Treading lightly isn’t enough.

Just to clarify, the thesis that will underlie this entire blog from now on is this:

The triple whammy of credit crunch, climate change and peak oil will mean that the current Western capitalist affluent lifestyle becomes acutely unsustainable within our lifetime.

It’s not a comfortable thesis (to this I can attest, having had my head in the sand around it for the last several years). It may even (we hope) be wildly inaccurate. It’s not the intention of this blog to be a rant about how stupid everyone’s being and how doomed we all are if we keep it up – first, there are a lot of much-vilified voices in the desert doing this already. Second, we are in a poor position to point any fingers, given that at this point, we’re still operating within this system. Third, I have never been at all comfortable with telling others how they’re supposed to live.

The aim of this blog is to give an account of what we’re doing and why. You certainly don’t have to agree. For those who don’t, who think that climate change is a myth, that the scientists have the answers to the energy crisis, that the credit crunch will pass, that the above crises are merely a reflection of the trend toward scaremongering and catastrophisation in the media – I recommend watching this video:

Its thesis is applied to the climate change debate in particular, but it can equally apply to the other two. Put very simply, his argument concludes that, if there’s even the slightest chance that the doomsday-sayers are right, the only sensible move is to take some sort of action.

That’s all the arguing I’m going to be doing for our case. Do your own research. Form your own conclusion.

Mission Statement

The next step of our lives will take us out of existing systems and into a future which is more than just “sustainable” – which is actually geared to putting back into the environment and our community more than we take out of it.

our aim is

1) to get our basic needs met – that is to say:

  • food
  • water
  • shelter
  • fuel

- without further damaging an already maimed biosphere;

2) to create a system of living which is indefinitely replicable while still incrementally replenishing the environment; and

3) to show other people how to do likewise, and (thereby) create a community based on balance, co-operation, mindfulness and respect.

In order to meet these three aims, we are looking at three “legs” of development:

1) permaculture;

2) permafacture;

3) community-building.

Watch this space for details on each.

Our first steps in this direction

  • We’ve done, and we continue to do, immense amounts of research
  • We’ve signed up to the Permaculture Research Institute of Australia, Earthship Biotecture and Open Source Ecology‘s feeds, to stay current with their news
  • We’ve started to get involved in the permaculture and sustainability communities
  • We’re gathering arguments so as to put together a really hot proposal for applications for internships with Earthship Biotecture, where you learn intensively about all the Earthship techniques with the folks themselves over a period of some weeks
  • We’re planning a visit to the freshly built Earthship right here in Zwolle, the Netherlands
  • We attended a (rather ineffectual) sustainable building workshop in order to start learning some building techniques

What we’re getting right, right now

By the standards of your average household, I guess Chloe, Teesy, the Katten and I aren’t doing too badly. We use green power, we cycle, walk and PT it instead of owning a car, none of us has stepped in an aeroplane since we got a mortgage… we’re not buying stuff we don’t need, hell, we’re not buying a fair bit of stuff we actually do quite need. We recycle, of course. We also re-use like maniacs. We are (well, mainly C is, to be fair) in the process of establishing a kitchen garden and a grey water system to water it without using drinking water.

What we’re still doing wrong

Our insulation is non-existent here (the windows upstairs aren’t double glazed, we have no cavity wall insulation or batts), so we’re spending much more on heating than we should be.

We aren’t buying organic, or even local, because it’s either unfeasible, too expensive, or both. This means that almost everything we eat at the moment is hurting the world.

We use a fair bit more water than we need to.

We don’t leave our dogshit on the streets our neighbours have to share with us (this makes us unusual by Dutch standards, it seems!) – but we do put it in plastic bags and dispose of it in the garbage.

We are starting to grow our own food, but for now we’re using non-heritage seeds.

For the much-needed renovations to our house we are using conventional building materials, that is to say plaster, cement, silicone products, solvents, plastics, etc etc etc, all of which is doing harm not only in terms of the miles it has to travel from the place of manufacture, but also in terms of the damage it does to the environment both at the start of its life and (looking into the future) at the end of its usefulness.

We’re moving in a general direction of greater sustainability, but progress is slow and hampered by constraints of budget, location and dependence on existing systems.

Enough excuse-making.  Time – past time – to start changing.