sustainable civilization: from the grass roots up

Sustainable Civilization: From the Grass Roots UpIntroduction - Sustainability Challenges

Our predominant industry, political, and personal paradigms developed in an era of cheap abundant energy, expanding population, and what seemed to be unlimited resources. We have gone forth and multiplied (well beyond sustainable numbers) and subdued (perhaps fatally) the Earth.

The flow of stored energy needed to operate our infrastructure is ending. Belief in or dedication to a particular ideology may alter individual perceptions, but not physical facts. We need to re-think our civilization from the grass roots up, not bumble blindly on.

Do you care about the damage humans continue to do to the global environment?

Do you care about plants and animals having a “natural” habitat free of human interference?

Do you care about the level of resource waste committed by current human society?

Do you care about the overall quality of life for each living person?

We need to set aside the rigid mindset that separates and sees our infrastructure as distinct aspects of biological, structures and other engineering, and information and intellect. It all needs to work together with minimal loss of energy in such transformations as are necessary.

There are many treatises with theories on how many people could live on the Earth based on some minimum life support per person. I1

propose though we ask also, what is the minimum for new healthy generations,

maintaining community, and the benefits of an educated technical and developing civilization,

with an eye toward providing the best living conditions per person and opportunities for continued advancement of civilization, while reducing our impact on such as remains1 of nature.

INTRODUCTION

As we enter a new millennium, human civilization faces numerous challenges. Much of our present infrastructure and processes are not sustainable. Much of what we do threatens not only us, but all life on the planet.

- Industry pollutes with enduring toxins that not only kill but alter our DNA. - Fission reactors provide power for a few decades, all the while “threatening” to release a radioactive cloud, then require future generations guard against the dismantled parts for perhaps a hundred thousand years.

- We arguably divert one half of the renewable resources of the planet to human uses.- We use non-renewable resources in manners that destroy them.- The apparent abundance from hybrid crops is dependent on non-renewable resources and energy exponentially higher than the energy within the food.

- The farming and food infrastructure depletes the groundwater, mineral, and biological base essential for soil to grow healthy natural food. - Easy to mine metals and mineral resources are already "on the table". - The economy of many nations is based not on actual capability and production of the nation, but on borrowing and inflation of currency.

Close your eyes for a moment, and imagine you are traveling on a multi-generation spacecraft, powered by energy radiated from a fusion reactor.

1 This treatise and the related appendices and tabs represent the opinions and observations of the author, with full credit to the work of all others referenced. Thanks is given to all who provided input, and further factual critique is welcome.

SUSTAINABLE CIVILIZATION: From the Grass Roots Up of 167 Last printed 4/8/2023 9:37 AM

You have only the biological diversity and resources put on board by the builders. Awhile back people found accumulations of long-stored complex molecular feedstock that work as convenient fuel, and can help certain crops grow more abundant. The burning strains the air recycling system, but people love the extra food, products and services it allows.

The dramatic but obviously temporarily increase in the growth of food is met by expanded numbers until even these sources are strained, and continue to increase the population even in the face of facts that the food surplus cannot last the natural lifespan of the present population.

It's where we are today.

For the moment, our farms still grow sufficient food to feed everyone. But each new belly to fill, and each gallon of fertilizer and pesticide used, moves us closer to “peak food”. From that point on, the food infrastructure becomes less and less productive. Without reliable food, such veneer of civilization as holds back the "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" could easily crumble.

The world may appear large, but it is finite. We can calculate the available land, water, and other resources, and even our day to day allowance of incoming solar energy. We know the minimum calorie energy and nutrition required per person, and can calculate the area to grow food based on plant selection and growing conditions.

We are facing not any government created arbitrary currency or policy limit to human achievement, but the factors of physical resources, and centrally available energy. With enough energy, resources can be reworked. Without it we may leave much of the Earth a high-tech desert.

We can calculate the area required for solar energy to grow industrial materials and fuel, and the tradeoff in food area. We have calculated that we are already diverting to human use one-half of the productive life of the Earth. When you have estimated some basic footprint area per person, multiplying by 6 billion provides a sobering comparison to the available renewable resources of the Earth.

The concept of determining the "footprint", or area of naturally recycled resources required to provide for the uses of a person, city, nation, or the global population shows that in almost every defined area whether political or physical, we are beyond a sustainable population2. Eliminate all human resource use that is not "life-support" for a fixed population, and you still find sustainability is at best questionable. The present infrastructure is producing food beyond that which is calculable for the sustainable input. In general, it would take several additional planets to provide for humanities present resource use rate.

How is this possible? How are we providing for 6+ billion people? Our infrastructure is dependent on the non-renewable withdrawal of the energy valued stored in fossil fuels. The timeframe when the first non-renewable yet essential input fails to meet demand is the lifespan of our present civilized infrastructure.

Since the fossil fuel era really began, the global human population has increased six fold, now standing at more than six billion. We have a deadline and the clock is ticking. Business as usual is suicide. But those who see the problem and speak of it are maligned. Nevertheless those who can be awoken must be. To make the best decisions and implement the best courses of action we need the best minds at work. It will take time and significant effort to implement change.

U.S. ECONOMIC ILLUSION

The admitted U.S. government debt as of September 2007 was $8.965 trillion, and rising. This number represents recognized debt, such as

2 For those who have suffered thru a review of earlier versions of these written babblings, thank you for the feedback. Everything remains a "work in progress", and if anyone has an interest in this "Sustainable Civilization" or any of the appendices, just send an email request to: [email protected]


Treasury Bills, Savings Bonds, etc. Every year the amount is growing. But this huge number is just the tip of the iceberg.

In 2004 the trustees of Social Security and Medicare projected the current costs of promised payments to be around $74 trillion. Every year, the promises continue to grow, as does the "on the books" debt. Starting in 2008, the beginnings of the post WWII "baby boom" become eligible for their early Social Security payments. If/when these people, (who are among the highest tax paying workers) retire, federal tax income slumps, even as the promised payments balloon.

The federal government does not have the assets to make existing promised payments with “money” of real value, and politicians have no problem adding to the lies with further promised of money and benefits.

The government CANNOT provide guaranteed financial security. The government does not operate any for-profit business; it operates only by taking money from those who actually create profits, or by appearing to create "money" by inflating the currency, essentially stealing from anyone who holds the currency of the nation.

Remember, unlike a barter currency denominated in gold, grain, jugs of wine, or kilowatt hour of electricity, there is no inherent recognizable trade-good value to the U.S. dollar. The dollar only has value for so long as people believe3 it has. Although the dollar is used in trade between two willing parties, never forget that there is the third party of the government constantly manipulating the value of the dollar.

The economy, ANY economy, goes thru natural cycles of expansion and contraction, depending on the demographics of the population, resource changes, technological development, etc.

Even if there was unlimited and free fossil fuel to provide the energy to operate the economy, there is no apparent way that the U.S. could actually pay this debt in real value. The only apparent "out" for the government is inflation.

This creation of money out of thin air DESTROYS the value of existing money.

There are nations that actually spend less then tax revenues. Of all the nations on the planet, the U.S. is THE WORST in deficit spending. We annually go into debt more than every other nation on the face of the planet combined.

Denying the situation, and actively making it worse, seems insane, unless you realize our politicians, and our news media, are fully aware of the situation, and the fact there is no sane way out. Stop the overspending, and the economy crashes now. Announce the promises won't be paid, and there is political fallout, and the economy crashes now. Keep churning out the promises, and MAYBE your term4 will end quietly, and someone else will have to account for the disaster.

It's the same with the "peak oil"2 situation. Those who run government and businesses appear determined to run full speed for as long as possible. They have been advised repeatedly of the problems we face. The rational conclusion is they do not see any solution from the top down.

SUSTAINABILITY AS A CONCEPT

A Sustainable Civilization is one where the needs of the present can be met without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It is one where there are feedback loops, physical and mental, personal, family, and societal which keep in check population growth and resource use. It is one where resources, physical and energy are “banked” as a safety net, and to allow concentrated large expenditures for improvement projects.

Can you think of any problem in any area of human endeavor, on any scale, from microscopic to global, whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way aided, assistd, or advanced by further increases

3 The basis of confidence in the U.S. dollar is the global influence of a robust economy of the United States, and the influence of our international policies, including military interventions. Without these, global confidence in the dollar would wane, and its value could disappear.4 For an expanded review of economics, and addressing it in your personal affairs, see the Estate and Financial Planning appendix.


in population, locally, nationally, or globally? - Professor A.A. Bartlett

The time required for a society to make a planned transition to sustainability on its own terms, so it can live within the carrying capacity of its ecosystem, increases with increases in

i ) the size of its population

ii ) the rate of growth of its population

iii ) the society's average per-capita rate of consumption of new resources.

