it is primarily an earth-friendly upholstery store, or that it was founded by a young, non-hippy male, but that it is based in Salt Lake City.  I know.  Miracles never cease.

Eric is a totally down to earth guy that had a dream and followed it.  Now that dream is growing into a successful business.  He admits that he still has another part-time job to make ends meet, but hopefully it won’t be long before upholstering worn-out cotton furnishings and providing hemp-based, household inspiration can pay all the bills.

As for my little quest Eric was immensely helpful in allowing me to inspect several swatches (take a moment to role that word around in your mouth.  Swatches.) as I attempt to figure out which fabric to roll with for my OTP.  It turns out that I may be able to use fabric as heavy as 14 or 15 oz. depending on the weave.  Although at the moment I am still leaning toward something in a tightly woven canvas around the 12 once weight.

The next big challenge is to find a seamstress and to determine the exact pattern that should be used for OTP prototype production.  Stay tuned.  Gotta’ go wash the metaphorical dirt out of my hair.

Well, I have unearthed a hidden realm where hemp clothing abounds.  Well, it is more of an unincorporated settlement than a realm, and by “abounds” I mean exists.  But that is good news!

Tiny cottage clothiers and textile businesses sprinkling North America are creating quality hemp clothing.  Some of these small businesses and basement operations even make men’s pants.  Canada and the Northwestern US contain the majority of these small companies, but others are scattered from California to New York and even in the South. (I know.)

The down side is that it looks like many of these small start-ups have recently become shut-downs probably due to the recent lack of desire and ability for many consumers to fork out $100-$200 for pants.  I bet even the pocket fox aphrodisiac industry is suffering (reference Mr. Burns from the Simpsons).  But at least one of the companies seems to being fine.

Circle Creations, based out of Eugene, OR, has not only one pair of men’s hemp pants for sale, but two!  The Evergreen Drawstring Pant cost $80, and is certainly a step up from the typical cross-legged, breezy yoga pant.

But even more interesting is the Cedar Pant hand-crafted by Circle Creations.  This pair of pants is the closest to twitterpation I have come so far.  You have to take a look at them.  I mean, now we are talking.  Loralee, designer and seamstress for Circle Creations, says she has gotten report of her patrons wearing these pants for 4-plus years.

Maybe the world isn’t so far gone.  Maybe there is hope after all.  As the American public continues to sort through the carnage of Reefer Mania and stops making knee-jerk jokes about smoking my pants, perhaps clothing will become sustainable, and hemp will become king.

U Car Share provides another alternative, alongside riding a bike or taking a bus, to individual car ownership.  This sort of thing has been going on for years in romantic locals such as McMinnville, Berkeley, Portland and Madison.  But, alas, I have never lived in any of those places.  I do, however, live in Salt Lake City.  Thus I should be thrilled to have access to car sharing.  Yeah!  Woohoo.  Yep.  Hizzaa.  Woopty doo.

I just can’t think of a reason to use it.  I get it.  I do.  I just ain’t excited.  Bear with my math.  My wife and I pay roughly $4000 to $5000 a year to own, maintain and fuel (this includes the 8,000 we paid for it divided over the period of time we have owned it) our only car, a Honda Civic.  With the current rates for U Car Share I could share a similar car for about 8 to 10 hours a week (depending on how many miles/gallons I drove it) for around the same $5000 a year.

We live about 4 blocks (like 8 normal city blocks) from the nearest U Car Share drop-off and pick-up point.  So, we could sell our car and drive nice, new U-Share cars for up to 10 hours a week instead and still pay the same amount of money.  Cool, huh?  Huh.  O.K.  both my wife and I work on the nearby University campus, where there are also pick-up and drop-off points.  So, we could use the car in the morning (after a brisk 12 minute walk) and leave it on campus.  Then we could take it home again in the evening.  But one of us would need to take our son, and we might not leave at the same time, or one of us would need to come back.  But maybe one of us would just stay home with the kid anyway.  So one hour twice a day for 5 days to get to campus.  That is our ten hours.

Nah, we would just take the bus or trax to do that.  So, what about shopping?  Going out to eat?  Visiting friends?  Driving up into the mountains for a hike?  I just don’t get using the U Car Share program for any of these.  If I wasn’t so lazy I would just be riding my bike around for most of this anyway.

You say, “Hey, jerk.  This car sharing stuff isn’t meant for people like you — young, urbanite, granola couples with adopted children and too busy trying to simplify in order to care.”  O.K.  who is it for then?  Well, maybe students for one.  Afterall, why should students park their car coffins on campus just to collect dust while they exercise their minds in ways to save the future?  But when I was a student I wouldn’t have paid $15 dollars to share a car and drive to Walmart when I could have ridden the light-rail system for free, or just borrowed a friend’s car.

I don’t know, maybe I am a big jerk.  Maybe my searing hatred for U-haul is blinding me to their non-profit grubbing, earth-saving ways.  Now that my city finally has a car share program I just can’t care.

