I am a green prepper which means I am going low carbon and local for multiple reasons. I care about the planet and I am seeking more resilience with sustainability. I call it REAL Green realgreenadaptation.blog. This starts with acceptance of a systematic decline process that is both with human civilization and the planet. It springs forward as an optimistic pessimist. This incongruous juxtaposition meshes by looking at the journey not the destination. The journey is a departure into an alternative way of life. The end is acceptance of a dying of the status quo we have been habituated to. Once the stages of grief involving the decline of place and our way of life is accepted then one goes forth in a hybrid way to restore the local but with the help of the delocalizing global world. This is again a juxtaposition and a tricky one. One lives in a hybrid life of being in the status quo to leave it.
The world is now Anthropocene which means we are path dependent and carbon trapped. Within this trap there is free choice to adapt and mitigate the decline of the planet and civilization by a hybridization of the best material and practices of pre-modern and the amazing advances of the modern. Low carbon capture is the key to this but is also unsupportable for most without support from the status quo of making a living to pay the bills. High volume and intensive efforts are required these days to succeed in agriculture they also destroy the harmony of the local environment. This means you must pay to go low carbon. You may be lucky to cover cost and your labor will go unrewarded. Restoration efforts cost money and time without economic return likely for years if at all.
I do a multispecies rotational grazing operation with goats and cattle. I do this with low stocking rates. I chose this mix because my fields through years of being left to themselves have developed a polyculture pasture of numerous plant types IOW they are overgrown with invasives but also have rich stands of grasses both native and introduced, weeds, and brush. Goats and cattle manage this pasture type well. This allows me to greatly reduce diesel needs for mowing fields and lower significantly chemical use. Chemicals are only used along fences and not every year. I also do renewable power and biomass heating. This involves introducing modern elements of low carbon capture with excellent tech. I am utilizing biomass in the fields with hay and animal grazing. I have gone low horse power with collecting hay in small batches at optimum times. I hope to get an electric tractor if one becomes available to be powered by solar. I also have custom haying done by contractors mainly in an effort to have some fields adapted to hay production. I do this operation along with land dedicated to natural growth for wildlife. I have a garden, orchard, and grapes. I have opened my farm to beekeepers with several hives. I garden minimalist because I don’t have time to specialize. I also have chickens. I have livestock guardian dogs that also serve as potential security.
REAL Green involves doing the basics of prep with security, food storage, and basics of sheltering. This way of life involves a triage effort of distancing oneself from delocalizing lifestyles that damage a healthy local. This is done with a relative effort that does not damage status quo ties too much. You do not want to alienate and destroy status quo connections that support your efforts. Significant others can be alienated by radical efforts. You do REAL Green under the radar screen but are honest with those who seek this way of life. The basic REAL Green effort means primarily trying to limit the car and consumer culture when ever possible. REAL Green is a relative effort which means you live in and out of the status quo. This is both with relationships and with place. The relative part is a balance of the status quo and the departure from it. Your significant others will most likely not be committed REAL Green. Your place is probably not REAL Green because of delocalization. Yet, it might have the bones of a beautiful REAL Green monastery with a local both natural and human that can be restored.
Since we are Anthropocene dependent you must adapt to it to leave it. You mitigate the worst of it but with the mentality of being trapped and dependent on it. If you have the time and the resources you attempt to build a REAL Green monastery that is a manifestation of low carbon living and green prepping. It is about knowledge and wisdom. The knowledge is the best of the old and the new and the wisdom is choosing what to use and not to use. In this day and age most of the wisdom is about what not to use and avoid. This is also about building up something for the younger members of the family and local. They will see the worst of the decline process.
This process is uncertain because of the nature of decline. Decline involves abandonment, dysfunction, and the irrational so a cascading drop in economic activity and support is possible. It is also possible this could be a drawn-out affair. We are at the cusp of change with many exciting techs that offer constructive growth but within a time of overall destructive change. This destructive change revolves around planetary decline and a late stage civilization creaking from overshoot of numbers and consumption.
REAL Green is local and individual but reaches out to community and ranges to affect as much local as one can but with the wisdom of localism as its mission. This is about deep adaptation to shocks that involves attempts at resilience through relinquishment and restoration. This is another incongruous juxtaposition that points to a paradox of living REAL Green. To build up you must tear down just like nature does with succession and evolution. You emulate the planet and thereby strengthen your local with the understanding we are now in succession both human and natural. The planet will support you because this is the WAY. This means we are moving down a gradient of decline into a world that is altered by less complexity and more disruption. New niches will be created as old ones are destroyed. You position your REAL Green monastery to hopefully be a seed of change. This is not a religion it is an add-on to your higher power that is your own personal quest for the truth integrated with the planet and its cycles.
REAL Green Adaptation 