I am a green prepper.  I am retired but consider myself semi-retired because what I am doing is more work than a status quo job.  I want to say it is rewarding but I also want to say it is disappointing.  The rewards for example are being out in the woods making fire wood and taking a break and looking around at how beautiful it is.  I would not see this beauty in an office.  Seeing my grazing system function is wonderful.  Watching a garden come up and fruit start on my orchard is satisfying.

 

The disappointment is the realization of the incongruity of modern life with this small farmer reality.  The costs of the comforts of life compared to the return to permaculture farming is dramatic.  I could greatly expand my stocking rates.  I could grow the size of the farm effort but then what happens is you drift into being a factory farm and let’s face it even big farms are struggling.

 

I try to find a balance.  I am providing my greater family with recreation and a place to hide out if SHTF.  I am a prepper so I do those things that increase resilience and sustainability to shocks.  Green prepping is about combining permaculture and security.  Localism is safer and it is also greener.  The sad part is I am living off investments that are 30 years of fossil fuel drenched activity.  My goats and cattle cover cost but do not reward my labor.  It is much cheaper to go to the grocery store for vegetables but we still make an effort to garden.  I heat with wood but electric is cheaper when all the labor and equipment is considered.

 

I am in my mid 50’s and feeling the pain of this constant work.  I do think it is actually keeping me stronger but that only makes the pain a little less apparent.  I go out in the cold, hot, and wet which is uncomfortable.  Bugs in my face a ticks crawling up my legs make me think how nice a beach would be.

 

I am living a life of green prepping and telling people about it which is rewarding but then I also feel like I fool because it does not add up.  I am telling people to live like I do when the reality is, I have the time and money to do it.  If you don’t have the time and money how can you do it?  I have come to the humble conclusion that I must respect those who make no effort to do what I do.  I target a few chosen who have the time, money, and the awakening.  I target those who want to green prep instead of winter in Florida or RV to the west.  They care about the planet and seek to lower their footprint instead of growing it.  They want to feel the rewards of producing things.  They want to take the journey of a transformation of learning to live with less but find more meaning.

 

I did not find meaning in the status quo world.  Maybe I am too intellectual so I saw through the narrative of a way of life that does not add up.  Currently I am green prepping a monastery of all the knowledge and best equipment I can accumulate.  I have small working farm that also serves as a hideout from bad times for myself and my family.  I am living this and evaluating it as an alternative to the failed narrative of growth and affluence my status quo job was.  I am downsizing relatively to my people and place.

 

I feel I am following the planet so in a sense I am embracing the way.  I am like a shaman going to the fringes and reporting back to the tribe.  I humbly report that I find this difficult life better and the primary reason is meaning not satisfaction.  Satisfaction is there but equally there is pain, suffering, and let downs.  Not enough time or money to do things right in my mentality of perfection.  The disappointment with community that is not there but should be.  I can’t find people to work so I do lots of low value work because I have no choice.  The meaning comes from nature and the animals saying thank you for believing in us.  Thank you for a home that is cared about.  My family thanks me for a nice place to play and a refuge of sorts if things fall apart.

 

I find knowledge, experience, and the creation of something a hard-won meaning.  I am not looking at how rich I am with a portfolio of wealth.  My wealth is wisdom.  The wisdom of learning what to use and what to leave is very special.  So, concluding I would say do it as a road to meaning not comfort and affluence.  Do it within your limitations and do not feel guilty if your effort is small because we are all trapped in something beyond our abilities.  Embrace this way with humility and do it for the planet that is dying.  Do it for your significant others because meaning is a beacon for them.  Do it for yourself because meaning is golden.

The key to a meaningful energy reduction is behavioral.  This is likely not going to be enough to satisfy those who want dramatic change.  The amount of change with degree and time scale would be massively disruptive.  Politically, nations are in competition so they will cheat to remain competitive.  Any effort from the top will be compromised in regards to other nations relative standing.  Within nations much of the population does not care or is unable to care about energy reduction.  Systematically the amount of change needed is disruptive such that an economic depression is more likely.  Keeping economies strong is vital to renewable energy production and energy efficiency strategies so the needed degrowth kills the renewable energy drive in a catch 22 of emissions to reduce emissions.

 

Do you see the trap?  Can we accept failure and start the lifeboats and hospices?  This can only be with a small percentage of people who are not deceived by the science of solutions like the techno green. Those who deny science of the problem like the browns.  Then there are those that don’t care or unable to care like so many of the uneducated and egotistical.  Many are too old or young to understand.  Many are too selfish or locked into a small world of the ego.  This leaves a small percentage of people who can do dramatic transformations in a local but not at the macro.  These people are reduced even further by those being restricted by the status quo to making money and paying bills restricting time and resources for a local transition.  A final small amount of people can do something and some of these will.

