Welcome Contributing Author: Michael McClure

by Michael McClure

Hi I’m Michael McClure, but you can call me the ECO ELF.

I wanted to be a marine biologist 'when I grew up.' As a kid in the 70s I learned about pollution, overpopulation and endangered species. I remember spending my weekends sport fishing on my dad's 20 foot Blackman fishing boat. My father has some great stories about all the different kinds of fish he'd catch and it seemed the variety of life had dropped since he was a kid. But that was a long time ago wasn’t it? (My dad is only 20 years older than me).

When I went off to UCLA, I didn’t hear much more about overpopulation. My focus was real estate and making money, and so I didn’t hear much about pollution, except that it wasn’t a good idea to surf in the Santa Monica bay. I heard that air pollution had gotten better in LA since the 70s. Through my eyes, it seemed that the EPA and Greenpeace and “they” were doing a good job protecting our environment, our endangered species and keeping toxins out of my food and water. The occasional report I read seemed to say birth rates were going down in the 1st world. Maybe the over-pollution scare was over too?

A few years ago, I decided to start a family with my sweetie Kamala Devi and I began to think about what I would teach my son or daughter about the environment that we live in. I began to ask the question: How healthy is our planet? I reached out to find out who was studying this question.

The name Jim Bell came up as a legend in San Diego (he built the OB Peoples co-op and has run for San Diego Mayor.) He has a brilliant, very workable plan to make San Diego energy, water and food self-sustaining with solar power generation, rainwater harvesting and organic farming. So I went to see Jim. It turns out Jim is extremely positive and if implemented, his plans may save our planet. Jim took me on as his student.

When the movie An Inconvenient Truth came out I vowed to dedicate my life to finding and implementing solutions to this massive problem. Jim, in his wisdom explained that global warming is merely a symptom of humankind not living in a sustainable manner on earth. He went further to explain that global warming is just one of many ways that we humans could become extinct. Jim came back with his wisdom. He told me that it does no good to depress ourselves by worrying about all the possible things that can go wrong on planet earth. Good advice.

My focus is now on what we can do, what I can do, what each of us can do in a positive direction to help bring Mother Earth to a sustainable balance. Last year we bought a house in Pacific Beach. With Jim's help, I decided to make the house self-sufficient in energy, water and food. I, like many new homeowners, have limited resources, so it was vital that I began by focusing my money on the items where I could get the biggest bang for the buck. Conservation didn’t cost anything, it only reduced cost. Soon, I realized that simplicity was the greenest approach. I began to learn how to reuse and repair items. I learned about non-toxic paints and how to source free comfort features like a spa. I even found free solar water heating panels and got a system working that doesn’t need power from the grid. You can see more detail at http://www.GreeningEmerald.com

Fortunately, we were able to create a non-toxic environment in our house, before last January when our baby was born at home. He’s a beautiful, healthy happy boy named Devin Echo McClure.

Now, as a proud and concerned parent I'm starting this column as the ECO ELF to advise people on how to build and remodel green in order to save time money and energy. Builders have also hired me to consult with them about how to make their projects less expensive. Homeowners have gotten my suggestions on how to remodel their homes in clean ways, and most recently, parents have consulted with me on how to keep their infants and children safe from the toxins that are all around us.

To make this process easy and fun, I have developed a fun program called the Green Sweep. It allows you to score how green your home and life are and then to play the game of increasing your green score. Devin loves it (though he’s too young to tell us.)
Sincerely,
Michael McClure (Eco Elf)
For more information about these services please call me at 619-871-2828 or you can visit http://www.greeningemerald.com