Michael Reynolds and Deborah Binder

[00:01] DEBORAH BINDER: My name is Deborah binder. Today is March 25, 2023. We're in Taos, New Mexico. I am talking to Michael Reynolds today, and Mike is my boss, but also my friend.

[00:17] MICHAEL REYNOLDS: My name is Michael Reynolds. I am 77 and today's date is March 25, 2023. We're in Taos, New Mexico, and my interviewing partner is Deborah Binder, and she's my associate in Earthship, the company and my friend. And that's that.

[00:43] DEBORAH BINDER: Awesome. Well, thanks for accepting to do this, Mike.

[00:49] MICHAEL REYNOLDS: The second time.

[00:50] DEBORAH BINDER: The second time. The reason why I wanted to do this with you in the first place is because I admire what you do and what you have been doing for the last 55 years or more. And I think it's a story to tell and a story that most people, or the more people that can, should listen to and should know about. But before I say anything, can you maybe just briefly talk about what you do and what Earthships are in a so called elevator pitch, if you want.

[01:26] MICHAEL REYNOLDS: Okay, well, I build, design, invent, improve, adapt. What we call Earthships, they're vessels, living vessels that you live in on this planet. And they, they're different from houses in that they encounter the phenomena of the planet to provide everything that their people need that live in them. They encounter the environment of the planet, the phenomena of the planet to provide six things that people need. And we can't really argue with these six things. They're comfortable shelter and water and electricity and something to do with their sewage and food and something to do with their garbage. And they. Every vessel, every building that is built these days in my mind really needs to address these things. And so that's what I do. I do this here in Taos, New Mexico and all over the world. And. And that's all there is to me.

[02:43] DEBORAH BINDER: How did you start all this? How did you get into it in the first place?

[02:49] MICHAEL REYNOLDS: Actually, I didn't. You know, I just like evolved into it. I was out here in Taos right after college. You know, I graduated from architectural school. I wasn't really planning on anything except I liked it out here. And I raced motorcycles out here. I came out here to race motorcycles, to get injured so I wouldn't have to go to Vietnam. And I ended up getting a teaching job to stay out of the war. And I just started making my life out here. And the way I went about making my life was seeing and responding to what I was seeing on the news and things in terms of energy and garbage and trees and so on. So I. I just started making my life, which was in this direction. And I kept involving more and more things in my life that I was seeing were crisis level things on the news. And pretty soon I was heading in the direction of what we call Earthships. And I was then beginning to do it for other people because they asked me to.

[04:09] DEBORAH BINDER: So you started. So when you first started building or designing these buildings, was it because of the environment or was it because of people's needs? Or did it start for yourself and then you kind of went from there?

[04:22] MICHAEL REYNOLDS: Yeah, everything starts with myself. I mean, I mean, it was. Now, strangely enough, what is. It's still all about myself. But what I've learned in 55 years is that I can't really be comfortable until everybody around me is. And that's not a spiritual thing or a political thing. That is just a fact, a logic that. So. But it didn't start that way. It just started. I was. I said, well, you know, solar heated buildings that are oriented toward the sun can keep me warm. So I made my building start doing that. But I had a lot to learn. I mean, I still have a lot to learn, but I mean, there was so much to learn about making a building heat itself and cool itself, so much to learn about making a building catch water. But the media was saying we're going to have water problems. The media was saying we're having energy problems. So there's so much to learn about making a building, make electricity and we have sewage dumping into rivers and streams everywhere. So there was a lot to learn about that. And a lot. And still right now, a lot to learn about food. For sure. Food is becoming a serious topic. And of course, garbage being dropped everywhere and nobody knows what to do with it and we bury it and we have big garbage issues in the cities. And so all of these things were brought to me through the media that they were problems. So I just started dealing with them for myself in my own way. And somewhere along the line, I was doing it for myself so well that I sort of had what I called a happy fit. I was so happy, I damn near got scared. I was so happy. And just because I owned my life, I. I woke up in the morning, I could play my guitar, I could run to the gorge, I could draw, I could do whatever I wanted to do because I didn't have a mortgage payment, I didn't have a heating bill. I built my house myself out of pocket with friends. And. And what I determined from that little happy fit was that what if billions of People were to feel this way, if this direction I have chosen could cause billions of people to feel this way, then the whole world would be a better place for me. And so I set about then sort of in a direction of trying to make this available. With my architects training and license and contractor's license, I set about trying to make this available to people. And a lot of times I say to myself that that's the biggest mistake I ever made in my life. I should have just stayed out on the mesa eating grasshoppers and playing my guitar and I would save myself a lot of grief.

