Reasons for Sustainable Living
Within our rapidly
changing politics and natural phenomenon there are certain things we will
always need for physical existence. The worries and desperate grasping for such
things often deprive life of all other meaning.
This work is an effort to untangle the paths to the basics, and to
reroute them around territories over which we have no control. These
technologies are designed to address shortages, pollution, global
uncertainties, and to add flexibility to our lives.
The most direct applications would involve enhancements to one's
own lifestyle, and developing a hands-on experience. Some of these ideas could
go on to become products for cottage industries, or commercial development.
In the long run, visualize a fabric of sustainable communities
that do not depend upon materials from far away places, the good graces of
distant governments, or heavy industries. Picture a world of sophisticated
technologies subtly configured to optimize quality of life yet delicately
balanced with the local ecologies.
Between here and that ideal, are many who would be interested in
these technologies for their respective reasons -- consider:
1. Those on or in need of welfare:
2. Environmentalists:
3. Underemployed:
4. Pacifist:
5. Libertarian or patriot
6. Concerned about the future:
The Case
for Doing it Yourself
Knowledgeable men of the early fifties were able to predict that
energy shortages would begin to be felt by the early seventies.
Along-side their admirably accurate technical predictions were beautiful
and reasonable-sounding predictions that people would see the coming problems
and do something about them. History and utility bills have proven these hopes
false, and we are stuck with a problem that increases our dread of every
approaching winter.
If we are to find solutions to these problems in time to do us any
good, we must take a lesson from the technical prophets of the fifties and
minimize our dependence upon institutions and businesses to solve our problems
at their own convenience and benefit.
Utility companies are obviously not interested in seeing you reduce your need
for their services, unless they can force you to pay more money for less
service. The government has been advised of these problems for decades, but
what does your utility bill have to say for all the money, politics and
promises that they have invested? Solar heating is now of age in private
industry, and though it is within reach of some people, it is still too
expensive to be realistic for most of us. The option that remains is to do it
yourself, or have it done yourself.
Now don't slam the door in my face as if I'd just made an
impossible suggestion. You'd be surprised at how much you can accomplish with
the right information and enough guts to try something you've never done
before. Recognize the fact that there is a problem, and that problems don't get
solved by clinging to the attitudes and conditions that allowed them to develop
in the first place.
Another reason for doing it yourself (besides the fact that nobody
is going to do it for you) is that in order to make a profit, the retail price
of a manufactured item is typically four to five times the cost of the
materials used. This means that even if you have to pay twice as much for the
materials that the manufacturer does, you are still paying only half the price
for the finished product -- if you can supply the labor.
A manufacturer is liable for what he sells and therefore must
idiot-proof everything or face potential lawsuits. This country has some very
expensive idiots. Although you would certainly want quality in a product you
build yourself, you are not threatened by litigation if you fail to build it
perfectly.
In building something yourself, you are free to tailor a product
to meet your needs and preferences exactly. Manufacturers must try to guess
which size and configuration is most likely to please the most people. The
result is that you are likely to pay for more than you really want or need.
Finally, when you build something yourself, you learn things that
all the books in the world cannot teach you. You begin to develop a sense of
self-reliance that only experience can bring. This confidence makes you a
little less helpless in facing the daily uncertainties of life.
Rationality
Rationality begins with an un-retouched acceptance of reality.
Concepts and preferences must yield to a clear view of unedited data –
such as:
• Some day there will be no more oil.
• All other non-renewable natural resources (metals, etc.) will likewise
disappear.
• While these things are happening prices will go up and availability
will go down.
There is therefore no escaping the fact that renewable resources
and materials that are widely distributed – such as dirt – are the
only options for the long-term.
We need to further recognize that historically, governments
increase in centralization, power, and in the control of money and lives --
until they break.
Only the populous will truly have their own interests at heart.
The greater control people can maintain over the essentials of life, the less
they can be controlled by people who abuse power.
Ecology
Corporations are machines that do not care if people live or die.
