podcast 412 - Building a better world

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Summary

Credit: Penny McLoughlin

Shawn has listened to most of Paul's podcasts and heard Paul mention wanting to make a book out of his various writings. So Shawn volunteered to help him do that.

Originally, they were just going to mash it all together and do a kickstarter to get it out to the public. But, after working on it for a few weeks, they were really enjoying it. They decided to spend the extra time to really polish it up. After 8 months they are 80% done and the book is looking really, really good.

For the title alone, they put in about 5 hours of work and basically ended up very close to what they started with. "Building a Better World in Your Backyard Instead of Being Angry at the Bad Guys"

Paul spent about 6.5 hours on the cover and Shawn has spent about 10 hours on it. This book is not about gardening. The cover has lots of icons on it to represent the different topics covered in the book. Paul wanted the cover to be like an album cover for a band. There will be a vote soon on the two possible covers.

This book is for people in apartments or the ones who have a house and yard or for people who have acreage.

It breaks the world problems down into three parts. Carbon footprint which is at 30 ton per year per person. Petroleum footprint which is at 1,000 gallons per year per person, and toxic fairy dust.

The book is almost ready to move into the publishing phase. It still has several layers of editing that needs to happen and the layout.

Paul is planning a kickstarter for January 2nd. He expects the book to be finished in another month and a half but the end of the year is not a good time to start a kickstarter so they will use the extra time for refining.

The book is broken into the introduction, the three problem footprints, and then the strategies for fixing them. It is actually a severely condensed form of lots and lots of articles, essays and information. The aim is for 200 pages.

The majority of the book is really about the strategies. It deals with

• Zone zero stuff - in the house


• Energy use - how to live a more luxuriant life


• Gardening - but not your usual stuff. Will include some hugelkultur


• Grey water


• Electricity harvesting


• Homestead level stuff - orchard vs food forest, poop beasts, critters, replacing petroleum with people, WOFATI's and natural swiming pools.

A huge part of what's in this book is what is not available in other areas. Actually Paul just recently heard about a movie with a similar title and was freaking out that someone else had written a book and made a movie about what they have been working so hard on writing. But after watching it, no problem. The movie was about meditating, modifying a diesel truck to run on veggie oil and using solar. It did mention Joseph Jenkins and Humanure though.

Paul and Shawn decided to have the book printed in black and white which is only 1/2 the cost and would make the book accessible to more people. It has lots of line art drawings in it from Tracy Wandling.

Their first thought was to print 800-1,000 copies but now it has been polished up to print 2 million copies and fund that with the kickstarter. It will have 2 phases of editing and a professional layout. They have about 1 year of effort into the book now.

If the kickstarter does well, they can see other books being written in the future.

This book is written for people to buy several copies and give them to their friends to infect more brains. They intend to mostly sell them by the dozen. For example, one book may be $20 but if you buy a dozen, they may be $7 a piece.

This book should be a fun and easy read. It will convey the ideas of the podcasts, condensed into an easily readable style.

Shawn did tons of research on LED's when they were writing that part and he got really mad about what he discovered too. The LED light spectrum is very problematic. It has too much blue in it and that messes up your sleep cycle. The warm spectrum LED's are better but still off.

Podcast listeners can give feedback about the book on the forums.

Different chapters have been posted and reviewed by different groups in the permies forums.

For every podcast published, there is a permies.com thread where they can post comments about the podcast.

Paul has split his Patreon in account into three. One each for podcasts, videos and articles. The result is that he's running in the red again for making new artifacts. He will continue to make podcasts and videos regardless but will be able to make more if there is more Patreon support.

Paul reads the intro to the book.

He quotes "A Tale of Two Cities" about the best of times and the worst of times and compares it to our current world.

Most of the book is very strongly focused on the solutions that you can do at home and not on any political or government or bad guys solutions.

Paul says so many people today are angry because they care but they get stuck at being angry and this book gives you lots of solutions to the problems. Others will envy your life when you employ these strategies and then want to emulate you.

This book is a compilation of Paul's (and now Shawn's) ideas.

There are lots of footnotes on each page but to make them less obtrusive, they are links to permies.com discussions.

Most of the solutions from the book are based on Permaculture (permanent agriculture) and homesteading.

Come out to this podcast thread and let Paul and Shawn know what you think of the book.

Buy a piece of "pie" (about $3.00) and there are several chapters listed in the pie forum that you can read and make comments about. Most of the comments have been very good and useful.