[07:25] DEBORAH BINDER: So what's different about Earthships though, if you compare them to normal houses? Like, you know, if there's. I'm sure there's people out there that would listen to this and that would be like, you know, so what, what is this guy talking about? It's just a house. It's just a home. Why, you know, is it such a big deal? Why would it make things so much different in today's world? You know, because it seems like you talk about these buildings almost like you have a relationship with them. Like it's something else than just a house. Can you explain that a little bit? What's so different about them?

[07:58] MICHAEL REYNOLDS: Well, I steer away from the word house because house has a preconceived idea of what it is. To me, a house. No matter what architect designed it or whatever, and how quasi beautiful it may be thought to be, a house is still just a box with a roof on it that keeps the rain off of you. All of them are that way. If the. They run power to them with electric lines, they run gas to them with pipes, they run sewage out of them, they run water to them, they come and pick up the garbage. People go out to stores and buy food and bring it back to their house. Their house is just nothing more in my mind than a damn cardboard box. And a lot of you, you see how cardboard boxy they are when a tornado comes through and a whole subdivision is a pile of pickup sticks are the power lines go out and the pipes freeze and people got gas. I mean water running down the steps of a three million dollar house. I mean, so house is not filling the bill. And so I stay. I don't, I don't even consider a house. These to me are more like a ship at sea. For instance, if you're in a small ship at sea, you're going to sail across the Atlantic in it. So it's got to give you water, it's got to give you food, it's got to give you energy, it's got to give you toilet, it's got to deal with garbage, it's got to feed you, it's got to keep you comfortable. That ship has got to do things for you. It's a vessel. So I started liking houses as to ships, and that's why I came up with the word Earthship. It's a vessel and then to take it into really what it's doing, it's a vessel that sails on the seas of tomorrow. And that's what Earthships are. So they are, you know. Yeah, they're my baby. They're. They're my vessel that I have designed over 55 years to take care of humans, human families without need of the vulnerable grid.

[10:11] DEBORAH BINDER: And you've been doing these obviously for 55 years, and you've done these all over the world. What are some of your favorite stories from the builds or the projects that you've done around the world? And where all have you been doing this?

[10:27] MICHAEL REYNOLDS: Well, I have a map in my office, and it pretty much shows me that I have been everywhere, every continent, you know, almost every country for far south, far north, far east, far west, islands out in the middle of the Pacific, you know, Easter island and the Galapagos Islands. And. And I've been just everywhere with this. I have always been asked to come. I don't just go there. I usually go after, like we went to Puerto Rico after the hurricane. We went to India after the, after the tsunami. We went to Haiti after the earthquake. We go sort of chasing catastrophes and try to help out to some degree with what we've learned. And that really has taught us a lot because when we go to Haiti after an earthquake, what the people need is comfortable shelter, water, sanitation, sewage, food, energy. They need the same things that people in general need in the US constantly, in other words, but they're more desperate for it than we are. And so it. And see, desperation is. It's an arrow that penetrates dogma. That's really a fact right there. And so when you see desperation, people will take anything and we get a chance to try out our vessel. And now as I look at the US or any developed country, it's like they're just as desperate, but they just don't know it. I mean, but you do know it when Covid winter happens and, and the, and the storms cause power to go out during a Covid winter, and the grocery shelves are empty and the houses are cold because the lines are down and can't heat them. And people don't have water. They don't have food, and they don't have heat. They're going out into their car to turn their car on to heat their kids, to keep their kids warm. So, I mean, we're desperate. And so I. As time goes on, week by week, year by year on this planet, I'm seeing, whoa. I have. I've got. The waters are rising and I have an ark.

