The shower police are working;

In American bathrooms they’re lurking;

The government limit

is ten quarts a minute

but scofflaws are soaking and smirking.

According to the United Nations, global warming and water shortages are two of the most serious problems facing the world today. As I pointed out in the chapter on Your Water Footprint in The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Self-Sufficient Living, “It’s a huge problem and a huge topic, and every informed person, self-sufficient or not, should know a few of the facts.” But the problem is even bigger and more complicated than I realized. Never mind irrigation, flush toilets, greywater and rain gardens: I could have devoted an entire chapter just to showers.

(True, neither showers — nor the book — have much to do with self-sufficiency, but they’re both very concerned with sustainability.)

For most Americans, a daily hot shower is a God-given right, and for many it’s probably more important than things like free speech or the right to bear arms. However, while “showers” in the form of servants pouring buckets of water on the master predate the ancient Greeks — who had actual plumbed showers — they were quite rare until recently. I remember being impressed by the shower in the Glensheen Mansion in Duluth, Minnesota — in the master’s bathroom. We were told it wasn’t proper for ladies to shower when that house was built in 1905-08.

Our house didn’t have a shower even in the 1940s. Not that it mattered much, because we didn’t have hot water, either. We did have a bathtub, and my mother heated water in a teakettle on the stove. That was Saturday night only, unless somebody got real dirty in-between.

Fast-forward to 2010: The federal government is cracking down on showerheads that defy regulations that have been on the books since 1992. That law says a showerhead can deliver no more than 2.5 gallons of water per minute. The main problem seems to be that, treating a luxurious shower as a birthright, some people want much more. One (now discontinued) showerhead delivered a whopping 12 gallons a minute. Some others are also outta sight. The Raindance has a 24-inch spray face, 358 channels, and a price tag of $5,457. More commonly, upscale bathrooms now have multiple showerheads.

Tree-huggers are obviously moved by the Dept. of Energy claim that each multi-head shower fixture uses an extra 40 to 80 thermal units per year, equal to 50 gallons of gasoline or one barrel of oil. And obviously, all that water has an impact on aquifers, and places additional strains on sewage treatment plants. So yes, limiting the water used in showers is a good idea in terms of national water and energy conservation.

But as usual, there are a zillion other considerations to complicate the matter. There is the question of government intrusion into our bathrooms, of course (just as with low-flow toilets in 1994). Even if we concede that the government should play a role, what rate of water flow is “reasonable,” how long should a shower be — and is a daily douse necessary, or even desirable? What about people who shower once a week — or 2-3 times a day? Should they be treated differently?

Frequent showers interest me in light of my early experience with the traditional Saturday Night Bath. But even when a shower became available, it was seldom used on a daily basis. Most people today would be amazed at what you can do with a few cups of water and a sponge bath.

The 1969 book, Life on Man, by microbiologist Theodor Rosebury, fascinated me with descriptions of the mind-boggling numbers of normal microbial fauna that inhabit the healthy human body (trillions, of more than 200 species). Even more fascinating was the claim that they’re back again within minutes after a bath or shower, and that some are actually necessary for our health.

In modern industrial society showering is basically for social and aesthetic reasons. You don’t need a daily shower to stay healthy. In fact, just the opposite might be true. Researchers at the University of Colorado found that pathogens that occur naturally in low numbers in municipal water can accumulate in high concentrations inside showerheads. In other words, taking a shower can make you sick. (The main pathogen is Mycobacterium avium, which is also responsible for a condition dubbed Hot Tub Lung.)

A typical shower is said to use four gallons per minute, meaning a five-minute shower takes 20 gallons of water (plus the energy to pump and heat it). Restricted-flow showerheads use 2.5 gallons a minute at 80 psi, although most homes have pressure closer to 50. I just checked, and our shower delivers just over one gallon a minute, at about 45 psi. That makes it tough to feel sorry for the bloke who uses 12 times as much.

The next time you’re in the shower remember those people whose daily water ration for everything — drinking, cooking, sanitation — is a mere one gallon a day.

And that virtual water, the water footprint that we talk about in CIG to Self-Sufficient Living? For Americans, that figure is 1,189.3 gallons per person per day, more than three times the Chinese average.

Maybe we need shower police only because too many people just don’t have enough common sense. — Jd Belanger

We’re finally getting some timely rains, which the weeds love. Broccoli, kohlrabi and green beans are coming on strong, and we’ve enjoyed the first ripe tomatoes. The fall crops have been planted. There is so much to do around here that I decided making a list and setting priorities was the only way I’d get it all done. Writing a blog isn’t even on the list.

But how could a guy like me, who keeps saying most people don’t where their food comes from, resist commenting on something like this?

Supposedly, this appeared in a San Francisco newspaper. Because I try to look kindly on all of God’s creatures, my first reaction was that this was one more of those all-too-common internet spoofs: nobody could be that stupid. (On the other hand…)

Or maybe it was meant as satire. You know, a hunter makes this ridiculous statement to point out just how foolish some anti-hunting arguments can be. The trouble is, most people don’t get satire, and one like this, that could be serious, loses some punch because it leaves some doubt.

