Human Earth

Crepes and Community

Sunday Breakfast Begins: French Icelandic Toast

Rise and Shine CELL group! It's Sunday morning, and time to build community over breakfast! Our talented gourmet cuisine chefs prepared a delectable array of crepes, strawberry sauce, french toast, cooked apples, and bananas for all. Now, we don't mean to make you jealous, but seriously...check out these plates of passion and friendship below!

With full stomachs and full hearts, we began our new week in good spirits and community bonds. We enjoyed the company of each other gathered around a beautifully decorated table, all having fun with food. Who knows...maybe it's the start of a community tradition for the rest of our stay in Iceland.
In the end, we are what we eat-- and from the pictures you can see, the CELL group is FUN! And some wise words for our readers: Crepes are a community's best friend.

With heart shaped waffles and smiling crepe masks,
Lizzie and Sylvia

Vernacular Architecture

Buildings, homes and structures that use methods of construction using local resources and traditions. This method has been refined by trial and error over many generations. Why isn’t it used in mainstream society? Why is wisdom of generations being ignored and lost?

Here are some reasons:
- Convenience – A vernacular house requires time and lots of labor for construction and maintenance. It is definitely easier to buy a pre-made, low maintenance house.
- Perception- In today’s wealth and image based society, a vernacular home is associated with poverty and low-class living. The turf houses may come off as dirty, dark, and lacking technology and sophistication.
- Land – Do all or most vernacular homes require tracts of land? Would they work in the suburbs? In cities?

In the movement towards sustainable living, low tech vernacular housing makes more sense than the high tech houses covered in solar panels. The vernacular homes address more of the issues of how we should be living with the earth, mimicking its set up rather than trying to control or dominate the earth. My father is an architect and I am interested to hear what he would have to say about this type of architecture.

There are quite a few benefits to building vernacularly. (I think they outweigh the potential negatives)
- Gaining New Skills- Building this way taps into cultural knowledge of the area. It demands that a builder looks at each problem with fresh eyes and develop problem solving skills. There are no cookie cutter solutions.
- Connection with Land and Space – Building this way allows an intimate connection with the space created. The builders grow roots just like the surrounding plants and trees.
- Less Expensive- Buying less and from local sources means less cash out of the pocket/bank account.
- Community Building – Many tasks are easily done by unskilled neighbors and friends. Barn raisings become grand events where work and play intermingle and networks form.

I want to build according to local tradition. It just makes sense.

To the left of the door is the turf wall we helped build this past weekend.

Here is the old farmstead, an example of Icelandic vernacular architecture.

by Cassie Bodette

Community

          What kind of community are we living in at Solheimar? Is it a kind of community that would function in another setting? As a village, Solheimar is very isolated. To what extent is isolation necessary for a community to function? Or is it actually necessary?

These are some questions that have been floating through our minds as we are spending more time here. Our CELL group resides in Brekkukot, a guesthouse built for fifteen people. Although our accommodations go beyond our expectations, finding a way to accommodate everyone’s needs around the clock is pretty challenging; this includes mealtime, classtime, and most of our free time. In a discussion led in class about community, the value of individual freedom within a community was mentioned several times. We have found that the importance of taking care of individual needs supports personal and mental health which ultimately leads to the enhancement of community living. Having independence can help reduce tension in relationships that may be brought on by frequent interaction. It can also strengthen the dynamic of the group as a whole.

In his article “The Common Life”, Scott Russell Sanders says that “a community can support a number of people who are just passing through, or who care about no one’s needs but their own; the greater the proportion of such people however, the more vulnerable the community, until eventually it breaks down.” I agree that a large proportion of these types of people can affect a community’s vulnerability, but those people don’t exist in the CELL community. There is a difference between caring about no one’s needs but your own and wanting independence. I think people in this community value the latter over the former. Sanders brings up another interesting point about his ideal community. He says it arises “not from duty or money but from the free interchange of people who share a place, share work and food, sorrows and hope… dwelling in a web of relationships, the many threads tugging at you while also holding you upright.” It’s interesting because as an academic program abroad, this CELL community was kind of formed from money and duty because we paid tuition to come to Solheimar and we have a duty as students to participate in the community to receive academic credit. On the other hand, each of us made a choice to be in this program and we were each carefully selected to be a part of the community. It seems that our desire to be here and the fact that we care about our planet and sustainability, that we are all compassionate people, and that we chose to live in an intentional community takes precedence over money and duty.