 

A life boat is green prepping.  It starts with behavior with tech following.  Low carbon lifestyles centered on localism naturally promote conservation and lower energy consumption.  The best tech and practices are combined with proven old ways of low carbon capture to strengthen ones local.  The hospice part is the embracing of a lifestyle of stoicism and Spartan living.  This is about decline strategies that are similar to a terminally ill preparing for death.  This downsizing mirrors the planet and human civilization.  Dignity and meaning comes from the triage of bad behaviors.  A life of less results with more meaning plus a strengthened local of people and place.

 

This is about the top only capably of some transformation.  A 100% renewable transition is not possible in overshoot with both consumption and population.  Some change is possible and will help but it will not be enough. Technologically the hurdles are far too great to reinvent the status quo of affluence.  Even the systematic is fraught with impossible.  The value chains and the economic activity needed to switch out a world from old to new tech is just more of the status quo.  Tech is the problem not the solution.  It can and must be part of a life boat and hospice behavior change but only on the margins.  Behavior is trapped at the top.  It can change at the bottom with a very small amount of people who can become the monasteries of change.  A seed bank of the best practices and tech can be built into something that can offer the blue prints for a future of a different world changed by the planet not humans.

 

Human civilization and the planet are in decline and this is a force greater than human intervention.  Embrace this as reality.  If you embrace reality the planet and humanity will support you becuase here is where reality meets meaning.  Meaning is truth and the truth is what humans seek.  So, if you can relate to this picture you will quit worrying about the end game of 100% transition and embrace the journey of living in a world of decline with lower emissions as the vehicle to better living.  You will adapt to decline with decline.  You will use renewables because they are a best tech but you will also embrace the old ways.  Combining the two in triage and salvage you will become more sustainable.  You will do this in the surreal of being in the status quo to leave it.  Meaning will support your efforts.  The end game is collpase but the journey is one of meaning.  Meaning gives a spiritual wealth that will make up for the decline in material comforts.  This is so simple it is hard.  Life is a paradox so do what appears wrong and right will result.

There is a very small percentage of the people that are mentally capable of being “quality” and just as few bless with the resources to be nurtured to the awakened state. The living alone like a mountain man is more a metaphor for the awakened who may live among many people but they live alone in their awareness of the truth. The other issue is humility. The planet calls on such people to go forth on its behalf and not to use this power for selfish use. This is basically the way of the shaman who leads the tribe spiritually and often alone on the margins. This may sound word salad nutter but this deeper awareness is as old as intelligent man. If you have been called by the planet then accept your calling and go forth on its behalf unselfishly. Keep your proper scale and understand your mortality. This Life of being awakened will be short as the end speeds up the older you get. It often takes to post middle age to reach a true awakening because of all the experience needed. Many die on the way to the awakening. So, as you reach your twilight years with failing mind and body you hopefully will have built up a treasure chest of best practices and quality things for the young who are also being awakened behind you. Give them support and encouragement. Nothing special about all this. Yet, the mentality is very rare today becuase modern life has become so noisy.

For a future of renewables to be meaningful behavior must change. The future is likely poorer with a decline process so this means more reality tested applications of renewables for a world in decline otherwise there will be expensive stranded assets the world in decline cannot afford. $50K fancy EVs are not it. There is the definite need for more localization of renewables with micro grids but also home owners with less expensive solar and batteries to cover needs when the grid is down plus cover some of their daily usage such as refrigeration or even lite HVAC. This provides resiliance but also allows the paying down of the investment. Thermal insulation and passive thermal are ideal additions to turbo charge renewables abilities. Renewables that have thermal efficiencies combined with conservation strategies are what will make the biggest impact in the future for sustainability and resilience. This equates to a lower planetary footprint which combined with degrowth policies will see the greatest results. Vastly complicated Green New Deals are just for political consumption not reality based.

The problem today is large renewable farms are the most power efficient for the money and get the investments. They feed into a dirty grid of fossil fuels but also bad behavior. So these renewables are just status quo extenders. The reality is renewables are dirty too with lifecycle costs so to be greener requires human behavior intervention. Even if the statistics show a positive renewable penetration situation it is marginal compared to what is needed. There seems to be a ceiling of renewable penetration since grid upgrades and storage are so difficult and expensive. Much more needs to be developed with storage strategies but not much is really promising with cost benefit.

