Net-Zero/Gross-Zero: Our Topsy-Turvy Quest to Live Ethically
Spoiler alert: We are doing it messily.
Last year, during the height of the pandemic, my wife and I—along with our three dogs and annoyed cat—rented an RV(egan) and moved from West Hollywood to the Catskills in order to escape the urban density of our neighborhood and the need for a bigger apartment now that we were both working from home. We had always planned on heading back to the east coast at some point, and since we suddenly couldn’t both work from our one-bedroom without murdering one another (murder isn’t vegan, so we had to do something!), we figured that sooner was better than later.
It was a dramatic move that required a significant amount of planning and deep-diving into our deep savings. Suddenly, our rainy day was here.
I’m used to making dramatic moves, including in the literal sense. Over the past decade, my moves have included:
Lower Manhattan > PDX (this was for a six-month gig)
PDX > (back to) Lower Manhattan (both these moves were done by car)
Manhattan > Brooklyn
Brooklyn > The Hudson Valley + Upper Manhattan
The Hudson Valley + Upper Manhattan > Santa Cruz, CA
Santa Cruz, CA > Hollywood, CA
Hollywood > Koreatown
Koreatown > West Hollywood
West Hollywood > The Catskills
This is, let’s just all agree, bananas.
And it’s not like I enjoy moving. It’s expensive, stressful, disorienting, inconvenient, and upending. Several of those moves were cross-country or cross-state, and each of them took months or more to prepare for and recover from.
But the Catskills was always intended to be a for-now thing. Moore and I were making the move sight unseen, partly motivated by the geographical convenience to a dog I adored very much, who left us last December as a very old and much-beloved family member.
Moving during Covid-times was extremely challenging, and driving through red states in the height of the heated build-up to the presidential election—as a lesbian couple—made me feel extremely uncomfortable and, at times, unsafe.
But we made it here in one piece, spent several glorious months with Rose Dog, and battened down the hatches for the cold, long winter of upstate New York. After Rose left us, Mariann wound up moving to the vacant apartment upstairs from us in our duplex, and the three of us—well, the seven of us, if you count the animals—tried to figure out what was next.
The goal had always been to make this move as a means of getting to the east coast, and then focus on doing our best to live our values as environmentalists. In terms of housing, that meant trying our best to get a net-zero home. Mariann was also doing the same thing, so we compared notes the whole time, working together for the same end game (for end times).
A net-zero house is a house that prioritizes energy conservation first, including everything from framing to finishing. That includes geothermal, solar panels, added insulation, triple-pane windows, and more. They are essentially air-tight and can exist off-the-grid.
This journey, though at times exciting, has also been incredibly frustrating and deflating. Here are some of the roads we explored on our search thus far:
We started by bookmarking the New York Times climate change map. This allows you to put in your zip code to determine the future projection of the area where you live or intend to live. It could include anything from wildfires to hurricanes to sea-level rise. We studied this map for probably the equivalent of one-billion hours and read everything we could get our hands on as it relates to climate catastrophe—where we are now, and where we are headed. This was pretty much the most depressing thing I’ve ever read in my life. But it also reinforced my desire and need to step up my personal and global action in order to both live in alignment with my values while also doing all I can during my time here to ensure that the future is protected in the ways it still can be.
We put together a list of quality-of-life desires for where we ultimately wind up. This includes everything from walkability (I’m a city person), non-Trumpy (the town where we live now is Trumpy and I feel very uncomfortable here, as a visible, tattooed lesbian with a stroller-full of tiny old chihuahuas wearing bright sweaters and barking at every other dog), near public transportation (including that which will easily get me to NYC), and something we can afford on a middle-income without being house-poor. We divided the list into “must-haves” and “would-likes,” as well as “deal-breakers” (i.e. Trumpy).