Relevant Threads

being angry at bad guys vs. build a better world
paul wheaton's permaculture podcasts
Permaculture Inner-circle Elite (PIE)


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Help support the empire and get all of the podcasts in a bundle here in the digital market at permies.

To support production of these podcasts, make a donation here at Paul's Patreon page.



This podcast was made possible thanks to:

Full Name
Bill Crim
wade L
James Tutor
Suleiman ALAQEL
Josh Phillips
Jocelyn Campbell
Jason Hower
Ash Jackson
thomas adams
Julia Mason
Dominic Crolius
David Ingraham
Miroslav Ultrama
Bill Erickson
Lisa Goodspeed
G Cooper
Wayne Fajkus
Eivind W. Bjoerkavaag
Keith Kuhnsman
Dylan Butler
Dana Martin
Cody W.

Looking forward to hearing some feedback on the intro from the pod people.

re: veggie oil diesel, Ben Falk said it's really hard on engines and he doesn't do that anymore.  It's a great idea from the perspective of not having tried it yet, lots to appreciate there, but taking the next step we probably need to focus on other tools.

Wonderful introduction! If the rest of the book continues in this same easy yet inspiring manner... you may just save the world.
I'm saving up for the kickstarter.

Joshua Myrvaagnes wrote:re: veggie oil diesel, Ben Falk said it's really hard on engines and he doesn't do that anymore.  It's a great idea from the perspective of not having tried it yet, lots to appreciate there, but taking the next step we probably need to focus on other tools.

My understanding is that it's especially hard on engines up here. The cold gels that stuff pretty bad. There are ways to help mitigate it... but all in all I think there are better solutions like Paul mentioned in the podcast.

Candace Dahlk wrote:Wonderful introduction! If the rest of the book continues in this same easy yet inspiring manner... you may just save the world.
I'm saving up for the kickstarter.

Thanks for your feedback Candace! I'm glad to hear you liked it! I look forward to putting this ship in the water come Kickstarter time.

Hi! I listened the podcast, and read about the book before and I think I want to have this book, to share it with some of my friends. But here I am in the Netherlands. Shipping a book from the US to here costs even more than the book itself.
I think more people in the Netherlands (and Belgium) want to have one or more copies of this book. There might be someone who is able to order a large quantity to be shipped to the Netherlands all at once (which is much cheaper per book), to sell them here ...
Sorry, that isn't me, I don't even have a credit card (my income is too low so the bank wouldn't even give me one if I wanted to have it).
Or maybe there's a downloadable e-book-version of it? Though that's less interesting, because not everyone likes reading e-books.

Inge Leonora-den Ouden wrote:Hi! I listened the podcast, and read about the book before and I think I want to have this book, to share it with some of my friends. But here I am in the Netherlands. Shipping a book from the US to here costs even more than the book itself.
I think more people in the Netherlands (and Belgium) want to have one or more copies of this book. There might be someone who is able to order a large quantity to be shipped to the Netherlands all at once (which is much cheaper per book), to sell them here ...
Sorry, that isn't me, I don't even have a credit card (my income is too low so the bank wouldn't even give me one if I wanted to have it).
Or maybe there's a downloadable e-book-version of it? Though that's less interesting, because not everyone likes reading e-books.

Hi Inge, I'm glad to hear you are interested in the book. If you get together a group of people it would definitely cut down on shipping costs. On the other hand, we will have an ebook (and possibly audiobook...) version available as well.

Shawn Klassen-Koop wrote:... On the other hand, we will have an ebook (and possibly audiobook...) version available as well.

An audiobook, read by Paul himself, that would be the best!

Somehow I thought there would be a lot more response to this and then we would make a few more podcasts like this.

  Really looking forward to this book. I heard you touch on the L E D lights and the problems with them.  Do you have anything about the CFL bulbs?  They really concern me. When I read what the EPA suggest you have to do when one breaks I was pissed.  NEVER did anyone who pushed for these to be used said anything about them being toxic.  Some say well it's not that much in each bulb. IF.... that is true then why does the EPA say to get everyone out of the room for 15 minutes , turn off your heat/air  and open doors or windows  for 15 mins. NOT to vacuum and check with local government on how to dispose of it???  It makes me upset  that I now have these in my home. And I have had 4 or 5 go out and one break since I got them, around two years ago. And I new nothing about how I should clean them up and just put them in my trash.  My electric company pushed for everyone to get these even offering some free, or very cheap.  Now I feel like I have been duped and  wonder just how bad they really are.  Why were these pushed so hard if they are worse than the incedenscent ones we had?  Seems we just traded one bad thing for another.

