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  • From: "Robert Waldrop" <bwaldrop@cox.net>
  • To: "permaculture" <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Pre-design for collapse
  • Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2008 11:45:03 -0500

Also, as preparation for the workshop, I asked people to read disaster materials at http://www.energyconservationinfo.org/printflyers.htm and to read this short fiction work which i wrote in 1999, while living in Kansas City, Missouri, about how the area coped with a technological meltdown. http://www.justpeace.org/02-16.htm . I wrote that while still early in my personal self-study of permaculture.

RMW

----- Original Message ----- From: "Robert Waldrop" <bwaldrop@cox.net>
To: "permaculture" <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2008 8:29 AM
Subject: Re: [permaculture] Pre-design for collapse


I used a simple format. We did introductions all
around, and then I made about a 30 minute
presentation explaining why this was important,
and then we spent the rest of the day looking at
the issues/challenges/resources for each of the
categories I had identified. I don't think
attachments are allowed here, so I will copy my
outline below. I am not sure how the formatting
will come through, its organized as bullets in my
original.

As items were identified, I wrote them on a large
pad of paper, and then those were placed on the
wall around the room, so at breaks and during
lunch people could wander around and at the end of
the day we were "surrounded" by the work. When I
get those transcribed, they will be available too.
The notes I wrote below were my thoughts before
the workshop started. My opening presentation
goes up to the section on "Water".

So for "Water" for example, there is a page
listing all the potential urban sources of water,
and a page about purification and one about
rainwater harvesting (improvised structures to
catch rainwater).

I also invited people to bring "show and tell",
and at various times during the day we did that.
e.g., one person brought two solar ovens, some
brought books, another told us about the "slow
sand filter at the bottom of a swale, that fed a
below-ground cistern", which was the water system
on the farm he grew up on.

We decided to start a listserv for those who came,
to continue the conversation and make
writing/editing the drafts easier. We haven't set
the next session's date yet, probably it will be
in late October.

The Community, Mitigation, and Mutual Aid sections
will be the topics of the next session, as time
was running out and we literally just breezed over
those. I also think we were somewhat
psychologically numbed by thinking in such detail
about the task.

For example, to feed everyone in the OKC metro
area an emergency ration of 2 lbs of flour/day and
2 lbs of dried soybeans/week, means that every day
2.9 million lbs of food has to enter the city from
the surrounding countryside. This requires 58
semi trucks hauling 50K lbs/day, or 6 trains per
month -- or 11,680 bicycle carts hauling 250 lbs
each. If the bicycles and carts can have a 3 day
turn-around, we would need to build 35,000 carts,
and would need a total of 70,000 bicycles (35K as
the "tractors", and 35K to give up 2 wheels for
the cart). The journeys of these carts would
range from 20 miles to 80 miles round trip, as
Oklahoma City is ringed by large grain storage
silos. We also talked about the possibilities of
"rail bike trains", which would be bicycles worked
together so they could run on railroads, pulling
larger loads, as all of these grain silos are on
railroad tracks. We decided if we were stuck with
the bicycle cart scenario (e.g. no fuel for trains
or trucks), that would be our best option.

While this sounds overwhelming, when looked at on
the "village scale", it is much less so. The OKC
metro area has 345 recognized neighborhoods, and
each neighborhood would only need 102 bicycle cart
units, on average, to haul food for its average
population of 3,000 or so. In our discussions, we
see an organized devolution from the present
regional-government to urban villages based on
these pre-existing associational structures.

Bob Waldrop
www.barkingfrogspermaculture.org


SCOPE OF THE PROBLEM

Perfect Storm

Economic irrationality

Peak Energy

Climate instability



How could this happen?

Large weather disasters

Economic meltdown

Terrorist attacks

EMP

Climate disaster (long-term changes as opposed to
discrete weather disaster events like a particular
hurricane or tornado)

Resource exhaustion (peak oil, peak energy in
general)



Our purpose is to decide what it would take for an
urban area like the OKC Metropolitan Statistical
Area, with 1.1 million people in it, to survive a
sudden collapse of our food and energy systems.

Worst case scenario (except for nuke explosion)



No fossil fuels or other internal combustion
available,

No electricity, not from the grid, not from small
generators, not from batteries,

total electronic telecommunication failure - no
radio, no TV, no cable, no internet, no "any
communications/media that require electricity"

Complete collapse of the just-in-time inventory
system,

Closure of the banking system, no credit cards,
checks can't clear, funds can't be withdrawn.

Disappearance of the internet.