It has been essential to our growth, having the romanticized view of Solheimar wear off just a little bit. Although this place still swells with some sort of European magic, we are being reminded every day that we’re still living our lives just like any other time. The key here is maintaining a balance. We’re weaving in and out of a system, as we all try to integrate our own needs, the CELL community needs, and the Solheimar community needs intentionally into one purpose. We are building community through consensus decision making, upholding our agreement that embodies communal living, and simply trying to nail a concise and sustainable food order. In the meantime, we are still striving to truly understand the role of each person living at Solheimar. It’s been an exciting adventure so far, knowing that we’re all striving for something: whether that be sustainability, peace, communal harmony or answers to other questions that are unfolding day by day.

                                                      - Rachael Harmel and Shelby Thoma

THAT"S A LOT OF CARBON!

 

On our recent trip to the Hekla forest, our tree planting efforts sparked a question in our minds: Are we living a carbon negative lifestyle in Iceland?  What impact are we making?

To investigate these questions, we looked into both our carbon production and our carbon sequestration efforts and calculated our carbon balance.

We began by looking into the amount of carbon that would be sequestered by our weekend reforestation projects:

Basic facts:

Number of trees planted by Lizzie and Sylvia: 536

Total average weight of 1 birch tree: 1 lb

Average diameter of 1 birch tree: 0.25 in

Average height of 1 birch tree: 0.58ft           

Let the calculations begin!

Calculating the dry weight of a tree:

Dry weight = Total weight * 72.5%

Dry weight = 1 lb * 0.725 = 0.725 lb

Calculating the carbon weight of a tree:

Carbon weight = dry weight * 50%

Carbon weight = 0.725 lb  * 0.50 = 0.3625 lb

Calculating weight of carbon sequestered by one tree:

Carbon = carbon weight * 3.663

Carbon = 0.3625 lb * 3.663 = 1.329 lbs/yr

***Where 3.663 is a constant based on CO₂ weight percents and carbon-oxygen ratio

Calculating total carbon sequestered:

Total carbon sequestered = 1.329 lbs C * number of trees planted

Total carbon sequestered = 1.329 lbs C * 536 = 712. 34 lbs C

Planting 536 of these small birch trees will sequester 712.34 lbs of carbon a year.

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Now let’s look at our carbon production…

Our main carbon emission in Iceland is from travel- flying from Boston to Iceland and taking buses on several trips throughout the semester.  Our carbon production calculations will focus on these main carbon inputs.

Plane

Given:                        Distance from From Boston to Keflavik, Iceland = 3,923 km

Carbon emission rate for Icelandair 737-400 plane = 9.36 kg/km

Calculating emissions from the flight from the US to Iceland:

Plane carbon emission = distance * carbon plane emission rate

Plane carbon emission = 3,923 km * 9.36 kg/km = 36,719.28 kg C

Bus

Given:                        Total distance traveled by bus to date = 666 km = 413.8 miles

Average bus carbon emission rate = 1.10 lbs C/mile

Calculating emissions from bus travel in Iceland:

Total carbon produced = Distance traveled * bus carbon emission rate

Total carbon produced = 413.8 miles * 1.10 lbs C/mile = 400 kg C

Total Emission

Total travel emission to date = 36,719.28 kg + 400 kg = 37,119.28 kg

37,119.28 kg C translates into 81,834 lbs of C!!!

**The 81,8343 lbs of carbon emitted simply includes travel thus far and fails to account for the carbon emitted from food growth and transportation.

THAT’S A LOT OF CARBON!

Based on these approximate calculations it could take 115 years for the 536 birch trees to sequester enough carbon to balance the emissions we have produced from our travels to and around Iceland thus far.  Of course this amount of time will vary as the birch trees grow larger and are able to sequester more carbon per year.  It will also depend on how many of our baby birch trees survive the harsh Icelandic climate! 

Despite these discouraging findings, we will continue to work toward reaching our own carbon equilibrium by planting in the forestry to sequester more carbon and monitoring our food miles.

If you are interested in calculating and monitoring your carbon footprint, check out this Carbon Footprint Calculator: http://www.nature.org/initiatives/climatechange/calculator/

-Sylvia Murray & Elizabeth Waite

Iceland is Wild

Embodying Hekla Forest

How do volcano's impact vegetation?

 What is special about Icelandic forests?

Why are downy birch good trees for Iceland? 

How do you feel about carbon sequestration credits?  

What is your role in global warming and it's impact on Iceland? 

What would the birch say to you?