For those who can there is the REAL Green opportunity. It requires going renewable and permaculture locally. It embraces conservation and demand management. It does not try to completely exit the status quo but instead use the status quo to leave it. Most of us are stuck in the status quo that gives us survival. Very few can go offline and truly green. Some may be able to by withdrawing to the woods but even this does not enhance the local and what about your significant others that are still status quo? REAL Green is more for people who have the funds to set up a farmstead or who can convert what they have to REAL Green. Instead of going off to the decadent life beachside in South Florida retire on a farm and practice permaculture farming revolving around prep efforts for when or if SHTF. Lower your footprint but in relative sacrifice based upon your significant others and what is happening in your local.
It is obvious nobody is going to make a dent in climate change. The greenest thing you can do is get out of the automobile culture as much as possible. This is a central theme of REAL Green with lowering your footprint. Don’t drive, fly, or train in discretionary leisure. If you have to travel to do something to support you REAL Green effort then combine trips. Wait to travel until you can make a full day of it doing multiple required tasks. We are all aware most can’t remain totally local as in within walking distance. This is especially true in the developed western countries. The local part of REAL Green is the most effective green effort.
The other part of REAL Green is gathering and harvesting solar energy. The important point here is understanding most are not going to make a living doing this. Small scale permaculture does not pay. Solar systems are not cost effective in the status quo. What REAL Green says is if you can decouple from industrial agriculture by producing in a garden, orchard, vines DO IT. If you have pasture raise animals. I promote a polyculture of pasture so I reduce the need to mow and use chemicals. Goats eat brush and weeds as well as grass. Cows like grass. This leaves plenty of other things in the fields for wildlife if you keep stocking rates low. Do permaculture as organic as you can. Contribute to the local and focus on the seasonality of life by canning and freezing what you produce.
Gather solar energy by embrace intermittency through your solar system. I use a hybrid system where my home is also attached to the grid but I practice demand management. I gather as much solar energy as I can. I space heat and heat water with wood in the winter. I heat water in the summer with solar water heating tubes. The wood I harvest is sustainable whereby I harvest dead or dying trees. I also practice forest management by culling trees as needed to improve the forest. Wood is not cheap. It requires a lot of labor and the equipment is expensive. Electric heat is by far cheaper but cheaper is not the point of REAL Green. Cheaper is a status quo effort.
The other efforts REAL Green engages in is efficiency and conservation. My home that I refurbished was done with efficiency in mind. I maximized insulation and the windows are the best thermal windows I could get. I can heat with multiple systems. Excess solar energy in the winter is even utilized with small ceramic low watt heaters. My wood boiler does both forced air and water heat to radiators. My solar system can run the small pumps in the wood boiler. I also have a fireplace wood stove insert I use when it is really cold. With conservation I make sure as little food is wasted as possible. Dogs and chickens eat what we don’t. I have 300 acres I manage in natural grasses and woody draws. I promote wildlife in these areas. I have 15 bee hives on my place. I let others use the farm to raise bees. I buy their honey. If SHTF I will have honey.
What I am doing is not making a dent in climate change and I still have a dirty footprint but it is less dirty and it is focused on making my local more sustainable and resilient. If 50% of those who could did this it would make an important impact locally. Globally we are screwed but locally you can make a difference. Move somewhere where you can make a local impact and the rest falls in place. Many locals can go significantly REAL Green and it is the compounding of efforts that make a difference.
An excellent point of REAL Green is prep. Your REAL Green effort is a natural prep activity. You also combine the basics of prep like long shelf life food, guns and ammo, and water strategies. You collect tools of all kinds that have post collapse relevance. You have some gold and cash stashed. You also have plans and attitudes you live daily. You know your neighbors and your family knows how to regroup if they are away from the homestead.
REAL Green is not a solution to climate change and if SHTF your REAL Green doomstead may not last but a few months. This is not the point of REAL Green. The point is relative effort in a world in destructive change. REAL Green is about negotiating this decline and yielding to the greater powers. Most modern dangers will be found when you leave your local. You can increase your security by just going local. Stay under the radar screen of the status quo. Collapse in place with dignity. The dignity comes with meaning you will find by doing less status quo. This does not mean you don’t utilize the status quo. You invest whatever you can in the finer aspects of the status quo that have long term relevance. Buy quality tools and machines that have a future post collapse. Start a library with real books that can be utilized if the internet ever goes unstable.
This may be a doomer lifestyle but you are not living like a doomer. You are living 2 generations ago in a hybridization of the modern. You utilize the modern as needed to leave it. You do this by triaging out what does not fit the wisdom of REAL Green. REAL Green is not a cult or religion it is meant to be added on to your current higher power as a plug-in to the planet with its systems and its web of life. REAL Green is humble and does not attempt to profit off others. Its attempt is to enrich the local. If you are blessed with REAL Green attributes you do not feel superior instead you feel compelled to help others. REAL Green is other orientated.
“Doing Your Part To Stop Climate Change Now Requires Planting 30,000 New Trees, Getting 40,000 Cars Off The Road, Reviving 20 Square Miles Of Coral Reef. By yourself.”
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