Saving the World -

One Home at a Time!

As we learn to deal with an anti-environment administration, it's becoming clear that any hope of a sustainable future is primarily in our hands. The question is:  What can we do - either individually or as a movement - to preserve our safety, environment, economy and freedom without government help or interference?

The first step is to look at climate change as a disease in need of a cure, and burning fossil fuels as its worst infection.  But there are two other threats that we can't ignore:  corporate greed and political corruption.  Ending our addiction to coal, oil and natural gas would attack all three of these, because our dependence on carbon-based energy sources generates such immense wealth that corporations and even entire nations are being enticed to do whatever is necessary to acquire it.  As they do, they are destroying our planet and killing many of  its species, eventually including humanity - if we keep buying their products!

Boycotting fossil fuels would not only help end climate change, but also reduce energy corporations’ wealth and political power, perhaps even to the point of bankruptcy, as is already happening in the coal industry.  Gone will be the need for mines, wells, oil trains, pipelines, boilers and furnaces; and someday there'll be less greenhouse gas, global warming, and climate change.  Eventually, we will have to give up on fossil fuels anyway - whether it's because we've used them all up, or their price is too high, or they've killed us all off.  So why wait until it's too late to choose something better?

There are many ways to reduce the use of fossil fuels, like switching from gas to electric vehicles. But as much as we like our cars and trucks, we love our homes even more, spending most our time there.   Our buildings use (waste) more energy than all other industries combined, besides being the major source of pollution and greenhouse gases, both indoors and out. In many cases, the air inside our homes is worse than outside, especially when we add the threats of carbon monoxide, natural gas, lead, asbestos, radon and toxic mold. At the same time, older and poorly-constructed houses can become deathtraps as a changing climate causes ever-worsening weather, floods and wildfires.

But what if we start an energy-efficiency movement in our own homes, and help it spread across the country or around the world? Besides helping our environment, each individual homeowner would save money on heating and cooling bills – essentially getting paid to save the world!  Another advantage to this movement is that there is nothing anyone can do to stop us - not even an anti-environment government.  As a totally consumer-driven, free-market action, the more people that join, the sooner we can stop climate change and all the risks that come with it.

This is what I have been working towards for the last fifty years, first as a concerned citizen, then professionally since 2010 as the founder of Better Building Institute Inc.  After transplant surgery in 2006, I decided that I must still be here for a reason, and turned my existing home-inspection business into a non-profit organization to help St. Louis-area homeowners reduce their energy bills, while making their homes safer, healthier and more comfortable, and fighting climate change.  I also began teaching how better building can result in new "SuperHomes™"  that use no energy whatsoever, as well as being immune to damage from severe storms, high winds, fire, mold, mildew, radon, termites, and even minor earthquakes and floods, all for about the same price as regular construction.  With the help of a few progressive builders, several such homes are already in use.

Whether it's building a new house or improving an existing one, the results we all want are the same:  saving money; having a safer, healthier and more comfortable home; and having the satisfaction of knowing that you're doing something to help save the planet and all of its occupants.

Don Dieckmann, President

Better Building Institute Inc. (nfp)