Unlike plagues of the dark ages or contemporary diseases we do not understand, the modern plague of overpopulation is soluble by means we have discovered and with resources we posses. What is lacking is not sufficient knowledge of the solution but universal consciousness of the gravity of the problem and education of the billions who are its victim.-Martin Luther King, Jr., 1929-1968

Sustainable civilization is not about integrating humanity into natural ecosystems. What we need to do regarding such of the natural world as remains, is to leave it alone.

Sustainable civilization is about the human community as a distinct ecology.

The word sustainable implies the ability to continue for an indefinite period. We should be considering the period in which we hope humans will inhabit the Earth, at least several thousand years or until we develop interstellar travel and can truly go elsewhere.

To put sustainable into an easier to comprehend timeframe consider, as did earlier occupants of this country, seven generations.

"In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations"

- From the Great Law of the Iroquois Nation

If we consider the range of child bearing years to be between the ages of 16 to 40, seven generations is somewhere between 96 and 280 years.

What are the effects of your decisions and actions on each of the next seven generations? What argument do you document for history if your resources use is destructive and lessens the options of a future generation?

How much of infrastructure of present-day civilization has been in place for 200 or more years, can be powered or provide for, or otherwise be useful 200 years or more from now?

Fossils as old as half a million years show essentially physically present day human remains. Will humans, and human civilization, still be here in another half million years?

Despite stories of places such as Atlantis, the archeological record appears to show that as of the end of the last ice age human civilization was still at the hunter-gatherer level, with perhaps a total population of 37 million people. We have destroyed a great deal of the wilderness, and if we lose civilization and fall again to such a level, we can expect the sustainable population of humans to be significantly less than this.

In his work Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond shows that it was their physical environment, in particular crops and animals readily domesticated, rather than a biological difference in peoples which lead to the significant differences in development.

For a brief period, withdrawal from the energy account represented by oil has permitted humans to live in places, numbers, and manners that are otherwise not possible. We now face the real potential for collapse of civilization on a global scale, with much of the natural ecology already gone, and the remaining already overtaxed.

If we lose civilization, there is no known bank of energy to power rebuilding and continue to provide for a large population. We must understand the meaning and consequences of our


demand and use of the resources of the world, what we can, and cannot do.

RESOURCE USE CONSIDERED

For all practical purposes, resources can be considered as renewable, or finite. Our resource use can also been seen as destructive or reusable.

Renewable resources (i.e. air, water, food, solar energy) cannot sustainably be used at a rate greater than renewal. Renewable resources can arguably be used to some extent in a "destructive" manner, such as boiling away water, or burning wood, where natural processes, or human technology such as a steam condenser can bring the resource back to a useful form.

Finite resources such as oil can "renewably" be used in non-destructive manners, such as feedstock for plastics or lubricants. But when these are destructively (i.e. burned) used for all practical purposes the resource is gone.

Groundwater is a prime renewable resource example. Groundwater is in essence a big, leaky rainbarrel. When it is pumped out faster than it is being refilled, the water table drops. Some groundwater is “fossil water”, in place since the last, or previous ice-age melt. Once used, it is gone forever, for all practical human purposes.

We drawn down our “bank account” of fossil fuels to propel our vehicles, and turn our generators. At some point, potentially much sooner than we like, any need for these trips, and our electrical power, will have to be met by another means:

- A renewable fuel- A non fuel burning transport- Relocate daily needs within walking distance- Power from other sources, reduced or eliminated demand

No aspect of civilization that must be sustained indefinitely could rationally be based on the destructive use of a non-renewable resource. (Our whole civilization suffers this insanity.)

HIDDEN RESOURCE DEPENDENCEFOSSIL ENERGY EMBEDDED IN FOOD

In peak oil discussions it is frequently presented that food production using hybrid / green revolution crops requires 10 calories3 of input (in the form of pesticides and fertilizers) for every calorie of food produced. The Columbia University "Vertical Farm" project raises this estimate to 20:1. (Transportation or cooking of the food NOT included in this estimate.) What does this translate to in real world terms?

In general, a human needs 2000 calories of energy per day. Although they are normally spelled the same, a food calorie is in fact 1,000 "heat" calories. Posit therefore that a gallon of gasoline contains 144,000 BTU, which equals around 36,000 food calories. If the peak oil commentators are right then to produce 2,000 calories of food requires5 the use of 20,000 calories of oil. (55% of a gallon)

For a projected U.S. population of 300 million, annually it is around 60 BILLION gallons, or between 15% and 20% of U.S. annual fossil fuel use as oil. At $2.92 per gallon almost $178 BILLION in oil just to produce our food.

As an example, if you eat commercially produced food6, you daily meals represent a dependency4 on oil equal to a 30 mpg vehicle driving 16 miles.

Absent this un-sustainable input, the food production miracle of the green revolution crops, in use worldwide, and upon which the majority of the 6+ billion population depends, ends.

FRAMING THE PICTURE

The focus of this treatise is not intended to be on fossil fuel use, but we must acknowledge our present infrastructure is essentially dependent on energy from consumption of cheap, abundant oil.

When humanity started its 100+ year oil party most of the 1 billion or so individuals lived primarily in small, essentially self-sufficient communities.

5 Please note, all energy transformation calculations presented in this treatise are “rough”, and do not take into account energy loss in the transformations. Your real world mileage may vary.6 Please note, if you are manually gardening at home, fertilizing with such as humanure, your scraps, etc., your food should essentially be carbon-neutral.


Like spendthrift heirs, we have squandered most of the incredible resource oil represented not in long term improvements, but on devices, uses, and life support for an expanding population, which demands ever-faster destruction of the remaining stored energy.

Nations such as the United States, with a per person energy and resource use that is probably greater than that of any other definable group on the planet, rightfully deserve the "blame" of their increased throughput. But there is more to the story.

To those who consider the concept of long term sustainability, the challenges of the coming "peak oil", and the realization of how dependent we are on the destruction of non-renewable resources…

You have the choice offered by Morpheus, in "The Matrix":

Take the blue pill, wake up and believe whatever you like, or:

Take the red pill, but "… you may not like how deep the rabbit hole goes…"

To achieve sustainability is going to present large challenges, and you may not like what is necessary. But first and foremost, think.

"Sustainability" must become part of every decision. It's not that driving a gas-guzzling vehicle is "wrong". It's a waste of a finite resource, yes, but it's the personal decision of the driver.

The "problem" comes when the same destruction of a finite resource is the sole means to provide an essential aspect of life, society, or civilization, where the need is known to be long-term and far outlasting the finite resource.

The fossil energy embedded in food shows that the peak in oil availability is a concern not only for those who drive a huge SUV, but everyone dependent on green-revolution crops. This scientific miracle, feeding an expanding population, has been a spiraling short-sighted mistake. We do not need to reach the point

where we are “out” of oil, for significant problems to arise.

Whether you are picking garden plants, planning for your healthcare, deciding on your vote for propositions or politicians, LOOK TO THE LONG TERM, or if not acknowledge you don't care about your children's future.

Essentially the entire global socio-economic-industrial system, all of the jobs, and the government tax revenue dependent on such, evolved and developed under a paradigm of continued growth in population, expanding food supply, and in particular expanding energy supplies. As fossil fuels are depleted, this all stops.

All of the fossil fuel powered machines, stop.

All of the crops dependent on fossil fuel derived pesticides and fertilizers, stop.

The businesses, and tax revenues, stop.

The government programs, stop.

The federal government will have difficulty keeping national defense in operation, let alone having any useful funding for anything else. Yes, the federal government can pay out any amount it likes:

It can print money.

It can go into debt:

For money that it eventually, somehow, repays (not likely), or;

It can go into debt for money it never intends to repay.

Expanding "money" in these manners7 is a source of inflation.

Expanding demand though, whether per person, or in the number of people, is a source of "actual" price increases.

Do NOT believe that any federally funded program is "sustainable".

7 In what has become traditional inflation, the supply and demand for goods and services remains fairly stable, while the money supply is increased. This leads to overall price and wage increases, but little to no net change in spending decisions.


The situation with the government of a state is further limited. The state cannot print money, it can only hold a gun to the head of the state residents and demand a percentage of the value the residents have produced. It is the same the rest of the way down the government chain.

