Shea Gunther, Eco-Entrepreneur
Meet Shea Gunther, green activist, Web junkie, and fearless instigator of new projects. Equipped with a satellite Internet connection and an unfathomable amount of energy, this "eco-entrepreneur" has embarked on the construction of a "super green" house in Maine. Naturally, the building's rise to life will be closely blogged, vlogged, and uploaded to Flickr.
When we chatted with Shea online, he told us why the "Gunther Green Home" will come equipped with at least one secret passageway, what he thinks of "green greed," and why he loves the Web browser StumbleUpon...
Hey, Shea. Have you always wanted to build a "net-zero eco-pimped out" house—or was it something that came up recently?
I have actually been dreaming about building my own house since I was 13 or 14. I've been designing the house in my head ever since. The "green" part of the equation really came on strong over the past 4 or 5 years as I've learned about green building.
I think you can tell that I've been dreaming up this house since I was a kid by the fact that I told my architect in the first meeting that we had to have a secret passage or two.
We wanted to ask about that!
Did you ever watch the old TV show "Webster"? It was back in the day, and Webster lived in a big old house with secret passages. That kinda stuck with me.
Have you had to let slip of any ideas you had for your dream house because they wouldn't conform to the green mandate?
No, pretty much every thing I've been thinking fits right into it. I guess I have had to step back from my dream of living in a 20,000 foot house... the Gunther Green Home will be around 2,500 square feet.
Has anything surprised you, so far, in your preparations for the house?
Maybe the biggest thing that has surprised me is how many people I come across totally get why we should be building green. I'm talking about people who definitely don't consider themselves environmentalists... people outside the green circle are starting to get it.
That is interesting. And heartening.
Now, there's a big gulf between them saying that and doing anything about it. But I think it's great that they are starting to talk about it.
Do you think it's a culture-wide shift?
Most definitely.
You talked about "green greed" in a post recently—how it's not a bad thing. That was intriguing.
Here's the thing about green greed... If you set out to make money by making the world a better place, then it's morally compelling to go out and make as much money as you can. If I make a billion dollars doing good for the world, it'd be selfish not to try to make another billion. There will always be greedy people, we are not going to get rid of the concept of people wanting massive amounts of wealth. What we should do is turn those people green. Greed got us into this mess, green greed will get us out.
Do you think it's possible to become rich while doing good for the world, while being green?
There are many people who have gotten rich by being green. We've got solar billionaires in China, green bloggers making millions, all the organic food people getting rich in Boulder.. I've been trying to get rich being green since 2001, I someday hope to add my name to the list. :)
How do you anticipate that blogging, vlogging, and photographing your home's construction will change things, if at all? We realize as we ask that that you have long blogged, so you're comfortable with it.
I'm sure our work to document the construction of the house will slow things down a bit, at least at first while everyone gets used to all the lenses around. And I hope that the fact that everything is being photographed will keep all our workers putting out their best work. :)
You've been blogging since 2004. How has your impression of the Web or of blogs changed over the years?
I've actually been blogging since 2002. I kept a hand-edited HTML site back in the day before I even knew what a blog was... I've been addicted to the Internet since I first logged in through AOL back in 1997. Complete news and links junkie. It's been a sheer delight to swim along with the Web as it's developed... seeing the explosion of the blogosphere, the development of all the Web 2.0 goodness, and the incredible amount of user-generated content has been amazing.
What new media are you hooked on now? We know you Twitter.
I'm a power StumbleUpon user and stay on top of the latest development in things via the 20 or 30 blogs I have in my New Media RSS folder. I'm intrigued by the potential of the Semantic Web and get excited when I think about where we're going to be when we fire up a browser in 5, 10 years.
We were just talking to someone else the other day who loves StumbleUpon. He said the key is not to click every interest, but keep it narrowed.
I think StumbleUpon is the greatest thing on the Internet. You won't find a more rabid StumbleUpon fan boy than me. It's been a great tool for discovering new sites, links, post leads, new writers, etc...
What makes it so great?