Getting there the firstest with the mostest is
critical to a positive response. Government likely
to be in disarray, big danger is
toxic/authoritarian/scapegoating responses will
emerge..

Some people will relocate (to family or friends in
rural areas). This should be encouraged.

Likely to be refugees also headed our way.

WATER



In the absence of grid-distributed power, OKC
Water estimates they could supply 50% of the
average daily domestic water consumption with
small gasoline and diesel pumps. Unanswered
question: how much fuel would be on hand for these
devices? What about water purification? Sewer
system?.

Rainwater harvesting

Shallow wells

Slow-sand filters

Purification issues



FOOD

Without regular supply, the area would be out of
food very quickly. (Note the experience of
hurricane areas where people run out of food
apparently almost immediately.)

Go over food scenarios.

Basic ration of 2 lbs flour/day and 2 lbs dry
soybeans per week, for 1.1 million people, must be
hauled from grain elevators within 60 mile or so
radius.

biodiesel from cotton seed for diesel fuel for
hauling food? (Cotton Seed Producers Oil Mill is
close to downtown OKC.)

Alcohol fuel for transportation?

Bicycle carts capable of hauling 250 lbs each?

Urban gardening



Containers/gardens on pavement such as sidewalks
and streets.

Seed sources include:

Seeds from vegetables in stores, like pumpkins,
winter squash.

Dried peas and beans.

Potatoes, sweet potatoes

Existing seed stocks



Bring animals from rural areas into the city with
cattle/hog drives.

Import lots of chickens from the rural areas.

Every yard a garden.

Plant public spaces like parks and street medians.

Container growing on sidewalks and streets

Community kitchens and baking ovens

Raising fish in barrels

Compost humanure

Collect urine for fertilizer.

Aquaponics in solar sun porches

Cold frames and other season extending devices.

Other meat animals

Goats

Fish culture

Guinea pigs

Rabbits


Why would farmers want to supply grain and beans
to city populations?

Avoid wholesale evacuation of cities into the
countryside.

Trade/barter

Help in time of need

SHELTER

Combine households? The extended family, by birth
or adoption or convenience or necessity, will make
a big come-back.

More hands will be needed for everything, plus
building materials.

On average, maybe 3 households link together as
one.

Each house needs:

Water harvesting structures.

Passive solar.

Solar hot water.

Greenhouse/season extending devices.

ENERGY

Big risk of deforestation, because wood is the
easiest non-fossil-fuel fuel..

Home methane generation from human waste for
cooking gas.

Alcohol fuel for transportation, maybe some
biodiesel.

Biodiesel is iffy because oils will be in great
shortage and in demand for cooking, access depends
on where Cottonseed oil coop is in its annual
production cycle when the crash occurs.

Passive solar for winter heat.

Extra insulation.

If three households become one, scavenge materials
from two houses to retrofit one.

Solar cooking

Expedient but efficient wood stoves (e.g. the
rocket stove)



HUMAN WASTE AND TRASH DISPOSAL

There is none in this scenario. Everything will
have a use or be re-used/recycled on site or in
neighborhoods, or sold through informal markets.

MEDICAL CARE AND PUBLIC HEALTH

Authorities will raise a big stink about
composting humanure.

Many medically fragile people will die quickly.

Hospitals and nursing homes would have to be
evacuated if/when their generators fail.

New medical practices located in neighborhoods,
nurses/midwives empowered..

Epidemic of post-traumatic stress disorder?

Epidemic disease (water born diseases in
particular will be a big problem).

Addiction recovery issues?

COMMUNITY

Governance

Neighborhood councils.

Elected by all residents.

Security

Neighborhood patrols.


Civil Society

MITIGATION STRATEGIES

Community organization

Pre-planned strategies for collapse situations.

Household preparations

Super-insulation

Insulated window shutters

Slow sand filters

Food storage

Edible landscaping

Grain grinder

Wood stoves

Solar hot water

Passive solar

Tools for production (alcohol stills, for example)


MUTUAL AID

Info banks for research

Pre-printed and pre-positioned literature in
neighborhoods describing
strategies/tactics/info/tools to meet the new
situation.

Get there the firstest with the mostest.

No one needs the permission of the government to
acquire food or supply other necessities..




----- Original Message ----- From: "Rafael Schouten" <talktoraf@hotmail.com>
To: <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Monday, September 22, 2008 10:50 PM
Subject: Re: [permaculture] Pre-design for
collapse


Hi Robert,

the collapse workshop is a great idea, inspired
me to organise one in
melbourne in the next few weeks. Any ideas for
form, content etc? what worked?
cheers

Rafael Schouten


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