Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>]

"Living the future now means not relying on money. Not easy, but as people
see their dollar wealth evaporating and the slave-labor option denied,
people are already looking at local gardening, bartering, and more...  Some
of the positive implications of a depression include a return to the most
basic, hands-on economic reality. Until we actually get our hands in the
soil, for example, the experience of barely surviving helps one to question
the fantasy world of artificial plenty. "


Peak Money: Only the Shambles Remain
By Jan Lundberg
Culture Change Letter #220  12 December 2008
http://culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=261&I
temid=1

We've outgrown ourselves and we can't crawl back inside. The shell
shatters inward as our economy and aggressive culture implodes.

After the peak, it's all down hill from here. Back in the summer, with
record oil prices that meant some people somewhere were making a whole
lotta money, one might have suspected the peak of funny-money and
paper/electronic wealth would happen sometime. Turns out it was weeks
away.

Now what? There's confusion about what's going on and what will happen,
especially for those who trusted corporate media. After all, who could
wrap their minds around a corporate bailout of a trillion dollars that,
despite its absurd size, didn't even approach the size of the loss in
derivatives' value of over $500 trillion on Wall Street?

As peaks go, such as with crude oil extraction of 86 million barrels a day
globally, physical limits can be anticipated from a scientific basis. But
money -- what we love even more than petroleum products -- was seemingly
limitless and had become abstract in its infiniteness.

The former supplies of cheaply produced, abundant energy played a major
role in inflating wealth over the years. Thus, peak oil brought about peak
wealth and peak money. It is no coincidence that we find ourselves at
post-peak money and see lower oil prices attained through demand
destruction.

Astronomical figures for dollars that were exponentially expanded by
modern digital finance are beyond comprehension. The unreality of
trillions of dollars, that no one gets to see and that aren't used for the
benefit of real people, has been an unspoken factor in eroded consumer
confidence. So the fabulous wealth in the U.S. since the housing-market
bubble, enjoyed by the 1% of the population that possesses 38% of the
wealth, has destroyed itself. No matter how much was shared with the
average Joe, the greed has eaten itself. A new era is dawning, featuring
cultural change much more than technological change.

Housing bubble boom for assphalt sprawl

The speculative investment on the housing boom fueled the recent wealth,
but the housing boom could not have happened without cheap oil to build
and maintain the urban sprawl constructed with "unlimited" asphalt for
car-based living. As part of the petroleum feast, agricultural production
through cheap petroleum fed suburbanites and almost everyone else.

With that under their noses, the major corporate media and even
"progressive" media still disassociate energy from the house-of-cards
economy. Although, if anyone stops to think, it's clear that higher prices
for energy might have taken a huge toll on consumer demand. It's the
failure to spend enough (through debt? Fine!) that economists and
politicians blame for our troubles such as massive layoffs.

Now the Golden Goose of purchasing power has been cooked, over the coals
of fossil fuels. Why not celebrate the end of the consumer economy? Eat
the goose before it rots, however you choose, such as to get out of Dodge.
Let us fortify ourselves for the awesome task of reorienting our lives for
the "new" local-based survival strategy.

Really, no more money?

Living the future now means not relying on money. Not easy, but as people
see their dollar wealth evaporating and the slave-labor option denied,
people are already looking at local gardening, bartering, and more.

When and where is someone with no money respected as much as anyone else?

I've witnessed it in Earth First! and other collectives. Young people are
especially likely to value experiencing life and adventure rather than
count future money. It's time we all compared notes, having turned off the
television.

The demise of the economy is being treated as so tragic, when the far
greater concern should be for Earth's changing climate. In fact, when we
consider the economy's slowdown in shipping, manufacturing and travel, the
only responsible stance is to want more economic collapse so that
greenhouse gases continue to be slashed.

Some of the positive implications of a depression include a return to the
most basic, hands-on economic reality. Until we actually get our hands in
the soil, for example, the experience of barely surviving helps one to
question the fantasy world of artificial plenty.  A middle-class or very
rich person might cling to the myth of ever-rising material prosperity
only for the moment, as collapse unfolds.