We are entering a new paradigm, which requires essentially a steady-state population.

Life support, clean air, safe water, and nutritious food, must again be local.

Resources and energy must be accumulated, and used and invested wisely.

The economy, at least whatever aspects you rely on, must be local.

If the excesses in production end, so do the excessive tax revenue that funds growing programs. Are we going to have a society of free individuals working together voluntarily, or a complete take over by governments controlling every aspect of life? Virtually anything in-between is an inherent conflict.

If you believe that business as usual can continue, whether for individuals, private sector businesses, or the government, ask yourself how?

PEAK OIL

"Peak Oil", which is the point where the wells simply cannot be pumped as fast as demand, may soon be reached. Some say it already has. Sometime before exhaustion, as wells dry up, oil will no longer be cheap, or abundant, and the present infrastructure will have to be progressively shut down.

There are those who advocate a position8 that notwithstanding historical or present use of oil, that with technology we can eliminate our dependence on oil, yet continue to operate our

highly fuel dependent economy and infrastructure.

And the information on remaining supplies is not necessarily reliable. In early 2006, Kuwait announced it had mis-represented its remaining supply of oil to be twice the true amount.

In late 2006 Mexico announced that its giant Cantrell oil field which at its peak produced around 730 million barrels per year has fallen to 650 million with progressive decline expected. This one field represents 2% of the world capacity.

CO2 & GLOBAL WARMING

Whether you believe the global temperature is rising, or that human activity is a cause, the CO2 level in the atmosphere is increasing. Glaciers9

and the polar ice caps are melting.

For relevant background, one gallon of gasoline weighs about 6.25 pounds. When burned the hydrocarbons combine with oxygen from the air. The result per gallon is exhaust with a CO2 aspect of 19.3 pounds and around 8 pounds (1 gallon in liquid form) of water vapor, both greenhouse gases which would not naturally have been in the atmosphere. You also get carbon monoxide and other nasty stuff.

Every gallon of gasoline burned releases CO2 equal to nine people breathing a full day. (Est. at 2.2 pounds of CO2 per person per day.) To use plants to remove the CO2, for each gallon of gasoline burned you would need to use organic methods to grow around 1/2 acre of lush vegetation, gather it all, and seal it away "forever" such that it is never eaten or rotted10.

If the peak oil and fossil fuel depletion folks are anywhere near right, within a decade rising demand (i.e. China at around 14% per year) and falling supply (i.e. the losses in the Cantrell field in Mexico) WILL, absent a scientific miracle, prompt a return to "King Coal" and the

8 “Winning the Oil Endgame”, Armory B. Lovins makes the best presentation this author has found. He and his associates at the Rocky Mountain Institute are, compared to this author, quite optimistic. 9 Collapse of Greenland Ice Shield – Consequences, By Dr John James August, 2006 - The Greenland glacier ice cover contains enough water to raise sea level twenty feet. The ice is melting, and the melted water is seeping to the anchorage rock to loosen the mass. At some point there is the risk that a mountain of ice will flow into the sea. Twenty-one glacial masses are moving seawards eight times faster than ten years ago. It would seem we are on the verge of a major tipping point, if we have not already reached it.


associated greater pollution, and the short term benefit (long term danger) of fission reactors. This allows a short-term continuation of the status quo, followed by collapse if we've not used the time and resources to shift to a sustainable infrastructure and balanced population.

If the global warming sentinels such as Vice President Gore are correct5, if we continue fossil fuel use, our "best case6" scenario could be the global warming presented in his book and movie "An Inconvenient Truth", with the same need for a sustainable infrastructure and balanced population, but with an ecosphere more polluted and with lessened life-support capability.

Making even morning television news in 2007 is the melting of the Greenland7 ice cover. Observations are that as it melts it develops crevices, tunnels and faults through which the melted water seeps to the buried surface, making a slick between the glaciers and the rock holding it up. This scenario potentially allows, when the applicable “tipping point” is reached, for the mountain of ice to slide toward the sea in a relatively short period of time. The Greenland glaciers contain enough water to raise sea level twenty feet, or seven meters.

This challenges coastal communities worldwide. While the fastest slide would allow populations to walk away from the coast, constructed and food infrastructure would have to be rebuilt on higher ground. The changes on current flow in the Atlantic, and weather patterns, can only be guessed at. Loss of the weight of the ice could cause the land mass of Greenland to be pushed up, leading to seismic events and further distortion of the land/sea area ratio. A US Navy survey suggests that Arctic polar ice will be gone by 2016. What are your thoughts and plans if this means the Greenland ice melts around the same timeframe?

Whether voluntarily now, or from exhaustion a few more polluted decades from now, the central theme is the end of the fossil fuel era, and all of infrastructure and aspects of civilization that are dependent on such.

ARE YOU PREPARED11?

CONSERVATION

Minor conservation efforts such as driving a hybrid (the author drives a Prius) may reduce your personal costs and allow you to divert the savings for greater personal changes, but they have virtually NO significance in the overall picture.

The oil I don't burn is bought and used by someone else, perhaps as farm chemicals. Virtually nothing we do today has any meaning if your goal is our children living as adults in a world still powered by oil.

In a manner of speaking, we are living in a theme park, what we experience as our life support infrastructure is no more real for the long-term than the experiences of an amusement park visit. No fossil fuel use is sustainable. No function based on such is sustainable. No economy based on fossil fuels is sustainable. No government program based on the economy of a fossil fueled society is sustainable.

Conservation does not remove the conundrum of embedded fossil fuels in our food, without which the industrial food infrastructure that feeds the present population fails.

In the big picture, we need to end all dependence on non-sustainable factors, STARTING with fossil fuels. As an example, if this country gets cut-off from foreign oil, in a matter of weeks virtually everything we see and experience as modern society will shut down. Is your personal "life support" and "security" arrangements ready for this?

10 The author heard a presentation by a lawn-care firm that growing a lush lawn was good for the environment – removing CO2 – that was then good for creating compost. The presenter did not get, or refused to admit, that as the grass composted, the CO2 was re-released to the atmosphere. 11 WHAT TO DO - Get in control of your own life. Wake up and involve family and friends. Act as if the fertilizer has already hit the fan. Take steps to eliminate your dependency on un-sustainable factors. Gather knowledge and skills. Stop unnecessary spending, but invest in goods to protect your family and their health, food, water, safe living space, and defense.


No conservation measure for oil is going to make anything "better" unless it is linked to a program to end our addiction in the time the conservation programs allows. Absent such a link, conservation that merely provides "more of the same" prompts a larger and more dependent population, and portends a greater "hangover" to our oil party.

Unless you are, as Heinberg comments, "Waiting for the magic elixir", your children need to understand the scope of the situation and know how to obtain the essentials of life in a sustainable manner, and how to avoid the worst of the collapse that he and other peak oil advocates present.

Even if global population was in decline, draconian conservation methods may not allow for remaining fossil fuel use to continue long enough for global population to lower to sustainable levels. The transition period to a post-oil paradigm promises to be an unpleasant, dangerous time, during which individual survival may be difficult, and with a significant risk that civilization itself may be lost.

Fossil fuels represent an essentially nonrenewable resource of untold millions of year’s accumulation of energy, which our use destroys in a comparative blink of the eye.. In the manner we use much of it, we destroy other aspects of the environment. Burning it for energy is silly, but at least when we are forced to stop, the impact is not directly life threatening. Perhaps our greatest insanity is our use of fossil fuels as fertilizer, pesticides, and powering machines to greatly expand food production, and the population that has grown far beyond levels that can be sustained in an environmentally favorable manner on renewable resources.

POPULATION STABILITYCENTRAL SUSTAINABILITY ISSUE

The problem with peak oil is not gas guzzling SUVs, diesels or two stroke engines spewing fumes, or the energy embedded in our food.

It's what we can do, what we have, and what can be sustained absent non-renewable resources. To those newly arrived to the concept of peak oil, and the realization of how dependent we are on the destruction of non-renewable resources…

There are8 roughly as many humans alive now as existed cumulatively throughout all of recorded history prior to the industrial revolution. That means that a large proportion of all the geniuses - and monsters - who have ever lived are alive today. Most of the modern infrastructure has been constructed in a single lifetime, and was not designed or engineered to last.

In the big picture, the world is NOT going to sustain 6+ billion people absent the green revolution crops (dependent on fossil fuel derived fertilizers and pesticides), the engines and machines that pump the groundwater (beyond renewal rate), plow the fields, process the food, etc.