So, this is a muddle at the status quo level. It could be different if behavior changed at all levels but it won’t except on the margin. The status quo is yield dominated and government investment pork orientated. Behavior changing policy is hardly on the radar if it was significant degrowth polcies would be on the table. Nowhere do we see this at meaningful levels. What we see is FAKE Green policy and poor human attitudes of cake and eat it behavior. A $50K Tesla of green righteousness is fake. A power wall and solar roof in a McMansion is fake. If you can go simple but effective with thermal efficiency strategies, use renewables, and practice conservation as an individual. Embrace localism and back off from the car culture. Be a simple and sober green source of change. If enough are like you a noticeable change will bubble up from the grass roots. Only so much can be done becuase of the carbon trap in path dependencies everyone is in but many can do a dramatic first change. Society may chip in someday because many do not have the time nor the money to get greener. It is not cheap and it requires embracing a way of life.

 

This pandemic has been a learning experience.  For the first time our global world has been brought to its knees.  More worrying is this is not over but just beginning.  The dynamic lag effect in science called hysteresis assures consequences ahead.  It is likely these consequences will be dramatic and it is also possible they will cause a movement to an alternative state well explained in ecology of living systems.  We are talking thresholds, regime shifts, and perturbations.

 

This means this virus is now much more than a health problem.  The right or wrong of the response in some ways is irrelevant now except as a meaningful marker to learn from.  It is inevitable our system would eventually have such a pandemic because of our interconnectedness and movement to increasing urbanization.  We are now much more specialized and delocalized.  This means our survival is more than ever dependent on elsewhere.  Pandemics are white swans meaning they happen with regularity in human history.  This means the degree of disturbance in our society should be a warning to the risk of more pandemics but also other disruptive events.

 

It is unclear how many mistakes could have been prevented.  We are held to account to respond to these things.  We have a worrying limited response ability when the response is global.  This is because the world is joined together globally making responses brittle.  Do one thing here and affect another thing there.  So, we have a multilevel consideration here.  One is the medical but another is the systemness of everyone’s lifeline.  This points to localization as a solution but within a trap globalism has created.  Doors have been shut so only so much constructive change will be allowed.  It may be more a limiting of destructive change that is possible.

 

What I see from my REAL Green point of view is the need to degrowth within a wisdom of what degree of globalization and regional interconnectedness is safe.  This means now that we see just how vulnerable society is there should be an effort to move away from this dispersed risk.  This means less affluence and less comforts.  From this complex brittle condition should come more flexible simplicity.  One is localism and another is less complicated support systems locally.  The problem with this is competitive forces of globalism and capitalism.  Will they allow this retreat to simplicity?  My feelings are that nature will force this issue instead of proactive policy.  This means abandonment, dysfunction, and the irrational will create a vacuum that local of people and places will fill.  This also means disenfranchisement that will disrupt positive attempts at a reset.  There are forces at the top who will be pushing policy which is almost always growth based and status quo that will get in the way of local people and places to change constructively to simplicity.  This means it will be destructive change that will drive responses.  I am discussing what comes after the medical disruptions.  This does not mean the medical disruptions are over.

 

What this points to then is individual actions within these greater forces of change.  It starts with the individual’s behavior of acceptance of inevitable destructive change.  Getting out of paralysis from the shock and moving forward into constructive change locally.  Unfortunately, the medical situation is one of social distancing so this makes these efforts even more local.  We are now isolated and facing disruptive change.

 

The key to this is accept destructive change first.  Second is prepare for a difficult time ahead.  Do not get caught up with a crowd feeling of getting back to normal.  Normal is gone but still trapped in the surreal.  Downsize with dignity because this is where meaning is.  Your discomforts will be lessened if you realize meaning.  Do house cleaning and entertain new activities that prepare you for the worse ahead.  This means fundamental lifestyle changes.  If these are not possible becuase you are trapped then at a minimum begin mentally preparations.  Getting to acceptance is the stages of grief so these changes center on behavior.  There is no easy fix for destructive change there is mainly fortitude.  Even if I am wrong about the changes ahead it is likely something else worse than this pandemic is ahead.  This situation then is a warning to seek more resilience and sustainability if you can.  Those who can should.  Those who can’t can still find meaning and fortify.

