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Appropriate technology
HSU brings the fantasy of sustainable living into reality
by Emilia Patrick and Sean Dockery

Campus Center for Appropriate Technology co-directors Emilia Patrick and Sean Dockery in the center's garden. Behind them the fava beans are proliferating, and in front ar the last of the artichokes. Photo by Barbara Clark

As we enter the 21st century, we face a time when resource shortages have become a reality. This can be seen by the rising energy prices in California, the environment being an issue of public importance and global warming making the national agenda.

At Humboldt State University, the Campus Center for Appropriate Technology (CCAT) has been working for the last 20 years to help solve these and other environmental problems. CCAT was started by a group of students in 1978 who wanted to renovate a house on campus. The school was planning to donate the house to the local volunteer fire department-they were going to light the house on fire and see if they could control or extinguish it.

Instead, the administration agreed to let the students turn the house into a demonstration home for sustainable living. Since then, with the support of the administration, Associated Students (student government), the student body and community members, CCAT has been working to educate students and the community on appropriate technology and sustainable living.

"Appropriate technology" is technology which is small scale, local, cheap, environmentally and socially benign and simple.

"Sustainable living" is using resources in a way that does not destroy the resource base for our future.

In order to educate about these philosophies and tools, CCAT provides an open house, with demonstrations of many sustainable systems. Some of the systems include a greywater marsh, which uses marsh plants and microorganisms to clean the greywater (shower and sink drainage) from the house, organic gardens, and a rainwater catchment system, which gathers the rainwater off the roof and stores it for later use.

CCAT also is entirely off the electrical grid and relies on solar panels, a wind turbine, and a bio diesel generator. Inside the house there are thermal curtains designed to keep the heat from the wood-burning stove in, a cold box, a hot box, passive solar design, as well as many other demonstrations.
As part of CCAT's goal to educate, five college classes are held on site, numerous free workshops are open to the public as well as students and tours are given. CCAT has an extensive library with topics including ecological design, environmental politics, herbalism, and many more. If you would like to take a tour, get more information, or receive a schedule of our workshops and classes, please call or write:

Campus Center for Appropriate Technology, Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA 95521, (707) 826-3551, www.humboldt.edu/~ccat. CCAT will be open every Friday for a noon tour beginning Jan. 26.

Emilia Patrick and Sean Dockery are HSU students who are living in the CCAT house and are its co-directors.