Orvis is the only clothing store with a website that sells hemp pants in size 34×34 for men.  I know.  A powerful statement made by a man wearing cannabis crafted clothing, but true.  Nowhere else could I find my coveted pants.  Orvis had two colors to chose from in 3 different inseams and several waist sizes.

Outdoorsmen and farmers have known for over a hundred years that hemp makes a durable yet breathable pair of pants — pants you can do real work in.  This is something many granolas apparently don’t know about.  While they sit around in yoga poses wearing their drawstring, high-water pants, I am sitting in my cushy, office chair in my durable, work-capable hemp pants.  And you know what, I might go do some real work when the weather warms up.

For now, I’ve got more NFL playoffs to attend to, and I’m glad I know I can rely on my new hemp pants to keep me cheering in style.  For now, Granolas are down 7 to 0 against Outdoorsmen.  If you would like to join me wearing the only pair of sustainable Hemp pants available on-line click here.

If I can’t find a good pair of hemp cargo pants that fit me, how am I supposed to rant to strangers on the bus about how evil cotton is?  If I can’t rant then how will I devise the next clever and rankling debate point to slay the slovenly, money-grubbing, truth-ignoring participants of our downward-spiraling global economy?

Ah, therein lies the problem.  Granolas lack the cutthroat instincts to run the world.  They can’t even run a clothing line that makes hemp cargo pants with a 34in. inseam.  I’m not even that tall, people.  I’m 6′1″.  Most on-line shopping for hemp pants brings up yoga and meditation pants, or outdoor clothing for women.  What, men don’t go outdoors?  Just because I want hemp pants doesn’t mean I’m an old, retired hippy sitting on my couch with the munchies all day.  I am a relatively fit and trim, young man who happens to like having multiple pockets on my pants.  Yes, I have an iPhone and keys, a wallet that I carry in my front pocket.  Sometimes I even need a car key (I just like to listen to the radio.  I don’t drive it, I promise).  But I am not allowed to wear pants made out of an earth-friendly material?

The answer is, no.  Or, yes.  I am not allowed, because granolas can’t figure out how to run a legitimate clothing business for men’s hemp pants.  What the human population needs now is a few dozen Alex P. Keetons with the Republican savvy and business sense to ruthlessly gouge hippies and granolas while selling them sweatshop free, organic hemp clothing made for everyday life.  I don’t want to wear meditation pants to campus.  I don’t want to wear meditation pants at all.

Do I seriously need to be writing this?  Has no money grubbing, global economy participant out there thought of this?  Granolas are notoriously bad with money.  (Why be good at something that reeks of empire and evil?)  They make easy targets.  Frick, I want hemp cargo pants, 34 x 34.  I will pay $100 frickin bucks for a pair of decent hemp cargo pants.

So, I put down the gauntlet.  Anyone out there with the business savvy and the desire to make money off of tree-huggers… do it for the money.  Helping to bring justice and sustainability to life on earth will just be a side-effect.  You won’t even have to notice.

Good new desert dwellers.  Although Utah is the second driest state in the U.S. (Nevada

Wyoming's Red Desert by Sam Cox

being the first) we don’t let that get us down.  We still have the second highest use of water per capita.  Nothing beats back the summer heat like a tall glass of cold water while you wash your car in the driveway at the same time your automated, leaky irrigation system waters your Kentucky Bluegrass lawn during the middle of the day.  Ahhh, refreshing.  And as long as there is an increasing amount of snow in the mountains every winter ad infinitum, we won’t ever get our comeuppance.  No comeuppance, you here me!

St. George is located in the driest county in Utah and it has the highest per capita water consumption rate for an desert city in the U.S. at 335 gallons per person per day.  Yeahaw!  Now, I realize that it is of dire importance to all of us to keep those golf greens in St. George green, but explain that to a land that just can’t support such water usage.  But what to do?

Over 100 years ago water in Utah became a for-profit commodity.  Along with that came government subsidies historically around 50%.  All of this means that Utah has some of the cheapest water prices in the country, and this in the second driest state in the Union.  Common sense? or a disaster waiting to happen? or a disaster in progress?

Utah has been growing in population consistently for many years, and yet somewhere in the neighborhood of 87% of our water goes to agriculture.  Farmers are important to our state, no doubt.  But the crops that we grow, and the manner that we grow them in this state have to change.

The Utah Rivers Council promotes raising our conservation goal by 5% up to a 30% increase total.  While realistic, this goal doesn’t strike me as sufficient.  The Council has also been promoting practical steps like the “rip your strip” initiative.  Water Wise Utah is promoting the use of an on-line water calculator.  Utah needs much more severe legislation, using a creative combination of carrots and sticks, and a smarter, better educated public.  But ultimately, Utahans simply haven’t cared enough about their precious water resources while living in a desert.