[12:58] DEBORAH BINDER: Yeah, like, it's. It's a little bit like Noah's ark, isn't it? You. I think you told me once that Noah is kind of an inspiration for you if it was a true story and if he was really a human being.

[13:12] MICHAEL REYNOLDS: Yeah. People asked me, who was your mentor? Who did you look up to? You know, Frank Lloyd Wright or Corbusier or some architect. I studied them all, but I didn't really look up to any of them. And there was a human that I had to say that I looked up to, that I. That I was inspired by. It would be Noah, because Noah had the strength, I guess, or the stubbornness or whatever to do what I'm doing. And that is go for something. In the face of a million people telling you a retard, telling you you're a retard, an idiot, a crazy hippie in the desert. You know, people, this has always been in the news a lot because it's been in the news because. Not because of. Well, recently because of ecology and recycling and sustainability and all these words that are getting destroyed along with organic and all of this stuff. The way this was in the early days was the news was following it because it was a sort of a sensational thing that some crazy man was out in the middle of the desert of New Mexico building a house out of garbage. That was like entertainment. It would. It was news that was. Would sell. They didn't use the word recycling or ecological or anything or energy. That was before all of that. And then slowly those things all became necessary, and I was already doing it. I've been doing it for 55 years, and all of a sudden, you know, it's the ugly duckling story. I've been an ugly duckling for 50 years, and in the last five years, I'm turning into. I wouldn't call it a swan, but I'm not an ugly duckling anymore, at least in some people's eyes, because I'm doing something that now millions of people are starting to say is, whoa. It's where we need to go.

[15:12] DEBORAH BINDER: What's some of the Worst things that people have called you related to Earthships.

[15:16] MICHAEL REYNOLDS: Obviously, if you can think of a word, I've been called it, you know, from profanity to whatever. I mean, yeah, definitely. Retard, crazy, hippie, incompetent, you know, just crook, everything. And, and I've just been, you know, I've grown to, to see that that's what comes out of people's mouths when they see me. And so it has made me have a 3 inch thick steel skin, which actually has come in handy.

[15:57] DEBORAH BINDER: What, what did you want to be when you grew up? Do you remember?

[16:05] MICHAEL REYNOLDS: I. I don't remember one. I don't think I ever remember wanting to grow up.

[16:11] DEBORAH BINDER: I don't think you have. Maybe I should ask you what would you want to be when you grow up?

[16:16] MICHAEL REYNOLDS: And so, I mean, I never, I never really thought about growing up. I always thought about now, and I still am. And now was, how do I make it fun for me to exist next week, tomorrow, whatever. And yes, I knew I needed to work and I needed food, but how to. I wanted to grow food. How do I stay warm? I wanted to make. When I, when the scientists were talking about solar gain, orienting a building south and everything, I mean, I, I just looked around and, and picked up pieces of logic that other people may have shared with me and taught me even, but they didn't have the, you know, a scientist, for instance, would, would really have a really clear, good grasp of logic about how a house could, a home could, could capture its own heat and keep it reflected back to you and so on. But they wouldn't have, they'd say, oh, but you can't do it. You know, our codes don't allow it. In other words, the granite wall of Dogma has, has completely made logic wither and die, you know, and so what I did was I became an arrow, some kind of a drill or something, that my whole thing has been drilling through the granite of Dogma. And people called me naive. That's another big one. They call me naive. And again I got the same answer. Naivety, if that's a word, is an arrow that penetrates dogma. I couldn't have penetrated Dogma if, if I wasn't naive. Naive gave me the sharp point that I needed to penetrate Dogma because I am naive and gullible and simple. And all of these things have given me a Don Quixote hype type hope, or even more than hope, just a view that it can't be stopped. I see through the granite wall and I See what could be. And I cannot stop going for it.

[18:37] DEBORAH BINDER: Yeah, well, I mean, it's crazy that you know how dogma is and how rules are these days that in some places it's still prohibited to catch rainwater. In Utah and Florida, there's all these rules about catching rainwater. And then at the same time, I think I told you the other day that there was just in the news this huge report about a global water crisis and about the secretary of the United nations was addressing the world saying that there's never been such a big global water crisis, that people don't have water for sanitation and for drinking. And at the same time it's still prohibited in some places to catch and filter rainwater. I mean, it's ridiculous.