I am not a scientist but find science and mathematics fascinating. Last night I was reading about Tracy-Widom distribution. This caught my eye:
“Universality is “an intriguing mystery…Why do certain laws seem to emerge from complex systems, he asked, “almost regardless of the underlying mechanisms driving those systems at the microscopic level?” https://www.quantamagazine.org/beyond-t … -20141015/
When it comes to a complete life it is better if science keeps to itself and spirituality to itself. A separation is in order reflecting human duality. The ego and the sacred can produce demons and in some ways science and spirituality is similar to this human condition. Most people here realized how screwed up religion is but often many don’t also see what science has done to humans and the planet. In fact, the damage science has done can be in some ways compared to what religion once did. Religion still does damage but to a lesser extent because science has tamed religion’s efforts at explaining the scientific. Science is the problem now.

Science has become a religion and that is why it is failing us. An organic planetary based spirituality is needed now grounded in science. This would be one that includes science and rejects science denial but also respects the metaphysical aspects of reality science cannot explain. IOW when science develops its own spirituality it is as bad as religion pretending to be science. Religion needs to focus on community and not act like scientist justifying community but science needs to stop dissecting community because values are destroyed. Humans must reject an unrestrained thirst for knowledge without bounds and this is the problem today. It may be this spirituality is only as simple as a check valve for our thirst for knowledge. Too often spirituality divulges into the noise of the complex and complicated and is lost. We already have a wealth of comparative spirituality to draw on and appreciate. The one missing ingredient is a check value to science and an acceptance of science wrapped up in one. It may be fate and humanly impossible with the check value being the universal itself. Intelligence cannot be controlled accept by its own demise.

Physics is seeking the deepest realities of life like singularity. Spirituality is needed to say no somewhere in this process. It needs to be a gatekeeper or a part of our brain is out of control. A spiritual reflection says humans can’t handle unrestrained science. This is clearly evident with humans today from Bio labs and factory farms to highly volatile organic compounds. The whole discussion of a 100% renewable world is another. Cover the world in pannels and turbines is absurd. Humans are out of control because of the quest for knowledge without limits. Spirituality is the limit mechanism and it is out of service at the moment. Scientist will often blame human problems on the lack of knowledge and this is true too but degree is important to that topic. Unrestrained procreation because of human emotion is a simple fact but a techno modern world of vast systems going automated is quite another. Science is vital to a point. Life will stop this thirst for knowledge without limits on its own because that is what a higher power does. Real spirituality seeks to respect the higher power. The higher power maintains balance and harmony by nature of its design. No way of knowing the higher power but that does not mean it should not be respected or the consequences are horrendous. Science can’t explain this because it breaks apart things in study instead of beholding all at once. Nothing can behold all at once and if it could it would stop in paralysis.

I am a green prepper engaged in permaculture farming.  I am attempting to lower my planetary footprint by low carbon capture of efficient home, solar, wood heat, and conservation.  I have a multispecies rotational grazing operation of goats and cattle.  I may add sheep eventually but only use the two species at the moment.  I also have a small garden, orchard, and grapes.  These plant efforts are minimalist mainly because I do not have the time and money to specialize with them.  They are primarily for prepping needs.  If food goes into shortage, I have some vegies and fruit to draw on but not much.

 

I manage 500 acres with only 100 in permaculture farming.  The rest is managed for the family as a place for hunting fishing, and nature enjoyment.  This means I manage farming and nature in one package.  They really go well together if you can keep stocking rates low and seek to create a mosaic of habitat.  I find wild animals like land grazed by animals as long as it is not over grazed and it is allowed to be a polyculture.  I added goats to my grazing mix because we have a very big invasive species problem that most western farms have these days.  In most cases chemicals, tractors, and high stocking rates will take care of weed problems.  I chose a different route and that is to adapt to a polyculture instead.  Invasives are not a problem in the right application.  Goats took care of my weed and brush problem.  There is still plenty of high-quality grass and enough for low stocking rates of cattle despite the weeds and brush.

 

Now the down side of this and that is profitability.  I am living off investments and get some support for managing the rest of the farm for the benefit of human recreation.  If I had to make a living off the farm then I couldn’t.  I could not do this without outside income nor could I maintain a healthy natural ecosystem without mechanization with fossil fuels that requires money.  My grazing system covers its cost but does not pay my labor.  My vegies and fruit are expensive compared to a grocery store when my labor is considered.  I heat with wood but that is more expensive than grid heat considering labor and the equipment.  I want to also add that the ¾ of the land that is put into natural production still needs to be worked.  Fields become choked with brush and weeds if successional practices are not incorporated.  I still have to mow areas were weeds and sprouts get out of hand and I have to burn natural grasses every other year.  This takes mechanization and fossil fuels.  It also takes money.

