Perilous Times and Choices

About a year ago I started a conversation with a new friend, Ted. We meet once a week and have coffee and talk about life, the world, values, choices, propaganda, and the good life. It sounds like heady stuff but the ongoing conversation is thrilling and we both look forward to it each week.

He and his wife are committed to growing some of their own food organically and living a simple life which moves in the direction of being self-sustaining. Neither of us are much into consumerism these days. Our conversations revolve around those topics and whatever else is on our minds. The conversations are intriguing and interesting to the both of us. Ted sometimes comments that his head is buzzing for hours after I leave, although, at times, I wonder if it's also because of the very strong mud / coffee he prepares for us. For me, it's like these conversations have become compost for my own movement towards a less hurried and more centered, value expressive life style.

Early on he introduced me to the idea of peak oil and we discussed its implications for the individual, the cities, suburbanites, and the world. James Kunstler's book, The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century, became the focal point for our conversations for several weeks.

Kunstler's message is simple: peak oil (the point at which half of all the oil reserves in the ground will be gone) is a fact. It's not exactly clear when it will happen but if it hasn't already, it will in the relatively near future, and when that happens, gradually at first, but with building momentum it will have nothing short of profound implications for our society. That is because we are inextricably wed to abundant and inexpensive oil. Our whole economy over the years was premised on oil being an inexpensive commodity. There was so much of it that we hardly ever gave it a second thought and with that it became more and more ingrained in our whole lifestyle. It was a positive development but we have inadvertently become more dependent on it in ways which we hardly notice. Some have speculated that if the typical office building suddenly hit a magical delete button which removed all the products which are based on petroleum or petroleum products that the building would suddenly become Lilliputian in size. Whatever the consequences for us, they will be even more significant for our children and their children. For myself I have adopted a belief that it will be a whole new ballgame in the not too distant future.

Some will say that this is too alarmist. I would say that it's risky business to keep certain blinders on. That's a good way to get mugged by reality. There is no doubt that we in the United States live in the lap of luxury. The basic needs generally are there - food, shelter and clothing. But let's take a peep behind the veil of abundance. The food on your table: you probably think that it comes from the supermarket a mile or so from your home. I dare say the younger children would say that is where food comes from. Obviously it doesn't. It was transported from other parts of this country and/or from other parts of the world. I've heard that the average piece of food on the shelves in the supermarkets travel, on average, 1500 miles to get there, and then we transport them the final few.

Or take a look at the labels on your clothes. Similar story there, too. My guess is that if I looked at the labels on all of my clothes, I would find that there is not one item that comes from within an hours drive of my home. That covers two parts of the basic trilogy; food, clothing and shelter.

I am not saying that all of this will change in a twinkling, or a moment. But if the premise is correct, and I think it, at the very least, deserves attentive consideration, that the present material abundance is premised and made possible because of accessible and inexpensive oil and petroleum products, then the implications of a reversal over time of that commodity will be, well, profound.

Back to the second part of the title of this little piece: ...and choices. Somehow or other, as individuals we have to become more self sufficient in many different ways. Kunstler's suggestion is to consider forming self sustaining communities. No one person has to do it all themselves and that simply wouldn't work for the overwhelming majority. But the self sustaining community part makes superb sense to me.

In a forum discussion on the pathtofreedom.com website there was a question as to how much land (acreage) was needed for an individual or family to be self sustaining. One person told a story of how when she was a child her family had a large garden and farmyard and they grew much or most of their own food. In that sense, they had some of their own basic needs met, but it gets better. When a neighbor passed by, e.g., coming back from fishing, he would be invited into the garden and encouraged to bring home part of his supper to share with his family. But it gets even better, because after that person left they would find a freshly caught fish for their supper. That's an example of how self sustaining is not just about one family, but of several families, or a community all contributing in non-intrusive ways according to their talents and skills. Sounds good to me. But it also reminds me of how far we have moved from that sense of basic independence and community.