No matter how bad we may think things could become, we must keep our heads, and teach our children to do the same. Hopefully, we will not reach a point where our government intrudes on family decisions. But short of affirmative limits being imposed, we can at least "lobby" for elimination of misguided incentive to expansion.

Communities9 can slow their population growth by removing the many visible and hidden public subsidies that support and encourage growth. The Tragedy of the Commons (Hardin 1968) makes it clear that there will always be large opposition to programs of making population growth pay for itself... Those who profit from growth will use their considerable resources to convince the community that the community should pay the costs of growth. In our communities, making growth pay for itself could be a major tool to use in stopping the population growth...

But if you have done the right thing and turned your community into a permaculture paradise, there is still the question of how to you prevent your community from being overrun?

SCOPE OF THE OIL SITUATIONUNITED STATES EXAMPLED

For the moment the U.S. is the largest single nation oil consumer, with the highest average per person oil use. Let's look at the basic oil facts for the United States to try and start to put the situation in perspective.


The United States Department of Energy (DOE) estimates that in 2004 the continental U.S. remaining traditional oil supply was somewhat less than 22 billion barrels (BBL). The widely debated (whether to drill or not) Alaskan wilderness fields represent probably another 10 BBL. DOE also estimates that U.S. 2004 use was 7.5 BBL (elsewhere estimated at 10 BBL/Year). Where do you imagine12 we could possibly get annual energy income from renewable resources equal to the fuel equivalent of 10 billion barrels of oil?

The remaining domestic fossil fuel bank account represents less than 3 years of present demand, but of course the remaining wells CANNOT be pumped fast enough to meet that demand. U.S. defense use is (2005) was estimated at around 123 million barrels per year (1% to 2% of total U.S. use), with 72% of such being in the form of jet fuel. The 2006 “Annual Energy Management Report” indicated the Pentagon used 116,800,000 barrels of petroleum, which is 1.1% of U.S. annual use.

If we just had to keep our military machines in operation, our (2006) remaining internal supplies could meet current military fuel needs for well over 100 years, but the supplies CANNOT operate any significant portion of the economy, including weapons construction, or even current food.

DOE indicates the U.S. only pumps 8% of our own use. Emergency measures might increase the pumping rate significantly, but it is doubtful it could even reach 50% of present use.

U.S. TIMELINE - WORST CASE

Posit that there is a 10 day supply of oil and fuels "in the pipeline" at any given time. Oil production (pumping rate) in the U.S. passed peak production in the early 1970’s, and has been in decline since then. If the U.S. gets cut off from foreign fuel supplies, in 10 days the commercial supply drops to about 8% of expected demand. With a slow decline we might have something like that for perhaps 20 years final exhaustion.

Food alone may represent 20%+ of the U.S. annual use. In a United States cut off from foreign oil, using present industrial farming, we might be able to feed 40% of the current population, which would preclude any internal use of oil to expand domestic production, or rework infrastructure for a solar economy. The U.S. is reported to have 4% of the remaining global supply. This puts the global supply at around 800 BBL.

We need to act to eliminate this dependency before an emergency is upon us.

GLOBAL DEPLETION

Recent (2004) global oil use approached 30 billion barrels (BBL) per year. 800/30 = 26 years (2030). Using more optimistic estimates of remaining useable supply, at recent consumption rates global oil supplies still may be exhausted before 2040. Even if you completely eliminated the U.S., the time for global depletion is only delayed by around 30%.

But of course, demand is not stable. In fact it rises every year. Perhaps the most significant factor is the expanding use in China. In 2004 China burned around 2.4 BBL, or about 8% of the annual global use. This was a 14% increase from 2003.

If every other nation on the Earth held their use to 2004 levels, and China increased yearly at their recent rates, depletion would occur around 2024. But long before depletion, we encounter the challenge of demand exceeding pumping rate.

FOSSIL FUEL VALUE IN PERSPECTIVE

When demand exceeds possible supply, expect prices to rise. A price / work comparison of oil in terms of human labor, perhaps pointless, but nevertheless presented: A human can work at around 75 watt per hour (256 BTU). In the U.S., minimum wage is something like $5.25 per hour. A gallon of fuel may be able to do 144,000 BTU of work, or around 562 hours of human labor.

12 To example, an estimate of the best wood yield is 2 cord per acre per year, or 40,960,000 BTU per acre per year. 10 billion barrels of oil is 60,480 trillion BTU, essentially equal to the annual firewood growth of 2.3 million square miles, or an area just over 1,500 miles on a side clear-cut each year.


At the U.S. minimum wage each gallon is doing the "work" of over $3,000 worth of human labor. Oil has annually provided in recent years energy to power civilization that is roughly equal to the dedicated labor of 250 billion slaves, who do not have to be feed, provided clothing, shelter, medical care, days off, etc.

Conversely, one hour of human labor (75 watthour) not enhanced by a need for a functioning mind, is worth the same as about 3/10 of one ounce of gasoline. At say $3.00 per gallon, one hour of such mindless human labor would be worth just over ½ cent. In electrical terms at 8 cents per kwh a hour of mindless human labor is “worth” 6/10 cent.

There may be up to 1,200 billion barrels of oil left that can be usefully obtained. 1,200 billion barrels of oil is difficult to envision, but at this time it is what the infrastructure of present day civilization is dependent upon. To put this "best case" quantify of oil in perspective, how much would it be if it were already pumped out, and divided equally among everyone on the planet?

Your personal "best case" share, upon which you are betting the future of your children, grandchildren,, etc. would be around 7,600 gallons. Do you want your future dependent on the quantity of oil that fills an above ground swimming pool 5' deep and 16' in diameter?

BIG PICTURE BEST CASE TIMELINE

The known available & remaining "fossil" alternatives, if energy is not used at any rate greater than 2005, put humanity in a timeframe that is essentially:

2030 - Pick you own year for effective depletion of traditional oil. +5 - Time gained from tar sands +22 - Time gained from shale oil +20 - Time gained from coal to oil +30 - Time gained from easy uranium2107 - Most optimistic “fossil” options end

The author believes the above timeline is far too optimistic, but it can at least be argued using known data, and assuming no increase in demand, no increase in population, and global

peace is enforced. At the end of course, the population must somehow plummet.

2006 - Global population around 6.6 Billion.

It can be argued that a sustainable global population can not exceed 1.2 billion, essentially what it was before the oil party started. Population demographics10 are such that if a one child per couple guideline was rigorously followed, we might expect natural attrition to lower the population to 1.2 billion by 2087.The real-world situation of course is that overall the population continues to grow. Despite the "bad press" absent immigration and pro-population growth government programs, the population in the United States would be stable or maybe in a slow decline, EXACTLY WHAT IS REQUIRED.

In contract China requires a new city the size of Philadelphia EVERY 30 DAYS.

ELIMINATE FOSSIL FUEL DEPENDENCY

Whether to avoid global warming, or due to effective depletion of fossil fuels, we will be forced to stop burning such. Look at what DOES NOT work without fossil fuels, or the ongoing input of fossil fuel derived molecules (such as pesticides and fertilizers), and start your own steps toward sustainability. The present global civilization evolved in a paradigm of continued growth in population and energy use, neither of which is logically sustainable. We need to look at what is needed for a sustainable civilization, starting our picture from the grass roots up.

If you want to influence a country’s intellectual trend, the first step is to bring order to your own ideas and integrate them into a consistent case, to the best of your knowledge and ability. Required is honesty, knowing what you do not know, constantly expanding your knowledge, and NEVER evading or failing to correct a contradiction. This means development of an active mind as a permanent attribute. -Ayn Rand

PREPARATION

The more people who are aware and prepared in any emergency situation, the better the


opportunity to reduce the overall impact and panic. Startled and frightened and/or angered and vengeful individuals will not be thinking clearly and acting rationally.

The problem is not availability of information but a refusal to see it. Not an overall lack of mental ability, but a refusal to think.

Each of us must shortly choose a new path, or we will be forced into one. Do you want to survive? Do you know what it takes to sustain yourself in a limited resource environment? A little knowledge, and a lot of enthusiasm, can go a long way.

Photosynthesizers are the basic energy source for any ecosystem, which is a complex web of living and non-living factors. These webs are not fixed, like parts of a machine, but the do eventually develop relative stable ranges of numbers of each member of the system. Despite our relative isolation in homes, and cities, humans must nevertheless be seen as PART of an ecosystem.

