Increasingly, it looks like the end is going to be caused ultimately by a fuel crisis. A fuel crisis, which triggers large scale war, economic destabilisation, and ultimately a return to pre-industrial life.
Meaning that a lot of people will die.
The green revolution has been a boon - and a curse. The massive growth in population has been supported by large scale farming, global transportation, fossil-fuel derived fertilisers. And once the wells stop producing, or it takes more than one barrel of oil to get a barrel's worth out of the ground, all bets are off.
Russia is pressuring Ukraine, China is pressuring its regional neighbours. East Timor has a big, largely untapped gas field - what happens when either Australia, Indonesia, or even China decide that those fields are strategically important? Australia has significant coal reserves, but would they be enough to keep things going?
Why do we not build the infrastructure to help lessen those shocks when they happen? Why don't we build so that we aren't reliant solely on one, finite resource?
The future will be owned by those preparing now for it.
Preparations for an unknown cataclysm. Perspectives... Survival, the Apocalypse, TEOTWAWKI. Fictional or not? I might say, I might not...
Friday, February 28, 2014
Friday, February 14, 2014
The gift that keeps on giving
I'm sure I've expressed this sentiment before, but it's worth doing so again...
I've found that the most satisfying gift to give someone is a living plant - when you give someone a useful one. Likewise for receiving.
Getting some random plant that's not edible, or has no useful, exploitable properties leaves me numb. Getting me something that has some use is another matter entirely. A friend is visiting next weekend. No doubt, by the time she leaves, I will have given her lemon grass, a coffee tree seedling, catmint, perhaps some chocolate mint, cotton seeds... who knows what else.
I find that doing this has two effects. Firstly, there is the level of a personal gift - something you've taken care of.... And there's also the element of getting someone at least thinking about self-sufficiency.
Although I've been disliking the term "self-sufficiency" lately... I'm increasingly of the opinion that it can never be "self", but that you need a local community. Survival is not an individual option. It has to be done as part of a group. An accident or illness will kill a lone person (or small family group), where a member of a mid or larger group would survive. A lone person is vulnerable, a group has strength in the many.
I've found that the most satisfying gift to give someone is a living plant - when you give someone a useful one. Likewise for receiving.
Getting some random plant that's not edible, or has no useful, exploitable properties leaves me numb. Getting me something that has some use is another matter entirely. A friend is visiting next weekend. No doubt, by the time she leaves, I will have given her lemon grass, a coffee tree seedling, catmint, perhaps some chocolate mint, cotton seeds... who knows what else.
I find that doing this has two effects. Firstly, there is the level of a personal gift - something you've taken care of.... And there's also the element of getting someone at least thinking about self-sufficiency.
Although I've been disliking the term "self-sufficiency" lately... I'm increasingly of the opinion that it can never be "self", but that you need a local community. Survival is not an individual option. It has to be done as part of a group. An accident or illness will kill a lone person (or small family group), where a member of a mid or larger group would survive. A lone person is vulnerable, a group has strength in the many.
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