We live in the home of the future. Built in 1896, with wood harvested from local resources, this house has raised at least four families. It's had some indignities committed against it, but it shows little evidence of giving up soon.
In 1896, did the builders pause to think about the coming era? Otto Lillienthal was experimenting with heavier than air flight, but Orville and Wilbur's flyer was still 7 years in the future. Further in future, were the 1939 Chicago World's Fair, spaceflight, and the struggle for equalities of all persuasions.
It's a Home of the Future because it performs the primary requisite task: it limits the ecological footprint of our family of four. In the future, we will all live within the resource budget of the Earth (plus any space resources we learn to harvest!). We'll leave our wild areas wild rather than sprawling in to them, and we'll rehabilitate our urban areas to allow humans and nature to coexist more peacefully. We'll bring a little more wild into our backyards. Driving a motor home with a microwave and TV into the forest for a "vacation" is really an effort to have a wild backyard.
Another thing we'll have to work out is paying for training. How many of us buy new stuff when the old stuff gets a little worn? When the cost to repair an appliance approaches the cost to replace it, don't we go get a new one? The packaging might end up in the recycling, but the old appliance often ends up in landfill.
"Driving a motor home with a microwave and TV into the forest for a "vacation" is really an effort to have a wild backyard." You should become one of those public relations representatives. To put it another way: you've got that serenity prayer _down_.
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