We need to recycle biomaterials, grow a diverse mix of crops in a multitude of micro environments, with hand cultivation to minimize soil disruption, with an aim to establishing a stable ecosystem.

Where are YOU going?

We can ignore depletion, and continue as we are, have good times until the fossil fuel era ends, and face whatever disaster is presented.

We can personally conserve, but if we do not build for the post oil paradigm, we miss out on the good times until the fossil fuel era ends, and face whatever disaster is presented.

We can personally conserve, and use "excess" resources to take advantage of the remaining time, cheap energy and materials, to step past the collapse, into the post-oil paradigm. For the present, it is still possible to "click", or make a phone call, and have services or supplies delivered. After the crash becomes widely apparent, it will probably be too late for individuals to afford significant preparations.

When do you need to act? Back in January 2004, Professor Kenneth S. Deffeyes, of

Princeton University, jokingly predicted we would reach the half-way point for the remaining oil supply on November 24, 2005 (Thanksgiving Day). Using best available data, after the fact he has corrected himself. He calculates that we passed the half-way point on December 16, 2005.

We need to effectively and efficiently network and focus our distributed capabilities and resources to maximize all of our transition to a sustainable paradigm.

In the collapse of previous complex societies, when they were geographically isolated, individuals survived by dispersing into the wilderness, and foraging. There was however, always "civilization" elsewhere on the Earth. The collapse we face will essentially occur simultaneously worldwide.

There is not sufficient "wilderness" left between complex centers in which the present population could disperse. Clive Ponting, in "A Green History of the World" writes that a human population of around four million, achieved about 10,000 years ago, may be the maximum supportable by a hunter gatherer society, and that in the abundant wild of the time.

By around 1800, the limits of local, self-sufficient agriculture and fertile land were essentially reached, with a global population of less than 1 billion. Since that time, we have used, and abandoned many marginal farming areas, and in our chemical applications and one-way nutrient flow denigrated what might have otherwise been fertile fields.

In that a hunter-forager lifestyle, or even a return to animal powered and manured agriculture requires a GREATER area per person, they appears to be a guaranteed method to a large population dieoff, and perhaps a death-knell for the remaining wilderness.

EPIPHANY - SURVIVALISM IS DEAD END THINKING

My initial reaction nearly a decade ago to awakening to more detail of our oil dependency was survivalist, with plans for a remote retreat. We purchased a little over 40 acres of remote desert land, and started putting in the necessary support for a remote homestead, essentially a


survivalist retreat. It had been part of a cattle ranch, and came with and old windmill, water tanks, fencing, etc. as part of the old operation.

The area received more than 12" of rainfall per year, and had plenty of underground water not very deep. It also had plenty of mesquite trees, cactus, jackrabbits, coyote and snakes. From our highest hill, I could see the three plus miles to the nearest paved surface. In effect, I has hoping that I could run and hide, hoping that someone else would "do something" to take care of the problem.

On a summer afternoon I was there alone investigating the property. Climbing one of our hills, at the top, my chest hurt. I reached for the cell phone to call for help, and had my epiphany.

Even if I dialed 911, and an ambulance was dispatched immediately, the coyotes could be munching on my remains long before an ambulance could travel the nearly 30 miles of paved road, then 6 miles of winding dirt to my location.

Survivalist bunkers13, or disbursing the population precludes the interaction among people essential to maintain specialized technical skills and knowledge.

Hiding may still be the best survival step, but in the bigger picture, it's a dead end14. We needed a different, and hopefully better "Plan A" than an isolated bunker.

Even if there is some well hidden "Galt's Gulch" retreat for the wealthy and powerful, there are limits as to what can be achieved in a small community. Giver the highly interactive nature

of current civilization, the physical limits are not however immediately self-evident.

Even basic information on physical needs was not readily available in a manner relevant to building or reworking for sustainable community. Survival is an inherent aspect of ongoing life, but this treatise is not "survivalist" in nature.

PRESERVE A STABLE FOUNDATION

If you start immediately, while resources are still abundant, you may be able to create security for self, family, and community during the crash. Hopefully you can initiate or associate with a community structured to function in the new paradigm. It will be upon those who survive, with knowledge, skills, and abilities intact, who are well fed, with excess resources, to create a positive future for humanity, if there is to be one.

THE NEAR FUTURE

Heinberg presents in his book Powerdown essentially four positions regarding peak oil. Last man standing, waiting for the magic elixir, powerdown, and building lifeboats.

Governments by their nature tend toward the use of force to take what is wanted. It is probable that to AVOID a world at war, a collection of powers, probably “lead” by the U.S., must act as global policemen to enforce a policy that nations will not fight over resources. It could mean maintaining military forces in oil areas for the duration of mankind’s dependency on oil.

There are those who are confident that new technological developments will make oil irrelevant, indeed, that oil companies have

13 Survivalist bunkers may nevertheless become necessary, as those who claim authority over your life and property instigate escalating conflict. Such may be covered in potential appendixes such as defense. 14 For those who MUST have some survivalist data, shield materials for gamma rays are expressed in terms of the thickness necessary to reduce the radiation intensity by one half the initial value. For a rule of thumb, 10 halving thicknesses should be planned for.

Lead - 1 cm (0.4 inches)Concrete - 6 cm (2 1/2 inches)Packed Dirt - 9 cm (3 1/2 inches)Steel - 2 cmWater - 12 cmWood - 22 cm


suppressed such developments. The conspiracy theorists may be right. We may indeed leapfrog the currently touted "hydrogen economy" into "STAR TREK" technology.

While I do not expect this leap in our immediate future, I acknowledge there is potentially much science for us yet to learn, IF we can maintain functioning civilization, and act intelligently. A joke, which I've seen attributed to Iassic Asimov, is that perhaps supernova stars are not natural events after all, but rather alien civilizations who have an "industrial accident" with a zero point energy device.

Even if there is no explosive potential, each such device is a new source of surface heat. Imagine the effect of billions or trillions of them in operation. But until these devices are clearly demonstrated, we must act within available known technology, products and knowledge.

We can voluntarily reduce our resource demands, both in per person demand, and working toward a smaller population, or we can individually look to the battles of “last man standing”.

Beyond reducing resource demands, we can individually, and in expanding groups, re-work our own lives to eliminate our dependency on non-renewable resources.

COPING WITH AWAKENING

We sincerely appear to be approaching a crossroad, where we will have to choose between business as usual, leading to a collapse of civilization, and voluntarily changing our infrastructure and lifestyle to one that provides for continued and sustainable development.

Perhaps we should apply Dr. Kubler-Ross' 5 stages of grief, to humanities present global situation.

The first stage is denial. "There's plenty of oil"… or food… or water… or room on the planet…

Next comes anger or resentment. "Who did this!" or "We've been set up!".

The third stage is bargaining. "If I can just make it to retirement", or "…get the kids thru college", or "If we impose taxes… or rationing… we can…" delay the obvious outcome, and sooth ourselves by not having to think about it now.

The fourth stage is depression. A population sustainable absent non-renewable input and the present infrastructure is MUCH smaller than alive today, no visible program of conservation allows supplies to be stretched to match any "natural" population reduction, and extensive conservation would cause economic collapse of the infrastructure. There is no apparent "safe" landing for most of the planet.

Finally comes acceptance. You can't save the world. In terms of current human society, it may not be worth saving. You may not be among the small percent with the personal knowledge, skills, and ambition to save yourself and your family. Any effort may be futile, but do you elect to do nothing, or calmly analyze what is needed for the future after the crash, and where to invest your energy now for the best return in your future living conditions?

If you are looking for someone to be the pioneer for positive change, look in the mirror and realize that some must be those who wake up. Envisioning a high tech, complex civilization from the top down is an incredible challenge. So don't try to.

WHAT TO DO UNTIL THE LAST DROP

In disaster preparedness planning, mitigation efforts are those that reduce or eliminate some aspect of the disaster15 addressed. With proper preparedness, you can mitigate much of the foreseeable personal consequences of resource depletion (such as peak oil) and demand (per person and standing population) exceeding possible supply of renewable resources.

While our challenges are global in scope, there is no readily apparent big-picture or top-down solution. Everything from our pollution of the

15 NOTE: In disaster preparedness, the focus is normally not avoiding the fact of “disaster”, but establishing ways to either reduce the impact of the disaster on you, or for you to be prepared to deal with the consequences of the disaster.


air & water, unsustainable food systems, dependence on “mining” of even fossil water, emphasizes that the solutions need to be implemented starting at the most basic levels in order for the bigger picture to be one of comprehensive, effective, and lasting solutions, such as are appropriate to the local conditions.

