Growing up in India, one of the highlights of my summer vacations was the annual trip from the capital New Delhi to my grandparents' home in Kerala located at the southernmost tip of the peninsula.
The family home, which is more than 300 years old, was seen by my sisters and cousins as the ultimate holiday destination with its many rooms, corridors, cellars and attic. What we didn't realize then was that it was also the ultimate in environmentally friendly construction, energy efficiency, self-sustainability and promoting recycling habits.
The house was built to be lifted up in times of floods so that it could float. But of course, this was not seen as much of a convenience feature because as the family grew with more grandchildren and more rooms were added, the extensions were anchored to foundations beneath the ground. Then it was wired for electricity and modern plumbing was introduced. All of which was supposed to make life more convenient. But did it?
And instead of the waste water from the kitchen and bathroom running into the orchard to water the banana plants and coconut trees, a huge underground pipe connected the house to the sewage system of the town's municipal corporation. We appreciated all the additional comforts even as we lamented the lost charm of days gone by.
Then came the power cuts, the high cost of diesel for generators, the rising cost of electricity and water. And we all complained. But no one thought of returning to the self-sustainable life that had been the norm once upon a time. Not even when bananas and coconuts came from the supermarket rather than the back garden.
Then I read about the house built in New Orleans by Brad Pitt's Make It Right Foundation. Built in an area that was devastated by Hurricane Katrina, the FLOAT house is built on a special prefabricated chassis that is designed to float up to 12 feet in floodwaters. It has a battery backup for power, solar paneling (not very useful in torrential rain) and a rainwater harvesting system. All of which makes the house self-sustaining.
"The reality of rising water levels presents a serious threat for coastal cities around the world," says Thom Mayne, whose Mosphosis Architects designed the house, as quoted in the global media. "These environmental implications require radical solutions. In response, we developed a highly performative, 1,000-square-foot house that is technically innovative in terms of its safety factor -- its ability to float -- as well as its sustainability, mass production and method of assembly."
Sounds very much like my grandparents' house. When we had the knowledge three centuries ago what were we thinking to move away from such a life?
Maybe it is time to think about it especially with all the debate about climate change. Rising sea levels, shrinking ice caps, drought, violent weather, hotter temperatures with up to 10% rise in average temperatures in certain parts of the world in the next 90 years -- all these are seen as very current problems and will be part of the discussions at the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit later this year.
Despite Geroge Soros promising to spend $1 billion on clean energy technology and help combat climate change, it seems an uphill battle to get everyone on board. So will it take something as drastic as a violent storm during the summit to actually make policymakers and world leaders pay attention to climate change?
Of course, there have been no floods at my grandparents' town for more than half a century. But if they return to the coastal state of Kerala, the house that was built for self-sustainability will suffer just as thousands of other modern homes will.
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