The real good life
While world leaders squabble over making a meaningful commitment to climate change, one group of activists is already leading the zero-carbon life. Simon Brandon visits the Kew eco-village in London to find out how.
Most of us began 2009 hoping for a greener future. One year on, we could instead be forgiven for feeling a little green around the gills.
December’s climate change summit in Copenhagen was bad news for just about everybody, with the possible exception of the Little Mermaid. Climate change denial is finding a foothold in the public consciousness. The UK government, meanwhile, has whittled its grand eco-town dream down to a token of its former self - just four such communities are now planned from an original shortlist of 15. The sustainability ideal seems to be drifting further away.
But why wait for politicians to offer us answers - and who needs eco-towns, anyway? In June last year, a group of activists and squatters moved onto a two-acre patch of derelict land alongside Kew Bridge in west London. Seven months later the Kew eco-village, an experiment in zero-footprint living in the middle of a busy London suburb, is almost entirely self-sustainable.
How long it can be sustained is another question. As with any squat, the prospect of eventual eviction means its future longevity is impossible to guess. The site’s owner, private developer St George, has submitted a planning application to Hounslow Council for a block of 168 flats, 40 per cent of which will be affordable.
The decision is expected in February. But if it goes the developer’s way, the villagers will simply take their way of life elsewhere. ‘We have no real beef with the company [St George],’ says Gareth Newnham, a founder member of the squat. ‘We will leave the land when we know the heavy machinery is going to come onsite, and not before then. There are hundreds of other sites around.’
For optimistic environmentalists, the village suggests that a zero-footprint existence is possible independent of diplomatic wrangling or government targets - if not quite independently of big business.
Or maybe the Kew eco-village is a glimpse of the future rather than a return to the past. Given the poor state of global environmental progress and the planet’s dwindling resources, many more of us could find ourselves having to live off-grid in a house made of hazel sticks before too long. Either way, it’s probably a good idea to start taking notes.
1) A view of the village and its surroundings from Kew Bridge
The site hosts around 25 inhabitants - no one is sure exactly how many - and they come from all walks of life. ‘I used to be a violin restorer,’ says villager Ieuan Davies, who moved in last summer. ‘One day I was walking past the village, over the bridge. I came in and had a chat with a few people and thought - I want to live here.’
Source: Simon Brandon
2) A half-finished bender tent
By building bender tents the villagers have, perhaps unwittingly, beaten the government’s zero-carbon homes deadline by six years. These traditional dwellings are constructed from hazel branches, coppiced here from nearby parks, which are slotted into floors made from wooden pallets, shaped and tied together with twine. The finished structures are then draped in donated tarpaulins or canvas. Many are built around their own wood-burning stoves.
Tents do not come with en suite bathrooms, unfortunately, but the site does have a solar shower and a composting toilet. The more fastidious tend to make use of the nearby municipal leisure centre.
3) Rich returns from a water run
Providing the site with water used to mean several daily trips to an outside tap across the main road. A recently acquired water butte means lugging these plastic jugs back and forth is a much rarer job than it used to be.
Source: Simon Brandon
4) David Shayler cooks a communal meal on the cob oven, a clay ring built around a wood fire
Most of the food consumed onsite is rescued from local supermarket bins. By the middle of 2010, the squatters aim to remove this last obstacle to true self-sufficiency by growing enough food onsite to feed themselves and visitors.
5) Gareth Newnham, ‘Rabbit’ and a visitor inside the main tent
The building of a sheltered communal space in October made a huge difference to the Kew community. It is now filled with sofas, guitars, books and decorations and serves as a hangout, meeting area and occasional bedroom. The chandelier is powered by a donated solar panel, which is hooked up to a car battery.
Source: Simon Brandon
6) Washing up
The washing up area stands outside the kitchen. There are plenty of chores to do onsite, from recycling to chopping wood. Most are arranged by a rota. The squat has few rules, but one is that every villager must contribute to the site and its upkeep.
Source: Simon Brandon
7) Cats scrapping on top of the wood pile
Wood provides the village with energy for heating and cooking. The pile has been depleted recently during the cold weather, but local donations keep coming in. Gardeners, tree surgeons and builders regularly stop by with carloads of unwanted logs and wood scraps.