[19:18] MICHAEL REYNOLDS: Well, it's, it is. It's because they want water to be something they can control. And I mean sell. Probably and sell. Exactly. And I like, you know, I still see things like these things inspire me. They inspire the living daylights out of me to see a newsman on a major news station in hip waiter boots with the overall tops and everything rubber with his microphone in waist deep water in Mississippi saying there's a water shortage here. The flood knocked out the water company and so they can't get water to the people through the water infrastructure. So there's a water shortage, yet he's standing in waist deep water. And I'm just saying I can't even waste my time talking to these kind of people. You know what I mean? I'm, you know, it's like Noah trying to explain to all these desert rats around him why he is building a boat. They probably started throwing rocks at him and said he was crazy. I'm sure they did. But he, you know, God spoke to Noah, so to speak, I guess. And I don't think God speaks to me. I doubt if he would even relate to me. But she. But the thing is, I have seen enough from just my own view of logic that there's. I can't, I can't even argue about this. I'm not, I'm not going to, I'm not going to waste my time doing it. I'm going to try and make these things get people in them. And I have been inspired. I've been inspired by politicians and lawyers and, and corporate people who don't stop at anything to bend the law or anything to make a buck. Well, I do that same thing. I don't stop at anything to try and make this available to people. Lawyers have impressed me at how to twist and Interpret and invent reality, politicians and lawyers. So I'm going to do the same thing. Only this reality can really take care of people when everything else fails.

[21:47] DEBORAH BINDER: Yeah, I mean, I think it's, it inspires me a lot when, you know, we build schools because I feel like children, when they learn about being self sufficient and about sustainable buildings from the beginning, from when they're little, they understand it. To them it makes sense that you can catch rainwater and that's free water that you can use and that you can use the energy of the sun to heat yourself if you need it, you know, And I feel like a lot of time, we spend a lot of time just kind of reeducating and reinforming adults and get them away from their dogma where, you know, kids, you can kind of talk to them from the beginning and they understand it a lot better. Do you sometimes think about that? About how that could be a way of, you know, maybe spreading what we know a little bit better and more to the future generations?

[22:40] MICHAEL REYNOLDS: Well, yeah, I think that is really the way. I mean, pretty much anybody over 25 is a lost cause probably. I tell people that come to our academy, if they really want to get something out of this academy, they should have a frontal lobotomy. Then that puts them back into the kid zone. But the kids, yeah, the kids get it. Kids get it right away. And so, and I like that. And I go for that and building schools and everything. I'm all for it. My only problem with it is do we have time for a 10 year old to get to be 30 so he can do something? 20 more years? I don't know. We're not, we might not last two more years on this planet the way things are going. So it's, and see, here's the thing, what will change an adult is when the ship is actually going down. You know, they may not get in a life raft with the lower class by choice, but when the ship is going down and it's either the ice cold Atlantic or a life raft, they're going to choose the life raft. And so it is most likely going to take serious catastrophe to just change some adults. That's what it's going to be. The children, yes, we can, they can get it and they can start, but they, but we have to make this world stay in one piece until they grow up. And there's something to be said there that we is going to have to be a project. We're going to have to keep adults from ruining the planet so the kids have Time to grow up. So getting. But, but what I'm seeing is, yeah, the, the adults only get scared when their house burns down or, you know, when they can't get food or whatever. But here's the thing. A lot of adults throughout the world have seen that recently. They're, they're, they're ready to, you know, change and do whatever it takes. I was going to say come to.

[24:47] DEBORAH BINDER: Jesus, but I. Yeah, no, it's created, it definitely has created a lot more of a sense of urgency. I feel like, especially in the last three or four years with all the multiple crises that have been happening. You were diagnosed with stage four cancer three years ago, right?

[25:07] MICHAEL REYNOLDS: Over three years.

[25:08] DEBORAH BINDER: Over three years ago. Now, has that created a sense of urgency for you personally in the same way or in a similar way?

