Thoughts on What We Can Do
Oct. 17th, 2007 02:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
helwenThis morning the farm was shrouded in fog, cool and grey....
There's been quite the turmoil on the Riot for Austerity's email list, since the latest study came out, where scientists are saying that the world needs to reduce industrial emissions by 100%. One person, Kyle, posted something that made sense to me, that this doesn't mean we can't produce _anything_ -- rather that we have to ensure that for each expenditure of energy, we are restoring that energy at the same time. Still not an easy task, and easier if all your goods are produced locally, where you can see what goes into making something (plus saving on all the materials and fuel used for packing and shipping).
He's a rather upbeat, cheerful sort of person, and I'm glad he's on the list. I like his attitude about how the changes he and his family have been making have improved their quality of life. I tend to agree that many of the changes we've made have improved our quality of life. Simpler really can be better; "more" is often just "more" -- more confusion, more clutter, more debt...
There's an excellent book by John Seymour, called "The [New] Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency". The original was published in the 1970's. It was updated a few years ago, to include things for smaller farms, and a bit for more urban folks.
One of my favorite quotes from his book, "Nothing should be wasted on the self-sufficient holding. The dustman should never have to call." -- which a lot of other folks on the list like also.
This has been one of my goals, however distant I may be from it. Actually, the goals we are furthest away on are energy consumption (down to around 35% of the average American), food acquisition (down around 40-50% now), and transportation (around avg for Americans, esp. with all the moving we've been doing). All of these will improve, especially since moving to the farm, except transportation. In a way, to be more independent of the mainstream capital enterprises has always been a goal of mine, even before I ever heard of peak oil and long before I heard about the Greenland sheet melting. I'm looking forward to becoming an active member of our new community -- and of course, if we'd stayed in Holyoke, I'd be working on the same there. Even a whole town has trouble being self-sufficient, nevermind one person or one family; but the less we have to depend on others, the better.
In the Roman Empire, the farmers outside Rome had plenty of good work to do -- until Rome started importing grain. The local farmers couldn't compete, and many of them left the farm and went into the city looking for work (and not necessarily finding it). Many of the farms were only workable by maintaining the drainage system, so without the farmers much of the land became swamp, infested by malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Cheap grain was a good thing for some people (the merchants, anyway), but bad for Rome overall. It's one thing to import something that your area can't produce, and another to supplant local producers... because what happens if storms close the pass to your town, or war breaks out in some country and you can't get those goods now? This has happened in the past 20 years, not just in the ancient past. I remember at one point our department needed to replace all but one of the new mice we'd gotten with our new PCs, and it couldn't be done -- all the transports that the company usually used had been taken over by the U.S. government to ship supplies out for IIRC, Operation Desert Storm. Not life-threatening for us of course, and the supplies needed to get overseas ASAP, but then more recently at look at Hurricane Katrina, where people couldn't get in or out, supplies were desperately needed.... and still are.
I'd rather do what I can here, and connect our community with other communities in ways that strengthen both. Northampton (a nearby town) is doing some great stuff, planning for city-wide improvements in sustainability, planning for the long-term. And they're sharing knowledge and information and experience with anyone who wants to make the effort to learn. They have a farm there, Montview Farm I believe, where they're doing a lot with permaculture. Permaculture can be applied on different scales, although I think less has been done with very small scale than could be -- not everyone has a spare 1/2 acre of land after all... but still, the knowledge is there and spreading.
The positive fellow on the Riot list, Kyle said:
Ah well. I spent altogether too much time online yesterday, and shall definitely have to spend a lot of time offline today to make up for that. In fact, I'm going to be trying to spend less time online in general, since I'd really rather be gardening or weaving or meditating with my sweet old cat Roselynde!
***
The fog is lifting now, though it clings still to the hilltops to the east, and the far side of the field.
