Off the Grid
Sustainable Wonders
By Arrgyle
Nov 15, 2001, 1:25pm

     Today's society is definitely in love with lists. From the Guiness Book of World Records and New York Times Bestseller Lists to the latest fleeting pop music countdown or next year's college basketball rankings, lists help to keep things structured and understandable for many of us in an increasingly information-saturated world. Most lists are rather trivial, others are economic, and many are highly competitive, trying to pinpoint one person or album or company as being better than others in some hierarchical order.

     Some lists try to rise above such petty comparisons. Instead, these kinds of lists help us to appreciate the beauty, grandeur, and complexity of the world around us or to celebrate the ingenuity of the human (and other) species. Such lists also compel us to add other items of our own, as long as the new items fit-- in our opinion-- the list's criteria for inclusion. Of course, the kind of lists I am talking about are the famous "lists of seven"-- The Seven Wonders of the World, The Seven Wonders of the Natural World, and the Seven Wonders of the Man-Made World. John C. Ryan, in a slim book entitled Seven Wonders (Sierra Club Books, San Francisco), places an interesting twist on these kind of lists by introducing The Seven Sustainable Wonders of the World.

     What, exactly, would be considered a "sustainable wonder?"  According to Ryan, their kindness to the earth and to human health is what qualifies them for a sustainability list. They are accessible to anyone, inexpensive to obtain and maintain. In the overall lifetime use of the item, the amount of energy needed to create and use the item is minimal compared to the energy or benefit it creates. Many of them serve not only practical but also esthetic needs; they satisfy the eye, the palate, or the soul. Most are old in concept, though they may have modern variations. Something like them has evolved in many different cultures. Most are objects you can buy, could possibly be built with a little bit of knowledge and skill, but are usually purchased from a local maker, not a multinational corporation.

 With such stringent standards, you might have a difficult time coming up with even one. Interestingly though, the majority of them are actually quite humble objects, ones whose sustainable value are so obvious that we've come to take them for granted or have been blinded to them by the barrage of flashy new technologies that need millions of advertising dollars to prove their "worth."

     So what are these sustainable wonders? According to Ryan, the Seven Sustainable Wonders of the World, in no particular order, are:

• The Bicycle
  The most energy-efficient form of transport ever devised. It doesn't emit pollution, it runs on renewable energy, it makes its user healthier, it's easy to repair, it requires little in the way of pavement or parking lot, it takes much less energy input to create, use and maintain than a car, and 80 percent of the world's people can afford one. (Only 10 percent of the world's people can afford a car.) They also use less energy per passenger mile than any other form of transportation, including walking!
• The Clothesline
  Even more affordable than the bicycle, it runs on solar energy with no wires, no electricity, no pollution, and your clothes come out smelling sweet. And just hang them indoors (near sunlight) in the winter if it's too cold outside.
• The Ceiling Fan
  The air conditioner of the tropical world, a fan makes a space feel 9 degrees F. cooler than it really is. A typical ceiling fan draws no more than 75 watts, about as much as a single incandescent light bulb, only one-tenth as much as an air conditioner. And it doesn't make the air stale and clammy, the way air conditioners do. The Swamp Cooler comes close, but its larger use of water and energy places it inbetween the fan and the air conditioner.
• The Condom
  This tiny rubber sheath protects against some of the world's worst diseases, gives parents control over the size and timing of their families, and helps control population growth. "Those are big jobs for a flimsy tube of rubber," says Ryan. One sustainability problem with this item is that it's discarded after just one use (you definitely don't want to reuse it!). But it's made from natural rubber, a renewable resource (although I don't see a bin for it at the recycling center yet!).
• The Public Library
  The written wisdom of the world at the fingertips of anyone with a library card! The average American pays $20 a year in taxes to support public libraries and can save that much by borrowing instead of buying just one or two books. A book that is loaned ten times cuts not only cost but paper use per read by a factor of ten. And now with Internet access available at most libraries, you truly can explore the world for free.
• Pad Thai
  This highly seasoned Asian dish made of noodles, garlic, and vegetables, sometimes with bits of chicken or shrimp thrown in, also makes the list. Ryan doesn't mean to celebrate that particular dish so much as the basic principle of "peasant" cooking around the world: start with starch, mix in veggies, add great seasonings, and use meat sparingly if at all. Could as well be tortillas and beans, or curry and rice, or spaghetti and tomato sauce. Healthy, cheap, do-it-yourself, easy on the planet, and delicious.
• The Ladybug
  Constantly, without charge, without environmental damage, the ladybug searches out and destroys plant pests. Your average ladybug scarfs up 40-75 plant-sucking aphids a day. Multiply that by 75,000 ladybugs per gallon, which farmers can order through the mail, and you've got an amazingly efficient pesticide. Something like 98 percent of sprayed chemical pesticides never even hit a pest, but ladybugs zoom right in on the aphids and nothing but the aphids.

     Surprised by some of them? Disagree with a few? Have some of your own? That's the whole idea of a list like this. It challenges you to think in different ways about the world around you, and inspires your brain (another sustainable wonder!) to come up with others, or maybe even invent some radically new ones! It may also change your ideas about what "esthetic" means. Some items typically regarded as "beautiful" would appear "ugly" when viewed through the glasses of "sustainability." Remember, though, that it must fit the criteria outlined above, some of which could possibly be debated. Compared to the bicycle, for example, the car fails miserably. A solar powered car might fare better, but the amount of energy needed to create the vehicle-- including the solar panels and batteries, which are quite expensive and include some fairly harmful toxins, either in their manufacture or in their use-- would still keep it off the list.

     Here are some possible candidates to get you started. Join the discussion below to talk about these or use the forum to offer and explain some other sustainable wonders of your own.

• The Compost Pile
• The Root Cellar
• The Canoe
• The Solar Oven
• The Cob House
• The Strawbale House

     In the next installment of this column, we'll explore some of the main seven wonders in more detail, including how to implement some of them in today's increasingly "hyper-technological" world.

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