[25:17] MICHAEL REYNOLDS: Well, it has been an education and through my work with it, like I started studying it and you know, I found out things like there's so many parallels between it and cancer and the energy world, the food world, the housing market, the politics, the, the legislation. I mean, it's all, it's all the same really. For instance, one of the things I learned about cancer, I've read a lot of books I hardly ever read before, but I just study every night. I like, I'm trying to study for my doctorate degree or something. I'm studying to stay alive, but I study and I found out, you know, this one situation where there is a couple of really seriously logical drugs out there that are more or less natural based, that are available and they could really, really help with cancer, but they're held up in court fighting over the patents for 10 years. In other words, people are dying of cancer and these drugs could help them, but there's companies holding them up, keeping the, keeping them from being used due to ownership quarrels because, you know, three or four different factions want to make the billions. And so I just can't even go there. And so what I'm. I've gotten way deeper into the logic of it and everything and it is now it's like seeing the whole medicine world and the food world and how, you know, I, It's a very clear picture now. The food we eat that people make billions off of keeps us sick so that the drug companies can treat those sick symptoms, so that they can make billions. So we're just a bunch of sheep that, that some corporations are making billions of off of. And I don't, I don't think anybody's smart enough to have planned it, but they found it, you know, they Found that, you know, we can convince people through TV ads to buy and eat this stuff and all of this crap that we call food. And then the medicine, the doctors don't care because they get to sell drugs that treat the symptoms of this. And so all of that is very much like, nobody wants housing that doesn't need heat because then the energy companies can't sell energy. And so it's all about money. So I have to. I look at money now as very, you know, it is a serious detriment to our evolution. And I look at money as a tool. Even in the world that I live in, money is a tool. But like, if you looked at money as a tool, like a wrench, you need a wrench to turn a hexagon screw bolt. You need that wrench. Can't turn it with your hands. But do you need 50,000 wrenches? You don't. You need one wrench, maybe three different sizes, maybe an adjustable. But you don't need 50,000 wrenches. What are you going to do with them? You got to have build a room to store them in. So that's the way I look at money. I look at money as a tool that I can use now, but beyond that, it's a burden.

[28:48] DEBORAH BINDER: And so you're saying you only need $3 instead of $50,000?

[28:52] MICHAEL REYNOLDS: Yeah, exactly. You need. You need a few bucks to do this or that, but you don't. You basically. You need a life, then you need. You need a life. And, And I think if every human family were in a sustainable autonomous home, they would have a life. If they were in a sustainable autonomous home that addressed those six points that I'm talking about, they'd have a life, and that would just change things. See, very few people have a life now. They don't have a life because they got to work at a job. They don't like to pay payments on a house and utility bills on a house. And they. It's stress. And some people just can't make enough to do that because everything's going up in price. So it's just, it's. We're setting everybody up on a treadmill to spin until they get cancer and then to be taken advantage of by the pharmaceutical industry till they die. It is an industry, and so it's all an industry. And I'm trying to weave through that to. To. I'm not fighting it. I'll fight no more forever. I used to fight things like that. And I fought the law, and the law won. I'm not fighting. I Am weaving in to that a way that works within it very much. I'm actually learning a lot from cancer. Cancer is very smart. I'm going to basically attack this world like a cancer attacks the human body.

[30:30] DEBORAH BINDER: So are you fighting cancer then or are you not fighting cancer?

[30:34] MICHAEL REYNOLDS: I am learning to coexist with cancer. In other words, it's like I'm coexisting with politicians. They're no different than cancer. I'm coexisting with a lot of crap out there in the world. I can't get rid of it, but I'm learning to coexist with it. So I'm learning to. I'm learning to keep cancer from killing me.

[30:58] DEBORAH BINDER: And growing your own food, you think is one of the ways that you can make that happen?

[31:04] MICHAEL REYNOLDS: Definitely. Growing your own food is the best way to eat on this planet. First of all, we eat too much. Eating much, much less and growing it yourself. Now this is naive and this is, this is over simplistic and everything, but again, those are the things that penetrate dogma. I mean, people call me over simplified, foolish, naive and everything. But there you can grow a lot of things in a nurse ship. I mean, there's a, there's a list that I've got growing pictures of them growing. I've got pictures of like probably 100 different foods that can be grown in a Earthship and they'll keep you alive. That will keep you laughed much better than, you know, candy bars and soft drinks and hormone filled burgers and things like that. Yes. So you could stay alive in an Earthship in terms of food and. But it turns everything inside out, you know, so I'm not going to fight that. I'm going to be hiding in plain sight.

