Realistic Localism

I have been living a green prepper life for 15 years now.  It started out as a prepper life back when peak oil was the scare in 05.  I made some very big decisions back them that took me out of the rat race but this also meant less affluence.  This was an evolution of lifestyle and spirit.  I am now a permaculture farmer with cattle and goats. I do the garden, orchard, and grape thing too although minimalist.  It is minimalist because I don’t have time to do everything.  I have solar too but a small system of 3600 watts with batteries.  This is enough to keep lights on and the frig cool.  I heat with wood so I can survive without the grid but I still use the grid while it is here.  I mange 500 acres of wild life habitat of which 100 acres is my grazing system.

I am practicing green prepping which I basically describe as prepping for decline by going back to low carbon capture with wood, grass, and animals.  I also have solar and a well-built efficient house so this is a hybrid of old and new.  I am doing a hybrid life of embracing the modern with strategies that boost the old ways of low carbon capture.  I still need my status quo income that is now investments and a small job care taking 500 acres only 100 is mine.  What I have found is you can decline in place and go local and still live a good life but don’t be under the allusion you can leave the status quo.  This lifestyle has especially paid off with this virus thing.  I am minimally disrupted because of the virus.  I was already prepped for this situation.  I am already social distanced because I am a farmer.

I am not going to tell everyone you have to live like I do.  What I will tell everyone is more people need to live like I do.  The modern life of plenty is over but we don’t know it yet.  This does not mean cities are going away.  They are the places that produce the goods people like me need.  They need to shrink though and the rural areas need to grow.  They need to grow in permaculture not industrial agriculture so they will be the seeds of a new world.  Yet, industrial agriculture is not going away because we are a globalized people.  I will live with the industrial and draw on it to fortify my local and its permaculture identity.  People need to localize in and out of the city.  The key to localism is don’t travel and or commute.  Do this in a relative way because the reality is our modern life only allows so much flexibility.  We are all tied to it in survival.  Very few are positioned to leave it in a major way but we can work together to leave it.  Yet, first we must agree localism is the right thing to do.

Globalism needs to be reduced by consensus and nature will do its part.  It was not natural and its effects were very destructive.  Sustainable development is not sustainable when small locals are wiped away in the name of progress.  There should be a happy medium.  Going forward I am telling those of you who can go out into the rural areas and live different.  Those of you who belong in a town then localize and practice crafts and skills that make something for the rural areas.  You will have to do this in the shadow of a declining globalism which means your paycheck and taxes.  Quit believing the techno optimist and their siren songs of increasing affluence.  Many try to tell us about great Green New Deals BS of clean power and comfort.  Bullshit, the future is going to be one of less comfort but more old-world activity.

Realgreenadaptation.blog