Do You Have to Give Up Running Water, Electricity, Forced Air Heat to Be Down?

Someone said this to me recently:

I'm in no hurry to give up running water, electricity, flush toilets, or forced air heat.

LOL! See to me to live like this would be a dream. I can't because we are committed to live in the same small town we are now and when we build our straw bale house we are required to hook up to the water and sewage system. And because we have minor children we have to be hooked up to the gas and electricity as well during the winter (this is an actual rule). But to get around it we are going to have a compost toilet as well, and build the house to take advantage of solar power to decrease our gas and firewood consumption. I'd also like to have a rainwater-catchment system in place to use for non-drinking purposes. I'm under no illusion that living this way won't be very different, but is feels right to me.

What we are able to do now, like we sharply decrease our gas use in the summer, hand-wash and line dry clothes, walk/bike as much as possible, make things we need as much as possible rather than buy new, etc., it feels good. It feels right. It forces me to be physically active and it forces me to slow down. It also forces me and my family to consume less...for example, rather than taking long hot showers every day like we did before, we might each take one long hot bath once a week with quick wash-ups throughout the week. This reduces our water consumption and gas consumption. I do think it's not always a matter of either/or, that we don't have to give up running water, electricity, flush toilets, forced air heat, etc...we can just reduce our use of these things in order to reduce our impact on the environment and to raise the standard of living for other people.

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