I am blessed to have been awakened to the honest science years back. In 2000 I started dooming and in 2005 I started prepping. The minute you see doom and prep you pass judgment on me as a nutter and yes at some points I was a nutter but I have matured into something else that is worth at least a look. It has been a tough journey because the status quo narrative is so difficult to decouple from. There is the FAKE Green narrative that sees technology as the answer with green tech. Green tech is part of the solution but will not save us IMO. There is also the FAKE Green position that degrowth is the answer. I believe degrowth is the answer to a degree but where Degrowthers fail is with the consequences. Degrowthers do not understand systematic decay in an economics of decline so degrowth means collapse if taken to extremes. I am not mentioning the status quo or naked market-based capitalism that says all will be well with growth and tech. This is what got us here.
My position is REAL Green. The REAL is more like get real or be realistic. It does not mean TRUE Green that a subsistent human in the right location practices that which is in touch with the planetary cycles of life. There really are very few TRUE Greens because many of these TRUE Greens would seek more affluence if they could. Few are awakened to reality and subsistent with best practices of planetary harmony. Market based capitalism is a seductress and humans have a weakness for more affluence. REAL Green accepts this human nature and tries to harness it. REAL Green says the first order of business is the collapse process of civilization. It then involves acknowledging the process of succession with the planetary system and web of life because of humans activity. We are in a collapse process plain and simple. The honest science tells us this. REAL Green says the beginning of GREEN action is with this Kubler Roth acknowledgement. It is only with the acceptance of human failure and its consequences that true GREEN action can spring forth.
FAKE Green action is good but it also represents malinvestment of resources because many policies are green efforts to maintain the status quo. EV’s are touted as green when the car culture is one of the main reasons for our failure. A green grid is another. Electricity is a vital element of modernity but let’s not forget it is modernity itself that is killing us also. More complexity from complicated green actions is just more of the same of dirty footprints. IOW, making things more modern is just a hole digging exercise. REAL Green says the key is first with behavior of failure. The second is going forth in localism. Behavior and localism are the key because it takes behavior changes to allow realistic localism. REAL Green is realistic and uses relativism to navigate the path between localism and globalism. All locals have been delocalized by globalism. Most people live status quo lives dependent on globalism for survival. This means if you want to go local in REAL Green you will need to do it relatively by using the status quo of globalism to leave it. If is a bit like judo that uses the opponents moves against him.
This is both mental and physical. Mentally your community and significant others may not care about green so if you do you have to adapt to that disconnect. This means the range of footprint change is limited. Physically your footprint change is limited by economics and accepted practices of your local. A front yard garden might not fly in certain locals. REAL Green says adapt to your local and coopt it based upon your limitations. First REAL Green says determine your local and this means physical and mental. If your local has a poor future based upon the collapse process then move out if you can. If you can’t then your strategies may be limited to the basics of survival for a local that has no future. This may mean have tools for a bug out. You may become a migrant or refugee at some point. This also means the people you are around. Some people and communities are have no future. Find a new community if you can and if not make the best of what you have.
Once REAL Green has determined its local then build upon it. This means triage out the deadwood. It means a hybridization of the old ways with the new. The reason the old ways are looked to is proper scaling was once normal. The old ways were generally local or low energy. Take the best practices, tools, and material of the modern and turbo charge the old ways. This is an ascending level of enlightened greenness. What this means is you do what you can per your limitations. The top is a monastery of GREEN. Few can get to a monastery because of income constraints or the nature of their local. Build a place with the seeds for a new life that is inevitable with a world and a civilization in decline. This is done in green humility. The power the planet will bequeath to you the truth because you are following the “way”. This cannot be taken and used for personal gain or this power is lost. So, in effect you are a monk and a shaman. This is not a cult or religion it is an addon to your current higher power and local. This makes it extremely personal and location based. The keys are simple but the application is where complexity and complicated practices evolve personally and locally. I am covering my experiences and my monastery in my realgreenadaptation.blog. I am not a writer so this is just an effort to explain my life as best I can for the benefit of others.
REAL Green Adaptation 