Based on our list of things we wanted, we started our search in Vermont. Not only does my mom live there (though she only moved there recently), we liked the politics of the state … minus the incredibly oppressive dairy scene (though Ben & Jerry’s is making hay with their mainstreaming of vegan ice cream, which is probably being mainstreamed at least partly due to the current contents of my freezer). As far as net-zero goes, the best part of the Vermont leg of our journey was when we discovered Vermod—a company dedicated to building pre-fab, net-zero homes that are relatively affordable. Though this company met our needs, the land up there is very expensive, and it’s hard to find anything but raw land that needs a ton of work before you can even put a house on it. I felt overwhelmed by this, especially since I have no idea what I’m doing and no amount of triple-time steps can dance my way around this process. We also couldn’t find affordable land that was walkable to a city or even a hamlet. Though we explored a few eco-communities, none of them worked for us. Either they didn’t have a garage and you weren’t allowed to put one up (um, this is Vermont!) or the community came with chickens (which we are morally opposed to exploiting, as even the most seemingly benign egg production is ripe with horrendous issues), or the community was full of apartments (which is a no for us because we are pretty sure that Covid-19 was not the last pandemic we’ll see and we want to avoid too many germy communal areas). We tried hard to make Vermont work, and it’s possible that my mother will never get over the heartbreak of us ultimately crossing it off the list.
So we refocused on upstate New York, specifically, the Finger Lakes area. Enter Ithaca. Not only does Ithaca boast an urban feel in many spots, it also happens to be home to the world-renowned Eco-Village, a robust community that is pretty hands-on about its green initiatives (it’s also an intentional community, so you have to do weekly service as part of the agreement to live there—this was not a plus for us since we are generally pretty grumpy and busy). Eco-Village, though revolutionary, also has chickens (who are ultimately killed for meat, and like all “backyard bird” operations, the chicks themselves come from factory farms and the boys are generally killed at birth). We wanted to be open to Eco-Village anyway since so many perks potentially outweigh that one glaring problem for us, but we ultimately couldn’t get past it (especially since there’s a common fee, which means we’d be paying for those poor sweet chickens to be exploited). The houses themselves were also not big enough for Moore and me to both work from home and to have a room for a possible future foster child or even houseguest. And it wasn’t really in walking distance to the wonderful downtown of Ithaca. It just didn’t line up for us.
Also in Ithaca, we learned about a “pocket neighborhood” popping up which offered the possibility of doing add-ons in order to upgrade your house to be net-zero. Though this place is super-cool, we were irked by the mismatched ethos between us and the developer. We were grateful that a place existed where we could “upgrade” to have a net-zero home, but the upgrades (which we felt should be the baseline for a new community) were expensive, the house was very tiny so we’d probably kill one another eventually, and there was a levee on the property that we were worried about with the long-term climate projections. I squinted and squinted and squinted to try to make this place work, but it couldn’t.
So we found a place in nearby Geneva and thought we had finally arrived. An entire net-zero community is being built there by a developer whose ethics are very aligned with our own, in an area we deemed safe, at a price we could afford. Though it didn’t meet all of our needs (Geneva is on the small side for my dream location, though I did get wooed by the small city nonetheless), it came pretty close, and we were days away from putting down our down payment. But with the rising costs of lumber and the low cost of buying a generic house nearby, the developer ultimately pulled out, determining that what he was building was not realistic. He changed his plan to be rentals, not sales—and mostly apartment buildings, not individual houses. We were devastated and felt we were at square one again.
I was beginning to be convinced that it is simply not possible to live in a way that was ethically aligned, at least not on a middle-income. We had previously considered retrofitting homes, but it felt like it was too expensive and hard. However, looking at the long-term goal of what we are doing—which is ultimately not just about us, but we want to be a part of a world where living in an eco-optimized way is accessible to everyone—it isn’t realistic to build a bunch of net-zero homes. The only way forward is really to create accessible ways (and lots of incentives) to retrofit. Enter Rochester. Rochester, NY had been on my radar to some extent, but I didn’t know much about it. Then a friend of ours who also fancies herself a climate refugee told us she was making the move from the now-overpriced Portland, OR to Rochester, where prices were still reasonable and, most importantly, long-term climate projects are not bad (extreme rainfall seems to be the biggest projected issue—so if you move there, aim for the top of a hill). So we contacted Aces Energy and found them to be extremely knowledgeable and generous with their assistance. They were optimistic that we could likely retrofit a home in Rochester, and gave us a few things to look out for—such as a lawn where they could drill for geothermal, and a warning to not get a home in a historic area where you have to go through a committee to get approved for solar (and even then, the solar can’t face the street). So we started a search in Rochester, and quickly found that—holy shit!—it meets pretty much all of our needs! We could afford to live in the city proper, it’s very progressive, the houses are in our financial capability and, though small, these homes have the number of rooms we need to work and live from home. And, now, we even had a company invested in our net-zero (or at least eco-optimized) success.