 

So, as you can see, I am carbon trapped in path dependencies too.  I make an effort to be greener with a lower foot print but I can only go so far because of economics and the reality of lack of animal and human labor plus the requirements of living a status quo life of car, mortgage, and taxes.  This article makes a very important point that the efforts I do that are greener should have more value to society.  My goats and cattle that are grass fed should receive a higher return.  Because agriculture is benchmarked by industrial practices, I am just a niche when I should be the way of life in regards to resilience, sustainability and a healthier local.

 

“Ask a Reductionist Question and You will Get a Reductionist Answer”

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-04-13/ask-a-reductionist-question-and-you-will-get-a-reductionist-answer/

 

“Through the narrow product perspective of the life cycle assessments the multiple functions of agriculture are overlooked. The method also fail to capture the indirect and dynamic effects of changes in the agriculture and food system as well as the feedback loops and drivers of the system…The narrow perspective that results from this product focus means that the multifunctional role of agriculture is excluded and that vital resources are neglected. LCA focus on negative environmental impacts of production but doesn’t consider positive impacts such as those in the ecosystem function framework (the authors refer to them as “services” but I prefer the term function as services leads the mind towards a narrow utilitarian, market based, view).  LCA mostly neglects impacts on biodiversity or reduce it to one simplistic measurement. But biodiversity is part of the agriculture system and not only an impact category. The same goes for land, where “land-use” often is part of an LCA, but land is an integral part of the agriculture system and not an input that is used in the production. By not recognizing these relationships LCA can’t deal with soil health, land degradation or agricultural bio-diversity itself.”

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

I am a green prepper.  I am close to nature as a permaculturist but also a naturalist.  I am repairing my local ecosystem of 500 acres in the MO Ozarks with native species but also managing invasives as the new natives.  I avoid chemicals and mechanized management technics but use them when the system gets too far from balance.  I also have a small multi-species grazing operation of goats and cattle who work together to manage pasture on 100 acres of 10 paddocks on these 500 acres.  I have small stocking rates so this covers cost but does not pay my labor.  Large stocking rates are needed to make a living in farming but then you naturally drift into industrial tendencies.  Yet, I have a food store.  I harvest solar energy through animals and plants.  I also have 3600 watt solar system with batteries.  I have a heating system for space heat and water that uses wood which my local has plenty of.  I sustainably manage my forests.  I also have a garden, orchard, and grapes.  Now all I need is more labor because I am at my limit.  This is a hybrid effort but one that attempts to go local in a delocalized world.

 

I am hopeful that this viral attack on globalism will also be an attack on delocalization so to speak.  I think it is important now to reflect on how brittle globalism is leaving locals massively exposed to healthcare issues and food issues.  That said a whole scale retreat from globalism is not advisable unless you want an extremism of death and destruction from cascading failures of important nodes of systematic support.  This is now the Anthropocene trap so complete deviation is not an option except if an extreme reset is desired.  Some want this but they have not thought it through.  They are emotional not rational.  It is better to adapt and mitigate just like what will need to be done with climate issues.

 

My point here of course is with two levels of honest science.  The first being honesty about the problem then honesty about the solutions.  Traps don’t get fixed they get adapted to.  Modern greens pride themselves on honest science with the problems but fail miserably with the solutions.  A solution with local farming will be a recognition that permaculture is a less affluent pathway not in regards to natural systems but in regards to market based economics.   A permaculture enthusiast will have to be poorer.  Those seeking subsidies need to recognize the world post pandemic is poorer.  That said governments can promote localism as they try to salvage their markets and safety-nets.

 

The biggest help would be getting out of the way of passionate people who seek this life.  The way they would do this is stop unfair markets and taxation for people that are at the grass roots level supporting the greater good.  Stop allowing big business that is hyper efficient because of economies of scale and specialization from out competing small communities and farms.  Locals maybe now can be helped to be buffers for areas what are densely populated and require constant energy inputs at high levels.  Small farms and communities can go intermittent with energy and more self-sufficient with food if promoted.  This then becomes an abstract battery or storage strategy in relation to what renewables are seeking.

 

Instead of being so concerned with techno optimism like the rich modern green is the REAL Green needs to consider behavioral changes of decline in place with dignity that yields a spiritual counterbalance to decreased comforts.  A hybrid of the modern and the poorer past is then combined to leverage best “things”, practices, and lifestyles of the modern and the old.  To top the list is stay local.  Make it easier for locals to stay in place.  Reduce consumerism that naturally delocalizes by whatever means is best for that local.  This must be done relatively in regards to the realistic.  The Anthropocene has changed the human and natural ecosystem so much that a proper level will need some delocalization tendencies by necessity.  This virus was an event but now a process of change can begin if we as a modern people summons the will.

Realgreenadaptation.blog