Emulating Taurens IRL: Living with a minimum impact on the environment
This post is part of Blog Action Day, in coordination with Weblogs, Inc's Green Daily, a blog about living green and well at the same time. Visit Green Daily every day to learn how to live like a Tauren-- with minimum impact on our Earth's fragile environment.
Today is Blog Action Day and the topic is the Environment. Of course, we're supposed to talk about the RL environment, but there are some lessons that we Earthlings can learn from some of the Azerothians -- namely the Taurens.
Taurens live in harmony with the environment. I would also include Night Elves in this discussion, but they tend to have a greater impact on Azeroth -- everything seems to become all flowery and full of trees. While this may be a pleasing effect, who is to say that it is better than the way they originally found the land?
You get the idea when looking at the Tauren lands, that if they were to up and leave Mulgore, the evidence of their civilization would be gone in a matter of years. They certainly would have left a minimum of damage behind -- perhaps some slight deforestation.
The only way we could truly emulate the Taurens on Earth would be to return America to the state it was in before all those immigrants showed up and claimed ownership. But this isn't practical. We have a new civilization taking up most of the space here now that doesn't want to give up all of its new fangled technology. Even if we were willing to move to tents and live off the land, all of those bulldozed buildings would have to be put somewhere. And who would provide us with internet access so that we could play WoW?
But we can take the spirit of the Tauren life and apply it to human civilization without lowering the standard of living to which we have become accustomed. We can minimalize the impact our living has on the environment. There is only so much we can do as a society -- the current U.S. government, for example, seems unwilling to really tackle the global warming and reliance on fossil fuel issues. But we can accomplish a true Tauren-like effect on our environment on an individual basis. There are the standard things such as Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and living close to work that really help. But to treat the environment as the Tauren do, we need to live in homes that are the Human Civilization's equivalent of the Tauren domiciles. These exist and one day I will live in one: the Earthship.
Earthships are self-sufficient homes that are built with recycled materials. Yes, they are made out of trash. And they require no outside utilities. Ahhh, they really tickle my inner hippie.
The structure of the Earthship is made of dirt and scrap tires. So all that bad environmental mojo you've built up over the years can be wiped away by reducing the number of flat tires filling up the landfills. There are construction techniques involved that make the dirt and tires a viable and sturdy building, of course. It's not just trash and dirt piled up to make walls. They use recycled materials throughout the home as well. For example, stained glass effects in the house are created with the use of discarded glass bottles.
The Earthship provides its own power and water and sewage treatment -- even food! So, if the apocalypse does come (via WMDs, asteroid impact, alien invasion, etc.) and you survive it, you can still live a happy, healthy life (barring aftereffects from the catastrophe) in your home. It is also designed for any terrain or climate, so if you want to build one up the side of a mountain to have a birdseye view of the upcoming apocalypse, you can do that, too. Or you can just retrofit your current home to have Earthship-like sustainability.
They really have to be seen to be believed, so please take a look at their website. You can see floorplans, pricing structures, an image gallery, seminar schedules, etc. If this thrills you as much as it does me and you have the extra cash, you can even stay in the Phoenix Earthship overnight for similar to hotel pricing.
I dream of a world where we all live in peace with each other and harmony with our planet. But in reality, I look forward to one day owning my own Earthship from which I can play my Tauren Druid with minimal impact on either the real or virtual environment.
Would you rather live in a Tauren home, an Earthship or where you live now?
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