TED Community » Thomas Teuwen

More About Me

I'm passionate about

developing sustainable lifestyle stategies

An idea worth spreading

Producing more than we consume!

We committed ourselves to a sustainable lifestyle by relinquishing our cars and going vegetarian years ago. When we built our 1250 square foot home we saw glimpses of a future where we reconnect with how things work. Building our own house from the ground up, introduced us to a new vision.

What if instead of writing checks for others to do things for us, we started doing things for ourselves again? What if we were not mere consumers but became producers as well? What if we produced more food and more energy than we consume? It was a vision that captivated our imagination, a vision that was born of a desire to build more than a house.

Our aim is to build a better future by reducing our environmental footprint while maintaining or improving our quality of life. We are striving to be more than mere consumers; to become producers as well. Our long term goal is to produce more energy than we consume; calories and kilowatts.

Talk to me about

Sustainable Lifestyle Strategies, house design, living car free, eating vegetarian, urban agriculture, solar energy, wind energy, net metering, and loving life!

People don't know that I'm good at

Preventative health care, financial planning, economic strategies, understanding corruption, soft formation mining, oil extraction, the limits of politics, the economics of sustainability.

My TED Story

Always keen to understand more about our world and how it works. Long time fan of science shows and books that explore new concepts and ideas about the human condition. In the past my varied interests stretching from cognitive dissonance to religion to climate change and beyond to a world where we produce more than we consume. TED is exciting because it provides a rich mosaic of ideas in one spot that is "Free to the World". TED will never be my only source of inspiration but it has become an integral part of my adventure in learning.

Comments

• TEDCred score: +0.90 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• A comment on Talk: Taylor Wilson: My radical plan for small nuclear fission reactors

  Apr 30 2013: There are a number of good approaches to your proposal. But I was waiting with anticipation for the moment where you truly address the waste issue. I think its great that the fuel is outdated nuclear warheads but what kind of radioactive waste is generated at the end of the reactor's life cycle? And can it use nuclear waste from the large reactors now in operation as fuel?
  
  The issue with nuclear power is not meltdown or accidents. Those are things we can design out of the process or accept as part of the risk benefit analysis. The real problem is the long range implications of the waste products. I would be interested in your take on Thorium as well.
• +1

  A reply on Talk: Ron Finley: A guerilla gardener in South Central LA

  Apr 9 2013: Hey Ron, we are spreading your gospel. Have turned a number of people on to your talk in the last few days. Thanks for doing what you do and putting it out there.
  
  Building a house is just like printing money. Same as growing food. Same as putting up solar panels. It reconnects us with what life is all about because it turns us from consumers into producers.
  
  We dream of a future where we all produce more than we consume. Calories and kilowatts.
  
  stay cool.
  Thomas.

• A comment on Talk: Roger Doiron: My subversive (garden) plot

  Apr 6 2013: This is one plot I am proud to be apart of. As part of our sustainable lifestyle strategy we are seeking to produce as much food as possible on our 6,000 sq foot urban lot. Too much of our most valuable farmland has been suburbanized and we can reclaim it through urban food production. We just dug up our boulevard to plant potatoes.
  
  www.kandf.ca
  www.2buckmarket.net
• +2

  A comment on Talk: Ron Finley: A guerilla gardener in South Central LA

  Apr 6 2013: The change comes from the streets. And urban food production truly is the revolution of the 21st century. I spent some time this week digging up our boulevard in front of our suburban home to plant potatoes. We are doing it with the blessing of the municipality as we have developed a mutual respect and constructive working relationship. That is much easier to do at the municipal level than at the national level.
  
  Urban food production is at the heart of our dedication to developing sustainable lifestyle strategies and it is great to see other manifestations of this vision.
  
  www.kandf.ca
  www.2buckmarket.net

• A reply on Talk: Noreena Hertz: How to use experts -- and when not to

  Jan 2 2013: I heard a wonderful term the other day you might find interesting. Why not bring in some "expert listeners" or "keynote listeners" to you group. It sets up a paradigm that the group can teach the experts or the authority something.

• A comment on Talk: Noreena Hertz: How to use experts -- and when not to

  Jan 2 2013: Rita Tel, I agree with your assessment and no, not all is lost. This talk goes to the root of our challenge as a civilization of how to cope with change. Throughout human history we died in the same world that we were born into. What our parents taught us mattered because we could use their experience to run our lives and teach our children. In the last five or six generations that has not been the case anymore. The world is growing exponentially more complex and our challenge is to keep a grip on it.
  
  What Hertz suggests, namely to surround ourselves with dissenting opinion is a good place to start but I think the answer lies a little deeper. We need to find ways to rekindle our trust in our own individual expertise and our ability to comprehend complexities and figure things out. The TED talk about "tinkering workshops" is a great place to start with kids. Maybe adults need the equivalent to test their own abilities.
  
  I am constantly amazed at how little my fellow humans know about the world they live in. It seems that we have been reduced to a species that is so specialized that all we know how to do is our job and how to write checks. Surely there is more to being human than that. It has been said that a specialist learns more and more about less and less until he knows everything about nothing. When that happens we are left with only one choice, who do we trust to make our decisions for us. I call that "Faith Based Decision Making" and it is the most primitive form of decision making known to humans.
• +2

  A comment on Talk: Ernesto Sirolli: Want to help someone? Shut up and listen!

  Dec 9 2012: "Look out for the Hippos" will forever be part of our 'code' now when communicating and developing ideas. Great reminder that we have two ears and only one mouth for a reason.

• A comment on Conversation: Should we feel gratitude for our life? To whom?

  Dec 9 2012: Being grateful to God for life on earth is an interesting notion that is all tied up with your definition of God. Is god is a male figure that manipulates daily events on this little planet or is god the force that triggered the big bang? Being grateful to the former for life is akin to a child being grateful to Santa for the Christmas presents. Being grateful to the latter recognizes that god permeates everything and for me, results in ubiquitous gratitude.
• +2

  A comment on Conversation: Should we feel gratitude for our life? To whom?

  Dec 8 2012: After many years of contemplating this question I have concluded that first and foremost I feel gratitude to all those living organisms that have mastered photo synthesis. Without them my life would be impossible. Second I feel gratitude for those who have come before me that have recognized their responsibility to future generations. "If I can see beyond horizons, it is only because I have the good fortune to stand on the shoulder of giants." In my life I strive to be one of those little "giants" who lift the capacity and awareness of future generations. It's a simple case of paying it forward.
• +2

  A reply on Conversation: Technology doesn't create loneliness, it reveals it. Once revealed, technology can help alleviate isolation and spur connection.

  Apr 8 2012: Anna, I would add one more thought to your thread. It is also a question of time. There are only 24 hours in the day and if we spend much of our free time in virtual realities there is little time left to explore the real world and the real people around us including family and friends. It also pretty much precludes the experience of doing things together, like building stuff or making stuff or exploring for stuff. Even community learning has been replaced by simply "googeling it" as it were. We love technology and we love TED but we find ourselves having to place strict limits on our on line time to allow for the other, real, local, experiences of life.