They only concern themselves with environmental issues when another machine (called
a “government”) requires them to. A corporation would love to have
a mining operation in your own back yard if you happen to have anything worth
taking, and they don’t care what it will look like.
People dependent upon the resources from within a few miles of
their homes will be intimately aware of the condition of their world, and will
take good care of it.
Economic
The stock market has good days and bad days. I remember awhile back when
there was a perturbation in the economy of Hong Kong, and the global economy
stumbled. If the federal reserve and the politicians they own cannot affect
your lifestyle, they cease to be a problem.
Cultural
– Take another look at wisdom
As I was
driving through town I observed a man adjusting a fence of natural sticks such
as I have often seen in Mexico. Beyond the fence was a small, beautiful garden
of flowers, and I felt a sense of the man's pride as I passed. I found myself
envious of a man with the peace and contentment to cherish a small fragment of
time and creation.
Not having found such wisdom in myself, my cultural preference
would be a more tumultuous environment of exploration and technical
development. But this man gave me a window into a realm I might otherwise have
missed. I will file this image, and perhaps be able to cash it in, should I
ever attain to his level of understanding. As a broad genetic pool increases
the adaptive options among species, a broad cultural pool enriches our ability
to appreciate and flourish in God's creation.
If the variety of cultures we enjoy in America had not been
imported, I am confident that the rich diversity of genetic abilities and
temperaments would have created them; yet such differences often cause
misunderstandings and conflicts.
Ultimately, if intra-cultural conflicts are to be reduced, the
options are genocide for all dissident individuals and cultures, or developing
a social fabric within which variations could flourish with minimal conflict.
Hopefully, a society that spends millions to protect subtle nuances among
subspecies of plants and animals would be concerned about the protection of
cultural variations as well.
So am I advocating ghettos? I enjoy foreign travel, but it is
always a relief to get home to familiar surroundings. Within America I am more comfortable with some people than others. This implies neither disrespect
nor a desire for isolation. People should have the freedom to mingle or not. If
this is ghetto-thinking, then I am indeed guilty.
Religious
Key founders of this nation were driven to these shores by
religious intolerance. Our schools and governments are becoming increasingly
hostile to the expression of almost anything besides the religions of humanism,
new age, and atheism.
Some of us walk to a different drummer, and would like a little
distance from such narrow mindedness. Locally sustainable communities formed
around such special interests provide a haven for people of nonconformist
views.
Freedom
We call it the “rat-race.” We have been enticed to
“need” things we cannot afford, and to borrow money to acquire
them. Experienced salesmen understand that people are more motivated by fear of
loss than hope of gain. Once bound by credit, many are doomed to spend their
lives in jobs they dislike, working for people they don’t like or trust,
while earning money they cannot keep.
Most will have nothing saved by the time they retire. If they slow
down however, they lose everything. So like it or not, they spend their lives
productively delivering interest to masters who produce nothing of value in
return. Their masters are the banks that supply their credit cards and loans.
The banks are in turn slaves of the Federal Reserve that lends them money. The
Federal Reserve system in turn is not owned by our government, but by foreign
interests.
Local sustainability does not mean a cessation of work, but
freedom from supporting the monetary tyrants of this world.
Meanwhile as an exhausted world is running out of the natural
resources essential to such opulence, the environment is increasingly
constipated by pollution from generations of greed.
Peace
As various political activities unfold, it becomes clear that in America's diversity no comprehensive body of legislation is going to be healthy for
everyone. Indeed, many of our legislative experiments have created monsters for
some groups. It is inherent in the democratic process that on every issue and
candidate, the majority will impose some level of distress on all others.
Obviously some centralized coordination is required for a society to exist at
all, but democracy needs to selectively deal with only community resources, and
carefully avoid intruding into private lives.
A COMMON
PATH TOWARDS PEACE
My acquaintances range form left-wing extremists to some fringe
patriot types. It has been my observation that -- with a very few volatile
exceptions -- both extremes want 90+% of the same things.