Whoever started this out took it at face value with the heading “Unkilled Hamburger” and the standard web put-down for such items: “Folks, remember as you read this, this person probably drives and votes AND may have already reproduced! God help us all…”

And then there was the news that the chemical BPA, which recently created such a stir for being in plastic baby bottles, is (and has been) present in almost all cans of food on the supermarket shelves (and in your pantry). Just about everything you eat that comes out of a can contains bisphenol A, which slowly leaches into the food and water. It’s a key compound in the epoxy linings that keeps the canned food fresher longer, and keeps it from interacting with the metal and changing the flavor of the food. But it has also been blamed for cancer, obesity, diabetes and heart disease. So far, no one has found a substitute. Think of the homestead implications I could write about on that one.

Or how about that report on the dwindling nutritional values of fruits and vegetables? Somebody compared USDA data on 43 fruits and vegetables over the years. For example, in 1950, broccoli had 150 mg of calcium: today it has 48 mg. There are reductions in vitamins, minerals and protein, across the board. The reason, some say, is technological industrial farming where selective breeding and synthetic fertilizers are used to increase size and to speed growth.  Another study showed that organic tomatoes can have as much as 30 percent more phytochemicals than the industrial kind.

Followers of J. I. Rodale — and I used to think that included most homesteaders, but now I’m not so sure — knew all of this many years ago, so what else is new?

None of this has much to do with homesteading, per se, but it does reflect on life on Spaceship Earth. In this vein we could also talk about the report that 3,100 firms (and roughly $40 billion a year — just for “intelligence”) are involved in the “war on terror.” Add in all the other expenses, along with the inconveniences and in some cases downright loss of freedoms, and it’s hard to tell who’s winning. One thing’s for certain: the terrorists got a lot of bang for their buck. The implications for self-sufficient living? Hmm.

A family in California made news by telling how they survived — in spite of turning off all of their telephones, computers, and televisions — for one whole day. And the people who think that’s really something special drive, vote and have reproduced. God help us all.

Then there’s the continuing flap over the global warming scientists, the news that China now uses more energy than the U.S., and that China’s population might actual decrease in the years ahead. That one tickles my imagination. Couple that with another recent population figure: The average Amish family has around seven children. The Chinese population dwindles, the Amish population doubles every 23 years — eventually there are more Amish than Chinese — just think of the implications for sustainable living! What a great speculative fiction story that could make!

But as I said, I have too much to do already, and even writing a blog isn’t on the list. At least I  have plenty to think about while I do those homestead chores, beyond the sidewalks. — Jd Belanger

A newspaper writer addressing offshore drilling recently said, very matter-of-factly, that no rational person could seriously suggest cutting back on energy use, because that would send civilization back to the Stone Age. I’ve been seriously advocating cutting back on energy use for about four decades now, and most of the time, I’m quite rational.

My argument goes like this: About 70% of our energy is used for transportation. How much of that could be eliminated without even getting close to going back to the Stone Age?

One advantage of getting old is that in scenarios like this I can compare today with when I was a kid, 60 years ago. We didn’t have a car.  We had bicycles, but my dad usually walked to work and we walked to school, church, shopping, and visiting relatives. On rare occasions we rode the bus to a nearby town, took the train on longer trips, and in an emergency, there were taxis.

We lived in a small town, but city life was similar. And my country cousins were also able to walk to school, church, and the country store.

Today my kids, their spouses, and their kids all have personal, individual cars. And I honestly don’t think they’re any better off than we were.

So, is the writer cited above talking about an honest-to-goodness primitive Stone Age, or is he just using that as a metaphor for retreating a bit from a civilization that produces (and uses) 1,000 barrels of oil every second of every day? If my childhood was what you want to call the Stone Age, I say, “Bring it on!”

Sure, everything was different then. For one thing, it was possible to walk almost anywhere. But instead of saying it’s impossible to reduce energy use without going primitive, wouldn’t it be more rational to consider making it possible to walk again? After all, we got into this mess only because the automobile made it possible!

If you think this is outrageous, check this out: Some people are actually choosing their homes on the basis of “walking scores.” Web sites such as www.walkscore.com allow you to type in an address in any of 2,500 neighborhoods in the 40 largest U.S. cities and get a rating based on the distance of certain amenities such as shopping. This doesn’t help rural-dwelling homesteaders, but then, we are supposedly more self-sufficient and eco-conscious than the average urbanite anyway. Interestingly, our rural area has seen a recent resurgence in those old-time country crossroads stores, mostly Mennonite. As it is, we often go a week or more without even opening the car door.

And of course, we’re vastly outnumbered by city people, who use most of the petroleum and therefore could account for saving most of it.

Fewer cars and miles traveled would also mean less need for new roads and maintenance, traffic lights and cops. There would be less smog and fewer traffic accidents. We’d spend less on insurance, tires, and batteries.

This is just personal transportation. We haven’t even mentioned transporting goods, especially food, which is the focus of locavores. And what about lawns… and energy slaves…

But oops, I see another argument coming: All that would raise havoc with our capitalist economic system (which is no more pure capitalism than our government is pure democracy), and that would certainly — you guessed it — send us back to the Stone Age!

On second thought, maybe that’s not such a bad idea. Then we could start over again, on a more sustainable — and rational — basis. — Jd Belanger