[32:15] DEBORAH BINDER: So what does. If you could choose anything you want, what would the world look like in five years? And where do you think Earthships would be ideally in that world?

[32:31] MICHAEL REYNOLDS: Well, I'm. I can look to the future and have like hopes and dreams. But see, I'll have, I'll lay in bed in the morning and have hopes and dreams about the day I'm going to have. And the minute I go out to the day, it all goes to shit because the day turns out to deliver a whole bunch of stuff I didn't plan on. So I don't, I don't really go for hopes and dreams. I go for right now. Right now, Earthships have a foothold. Right now, Earthships and the concept of earthships are being talked about in magazines and on TV shows and things like that. So right now is good. Right now is good. And maybe I can make tomorrow better. And so everything I do goes toward making it better. It's like if you. If you build a dam and you. You sort of hold back the water, you don't just stop and rest in, you just keep making that dam bigger and bigger and bigger for. You don't know that water could grow. So once you know that a dam will hold back water, you just keep building the dam. So I'm just continuing to make our ships better and easier, but they already exist.

[33:42] DEBORAH BINDER: This might be a little bit of a strange question, but let's see. You know, I obviously think that you discovered something extremely unique with all of this, and that's why, you know, we're here in the first place today. Also, I believe, and a lot of other people believe, that you are immortal as a person. But I'm wondering, how would you like to be remembered? If once, you know, one day, if you're not here anymore, do you care how you're remembered or not?

[34:14] MICHAEL REYNOLDS: I think I would even like to be forgotten now before I die. You know, to hell with being remembered. I mean, you know, so. No, I don't. I don't. I want people to go on. I want humanity to go on. Because I think humanity is just scratching the surface of what it could be. Has nothing to do with me.

[34:36] DEBORAH BINDER: Okay, so what you're doing, what, Earthships doesn't have anything to do with you either?

[34:41] MICHAEL REYNOLDS: Well, Earthships is the. Earthships are the concept that I started, and I had a name for them. And now if that concept gets adopted by people, then I'd rather people take it and run with it and not be limited by my limitations of it. I think the human mind could take this Mickey Mouse concept that I've started and cause the world to bloom into a sun.

[35:07] DEBORAH BINDER: That sounds amazing. Do you believe in an afterlife?

[35:13] MICHAEL REYNOLDS: I think it's here right now.

[35:14] DEBORAH BINDER: Okay. It's already after.

[35:17] MICHAEL REYNOLDS: It's already too late.

[35:19] DEBORAH BINDER: Well, I think that kind of covers my questions. I do have one other personal question I wanted to ask you if you weren't doing this. And I know that you invest 150% of your time into this. And you know, I've. How I sat at your house before, and I think I've told you this where I've seen in your bathroom that there's just pieces of toilet paper with scribbles and designs just in the trash can, just overflowing. So you're obviously so invested into this. Much more than I've ever seen anybody invested in their own projects or in their own job, let's say. But if you weren't doing this, what would Mike Reynolds be doing playing country.

[36:00] MICHAEL REYNOLDS: Music in a dirty old bar in Wyoming?

[36:03] DEBORAH BINDER: In Wyoming of all places. You think you would have made a career of that?

[36:09] MICHAEL REYNOLDS: No, I wouldn't have made a career of it, but I might have been able to stay alive.

[36:15] DEBORAH BINDER: Well, that's, I think all the questions I had. I don't know if you want to add something, anything else to it. I, you know, I just think that this is something really important that everybody should hear and everybody should have the opportunity to hear and hopefully we'll be able to, you know, spread it out there a little bit more. Like a virus, you say? Because I do believe that it could change the world.

[36:39] MICHAEL REYNOLDS: Well, thanks for helping me.

[36:41] DEBORAH BINDER: Thank you.