8) Tim, a carpenter, in the ‘hexi-yurt’
This building was erected to provide accommodation for guests; it is also where prospective villagers stay before they can build their own benders. Its roof is built from plywood triangles that come together in a point, hence its name: a yurt is a Mongolian nomad’s tent. When this picture was taken in November, four men were sharing this space.
Source: Simon Brandon
9) A communal meal
Mealtimes and meetings are two regular occasions for those onsite to gather together. This lunch - a lentil stew, and chicken for the non-vegetarians - was entirely scavenged from supermarket skips and extremely tasty.
Source: Simon Brandon
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Readers' comments (5)
joimeie | 22/01/2010 1:37 pm
Looks a bit uncomfortable. Better than sleeping rough though.
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| 23/01/2010 8:43 pm
"For optimistic environmentalists, the village suggests that a zero-footprint existence is possible "
What? An "existence" like this? Yes of course it is. If you want to give up showers and go back to dying in your twenties.
"Climate change denial is finding a foothold in the public consciousness"
Err...that could be because we've found out that the treehuggers have fabricated the data and fudged all the computer models in order to maintain their very large grants.
Who would have thought that a trade publication for the State housing sector would have become so brainwashed by the econuts that they would advocate...a return to living in tents! Only in England, as they say...
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Can | 26/01/2010 5:08 pm
"ILAG", you should come and visit the site; there are many there who question the accuracy of the man-made global warming argument. Regardless of whether it is real or not, pollution to the air, soil and water does present a very real problem to the environment, which left unchecked will lead to dire consequences for life on the planet.
My understanding is that this eco village serves two purposes:
1) To provide a radical example of sustainable living within an unsustainable environment. The project has raised awareness of the long term dangers of unsustainability, which has subsequently led to many locals being more environmentally friendly than they had been previously.
2) To increase local community cohesion. The site is extremely popular with the local community; the open door policy and regular workshops allow for the site to serve as a point to meet new people and learn new things. The project has been so successful in this regard that many of the visitors to the site have now moved in!
If you're interested in broadening your horizons, I would definitely reccommend visiting the eco village. Kew Bridge rail station is basically right next to it, and Gunnersbury station (District line, London Overground) is only a 10 minute walk away.
Kind regards,
Can
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| 27/01/2010 3:03 am
"there are many there who question the accuracy of the man-made global warming argument"
Good. The occupants are clearly more switched on than the credulous author of the article. This myth, this new theology of the middle classes, is leading directly to the The Climate-Industrial Complex:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124286145192740987.html
"Some business leaders are cozying up with politicians and scientists to demand swift, drastic action on global warming. This is a new twist on a very old practice: companies using public policy to line their own pockets.
The tight relationship between the groups echoes the relationship among weapons makers, researchers and the U.S. military during the Cold War. President Dwight Eisenhower famously warned about the might of the "military-industrial complex," cautioning that "the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." He worried that "there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties."
This is certainly true of climate change. We are told that very expensive carbon regulations are the only way to respond to global warming, despite ample evidence that this approach does not pass a basic cost-benefit test. We must ask whether a "climate-industrial complex" is emerging, pressing taxpayers to fork over money to please those who stand to gain.
This phenomenon will be on display at the World Business Summit on Climate Change in Copenhagen this weekend. The organizers -- the Copenhagen Climate Council -- hope to push political leaders into more drastic promises when they negotiate the Kyoto Protocol's replacement in December.
The opening keynote address is to be delivered by Al Gore, who actually represents all three groups: He is a politician, a campaigner and the chair of a green private-equity firm invested in products that a climate-scared world would buy.
Naturally, many CEOs are genuinely concerned about global warming. But many of the most vocal stand to profit from carbon regulations. The term used by economists for their behavior is "rent-seeking."
The world's largest wind-turbine manufacturer, Copenhagen Climate Council member Vestas, urges governments to invest heavily in the wind market. It sponsors CNN's "Climate in Peril" segment, increasing support for policies that would increase Vestas's earnings. A fellow council member, Mr. Gore's green investment firm Generation Investment Management, warns of a significant risk to the U.S. economy unless a price is quickly placed on carbon.