You can complain about the situation, and demand someone else act, or you can take personal initiative and responsibility, get your own house in order, and serve as an example and guide to others. You can seed a grass-roots effort to redevelop and rebuild your community.

The post-Katrina events in New Orleans included expected riots, theft, and assaults. The complex and expensive infrastructure and controls of the city, and larger governmental entities, failed. There were also though instances of people banding together for protection and mutual support. You must get beyond coping, and act.

1. Accept that oil, and other fossil fuels are a finite resource. Accept they are, and will continue to be burned. Not only can't you stop it, our infrastructure is so dependent that stopping the burning and other fossil fuel uses could trigger the crash of civilization.

2. Don't feel "guilty" about your personal use of fossil fuels, BUT take prompt steps to lessen and "ASAP" eliminate your DEPENDENCE on such. (Including your dependence on the fossil fueled infrastructure, including food and earnings to pay debts.)

3. Select your personal vision of what an oil depletion (and depletion of our other finite resources) scenario looks like, and act accordingly. If you expect World War III, head for the hills, build and stockpile a bunker. If you expect the continued stress of products and services being priced out of the marketplace due to rising cost of depleting resources, plan ahead to live without them and look for alternatives.

4. Wherever you intend to call home, make it such that home can be livable without the need for constant input of fuel or outside energy.

Take up the hobby of gardening now. Learn what you can grow in your area, and get accustomed to a diet from your own crops.

5. The job market, good and services, income and therefore tax base are not going to resemble what we see today.

6. What do you need to consider, and to, to create a personal home and local post crash community?

CIVILIZATION AS A CONCEPT

Civilization implies a greater range of knowledge, opportunities, and types of challenges then is applicable to a family or village scale association. There is physical security. There is the opportunity to specialize. There is greater opportunity to express creativity. There is the opportunity to preserve the knowledge and creations of the past, and build upon them. Civilization relies not only on the physical presence of essential physical resources and energy, but on the circular argument of confidence in civilization.

Civilizations tend to develop around a centralizing philosophy16. For the long term we need agreed upon law and discipline, an approach to interaction that encourages everyone involved to plan and act along the lines of stability and permanence. We need a philosophy that encourages practical and useful physical construction well integrated and meant to last. But civilization can be fragile, fractured by irrational fear, loss of hope and vision for the future, or even by boredom.

Civilization tends to bring with it though seeds11

of its own destruction, such as layers of government and organized religion, self proclaimed elite, and it tends to decay into mob rule, or rule by physical force. We see forced labor or taxation to fund projects or programs that aggrandize the leadership, but provide no practical improvement. Can we achieve the benefits of a complex civilization, attained by mutual respect and voluntary agreement? What about resisting those who initiate force?

16 Religion, politics, philosophy, technology, are all information, useless unless the individual thinking mind adopts the information as it’s own. Global humanity starts with the needs of the individual, and the interaction of individuals. What does a philosophy that respects individual rights look like?


The skill and will to fight, as well as the tools to do so are essential for preservation17 of civilization. Peaceful, non-technical civilizations tend to be over-run by those who see it as their right or duty to initiate force, and by those with the technology to overcome such resistance that can be presented. Realistically also, at the individual level those who abdicate personal responsibility, whether for the basics of life, responsibility for their actions, etc., are taking steps toward empowering an oppressive hierarchy.

A Sustainable Civilization is one where the needs of the present are met without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs using the same resources.

It is one where there are feedback loops, physical and mental, personal, family, and societal which keep in check population growth and encourage building for the future.

MASLOW

In his hierarchy of needs theory Maslow more eloquently states the logic that gasping, dehydrated, starving humans are not focused on esoteric aspects of civilization. Underlying needs must be met first.

1. Physical2. Safety3. Love/Belonging4. Esteem5. Actualization

1. Do you have under your control or ownership the means to meet:

- the need to breathe - the need for water - the need to eat - the need to dispose of bodily wastes - the need for sleep - the need to regulate body temperature

2. Safety concerns come to the forefront once physical needs are met. These include:

- Physical Security & Safety from Violence - Security of Revenues and Resources - Moral and physiological security - Familial security - Security of health

3. Love/Belonging needs. After physical and safety needs are fulfilled, the social level involves human emotions and the need to be accepted and to belong, generally at a level beyond that of the immediate family.

4. Esteem needs. Humans have a need to be respected, to self-respect and to respect others. People need to engage themselves in order to gain recognition and have an activity or activities that give the person a sense of contribution and self-value.

5. Self-actualization is the need of a person to make the most of their unique abilities and to strive to be the best they can be. Imagine the potential of a city of a million self-actualized individuals who:

- Embrace the facts and realities of the world rather than denying or avoiding them. - Are spontaneous in their ideas and actions. - Are creative. - Are interested in solving problems.- Solving these problems is often a key focus in their lives. - Feel a closeness to other people, and generally appreciate life. - Have a system of morality that is fully internalized and independent of external authority. - Judge others without prejudice, in a way that can be termed objective.

No one person, or small group, is going to have all of the skills, knowledge, and opinions we need to get to a sustainable community, or even a definitive place to start. It all starts with an exchange of ideas, success and failure stores, and resources. Energy and resource surety at the community level is essential, but at the present is lacking.

17 WHAT TO DO - You, your family, your community can only really own what you can hold by force and defend. The only real deterrent to violence the threat of still greater force, which governments too often seek to strip from their citizens. Learn self defense skills. Establish a neighborhood watch. Wake up your local officials to their status as your employees, not your masters.


Our government and private sector institutions were created and developed in an era of cheap energy and continued expansion. This either has, or will shortly end. These institutions, and those individuals working for, or benefiting from such, can be expected to balk at the functioning end of their empire.

BIOMIMICRY

In Biomimicry, Janie M. Benyus presents 10 "Lessons" humans need to learn, not only as individuals but as a civilization. Nature evolves complex systems, with every niche filled with life, that are "run" by multiple and overlapping feedback loops.

Consider a blade of grass. A single seed can, even if surrounded by a hostile environment; self assemble from the bottom up. The blade of grass serves as a pioneer and life support system for other plants and creatures, each of which contributes to the development of a micro environment, each with natural feedback loops to monitor and check growth.

If non-thinking creatures can act in relative symbiosis to weave a multi layer, multi purpose, season adaptable physical environment, with little energy or resources lost, resistant to outside disturbance, can we learn to:

1. Use waste as a resource.2. Diversify and cooperate to fully use the habitat.3. Gather and use energy efficiently4. Optimize rather than maximize5. Use materials sparingly6. Don't foul their nests7. Don't draw down resources8. Remain in balance with the biosphere9. Run on information10. Shop locally

Y2K

The late 1990's awoke many to potential infrastructure vulnerabilities related to Y2K computer problems. We are now in the early states of weaknesses showing in the energy infrastructure, upon which all other core infrastructures are dependent.

Y2K became for the most part a "non-incident" due to the pro-active cures put in place prior to the date-certain "catastrophic" event. While an energy crash is not date certain, its existence is certain.

The objective reality is that the community must become self-reliant at least in all of the essentials of life for the relevant local population.

Our sustainability challenge may also have high technology, and social components, but if physical essential are not met we won't get to these.

GET A CUP OF COFFEE

Feedback to earlier versions of this treatise included that it does not provide clear guidance on how to build a particular type of home, organize a neighborhood, etc. So, to clarify to new readers in advance, this is not a blueprint, nor is it a step-by-step set of instructions as to how to put together a homestead, or organize a community.

There are many self-help books, and free materials on the web (for now) such that any detailed area you might need to investigate for self improvement or self reliance is readily available. Most of these materials though are on survivalist, or isolated primitive homesteads, not addressing the larger picture of avoiding, or minimizing the collapse of civilization.

This treatise is intended to present a different picture than survivalism, or a “back to the land” approach. The author hopes to spark not only self reliance in the essentials for personal and family safety, but also to inspire networks where warranted, and contemplation of a philosophy of “enlightened self interest”.

I have been asked if/when I might publish a guide such as this. The earlier that people wake up, and the better informed they are, the better not only for them, but for everyone. The author hopes the ten chapters of this treatise, and the various appendices, provide all readers a “jump start” toward making sustainability changes in their lives and communities. This treatise is available free on the web. If you cannot find them, email the author and I will send you the latest versions.


