>> But then we use that drinking-level standard water to (1) water our landscape and (2) flush the toilet.
> Doing otherwise would require a massive duplicate water distribution network for non-drinkable water.
No, we don't. Water can be cycled onsite for other uses. It does not require anything massive or a duplicate water distribution network. For example, a Y-switch can be used on the outflow from a washingmachine, with one fork distributing it to the landscaping.
> That sounds labour intensive and non-scalable. How big would this green house/ water recycling solution need to be to power a single apartment building? How many people would be required to keep it up and running? What’s keeping this green house warm?
It's mostly automated, using low-tech, passive methods. The water cycles through the plants on its own. It has the added benefits that you can get fresh food. You would plant perennials, not annuals, that are selected to form cooperative interactions (plant guilds). That significantly reduces the amount of labor to maintain it, though labor is involved for harvesting.
I think you are misunderstanding what the greenhouses in those earthships do. You have to first understand it in context: New Mexico high desert, with extremes in heat and cold. The greenhouses acts as a passive buffer to regulate temperature of the main living areas, and does not require active cooling or heating. Between the sun, the trapped moisture, and the plants own heat regulation biomechanism, it reduces the volatility in temperature extremes.
This type of system does not work without the construction method to build these houses. For other sites, you'd have to come up with different solutions. I don't know, for example, if earthships work in temperate (Mid-West), or extreme colds (Alaska). But I know they will work for most of the Southwest US.
As far as scaling up to something the size of an apartment building, I have no idea. The earthship designs share similar ideas with Arcosanti (in Arizona), which is probably one of the largest scale implementation for passive heating and cooling.
Generally, within a larger pool of people, there are going to some people who are interested in tending the plants. As far harvesting, I think you'd be surprised by how many people would be willing to participate in being able to harvest free, fresh food close to where they live.
> You are going to have to be more concrete than that. Every living creature consumes resources from their environment and every creature will destroy their native environment unless held in check by predators or some other external limiting factor. Humans are the only animals to understand this, so we have the ability to moderate consumption.
That's a false assumption. Although there are plenty of examples of species that will run without check, there are also examples of species that cooperate with each other.
As far as being concrete, what I was talking about is the lens, or the paradigm in which we interpret facts and understand the world. That isn't something concrete.
> Doing otherwise would require a massive duplicate water distribution network for non-drinkable water.
No, we don't. Water can be cycled onsite for other uses. It does not require anything massive or a duplicate water distribution network. For example, a Y-switch can be used on the outflow from a washingmachine, with one fork distributing it to the landscaping.
> That sounds labour intensive and non-scalable. How big would this green house/ water recycling solution need to be to power a single apartment building? How many people would be required to keep it up and running? What’s keeping this green house warm?
It's mostly automated, using low-tech, passive methods. The water cycles through the plants on its own. It has the added benefits that you can get fresh food. You would plant perennials, not annuals, that are selected to form cooperative interactions (plant guilds). That significantly reduces the amount of labor to maintain it, though labor is involved for harvesting.
I think you are misunderstanding what the greenhouses in those earthships do. You have to first understand it in context: New Mexico high desert, with extremes in heat and cold. The greenhouses acts as a passive buffer to regulate temperature of the main living areas, and does not require active cooling or heating. Between the sun, the trapped moisture, and the plants own heat regulation biomechanism, it reduces the volatility in temperature extremes.
This type of system does not work without the construction method to build these houses. For other sites, you'd have to come up with different solutions. I don't know, for example, if earthships work in temperate (Mid-West), or extreme colds (Alaska). But I know they will work for most of the Southwest US.
As far as scaling up to something the size of an apartment building, I have no idea. The earthship designs share similar ideas with Arcosanti (in Arizona), which is probably one of the largest scale implementation for passive heating and cooling.
Generally, within a larger pool of people, there are going to some people who are interested in tending the plants. As far harvesting, I think you'd be surprised by how many people would be willing to participate in being able to harvest free, fresh food close to where they live.
> You are going to have to be more concrete than that. Every living creature consumes resources from their environment and every creature will destroy their native environment unless held in check by predators or some other external limiting factor. Humans are the only animals to understand this, so we have the ability to moderate consumption.
That's a false assumption. Although there are plenty of examples of species that will run without check, there are also examples of species that cooperate with each other.
As far as being concrete, what I was talking about is the lens, or the paradigm in which we interpret facts and understand the world. That isn't something concrete.