California unplugged

"I think people are bottoming out on consumerism the way an alcoholic bottoms out on alcohol," says Begley, a dedicated environmentalist whose home is also solar-powered and whose preferred method of transportation is a bicycle. "Many people have found it something of a hollow victory to have all these things only to understand [the price] that comes with them."

"[Still,] I'm not going to live in a tepee in Topanga.... I have a fax machine and a computer. It's not about having stuff. It's about having enough stuff."

Another, is that urban environmentalists, like the residents of Los Angleles's Eco-Village, are no longer perceived as stereotypical techno-hermits, but as active community builders - leading by example not lecture.

Founded in 1992 to demonstrate "lower impact, higher quality living patterns within an urban setting" following the Rodney King verdict riots, L.A.'s Eco-Village comprises a two-block neighborhood centered on two, 1920s-era apartment buildings.

"The ecovillage," says founder and executive director Lois Arkin, "is designed to engage with the mainstream" not only locally, but nationally and internationally - to help developing countries avoid the excesses of "our unsustainable patterns."

"People have a vision of coming to America, not to Missoula Montana or Portland, Oregon, but to Los Angeles. That's what the media exports. To live the lifestyle of affluent Angelenos is not healthy for the planet or the future of our progeny," she says.

"This is definitely an example of 'think globally, act locally,' says Lara Morrison, who's lived in Eco-Village 2-1/2 years.

Ms. Morrison, a data manager for the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, could easily afford something larger and more conventionally luxurious than the 400-square-foot apartment she now occupies.

Yet even though she grows many of her vegetables in the community garden, uses a minimal amount of lighting and a small high-efficiency refrigerator, wears sweaters rather than turning on the heat and owns neither a TV nor VCR, she is still "conscious most of the time how, even at my level, [my consumption of energy and resources] is way above most of the human beings on the planet."

For T.H. Culhane, a UCLA PhD candidate in international development, his Eco-Village apartment is an experiment in off-grid progress.

Unlike Morrison, he does have a television - powered by a pedal-driven generator. Everything else, including his electric guitar, is fed by his roof-top array of solar photovoltaics.

The former award-winning high school science teacher has also developed solar energy systems in Guatemala.

"What's the difference between a rain forest and urban Los Angeles?" he asks. "There isn't any .... It's human beings facing the issues of food, water, shelter, and warmth."

The city, however, needs a new, sustainable, cultural mythos, he says. "Inertia has to be overcome. It's like launching a rocket - you need a certain escape velocity. That's why I moved to Eco-Village, because it's working on constructing this new mythos."

(c) Copyright 2001. The Christian Science Publishing Society

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