This is intended to get people to think, and for those new to facing the sobering reality of how far from sustainability we are, to present information so you do not have to research how to “re-invent the wheel”. This is intended to prompt YOU to take your first steps, and wake up others. If there has been no point to the script for the rest of your life, hopefully you will find one.

Tell me, I forget. Show me, I remember. Involve me, I understand.- Ancient Chinese

A thought experiment: The evening before your next day off, BEFORE the sun sets, make a steaming thermos of your favorite hot beverage, and set the thermos outside. Arrange it so you will wake up with the sunrise. Turn off your utility provided power, water, gas, phone, cable, etc.

Envision the flow of, and benefits derived from fossil fuels have ended, as they sometime must. In the morning, your money will only be numbers on scraps of paper.

Think creatively.

Are you safe for the night? Can you provide a meal for your family for the following day? For a week? What about your sewage?

We need to have appropriate steps taken, and changes made, at every level. The human infrastructure IS our "natural" ecosystem, most of us just don't realize it. The problems we face are global in scope. The important life support solutions are however local in nature.

We must be the change we want to see. - Ghandi

If you will indulge a personal peeve, while you've got your television "disconnected" from the babble of broadcast or cable, leave it disconnected. Break the addition to the useless drawl. Talk with your family and friends. Read and research. Sit and think.

This writing is an accumulation of notes and thoughts by someone for whom the challenges of long-term sustainability have been a long term concern. Check the facts presented, and my math, and make your own conclusions, and plans. With hard work, and some luck, we may avoid the worst.

The paradigm of cheap abundant oil is dying, as will be the entire infrastructure dependent on such. Before you encounter this gas station, you must begin to think and act for the long term, starting with the basics and working toward a self-organizing long term sustainable human ecosystem.


Sustainable Civilization: From the Grass Roots UpChapter I - Your Homestead And Essential Life Support

What are the minimums you need to have a secure means to put water in your glass, food on your table, and shelter for your family which are not dependent on having someone else provide it for you?

Most of what is found in a modern home, and the way we live, developed in an era of cheap abundant energy and what seemed to be unlimited resources. All of this is ending.

INTRODUCTION

It is often indicated that many families live "paycheck to paycheck", meaning any financial disruption could spell disaster.

"They say that every society is only three meals away from revolution. Deprive a culture of food for three meals, and you'll have an anarchy."

- Rimmer, Red Dwarf

While a quote from a British science fiction - comedy is hardly a definitive argument, if you think about it, it does ring true. After only one full day of missed meals, most people are quite different than if safe and well-fed.

For your household, does a loss of income mean foregone luxuries, or does it mean you don't eat?

Can you obtain from your home, or within waling distance the essential "Life Support" for you and your family? For how long, a day? A week? A month? A year? How dependent are you on what may quickly become a failing infrastructure?

If you must obtain essential life support from non-owned resources, how do you plan to compensate those you barter with? Are those outside sources realistically large enough to provide the same level of subsistence to everyone else who is within walking distance?

THINK LONG TERM

On realization of the scope of our overextended situation, often-repeated early reactions are to stock up and hide, or run to the wilderness and live off the land until things return to normal.

There are many sources for emergency preparedness planning, lists for “bug out” bag contents, etc. readily available. While these have application, such short-term planning is not the concept of this treatise. In emergency planning the general is assume the worst will happen and figure out what you’re going to do and what you need to do it. The emergency preparedness focus is preparation for dealing with a situation that presents a relatively brief interruption in the overall normal paradigm.

The “emergency” you must plan for though is making it thru the transition to a different paradigm18. In investments, consider if you will, would you sleep better at night being IN a falling marketplace, and wishing you were out, or OUT of a rising market and wishing you were in? Think in terms of the infrastructure of civilization collapsing. Do you sleep better knowing you and your family can continue on, even if the infrastructure fails, or if you establish a safe self-reliant home, would you fear you have missed some of the party?

Stupid decisions by those in government can destroy ANY investment or “benefit” you may

18 A general emergency plan is to be prepared: Stockpile essential items while the weather is good, so you’re not stuck racing to the store for bottles of water, food, and batteries at the same moment every one else is making the same panic run. I terms of a permanent sustainability shift in world paradigms, it means eliminating your “dependence” on non-sustainable factors NOW.


have that is denominated in currency or dependent on the continued functioning of the current economy. Absent some physical government thief though, you energy independent home, water collection, garden, etc. kept “below the radar” avoid the need tor earn and spend for such basic life support. If you cannot breathe, get a sip of fresh water, or eat, what does an investment portfolio matter?

Civilization such as we perceive as normal cannot continue. If you run for the hills, intending to be a hunter/gatherer, you will need a greater area than if you have a home garden providing your needs, and you will probably only have such possessions as you can carry.

You must not only be able to survive the crash, but continue afterward. The future needs capable, educated, experienced people who survive the crash healthy, well nourished, with resources intact. Starving people do not build, or rework infrastructure and civilization. Starving people are not in a position to show others a better way.

Absent the energy and infrastructure which has allowed large scale movement (numbers and distance), we can expect families to once again remain in the same area, probably multi generations living on the same homestead. Depending on ages, moving to a different location on marriage, childbearing age, etc. a stable multi-generation family homestead may be expected to house about 8 or 10 residents.

The purpose this “homestead" discussion is at the level of the individual/family to examine what is needed for basic life support needs without the necessity to constantly receive input from what may be a civilization in chaos. Whether you head for the hills, or remain in town, you “life support” needs are essentially the same.

For now there is much that can be done at relatively low cost to not only prepare for an economic crash, but to leapfrog past it to a post-oil paradigm. Once a crisis begins, it may be too late.

That said, there is also the warning about what you own, or intend to buy or install: Can you repair or replace it on your own? I offer myself as an example, although this book is written on a

computer, if the computer malfunctions, I must seek qualified assistance, because I admit I do not understand the electronics or the programming.

There is a scientific minimum for the growing area for your food, depending on your climate and crops. An earth-sheltered home (thermal battery/mass heat storage & moderation of temperature extremes) can protect your family from the extremes of climate without external utility connections. A "green roof" avoids “wasting” the sunlight over your living space.

Add water collection / storage / recycling, a biointensive garden, and appropriate technology, and you've set up an appropriate micro-environment, which should be able to continue indefinitely with modest maintenance, allowing investment of future effort to go toward improvements.

Whether you intend to head for the hills, or re-engineer a home in the city, what do you need to consider in your planning?

PHYSICAL PRIORITY I - AIRCRITICAL FOR SURVIVAL MUCH

BEYOND 3 MINUTES.

Living away from likely sources or flows of contamination would seem to be the simplest option. In reality you CANNOT live away from the pollution.

"We're all breathing each other's air,"12 says Daniel J. Jacob, a Harvard professor of atmospheric chemistry and one of the chief researchers in a recent multinational study of transcontinental air pollution. He traced a plume of dirty air from Asia to a point over New England, where samples revealed that chemicals in it had come from China.

If you want to take steps to eliminate the pollution from China, then stop buying products from there... if you can.

Rationally an essential step is that YOU and your neighbors not pollute. In air pollution there are of course multiple factors, such as substance, volume, and quantity. To elaborate, envision the Los Angeles valley on a clear calm Saturday afternoon. If one family decides to have a


backyard charcoal cookout the neighborhood gets some smoke, but the effect on the city is insignificant. If every family does a cookout at the same time the air could quickly become foul.

It matters greatly what polluting substance is being released, how much each source is releasing, and how many sources there are. In general, the greater the standing population, the worse you can expect any pollution problem.

There's not much you as an individual can do about “open-air” contamination, other than NOT produce it yourself. (Remember that “outside” is a relative term; the Earth itself is for all practical purposes a CLOSED container.) You need to be in a sealed container...suit, home, building, etc., with an appropriate combination of air volume, renewal (O2 / CO2), and purification capabilities.

Indoor air quality in a relatively well sealed home can however be affected significantly, by relatively simple actions.

First and foremost, avoid contamination in the first place. Many of the adhesives and artificial materials used in present contractor construction of homes outgas dangerous substances, often continuously, and especially when they burn.

In that items such as particle board, plywood, many household chemicals, etc. release hazardous gases, avoid these inside your home.

Radon seepage from the ground may be a significant indoor threat readily abated during construction by proper sealing and venting.

BIOREMEDIATION

Appropriate selection of indoor plants can significantly improve air quality. (See Dr. Bill Wolverton's "How to Grow Fresh Air") Examples include Boston Fern, Janet Craig (fern), Rhododendron, as well as Dracaena marginata, English Ivy, Warneckel, Peace lily, Chrysanthemum, Gerber daisy, dwarf date palm, bamboo palm, Warneckel, areca palm, Chrysalidocarpus, Lutescens, and Phoenix roebelenii.