So we refocused once again (I haven’t told my mom yet … this newsletter might be what breaks the news to her … sorry, Mom!) and fell in love with several neighborhoods there, and even a few houses. The real estate market in Rochester is currently on fire, which is not an ideal time to buy, and has the added unfortunate problem of making the homes a bit too pricey for those who saved up for houses that are now possibly outside of their reach (not to mention, lots of enormous investors are getting in on this action—which, though understandable, also runs the risk of being capitalism at its worst). And, as I type this, Moore and I put an offer on a house in a lively but grown-up neighborhood—and Mariann put an offer on a house down the street. The market is so chaotic there that this offer is definitely not in the bag, and just about anything could happen at this point. I will keep you posted.
In light of where we are in this process, the issue of migration has been on my mind lately, and it’s something I don’t know too much about. As climate refugees, the question becomes: who will be able to move, and who won’t?
My wife is thinking about historic migrations within the US—some voluntary and some not. Some were from extreme weather (the dust bowl), some from genocide (trail of tears), some from Jim Crow (the great migration), and some from speculation (gold rush and oil rush).
It’s helpful to see our migration in a historical context so that we can tread lightly as we enter existing communities and obey the campfire rule (leave a place in better shape than you found it). We carefully considered who would we be displacing with a home purchase. We avoided displacing tenants (focusing on single-family, owner-occupied homes). We noticed the demographics of the neighborhood and the outgoing owner of the home on which we made the bid, and we are of the same level of privilege. We won’t be changing the neighborhood—except to add a bit of queer fabulousness and to model some climate change-friendly energy generation.
No change is without consequences, but we’re doing our best by approaching this moment in our lives with thoughtfulness and sleeves rolled up to contribute in positive ways to our new home (once we secure it).*
xo,
jazz
One Thing I’m Jazzed About
All of the above is, to me, the non-dairy creme on top of veganism. Though finding and securing a net-zero home or eco-optimized living situation is indeed incredibly frustrating (though we’re determined to do all we can to work on initiatives that make it accessible and incentivizing), going vegan is way easier. Aside from the myriad ethical horrors of animal production (including with small operations), the environmental reasons for going vegan are profound.
Here are some highlights from my newest book, The VegNews Guide to Being a Fabulous Vegan:
Truly, the impact that animal production is having on our planet could not possibly be more severe. Agriculture is responsible for about a quarter of all global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions; animal agriculture accounts for 80 percent of this. Think about it: in the United States, more than ten billion land animals are slaughtered for food annually—with your average American consuming 200 pounds of meat each year. This amount of meat production carries with it a significant amount of resources. Here is a glimpse into how:
One pound of beef requires 1,800 gallons of water—the equivalent of 105 eight-minute showers a day.
Animal agriculture is the leading cause of deforestation—in 2018, 30 million acres of tropical rainforest were lost (a rate of 43 football fields a minute).
Livestock take up to 83 percent of farmland but provide only 18 percent of calories worldwide.
Two billion tons of manure a year from US livestock alone(or 12 billion pounds each day) are produced—a significant portion of which is stored in open lagoons of literal shit. Then, along with the antibiotic residues, chemicals, and bedding, the manure is sprayed on farmlands as fertilizer, delivering the E. coli that prompts recalls of your romaine lettuce.
Over a 100-year period, the greenhouse gas methane has over 25 times the impact on the earth as carbon dioxide—and the biggest contributor of methane in the United States is livestock and the waste they produce.
It’s pretty evident from these startling numbers that animal agriculture puts an enormous strain on the planet’s land, energy, and water resources. Look at it this way: 16 percent of the world’s freshwater, one-third of the ice-free land surface, and a third of worldwide grain production are used for the whopping fifty-six billion land animals raised for food. Replacing beef with plants would bring the yearly CO2e amount down by 96 percent—from 1,984 pounds per average American to just 73 pounds of CO2e.
*My wife, Moore, helped me to put together the section above about migration. Moore, thank you. You’re so damn smart (and cute, but I digress).