Real talk: Between diminishing stores and oil wars, fossil fuel-dependance is officially a bad deal. In the future, as these resources get scarcer, we’re going to have to figure out how to live in a little more harmony with Mother Earth. Here are 21 houses that are already doing it right: eschewing the power grid for solar, wind and geothermal energy sources.
Earthship in Taos County, New Mexico, US
Picture: Kayla Sawyer
House with living roof in Ithaca, NY
Picture: Shira Golding Evergreen
Para Eco-House, Tongji University, Shanghai, China
Picture: SDEurope
An off-the-grid house just beyond the Rio Grande Gorge near Taos, New Mexico
Picture: Tolka Rover
Icelandic eco house
Picture: sigkyrre
Zero-emission eco house designed by Potton, UK
Picture: Mike Hales
Greenwich Millennium Eco-Village, London
Picture: Lars Plougmann
La Puerta del Sol in Barrio San Nicolas, Mexico
Picture: Scott & Emily www.wegoslow.com
Richard Carbonnier’s tubular eco-house in Pond Inlet, Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada
Picture: Mike Beauregard
Eco-home in Woubrigge, Netherlands
Picture: Mirjana Chamberlain-Vucic
Eco house at the DC Festival, Washington, DC, 2005
Picture: John Bointon
EcoHome designed by Will Collins. Eco Village Currumbin, Tallebudgera, Australia
Picture: Sander van Dijk
Eco house, Parc Jean Drapeau, Montreal
Picture: Tiago Bortoletto Vaz
Another eco house at Parc Jean Drapeau, Montreal
Picture: Tiago Bortoletto Vaz
BASF eco house, Green Close, University Park, Nottingham, UK
Picture: University of Nottingham
The Brighton Earthship, Brighton, East Sussex, UK
Picture: Dominic Alves
The “Effizienzhaus Plus”, Berlin, Germany
Picture: Sean Gallup/Getty Images
Eco house prototype by SCI-Arc/Caltech at the Solar Decathlon 2011, Washington DC
Picture: Jim Tetro/U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon
Creation of Team Florida at the Solar Decathlon 2011, Washington DC
Picture: Jim Tetro/U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon
Parsons NS Stevens’s house at the Solar Decathlon 2011, Washington DC
Picture: Jim Tetro/U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon
The solar powered FabLab House, concept by the Instituto de Arquitectura Avanzada de Catalunya
Picture: Denis Doyle/Getty Images
Know of any others? Tell us in the comments.