The StumbleUpon engine is just awesome at figuring you out. Once you do a bit of stumbling, you end up getting served hyper relevant pages when you click that little button. I am also in love with the influence it gives people who invest time doing quality stumbling. If I give a thumbs-up to a page now, it stands a really good chance of seeing hundreds and thousands of visitors via my fan base. I've been able to start Stumble waves that have sent Digg-sized traffic that is highly relevant. Stumblers are the best kind of social bookmarking traffic.
What do you think of Digg?
Digg is great, but a whole different beast. Diggers are definitely a more sharper, cynical audience.... (but) a big Digg doesn't send the kind of relevant traffic that you'll get from StumbleUpon...
Do you think there's any trick to using StumbleUpon well?
Oh, there is an art to good Stumbling. It's not really a trick, just a number of best practices: Stumble what you love. Discover lots of great new links. Tag well. Comment on links often. Make lots of good friends. Stumble a lot.
Tell us more about the Semantic Web.
I'm only starting to dabble in this... but from what I understand it's building the Web in a way that makes it really easy for websites to read and connect to each other. Here, Wikipedia has a good definition.
OK, now, a change of topic: How's life in a tipi?
Life in a tipi is great. I'm not in there full time, so I can't speak to the full experience yet. But once everything is in and up and running it's going to be an amazing life. I just got my Internet satellite in the other day.
We read that! Congratulations! Did you dream of living in a tipi when you were young, along with having secret passageways?
Kind of. I actually visited a live-in tipi when I was 10. My dad had a friend who lived in a tipi in the backwoods of Maine. I remember how awed I was when I walked in. It was freezing outside, but warm and toasty inside. He had a full kitchen, bathroom, and had even set up some multi-level staging. I think that stuck with me, so when the time came to put this all together it wasn't a big jump to the idea of living in one.
You have a great green blogroll on your site. Besides StumbleUpon, what other sites are daily reads for you?
I've been a daily reader of the Drudge Report since I can remember. I also read The Huffington Post, PopUrls.com, and Salon. On top of that, I have 450+ feeds in my RSS reader.
Shea, we have another question for you. If you don't want to answer this, just say so. We were sorry to read about your separation from your wife, Heather. Did you consider not blogging about that?
I wished I could have not blogged about it, it was definitely the most suckass post I've published. But I came to the conclusion that I couldn't not blog about it.
Since you had already opened up your life so completely?
The whole project started out as "Watch a family live in a tipi while building their green dream home." People might have caught on that there was a wife missing in the coverage.
True. Well, it was a brave thing to do.
Thank you, I didn't open my computer for a day or so after I published it. The girls are going to be staying at the tipis a few days a week; Heather and the kids will be a mile down the road.
We can't wait to read about how your daughters react to the tipis.
They will like it a lot better once it can be heated. The last time we were out there it was cold and they ended up sitting under blankets while I tied up the tipi liners.
Aw.
I'm getting my water tank delivered tomorrow—1,000 gallons. Now, I just have to build a tower for it. It sounds like a lot, but the average American uses 3,000 gallons a month. I'll be using a LOT less than that, trying to go as "No Impact Man" as possible.
How much are you depending on the advice of your architect and contractor and how much are you just researching everything yourself? We don't know a thing about water tanks and towers.
My architect isn't really involved with the tipi. It's pretty much all me putting this together. I have an uncle who is a rockstar builder guy who I'm going to pull a favor on to help me with things like the tower.
Rockstar builder guys are good to have in the family. Are there any questions we haven't asked that you think we should have?
I'm putting together a Green Blogger Conference in Chicago in May. It's going to be a small group of bloggers doing a day of activities to become better, more connected bloggers. We're sandwiched between the Co-Op America Green Business Conference and Chicago Greenfest.
30 green bloggers. That is a SMALL group.
It will pretty much be the best conference ever. Imagine a cross between a political junket and the VIP room at a big awards show, all mashed up with organic... It's going to be good.
Thanks for talking to us, Shea!
I will close with my favorite pirate joke. Have you heard about the new pirate movie coming out?
No.
It's so violent that it's rated Arrrrrrrrrr.
Ha! Bravo! Bye, Shea!
(Bow) Take care!
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