I have found appropriate or "sustainable" technologies
to be of great interest to all factions which are genuinely concerned about the
future. I know this could bring together some highly improbable bedfellows, but
be polite enough not to scream when you wake up.
The principle of this approach is to phase into infrastructures
that are regionally or locally sustainable. This modularization would permit
widely divergent lifestyles and cultures to coexist with a minimum of conflict.
Among other benefits, I would expect this to:
Purpose
We’re looking at a possible default here. People struggling
for meaning in life often commit to bazaar cults and fanatical behavior. If you
consider yourself neither bazaar nor fanatical, and are still not decided what
you are or what you want to become, involve yourself in activities that will
give you time to decide, and will increase your options when you finally do.
Good luck with your search.
No Nuke
Mankind does not know what to do with nuclear waste, so they store
it in hopes that a future generation will figure out how to deal with their
mess. Congratulations kids; thanks to my thoughtless greed I have crapped all
over your future.
Nuclear waste, like nonrenewable resources can do nothing but get
worse as time goes on. How much worse will it get? That depends only on how
much time we have. The longer we use nuclear power, the dimmer the future gets.
I doubt if a locally sustainable technology that uses uranium will
ever be conceived.
Security
I remember food riots in India over a small percentage increase in
the cost of food. Since the government controlled the food, they chose to
increase the cost in order to raise money for industrialization. Who do you
want controlling your food – or anything else you require to survive for
that matter?
Wars are fought because somebody wants something that somebody
else has. So what are they going to do? Steal your vegetable garden?
On a more serious note, this is one benefit of a tight-knit
community. You have a group of people who communicate and work together to
solve mutual problems, and take care of each other. In this situation a group
of looting thugs may well wind up “donating” their very clothing to
the community thrift store.
Political
An ideal geopolitical condition would empower people to control
their own food, water, shelter and energy, and yet have access to global
economy, technology, and protection. This would be realized if society were
structured primarily as a fabric of locally sustainable infrastructures. Such
communities could still have:
Self
Determination
1. A very basic source of political conflict is the struggle of those
competing for control of the populace, versus the populous struggling for
control of their own lives.
2. Local sustainability favors protection of the self-determination of
the people.
3. Religion provides meaning through association with a greater purpose
or cause. This can be good or bad, depending upon what the dogmas demand.
Beneficial threads running through many doctrines are the love and care of fellow
man, and levels of honesty and ethic. Religions that promote violence upon
other groups of people however, serve gods too small to defend themselves.
Examples such as the Third Reich and state-mandated Communism attracted many
believers, but were clearly flawed as social or economic orders. Militant sects
of Islam have proven to be social and economic curses to those enslaved --
Taliban control of Afghanistan for instance.
4. The moral character and integrity of our leaders is important.
5. Quite often, the most aggressive, controlling, and least ethical
dominate the top positions (although there are beautiful exceptions) The
"I'd-rather-be-god" syndrome drives many to control as much of the
world as possible. Many officials pass laws to increase their control, rather
than to benefit the people. Some accept bribes to pervert justice and to pass
laws that are devastating to their constituency.
Reality
Check
Building a society that is more than individuals and gangs
competing for dominance, requires planning and the allocation of resources that
might otherwise be squandered. Can planning and resources achieve the
objectives proposed above?
This has, can, and will work for some, and I have personally
proven and applied a number of alternative technologies. There is however, a
threshold of vision and motivation that must be individually crossed before one
will take steps in this direction. I'll leave it to political, social, and
economic winds to provide the motivation; for my part, I'd like to help with
the vision.
This is a path, not a package. The accumulation of knowledge is
only a map. The path itself begins with actions that manifest in physical forms
and patterns of living. The future is of course uncertain, but we have a window
of opportunity to choose between driving the future and being driven by it.
So now our challenge is to create an infrastructure that doesn't
need bauxite from Canada, nitrates from Chili, and oil from the Mid-East. This
is a little daunting, but pioneering is not for the weak. The path to a good
design begins with the question "What do I want", instead of
crippling thoughts of impossibility, cost, practicality, and time constraints.