Lyda,

https://permies.com/t/58990

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction about CFL bulbs.  I know I shouldn't be surprised about how corrupt some can be. We tend to trust that people are not trying to decieve us, especially when they coat the lies in "environmental friendly" or "save money and energy"  I'm sure some thought they were doing the right thing, but just like me, bought into the lies without really checking the facts. But those who knew did it anyway.    

Lyda Eagle wrote: ...My electric company pushed for everyone to get these even offering some free, or very cheap.  Now I feel like I have been duped and  wonder just how bad they really are.  Why were these pushed so hard if they are worse than the incedenscent ones we had?  Seems we just traded one bad thing for another.

Lyda, I have the same problem. Many years ago there was an offer to get a free box, promoted for making your house more sustainable. In it were a.o. five CFLs. In those days I believed it was true what they told, that CFLs were more 'environmently friendly' than incandescent light bulbs. When a light bulb stopped burning I changed it for a CFL (I am Dutch, we're known to be penny-pinching ;) so I did not change functioning light bulbs ). Those five CFLs were of good quality, most of them still function today. So I didn't have to buy new light bulbs.
If I knew then what I know now, I would have bought a box full of cheap incandescent light bulbs. Now that's become impossible. Only very expensive special incandescent light bulbs, meant for special purposes, are still for sale here. The cheap stores only sell LEDs and CFLs.

I suspect that if you do some serious hunting, you can find good incandescent lights in the netherlands.  Buy lots of them now.  

They are banned here in the US too, but I still manage to find them for sale online.  And I found some at the local organic grocery store.

paul wheaton wrote:I suspect that if you do some serious hunting, you can find good incandescent lights in the netherlands.  Buy lots of them now.  

I'll do my best Paul. Maybe not here in town, but somewhere else

I would personally like to hear each chapter in a podcast. Please read to me as I wash the dishes, so I can stack functions.

I really liked this podcast.  I would also greatly appreciate you doing an audiobook version.  Maybe make the audio book version a higher contribution in the kick starter, because I would jump all over that!

Thanks for spewing rainbows into the world for us all!

paul wheaton wrote:I suspect that if you do some serious hunting, you can find good incandescent lights in the netherlands.  Buy lots of them now.  

They are banned here in the US too, but I still manage to find them for sale online.  And I found some at the local organic grocery store.

I buy incandescent bulbs online all the time. And I've found them on big box store websites (like Home Depot) and others tell me they have been able to buy them in dollar stores.

You just have to know what to search for or ask for: A19 rough service. I'm told that 130V is best in rural areas (where power glitches - less likely to blow than 120V).

Personally, I get mine from LightBulbs.com. See https://www.lightbulbs.com/search/?keywords=a19%20incandescent&search_filter_brand=&search_filter_category=0103&sort_by=.

Be warned, "rough service" often times means it has a teflon coating.  And if you put in that light bulb in your chicken coop (to encourage more laying) you will wake up to find all of your chickens are dead.

paul wheaton wrote:Be warned, "rough service" often times means it has a teflon coating.  And if you put in that light bulb in your chicken coop (to encourage more laying) you will wake up to find all of your chickens are dead.

That's important to know. I haven't come across that anywhere else. I have seen some that are coated in silicone for shatter resistance. I'll research further. Most of them look like regular bulbs (clear), but are heavier / better quality to work in less than ideal environments.

https://www.motherearthnews.com/nature-and-environment/environmental-policy/teflon-dangers-zmgz12jfzkon

Do you know if silicone also releases something that could hurt poultry? Example: https://www.lightbulbs.com/product/halco-401345

As far as I know, silicone is fine.

paul wheaton wrote:As far as I know, silicone is fine.

Thank you. I've been using a silicone coated 100W rough service bulb over a tote for ducklings and they're fine. But there is no lid on it and I have 7 foot ceilings, so not an enclosed space.

I really appreciate you taking the time to mention Teflon coated incandescent bulbs. I avoid all things Teflon, and only use incandescents. But I wasn't aware there were any coated in Teflon.

My future ducklings, gosling, chicks and keets are indebted to you (just in case I missed it; I do always read the descriptions and all print on product labels).