Building methods that make sense right now

What is discussed and exemplified in these videos is a way to build structures that meet criteria for being economical to build and responsive to ecological concerns for conservation and low impact.

Watch all 12 First Earth videos!

Still trying to optimize the built environment

I was invited as a participant to the TEDxRainier conference set for November 12, 2011 at Kane Hall on the UW campus. This is what I wrote in my invitation request:

I’m passionate about finding ways to circumvent obstacles to home building. I’d love to replace the 30 year mortgage with community-supported alternatives coupled with alternative building methods. There are methods that are environmentally sound, that will withstand structural engineering scrutiny and still cost less than $120/square foot. I’d like to encourage an industry that promotes acceptance of a greater variety of building methods like cob, straw bale, superadobe, etc. Why do we accept a debt for nearly a third of our lives simply to live in a place we call home? This is the change I want to be. I’m renting now and refuse to mortgage my future for the sake of the debt economy. I played that game, sold my home and don’t want to go back to the status quo. Please invite me. Thanks!!

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We're all trying to grapple with how to be effective in the world as it has become in the space of our lifetimes. It is terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. I want to take the fear out of it entirely and meet as many kindred spirits as possible.
 
I'm hoping that one of the speakers, Howard Frumkin will give me some insight about how to approach this subject matter.

A public/private partnership in healthcare?

Yesterday, I was imagining a potential public/private partnership as a means to reform healthcare. On closer examination, I think this won't work. A private, for-profit model for the provisioning of a basic human right is completely untenable. What was I thinking?? Guess I was pulling an Obama.

I respect our president, but this kind of compromise is not why we voted for him. As any OWser can tell you, our current system simply needs to be dismantled. I once worked for a consulting firm, and while doing a content audit, found an article by one of the actuaries still (2009) defending the use of the pre-existing condition clause in insurance policies. The policy structure that maintains the health insurance industry protects all the typical players, in all the typical ways that private enterprise is known for. The needs of the customers in this case are actually at odds with the goals of the service the health insurance company intends to provide. They must pay as little as they can according to their contractual agreements, and do it, foot-dragging all the way.

Have you ever had to wait eight months to be billed for a minor surgery? You know what I mean. There is an oceanic cesspool of bureacracy between the service provider and the customer.

Once in a while the conscience of a good soul emerges from ignorance, and when that person is from the industry, he deserves a listen. Such is the case for Wendell Potter who, in this video admits: "I was insulated. I didn't really see what was going on."

Remove the connection between healthcare and employment

Do I have the option only to work six to nine months of any given year? No, not if I want uninterupted health insurance coverage. If I don't mind being dependent on someone else, my time and labor can be freed up for other things. That means my husband has to work for my right to health insurance. In this society there is no assumption that a human life has value independent of labor as measured in the balance of the workforce. So, my husband makes up for my labor deficiency by having the uninterupted job with benefits he shares with me.

Can I accept this form of dependence? I have done so, but it sucks. This is a constraint I can't do much if anything about. I live in a society where it is not my option to have health insurance independent of my job. One could argue that I am free to source an individual insurance plan for myself, but that is a joke, as the expense alone may easily consume the money I derive from working. In fact, I was part of a plan sponsored by Lifewise and they refused to pay a legitimate claim. I went through all kinds of official channels to resolve the issue. At one point I was even reminded that I could lodge a formal complaint with the state insurance commissioner. I cancelled the policy. Let's face it, I knew what I was dealing with. Health insurance companies resisting the payment of legitimate claims is emblematic of the reasons for the Wall St. occupation.

And so I live in a society that appears to have some requirement that my fear of lacking health insurance should be maintained. The excuse given is that costs to society would be too great for everyone to have coverage. However, costs are not calculated according to the status quo we already are living in, where the uninsured find their only option is an emergency room visit. It is fairly obvious that the costs of maintaining this form of care are simply passed on in ways that aren't made clear to most of us.

The costs of running Harborview Medical Center don't exactly make the local news. The policy makers do no want us to know how wasteful the healthcare system is, let alone how it could be changed.

There is no reason basic health maintenance should be an insurmountable task. When supplemented with insurance for catastrophic care or chronic disease management, there is no reason our government couldn't assure simple, routine measures of health maintenance like office visits, consultations, screenings, tests, and even massage and accupuncture and other forms of stress and pain relief.

These things could be easily definable, and other forms of insurance would only kick in at specific points of protocol where more intensive measures are necessary. It is a failure of political will that prevents us from having a decent, more evenly shared economy.

When everything is viewed through the lens of market valuation, it leaves no room for viewing humans as willing participants in their own value. If human value cannot be immediately assumed in the exchange of goods and services through enterprise or labor, there is no other assumption that is made. Humans after all are grown and developed by other humans who assume the creation, care, and feeding of their eventual worth in the workforce until such time as they are let loose on the world at age 18 or there abouts. As long as we're plugged into the labor force our status is assured.

If the world view assumed some already accepted value in the souls walking this earth then no one would ever be unneeded in the maintenance of the world. All would be cared for at a basic level through a system in which all partake. Call it taxation, call it socialism. I don't care what you call it. All I know is that what I am describing is not impossible.

I hesitate to back-pedal, but in truth, I would prefer single-payer, universal healthcare. By putting these ideas together, I was attempting to imagine a hybrid system worthy of consideration.