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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] the "new" economics of local self-sufficiency

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  • From: John D'hondt <dhondt@eircom.net>
  • To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] the "new" economics of local self-sufficiency
  • Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 00:45:16 +0000

I don't seem to have a good or easy way with people I'm afraid. I have never made a secret of any of the things we had to invent. Some of these things could have made life a lot easier and healthier for many of my neighbours but as far as I know, none of them has made an attempt to try out what I advised them. Quite a few of them even preferred to die from cancer instead of adopting a few easy life changes. If anybody asks me now they can have everything I know for free but I am not hopeful that they will.
In the mean time there are always new things that I feel need working out. You know that I build a rocket mass heater? Well, the chimney that was here makes that when the wind comes from a certain direction we have smoke come in. Happens about one day out of seven. And building a complete new chimney which would solve the problem for good is not an easy option. So we got a few old books about aero dynamics out and spend 3 hours discussing possible options with the wife who is an old maths/physics teacher. She used one particular word and a light went on in my brain. And in ten minutes I gave the hat on top of the pipe a new aerodynamic shape. This sort of thing is what I really like. 4 days of perfect burning now and I live in hope that just maybe we have solved a bad problem for about ten cent cost.
John

On 22/01/15 00:17, herb farmer wrote:

I sort of expected that :-) and the point is, you can do it but your neighbors can't. Sounds like where I live - in Tea Party Central. Like guns are the answer to any threat to their lifestyle.

On 1/21/2015 2:13 PM, John D'hondt wrote:
Community was my worst problem since the vast majority of people here are just consumers who see it as degradation to do anything at all for themselves. My children were bullied in school because they did not bring lunch consisting of crisps, mars bars and coca cola. And I was called a bad father because I let them walk the 2 miles to school unless the weather was bad.
The rest like making a horse drawn wagon or other horse drawn tools is simple. I could have made a horse drawn plow as well but decided never to plow. Keeping food without electric refrigeration is easy. I've dried a few miles of sausage in my day and smoked many a ham. Vegetables we have year round fresh except for the fermented sort.
John

On 21/01/15 01:27, herb farmer wrote:

U write " it will be very hard to start a new economics when the old system collapses as it must and will do."

I've long tried to make the point that we can't just revert to 1900 or some dark age when fossil fuels fail, as some seem to think is our destiny. Problem being, we just don't know how. They had skills we know very little of, & social networks, traditions, etc. that held communities together. Can ANYONE today make a horsedrawn wagon without modern tools & technology? How did they farm before the steel moldboard plow? Or keep food without electric refrigeration?

Those out there who can stand some harsh reading should check out http://guymcpherson.com/ or https://twitter.com/Guy_McPherson on Twitter. &Going Dark Documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaIxdV4_L0Y
"This 30 minute documentary follows a year in the life of Evolutionary Biologist, Dr. Guy R. McPherson, lecturing around the world about abrupt Climate Change, Collapse and Near Term Human Extinction. It is a personal telling from the view of the documentarian (me) of how it feels to have been a life-long environmentalist only to discover that our days may be numbered, and very shortly. Despite the Doomy topic, there is humor, and hope at the end of time, but most importantly, there is love."

paul, somewhere near McPherson in the US southwest


On 1/20/2015 12:29 PM, John D'hondt wrote:
I both hope and fear that this day is not too far away. Hope because the destruction of our life support system is now so enormous that every year that we keep going as usual can make the arrival at the bottom very hard.
I was reading an article yesterday about massive animal extinctions that are becoming ever more common. A massive extinction is defined as more than a billion individuals dying, or 90 % of the species disappearing or 700 million ton of dead meat resulting. And this is now common!
And I fear because all our soils, water and air are now so polluted that it will be very hard to start a new economics when the old system collapses as it must and will do.
John

On 20/01/15 03:17, herb farmer wrote:
* The World After Industrial Civilization Goes, Usher in the "new" economics of local self-sufficiency
http://www.culturechange.org/cms/content/view/785/1/

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