The Demo Site

Sustainable in many respects, our garden mostly overflows with irony. Sure, we’ve got an underground cistern, a greywater harvesting system, six egg-laying chickens, several fruit tree guilds, a bean teepee, a sunflower house, a cold frame, a bee hive, a plastic lawn, a set of solar hot-water panels, a couple of king-size compost heaps, an armada of bikes, and many dreams of more.
But several times a week my knees buckle at the thought of a fresh, vacuum-packed tub of Mediterranean Humus from Trader Joe’s. Although I’d love to save civilization from itself overnight, like you, I’m human, and I crave all kinds of creature comforts. Plato described this aspect of human nature well at the outset of his Republic when he implied that a community cannot be perfect without the relishes of life.
Of course, we all would prefer to live in a sustainable society, but most of us think we don’t have enough time to make a difference, so why bother? Any voluntary transition from the lavishness of the past to the true pleasures of a sustainable future will be slow.
Shouldn’t we accept this fact and simply decide to move on at a steady pace? In my upcoming book, Harvest the Rain, I describe a steady-paced system called “gradual greening.” It asks for just 10 minutes of your time per day, and in return we all get to live in a sustainable world in 30 years or less. This blog will be an account of our progress.
Please chime in with your stories of gradual greening whenever you would like. I’d love to hear from you!