Even companies that are not heavily engaged in green business stand to gain. European energy companies made tens of billions of euros in the first years of the European Trading System when they received free carbon emission allocations.
American electricity utility Duke Energy, a member of the Copenhagen Climate Council, has long promoted a U.S. cap-and-trade scheme. Yet the company bitterly opposed the Warner-Lieberman bill in the U.S. Senate that would have created such a scheme because it did not include European-style handouts to coal companies. The Waxman-Markey bill in the House of Representatives promises to bring back the free lunch.
U.S. companies and interest groups involved with climate change hired 2,430 lobbyists just last year, up 300% from five years ago. Fifty of the biggest U.S. electric utilities -- including Duke -- spent $51 million on lobbyists in just six months.
The massive transfer of wealth that many businesses seek is not necessarily good for the rest of the economy. Spain has been proclaimed a global example in providing financial aid to renewable energy companies to create green jobs. But research shows that each new job cost Spain 571,138 euros, with subsidies of more than one million euros required to create each new job in the uncompetitive wind industry. Moreover, the programs resulted in the destruction of nearly 110,000 jobs elsewhere in the economy, or 2.2 jobs for every job created.
The cozy corporate-climate relationship was pioneered by Enron, which bought up renewable energy companies and credit-trading outfits while boasting of its relationship with green interest groups. When the Kyoto Protocol was signed, an internal memo was sent within Enron that stated, "If implemented, [the Kyoto Protocol] will do more to promote Enron's business than almost any other regulatory business."
The World Business Summit will hear from "science and public policy leaders" seemingly selected for their scary views of global warming. They include James Lovelock, who believes that much of Europe will be Saharan and London will be underwater within 30 years; Sir Crispin Tickell, who believes that the United Kingdom's population needs to be cut by two-thirds so the country can cope with global warming; and Timothy Flannery, who warns of sea level rises as high as "an eight-story building."
Free speech is important. But these visions of catastrophe are a long way outside of mainstream scientific opinion, and they go much further than the careful findings of the United Nations panel of climate change scientists. When it comes to sea-level rise, for example, the United Nations expects a rise of between seven and 23 inches by 2100 -- considerably less than a one-story building.
There would be an outcry -- and rightfully so -- if big oil organized a climate change conference and invited only climate-change deniers.
The partnership among self-interested businesses, grandstanding politicians and alarmist campaigners truly is an unholy alliance. The climate-industrial complex does not promote discussion on how to overcome this challenge in a way that will be best for everybody. We should not be surprised or impressed that those who stand to make a profit are among the loudest calling for politicians to act. Spending a fortune on global carbon regulations will benefit a few, but dearly cost everybody else.
Mr. Lomborg is director of the Copenhagen Consensus, a think tank, and author of "Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming" (Knopf, 2007)."
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Fair enough for the occupants there to want to live in this way. Might even be fun for a short while. No issue with that. But let's face it, in this country, with our cold climate, this is not a replacement for living in heated houses. Mortality rates would rocket. So for a journo on a housing magazine to say "maybe the Kew eco-village is a glimpse of the future rather than a return to the past" is plain ludicrous. Sorry but tents are not going to replace houses. Think of all the unemployed social housing professionals this idea would create. On second thoughts, I'm beginning to warm to it already...!
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Rusty Fontaine | 05/02/2010 3:40 pm
A very interesting article. Well captured in images, too.
I understand this article to be a showcase for a person's desire to help the planet, by reducing their contribution to all the nastiness that accelerates/causes climate change (delete as appropriate). That's a positive thing. I like what these communities stand for and what they have achieved. It makes me feel more guilty about leaving lights on over night, or buying the extra, unnecessary, mass-produced furniture product in which to store my ever-increasing collection of gadgets... And that is also a good thing.
I don't see this back-to-basics community as the definitive future, but why not entertain the idea that it is more of a first pass at what we could do. A prototype, or a model, perhaps. Perhaps the big people in suits should look at these places and not dismiss them as a fanciful waste of time.
I'd go and visit them myself, if I lived in your country. I am sure I'd learn a thing or two. Maybe I'll just read the 'climate change' figures and do what I'm told to, but maybe I'll go and live in a shed.
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