There's been quite the turmoil on the Riot for Austerity's email list, since the latest study came out, where scientists are saying that the world needs to reduce industrial emissions by 100%. One person, Kyle, posted something that made sense to me, that this doesn't mean we can't produce _anything_ -- rather that we have to ensure that for each expenditure of energy, we are restoring that energy at the same time. Still not an easy task, and easier if all your goods are produced locally, where you can see what goes into making something (plus saving on all the materials and fuel used for packing and shipping).
He's a rather upbeat, cheerful sort of person, and I'm glad he's on the list. I like his attitude about how the changes he and his family have been making have improved their quality of life. I tend to agree that many of the changes we've made have improved our quality of life. Simpler really can be better; "more" is often just "more" -- more confusion, more clutter, more debt...
There's an excellent book by John Seymour, called "The [New] Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency". The original was published in the 1970's. It was updated a few years ago, to include things for smaller farms, and a bit for more urban folks.
One of my favorite quotes from his book, "Nothing should be wasted on the self-sufficient holding. The dustman should never have to call." -- which a lot of other folks on the list like also.
This has been one of my goals, however distant I may be from it. Actually, the goals we are furthest away on are energy consumption (down to around 35% of the average American), food acquisition (down around 40-50% now), and transportation (around avg for Americans, esp. with all the moving we've been doing). All of these will improve, especially since moving to the farm, except transportation. In a way, to be more independent of the mainstream capital enterprises has always been a goal of mine, even before I ever heard of peak oil and long before I heard about the Greenland sheet melting. I'm looking forward to becoming an active member of our new community -- and of course, if we'd stayed in Holyoke, I'd be working on the same there. Even a whole town has trouble being self-sufficient, nevermind one person or one family; but the less we have to depend on others, the better.
In the Roman Empire, the farmers outside Rome had plenty of good work to do -- until Rome started importing grain. The local farmers couldn't compete, and many of them left the farm and went into the city looking for work (and not necessarily finding it). Many of the farms were only workable by maintaining the drainage system, so without the farmers much of the land became swamp, infested by malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Cheap grain was a good thing for some people (the merchants, anyway), but bad for Rome overall. It's one thing to import something that your area can't produce, and another to supplant local producers... because what happens if storms close the pass to your town, or war breaks out in some country and you can't get those goods now? This has happened in the past 20 years, not just in the ancient past. I remember at one point our department needed to replace all but one of the new mice we'd gotten with our new PCs, and it couldn't be done -- all the transports that the company usually used had been taken over by the U.S. government to ship supplies out for IIRC, Operation Desert Storm. Not life-threatening for us of course, and the supplies needed to get overseas ASAP, but then more recently at look at Hurricane Katrina, where people couldn't get in or out, supplies were desperately needed.... and still are.
I'd rather do what I can here, and connect our community with other communities in ways that strengthen both. Northampton (a nearby town) is doing some great stuff, planning for city-wide improvements in sustainability, planning for the long-term. And they're sharing knowledge and information and experience with anyone who wants to make the effort to learn. They have a farm there, Montview Farm I believe, where they're doing a lot with permaculture. Permaculture can be applied on different scales, although I think less has been done with very small scale than could be -- not everyone has a spare 1/2 acre of land after all... but still, the knowledge is there and spreading.
The positive fellow on the Riot list, Kyle said:
"Bad change always seems faster than we can possibly bear it, and change for the good always seems slower than we can stand. If you fill a cup of water one drop at a time, at some point a drop makes the cup overflow. We're filling this social cup of water in the dark, and we don't know when it's going to overflow. Will it be too late? We don't know. All we can do is keep dripping the water in, one drop at a time.
As John Seymour said, "I am only one. I can only do what one can do. But what one can do, I will do!"
Or as we Jews say, it is not given to you to complete the task, but nor can you set it aside; God did not complete the Earth, but put humanity here to complete it. "
Ah well. I spent altogether too much time online yesterday, and shall definitely have to spend a lot of time offline today to make up for that. In fact, I'm going to be trying to spend less time online in general, since I'd really rather be gardening or weaving or meditating with my sweet old cat Roselynde!
***
The fog is lifting now, though it clings still to the hilltops to the east, and the far side of the field.
