Leverage low carbon capture to make your odyssey to planetary justice. This is primarily behavioral so it applies to anyone. I call this REAL Green and it is an add on so it is a supplement to your existing life system. It attempts to insert planetary responsibility into an individual’s life of people and place. It does this relatively because locals of people and place are unique. The relativity is related to degree of change allowed. All humans are trapped in the Anthropocene so the degree of change allowed varies by people and place. To expect more than limits allow is just setting oneself up for failure.
The reason I mention this is because low carbon capture of green prepping is part of the advanced stages of REAL Green. These stages are when a person has become an expert in knowing himself and mastering many green prepping skills. He has made his move to a proper local to build his homestead. This is where his monastery of best practices, REAL Green tools, and library of knowledge will be housed. The REAL Green homestead is a natural place where knowledge meets the dirt so to speak. Low carbon capture is the primary activity. Gardens, Animals, biomass heat and renewables are vectors of low carbon capture. REAL Green attempts to marry the old with the new in a hybridization to address the surreal of living between worlds.
If one can picture an 19th century family farm but with computers and solar panels then you start to get the picture. The house is well insulated with an efficient wood boiler for heat. There are solar thermal tubes to heat water. There are animals in rotational grazing and chickens. Hay is collected with low horsepower equipment and wood harvested in sustainable wood lots. Nature is accommodated in this arrangement by restorative practices. All this is cemented by an individual’s localism of people and place. This is done relatively because the status quo world is delocalized. In other words, it requires driving but a greatly reduced driving is a key REAL Green behavior. Money has to be made to pay bills. There are status quo responsibilities that just can’t be avoided without causing a disturbance to the local of people and place. That said a young person without attachments who can should take this localization much further and minimize technology. I am talking about my life so this is why my REAL Green has more tech.
The leverage part is mentioned because low carbon capture is not a profitable activity. In most cases low carbon capture of garden, animals, biomass, and solar will have to be done in addition to what is done in your fossil fuel trap. This can be seen as a hobby farm but that is deceptive because REAL Green is a way of life added on to your existing life system of meaning. What REAL Green attempts to do is take the green activity and glean out spiritual satisfaction. One needs to understand low carbon capture means less affluence. You cannot expect to make money off these activities most of the time it is a money sink or breaks even. Your green prepping life can’t compete with the high energy status quo in regards to profit and time. You are going to spend more time and make less money. Yet, the results can be an amazing spiritual awakening of planetary connection. This involves green prepping too which offers satisfaction of an increased degree of security. A REAL Green will be prepped for shocks because he will be naturally more resilient and sustainable.
The leverage part then is about finding ways to have a REAL Green life within the status quo. In my case I am the semiretired caretaker of the family farm. I say semiretired because I do more physical work now than I did in my status quo career. I am doing natural restoration for the family which in their case means more hunting and fishing opportunities. I also am utilizing my fossil fuel nest egg built up over years of working my status quo career to construct my REAL Green monestary. I am taking time and money and investing them in REAL Green instead of status quo toys or a place by the beach. The leverage is finding a way to use the status quo to leave it. Find a way to live low carbon capture in the name of a smaller planetary footprint that fits your status quo trap.
You may at times feel strange because you will be doing things that don’t add up in the status quo world. In some ways you will be living a paradox of right is wrong and wrong is right. You will be rejecting the modern status quo narrative of affluence but in a relative way. You will have to live it but adapt it. Some can go much further but I am writing to those who are established. I am in my mid 50’s so if I were to take this too far family would suffer. Keep in mind REAL Green starts with acceptance first of human failure so the motive is adapted failure of humankind. In other words, palliative care. This also means life boats for survival. Less failure is possible for the individual with his significant others and his local of place in green prepping. The result is a better local. The planet will reward this behavior with support. If you are awakened then you know what I am talking about.
“So You Want to Leave it All and Create a Community?”
“First, I would invest in self inquiry before moving anywhere. If you are escaping from something rather than pursuing a project, you may end up reproducing old dissatisfaction. Once you find yourself in a new situation you may start daydreaming about another life as an escape from the discomforts and challenges. So much empowerment comes from knowing your purpose and your capacities. If you have a dream, it is a better investment to put hundred percent into it in order to verify whether it is really what you want instead of moving to a community as an escape from temporary frustration and stagnation. Second, it is worth spending some time in at least one community…By seeing what you like and dislike about the experience you will be better equipped to define your own vision…After all this time spent on personnel inquiry and experiential learning, you are ready for the third step. This is probably the most difficult one because it goes against all the conditioning that has been skillfully put into our system. If you want to leave the system, you need to start with the inner work of questioning. Replacing the old with a new setting may actually turn out even worse. Imagine you wanted to escape the nonsense of being employed. If you reproduce a similar atmosphere and problems as you experienced in a job you hated, you risk to be in a similar situation and ask yourself what had been all this effort for. Not only this, you may not be able to numb and use the salary to compensate for your suffering…If we want to live a radically different life, we need to touch upon the beliefs and automatisms that serve the status quo. We need to address the core of who we are…”
REAL Green Adaptation 