Page 4 RAIN January 1977 "In mastering the science of origins (excuse me, the science of Godward solutions), Ziller carried the quest to its most personal extreme. Cleareyed and confident, he returnedliterally-to energy, dissolving in the pure essence that spawned all life. · Even as I type these words, John Paul Ziller, the baboon with the firebug buttocks antl Jesus the Christ of Nazareth are melting together into sunlight."- Another Roadside Attraction, by Tom Robbins It is not enough to see solar greenhouses as a way of beating the high cost of petroleum. They embody a rediscovered awareness of our wholistic relationship to sun and biosphere. The economic, cultural and energetic factors that indicate the continuing metamorphosis are beginning to be articulated. For instance, John Todd of the New Alchemists writes: "If modern industrial agriculwre were replaced with a diversity of alternatives that included small, i;>iologically-gardened or -farmed regions durin'g the normal growing season and terrestrial capsul'es such as Arks for year-round production of foods, then a good deal beyond agriculture would be affected. "The replacement of fossil fuel agriculture might alleviate some of the impact bf the seemingly inevitable economic crash or famine. It would encourage agriculture to be less corporate and to re-establish it as a local and regional pursuit, involving as it eventually must, a much larger proportion of the society.... Thus decentralization might in turn lead to a repopulation of the countryside and perhaps even to a re-birth of a diversity of cultures and customs which are bio-regional in their content." Yes, bio-regionalism. The humble . ·1*- 1 j l"f SE>LAR solar greenhouse reflects, to a greater degree than even the passive solar home, this rekindled human attention to what Peter Berg, ace watershed analyst of the Pacific Rim, calls "living-in-place" and "reinhabitation." For, to the already myriad climatological parameters of passive design for dwellings (insulation, temperature, humidity, windspeed and direction, soil type, site landscaping and topography), we must now add the long-evolved limits of various living organisms, both plant and animal. And we must design life-provoking niches for them. Green plants are exercise enough for most experimenters. In fact, there is no ,ERDA-USDA fu.nded solar aquaculturegreenhouse now being monitored, Yet. it is the tri-fold combination of sun, plant and animal that pushes us to the limits of our knowledge about such a greenhouse's site bio-region and of our design and construction skills. We have commercial greenhouses, rabbit ranches and aquaculture farms, yet few models of any potential food production systems for an energy-short future which mix them all together: the New Alchemist's Cape Cod and Prince Edward Island Arks (vegetables, fish), Jim DeKorne's Survival Greenhouse (vegetables, rabbits) and the Reichmuth-Barnes passive parabolic reflector solar greenhouse near Seattle, Washington (vegetables, fish). Even on this delicate and scientific frontier of food and energy, individual resourcefulness and private initiative have already established a clear lead over the ivory ~tower specialists in the "more for less" sweepstakes. Wl;lile the USDA's Agricultural Research Service funds no university greenhouse researcher for less than $50,000, they still have all completely missed what the pathfinders mentioned above have not only already intuited, but accomplished as finished,' Working systems. It is doubtful our nation can afford much longer the stupidity of well-funded, certified-bypeer-review, greenhouse ac~demics un- •' aware of integrated bio-solar systems.· In this field, innovative and informed inter-disciplinary talents are required. You'll find little of it in the government documents listed; rather, as Steve Baer's example reminds us, pay attention to the writings of those who watched "Mr. Wizard" as kids. Unless you have $250,000 in taxpayers' money to waste, of course, like the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture_:_Agricultural Research Service. A bi~ unhappy? Send your queries, suggestions and complaints to the men responsible for the program, for writing the RFPs (request for proposals), etc.: Mr. T. E. Bond Rural Housing Research Unit USDA-ARS P.O. Box 7~2 Clemson, SC 29631 and Bill Cherry ERDA . Div. of Solar Energy 20 Massachusetts Ave., N.W. Washington, DC 20545 • TECHNICAL EVALUATION Climatic Data Reference List, compiled for Passive _S·olar Heating·& Cooling Conference & Workshop, May 18-20, 197 ~. Albuquerque, NM. Free with self-addressed, stamped large envelope, from: Technology Applications Center (TAC) University of New Mexico Albuquerque, NM 8713i Basic sources for data and methods in the analysis of any micro-climate for a specific solar greenhouse or passive solar building site. Climate Under Glass, Technical Note No. 131, WMO No. 373, by Dr. J. Seeman, 40 pp., 1974, available from: World Meteorological Organization . (WMO) Geneva, Switzerland Highly recommended·technical treatment of general g~~~house climatology.
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