One 63-year-old woman decided enough was enough, and that it was high time to make a big point about climate change…
That woman is the legend known as Pamela Bosch, who didn’t let factors like age, money or weather come in her way, as she embarked on a once in a lifetime journey to build her own house….And it’s made exclusively from hemp.
Having been an artist and an environmental activist for years, Bosch took a keen interest in hempcrete, a composite mixture of lime and hemp. To her mind, Hemp is the perfect building materiel to use as it’s cheap, clean, organic and pest resistant. It also has a special ability trap heat in the winter and cold in the summer, making it perfect for home insulation.
Bosch wrote about the interesting project, noting that. “While building with hemp and lime is a bit novel, the awareness that we need to change the way we build and consume energy is an urgent reality. According to the US Department of Energy, buildings in North America account for 39% of the consumed energy. This needs to change.”
And in order to drive her point about climate change very much home, Bosch went ahead and built the whole house from hempcrete, noting that it’s ‘very easy to make.’ She even gives her recipe for it, which was published in Dope Magazine, and calls for a mixture of hemp, lime and water, all in a cement mixer. The end result is something like concrete but not quite.
Bosch has thousands of followers, who she keeps up to date by posting regularly there, as well as on social media. In a recent post, Bosch asked rhetorically, “Can this ever ubiquitous bastion of American life transition to a future that supports a more integrated humanity? How should our contemporary castles of middle-America hold the spaces or be the places where we learn to thrive in balance with our living environment?”
While Bosch is clearly an ideologue, her passion to build her own home from hemp is an inspiration to us all, and opens the door for endless possibilities for the world of the hemp industry.
[Image credit- Pixabay]