Designing Ecological Habitats - Gaia Education

lifestyle cHange as climate strategy 27
Gaia Education is an educational initiative developed by an international
team of ecovillage teachers that has contributed to this concept through the
establishment of two educational programs: (1) Gaia Education Design for
Sustainability (GEDS) taught over the Internet in conjunction with the Open
University of Catalonia in Barcelona, and (2) Ecovillage Design Education
(EDE) a 4-week program taught all over the world in cooperation with the
Global Ecovillage Network, endorsed by the United Nations Institute for
Training and Research (UNITAR), and an official contribution to the United
Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development 2005-2014. 6
Lifestyle in the Three Ecovillages
as described by the members themselves
Hjortshøj Ecovillage
The Co-operative Community of Hjortshøj (AIH) near Aarhus has over 200
adults and children who have chosen to live in environmentally friendly houses.
Hjortshøj is an emerging location for research, training and demonstration
of ecology and sustainable development, including construction, power
generation, social development, culture, consumption, food, waste and
wastewater management, business, economics and agriculture. Our goal is
solidarity among fellow human beings, and responsibility in the handling of
natural resources.
Initiatives in AIH, which reduce CO2 emissions include: Approx imately
half of the houses have one or more walls made of the moraine clay on our
site. If you compare with traditional bricks made of clay, we save 99% of the
energy normally used. When the houses eventually have to be demolished,
the earth walls will return to the local soil – no construction waste involved.
The houses are largely insulated with ‘paper wool’, which is granulated
recycled paper. Energy use for this type of insulation is much lower than the
energy used for the traditional melting of glass and minerals. The houses
are also very well insulated (including some that are 15 years old), which
reduces heat consumption and hence CO2 emissions.
All heating of homes and water is done either by burning wood chips or
through solar heating. Wood chips are burned in our own central wood chip
stove, which is coupled to a Stirling engine, which optimizes efficiency by
also producing electricity. [Editor’s Note: please see Gunnar Olesen’s article
in Module 3 of this book for more on the Stirling engine].
We have 1.5 hectares of vegetables and fruits. From here, approximately
100 persons have totally fresh, sun-ripened organic food without energy
consumption for packaging and transportation. In our organic agriculture
program, we also produce fertilizer, animal feed, meat and eggs for our own
consumption. The proportion of each person’s consumption covered by
locally produced commodities is voluntary and quite variable.
Biodynamic cultivation has clearly improved the structure of the soil,
now containing a large carbon reservoir. The degree of tillage is very low,