Research Catalog

Title

Sustainable compromises : a yurt, a straw bale house, and ecological living / Alan Boye.

Author

Boye, Alan, 1950-

Publication

Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, [2014]

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

195 pages : illustrations; 23 cm.

Summary

• "An account of Boye's experiences building and occupying alternative, sustainable houses"--
• "Living simply isn't always simple. When Alan Boye first lived in sustainable housing, he was young, idealistic, and not much susceptible to compromise--until rattlesnakes, black widow spiders, and loneliness drove him out of the utilities-free yurt he'd built in New Mexico. Thirty-five years later, he decided to try again. This time, with an idealism tempered by experience and practical considerations, Boye and his wife constructed an off-the-grid, energy-efficient, straw bale house in Vermont. Sustainable Compromises chronicles these two remarkable attempts to live simply in two disparate American eras. Writing with hard-won authority and humor, Boye takes up the 'how-to' practicalities of 'building green,' from finances to nuts and bolts to strains on friends and family. With Walden as a historical and philosophical touchstone and his own experience as a practical guide, he also explores the ethical and environmental concerns that have framed such undertakings from Thoreau's day to our own. A firsthand account of the pleasures and pitfalls of living simply, his book is a deeply informed and engaging reflection on what sustainability really means--in personal, communal, ethical, and environmental terms"--

Series Statement

Our sustainable future

Uniform Title

Our sustainable future.

Subject

• Boye, Alan, 1950- > Homes and haunts > Vermont
• Sustainable living > Vermont
• Ecological houses > Vermont
• Ecological houses > Design and construction
• Sustainability > Philosophy
• NATURE / Environmental Conservation & Protection
• BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references.

Contents

What I Lived For -- Sustainable Compromises -- Where I Live -- Water -- Design -- Foundations -- El Sol -- Economics -- The Beautiful Tree and Other Disasters -- The Amoeba -- The Straw That Broke The -- Finances -- Collaboration -- Artifacts -- Solitude -- Visitors -- Thick Skin in a Winter of Discontent -- Spring -- Higher Laws -- Postscript: Mistakes Were Made.

ISBN

• 9780803264878 (paperback)
• 0803264879 (paperback)
• 9780803265028 (epub) (canceled/invalid)
• 9780803265035 (mobi) (canceled/invalid)
• 9780803265011 (pdf) (canceled/invalid)

LCCN

• 2013044111
• 99958460681

OCLC

• ocn861955701
• SCSB-5743782

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries