This blog is about disowning the meme that we are consumers and learning to become producers.
We are living just prior to the confluence of some very
interesting limits. The signposts read:
Peak Oil, Climate Change, Economic Crisis and (gasp) Population Overshoot.
Simply put infinite growth on a finite planet is impossible. Exponential growth in energy consumption over
the last two centuries has yielded unprecedented prosperity. The use of energy simply put has enabled all
of the progress that in one way or another most people depend on for continued survival.
If you are not familiar with these concepts I suggest
starting with the following resources. When you've got your fill, come back here for some constructive discussion about breaking the cycle. (Full disclosure, frequenting these
sites can be bad for your mental health.)
On this blog I will not dwell on doom and gloom (though it
might come up from time to time).
Instead I want to focus on how we as individuals have been indoctrinated
to be good little consumers and what that means. I will argue that, as a culture we need to
make a switch from consumers to producers.
We need to know how to make and gather the things we use. We need to
learn the value of a gift (given and received) and we need to realize that, for
all of history up until the last two centuries, man (like all other animals)
lived off what was available given the solar budget of their environment. Just like you I still live in the system
every day. I work, I pay rent, and my wife would be ticked if I just walked off
into the woods to start a new society based on solar capital. So I’m doing what I can with what I have and
I’m starting right here. I’m defying the
societal meme that I am only a consumer and I am learning to produce things of
value. As this blog grows I hope other
people will contribute their ideas so we can all learn together.
Hydrocarbon fuels have been a one-time anomaly. They might not leave us overnight, but it is
becoming increasing difficult and expensive to get them. This fact underlies the political and
financial challenges we will face in the near to medium term. Those problems will compound to cause a
shortage of investment capital for increasingly expensive fossil fuel
extraction, refining and distribution until one day (and perhaps not all at once)
the system won’t work any more. The
failure of complex systems is complex (deep I know). I’m not here to make predictions about what
will happen or when, but simply to document how I live my life in the face of
these challenges.
