TONY: No, no, I love Elon, he’s a good guy, but he does have some catching up to do.
RYSSDAL: Like the solar profit program?
TONY: Exactly. If you harvest more energy than you need, why not be able to sell it back to the grid? And I don’t mean a rebate like in some states, I mean sell, for cash, just like the Germans have been doing for almost two decades. That’s not technology, that’s just good business, making money while you sit on your ass.
RYSSDAL: And speaking of sitting on your…
TONY: I was getting to that. The houses don’t just harvest sunlight, they also collect methane gas from, wait for it, your own poop. Again, nothing new. Biogas has been used in developing countries for years. Even some American cities are tapping into the deposits from their own landfills. Greenloop’s taken all that hard-won experience and kicked it up to American suburban standards. Each house is built on a biogas generator that breaks down what you flush. But you don’t see it, or smell it, or even have to think about it. Everything is regulated by the Cygnus “smart home” system.
RYSSDAL: Can you talk a little bit about that system?
TONY: Again, nothing new. A lot of homes are getting smarter. Greenloop’s just gotten there faster. The central home program is either voice or remote activated, and with a constant eye toward energy efficiency. It’s always thinking, always calculating, always making sure you don’t waste one amp or Btu. Every room is riddled with both thermal and motion sensors. On the highest efficiency setting, they’ll automatically shut down all light and heat to every unoccupied space. And you don’t have to do anything more than just live the way you’ve always lived. You don’t have to sacrifice an ounce of comfort or time.
RYSSDAL: And that goes back to the same political will that allowed Washington State to change its solar energy policy.
TONY: And put up half the money for its construction, and built the private road up from the main highway, and laid all those miles of fiber-optic cable.
RYSSDAL: Green jobs.
TONY: Green jobs. Who keeps all those fancy electronics running? Who cleans off the solar panels? Who mucks out the used-up waste in those biogas generators, carting it away along with the garbage and recycling and kitchen scraps, only to bring that organic waste back as compost to be spread around the fruit trees?
You know that every citizen of Greenloop generates between two and four service jobs for their fellow Americans? All bused in on electric vans that charge up at the Common House. And that’s just the service sector. What about actually building those solar panels and biogas generators and wall batteries? Manufacturing. Made in America. This is the Green Revolution, the Green New Deal, and what they’re now calling the Green Green Society. Greenloop shows what’s possible, just like Levittown did before it.
RYSSDAL: Although, we can’t ignore that Levittown had a racial segregation policy.
TONY: No, we shouldn’t ignore it. In fact, that’s exactly my point. Levittown was exclusive; Greenloop is inclusive. Levittown wanted to divide people. Greenloop wants to unite them. Levittown wanted to separate humans from the natural world. Greenloop wants to reintroduce them.
RYSSDAL: But most people can’t afford to live in this type of community.
TONY: No, but they can afford a piece of it. That’s what Levittown was all about, not just showcasing the homes, but every new convenience that was in it: automatic dishwashers, clothes washers, television. A whole way of life. That’s what we’re trying to do with Greentech, and as far as solar power and smart homes, it’s already happening. But if we can put all these planet-saving ideas under one roof, literally, and plant just enough Greenloops around the country for those ideas to trickle down to the general public, then we’d finally have our Green Revolution. No more sacrifice, no more guilt. No more conflict between profit and planet. Americans could have it all, and what’s more American than having it all?
*1 Kate McCray grew up in Columbia, Maryland.
*2 Masdar City: A sustainable city project built in Abu Dhabi, UAE.
*3 Dongtan: A planned eco-city on Chongming Island, in Shanghai, China.
*4 Sequestration: An act of budget austerity controls set in place by the Congress of the United States in 2013.
*5 BedZED: A sustainable community of one hundred homes completed in 2002 in Hackbridge, London, UK.
*6 Sieben Linden: An off-grid settlement in Germany.
*7 Dunedin: An Eco Home Village in Dunedin, Florida, USA.
*8 While “I play the orchestra” was spoken by Michael Fassbender and written by Aaron Sorkin for the 2015 movie Steve Jobs, it cannot be confirmed that Jobs himself ever uttered this phrase.
Happiness: a good bank account, a good cook, and a good digestion.
—JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU
JOURNAL ENTRY #2
September 23
Last night we were invited to a “welcome potluck” in the Common House.
I realize I haven’t explained that building at all. Sorry. It’s like any planned community’s homeowners association shared space and laid out like a traditional Pacific Northwest longhouse. I googled “longhouse” last night. The images almost match this structure. It’s got a large, multi-use space with a bathroom and kitchenette on one side and a cozy cobblestone fireplace on the other. That fire gave off such a beautiful glow, mixed with the pine candles and the natural light of dusk. The Common House runs east–west, so all we had to do was leave the large, double front doors open for that spectacular view of the setting sun. I’m surprised how warm it was, certainly no colder than the nights in L.A.
It was such an idyllic setting, and the food! Black buttery edamame salad, quinoa with grilled vegetables, and salmon right from the nearby rivers! We started with this amazing soup course: vegetable soba made by the Boothes. They live two houses to the left of us. Vegan foodies. They actually made the soup, not just mixed and cooked it. The soba noodles were from scratch. Raw ingredients delivered fresh that day. I’ve had a lot of soba since moving to L.A. I’ve even had it at Nobu, where Dan and his onetime partners wanted to celebrate their company launch, and I’m pretty sure it didn’t compare to this.
“From our own hand.” That’s what Vincent says. I like him, and his wife, Bobbi. They’re in their sixties, both short and happy and look like your stereotypical aunt and uncle.
They also weren’t judgy about those of us who aren’t vegan. Does that sound judgy from me? You know what I’m talking about: all the vegans in Venice, especially the new ones. The way they’d look at Dan’s leather shoes or my silk blouse or how one of them called a fish tank a prison. Seriously, we were at someone’s house for a party and this guy totally went off on them about their koi pond. “How’d you like it if you were imprisoned in a tiny air bubble at the bottom of the ocean!” The Boothes weren’t like that. They were so nice. And Dan loved their housewarming gift.