thinking outside the box?

Problems to Solutions

      Anyone can find something wrong with something if you look hard enough, to find a solution to a problem is much harder, and in some ways requires an understanding of the subject involved. Not always though, as an open mind and seeing outside the box are concepts thinkers often use to see things in a different light. It is like trying to put yourself in someone else’s shoes , looking at it through someone else’s eyes and all those other cliché’s that are often used with seeing things in a new light. At times I often try this technique when thinking about things.

     So I am not really crazy about this hydrocarbon burning and slashing, rip up  the environment to build a new dollar store so China can buy natural gas to ship products in steel containers around the world to make a couple bucks more than the rest of us type world . Yes I know I have issues and I hope you do also, because this is where we are headed and I hope I am not just another sheep in the herd walking over the edge of a cliff. When one jumps they all jump despite how many bodies will pile up at the bottom. I have no desire to become one of those sheep at the bottom of the cliff. So I constantly think of how and where we as humans should be headed as herd to finally become one with nature and make us the superior species we need to be. To become a society where what you have is not nearly as important as the values you profess. That you are rich with personal reward from helping others and not expecting blood in return. That at the end of the day your belly is full and your family is comfortable and you are content with your feelings and thoughts as you  snuggle in the warmth of another good day behind you filled with love.

     Sounds like Shangri La, a fictitious community in the Tibetan highlands popularized by movie where everyone was happy. Gee what a concept, where greed is replaced with kindness as people rush to make everyone happy instead of cursing them as we drive along. In a series of blogs I will look at problems society has and my approach to solving these problems and in the process hope to open your eyes to other possibilities of living in the future. Part of learning a new way is being exposed to new ideas and solutions to problems. I encourage reader response from the simple you are screwed up, to what it is you want to say about whatever I write on these pages. For some of this I intend to go back through the old sketch books and pull up some old ideas or I may glean information and leads to web sites where I like what someone else is doing. So from waterless toilets to underground houses I will try my best to encourage discussion about our future as an endangered species, meaning left to our own devices we would let greed slowly die us off, we are our own worst enemy. What other animal invents machines to travel around this world to just kill someone else off of your own species because you don’t believe in the same thing.  Yet never eat the carcass. Killing for killings sake only.

     Today I will briefly get into underground houses all connected by a tunnel forming streets and a city all built underground with open fields and a shared food supply so all would have food to eat while trading with other cities to provide the variety in fresh grown products one would need to survive.  Where natural resources of solar and methane recovery from waste generated by the city is used locally to produce the power and heat necessary to provide all with a comfortable life.

      The average temperature of the earth at 4 feet below the surface is 55 degrees and is called geothermal heat that is the natural heat of the earth and requires no energy if kept at the temperature. The trouble is that we cannot survive at that temperature and know a lot of women who would insist that 80 degrees is the norm. So to use geothermal heat by itself is not a very good source of heat. We need more.

      Solar is dependent on sunshine to produce the external heat needed to make up the difference as long as the sun shines and we know how that goes in Ohio. A heat pump requires electric usually generated by natural gas or coal or even worse yet nuclear sources to run the compressor to heat and cool our houses. This is still not an acceptable long term solution as we increase our carbon usage or create deadly stockpiles of radioactive material that requires long term storage and security we all have to pay for eventually.  It seems to me that we should go for simple as opposed to more complicated and pass the savings on to all who support the system.

      One thing humans do is eat and crap. Plenty of it and this is a heat source we have been shoving into landfills for years.  It is just a concept and we need to have an open mind. If collectively like in our sewer systems now, we would divert to a methane digester, and extract the methane out of our waste and then apply this waste after the methane has been extracted to supply heat to our homes and organic waste to our woods to grow richer forests and provide more wood, and create renewable energy source that is actually a passive means storing solar energy. We can use the methane to heat our houses and keep us warm and feed our trees to give us oxygen a symbiosis of nature is being created where one hand washes the other. We all need to be linked together collectively to make this happen.

      Looking at what we have now is that everyone wants his piece of heaven or earth and refuses to share unless forced to do so. But we are doing that anyhow whether we want to believe it or not. We are all just space travelers hurtling through space at 17600 mph on a piece of rock we share with no particular place to go but our own destruction. Maybe we can prolong that  by changing our thinking and acting like the smartest animal on earth. Making earth the cool place to stop in our celestial non wanderings to prove there is intelligent life down here.

        Below is a scan of an old cut away plan of an underground house I was designing back in 1994 or I believe that was approximate time I did this drawing. This house was designed to be 80 percent below grade and taking advantage of solar and geothermal to require very little if any external heat. The courtyard and the fact it is below ground provides security and is part of new concept to living in a city environment.

    This house would be connected to a tunnel as well as a central water and sewer system that would also provide additional heat in the form of hot water generated by waste from the house unit itself. If you notice the shaded areas and realize this is soil that surrounds and envelopes the house. All of this would sit on less than a quarter acre and would not have a garage but instead an off set in an underground tunnel to house a golf cart or similar electric personal vehicle that would take you by underground tunnels and roadways to either your job within the city or to the parking lot where all cars are parked.  The tunnels are necessary to eliminate smog and to reduce maintenance on roadways and interconnects and allows you to visit anywhere in the city without actually going outside. No salt, no snow to plow resulting in substantial savings to present day cities requiring less maintenance and longer term solutions to housing problems.

    People say living in an underground house would be like being buried , but with the use of portals and mirrors sunlight could be funneled into the darkest places and could possibly create the illusion of being outside while still being below ground.

     The above picture is representative of the top 20 percent of an underground house I could see in the future utilizing the design concept of 80 percent below ground construction. I would design this house out of concrete and steel and design it to last 100 years reducing our need to exploit our natural resources. Wood walls or whatever kind of wall treatment would be possible. Basically we are doing this same concept by finishing out basements and making man caves now. So we just take it a step further. Need to stop somewhere here today , so will try and continue this blog tomorrow and hope you follow along with me as I try to explain how this is all interconnected and possibly giving us as humans an option to think outside the box or in as it may be.