Short of specific plant selection, the microbes in soil perform a great deal of the "work" transforming waste materials into productive life.

The Biosphere II project used a “soil reactor” to clean the inside air, as does the author of the book "Soliva". The basic concept is simply forcing air to the interior thru several feet of healthy soil.

With sufficient plants growing in a closed greenhouse, a breathable interior atmosphere can be maintained with essentially no active air exchange with the outside. Note, if the plants are only producing oxygen during photosynthesis, there must be a large enough volume of air and plants for 24+ hours of clean air to be produced during the shortest available sunlight period, and some allowance for overcast days.

STERILIZATION

Ultraviolet light readily penetrates air, and even clouds. It, and ozone (ionized oxygen) are part of God's open-air germ control system. There may be lenses and surfaces which allow just ultraviolet light to be concentrated, and used for specific sterilization purposes. (TO BE DEVELOPED) If you have technology and power, readily available are u/v systems for desktop, portable, or installation in building vent systems, to keep levels of microorganisms down.

CARBON DIOXIDE

We as a living animal inhale, use some of the oxygen from air, and exhale increased CO2 levels. Starting from less than 1% in "fresh" air, the upper "safe" CO2 level is around 3%. When the concentration exceeds 3%, even though there is still oxygen in the air, humans are adversely affected. An average person produces around .67 cubic ft. (5 gallon volume) per hour of CO2. Burning of course produces MUCH MORE CO2.

In a sealed container, starting with good outside air, a person can survive for about an hour for every 22.5 cubic feet of air (about 1 cubic yard, around 168 gallon). A 1200 sq.ft home, with 7 foot ceilings, should hold about 8400 cubic feet of air, or enough for a family of four for 3+ days.

Any steadily growing plant absorbs CO2. NASA experiments show that around one cubic meter of wheat, growing constantly under artificial light, can balance the CO2 for a single person. Other experiments show that


approximately 8 gallons of well aerated algae does the same job.

Some plants such as cacti, aloe vera, etc. produce oxygen in the dark, vs the light. Note though, regardless of the oxygen generating plant, once parts of the plant starts to die, you MUST eliminate the dead portions from your sealed area, otherwise the decay organisms consuming the dead plant matter will re-release the CO2.

COMPENSATING FOR ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE VARIATION

An airtight home must have a flexible lung (see Biosphere II) to allow internal and external air pressure to remain equal, without actual exchange of air. It can be as simple as a large trash bag on one end of a pipe that penetrates a wall. Typical atmospheric pressure changes do to weather may amount to 2% to 5% of the volume of the sealed container. If you have a 1200 ft. sq. home (above), the "lung" should be between 168 and 420 cubic feet. (Don't panic, that's only a box 8 foot on each side max) The device must account not only for the pressure changes due to weather, but from heating and cooling of the air inside the sealed area.

Unless you are absolutely certain of the sealing of your structure, you'll want a means of maintaining a slightly higher pressure in the home than outside. You can consider a small fan, or even an aquarium pump, to force some small flow of air thru a filter. Consider two closed containers of water connected by a hose, where water running from the higher to lower container causes suction on a hose leading out of the top of the top container, to the filter.

If your area is subject to continued air quality problems, you may want a larger area then mere living space, such as including your shop, and greenhouse area.

PHYSICAL PRIORITY II - WATERCRITICAL FOR SURVIVAL MUCH

BEYOND 3 DAYS

In some areas water is simply not a concern. Where it is, your home should contain a cistern capable of holding at a minimum the survival

(drinking, cooking, and minimal cleaning) water for your family for a year. Using the low typical rainfall for your area, calculate the collection area needed to fill your cistern from rainfall. All rainwater not directly collected for controlled storage should be routed to a collection area for recharging the aquifer. If paving for walkways, patio's, etc. is not intended to be used to route rainwater for collection, where practical the surfaces should be porous to allow the water to soak into the ground.

Rain (in many places) may be the safest "natural" water available, and the least subject to human interference. (Flowing water, wells, pipelines, etc., are all of course subject to "blockages", or contamination, somewhere "upstream".) Even if living in a relatively isolated area, all of the water sources could be contaminated. In the case for example of groundwater, it may be decades after a "spill", that took place quite in the distance, before the effluent starts to contaminate the water.

Similarly, for upstream surface flowing water, abandoned sites may start to leak in the future.

Access to water, in many places, will be a significant restriction as to how many people can sustainably occupy a given area. Estimating 7 gallons per cubic foot, every inch of rainfall on a square foot is about 1/2 gallon that could be collected.

The percent of any given rainfall that actually reaches your cistern will vary depending on conditions present. A light sprinkle might soak into a built up tar roof, tile, etc. Even a metal roof will have some water adhere to it. If your roof is hot, you will lose water to evaporation. For ballpark loss estimates, use 5% for metal, 10% for built up tar, and 20% for gravel roof surfaces.

Assuming annual rainfall of 12 inches, and assuming personal direct one-time thru water use of around 20 gallons per day, a collection area of about 1042 sq. ft. (say a square 33 ft. per side) could provide for one person. Add in one-time thru water use in a biointensive yet open-air garden, and you need to plan on a collection area of around 6500 sq.ft. (an area 80 ft. on a side) to provide around 45,000 gallons per year, which should meet the needs of an individual with comparably liberal water use.


While collectors can be artificial surfaces, they can also be part of the landscape (i.e. rock hillsides). A family of four would need a collection area 160 ft. on a side. A multigeneration homestead of 8 to 10 people would need a collection area of 52,000 to 65,000 sq.ft, or an area from 228 to 254 feet on a side.

I use the term "one-time thru" to prompt thinking of multiple / reuse of water. Consider for an "extreme" example the Biosphere II facility, where the same water has essentially been in enclosed re-use for several years. The Earth is, after all, just a big yet closed system.

See the Appropriate Technology Appendix for expanded discussion on obtaining and managing water, including atmospheric condensers, and application of other simple concepts useful to sustain a higher standard of living in the absence of our present high energy globally connected infrastructure.

EXAMPLES OF WATER USE

20 gallon/day human cooking/consumption, bathing (5 min low flow shower)(x365= 7300)+105 gallon/day garden (adjusted for cleaning/bathing graywater use)125x36545,625 Average annual water per personBasis of personal 20 gallon water estimate. Five minute low-flow shower (2.5 gpm=12.5 gallon), up to several gallons per day drinking/cooking, and several gallons in misc. washing.

Basis of garden water estimate. Every linear foot of "soaker hose" waters plants in the two square feet along its sides.

To water a 1,000 ft. sq. area of crops requires 500 linear feet of soaker hose. Soaker hose releases water at 1 gallon/minute/100 foot. 500 foot of soaker hose would release 5 gallons per minute.

The area shown above had been cement-hard compacted desert soil when we arrived. With appropriate mulching, even in the hot summers of Yuma, Arizona, (plants exposed to direct sunlight) our garden survived with two 12 minute soaks per day. A subsistence garden should get by with 120 gallons per day (15 or so of which could be washing "gray water").

More precise watering (drip irrigation) of individual plants, or a buried reservoir with an airspace between the water and the soil above (semi-hydroponic - see the "Earthbox", or controlled microenvironments) may lead to further reductions in crop water use.

LIGHT INTENSITY & WATER USE

Most plants can only make use of 1/4 to 1/2 of the "candlepower" that impacts their leaves in the summer, much above this level actually slows growth and results in heat, which the plant must shed by evaporating "extra" water. In one test pad, where plants were put under 60% shade cloth near the end of the summer, THOSE plants suddenly grew much larger than plants in direct sun. This might lead to a lowered estimate of the water consumption, or greater production. (see Israeli experiments as touched on in the MESS appendix)

WATER PURIFICATION

Plan on the need to clean your water supply.

Probably the oldest water treatment method is filtering through 3 to 5 feet of sand, which will remove many microorganisms, most debris, and most radioactive fallout. (Consider what nature does in the soil, as water seeps downward toward your well.) As this filter ages, a gelatinous layer


forms near the top. While this contains numerous good bacteria, the top of your filter needs to be cleaned off and replaced regularly. (see further details on soil and slow sand filter in the Appropriate Technology appendix)

Using standard plumbing parts, glass, etc., it should be possible to assemble a solar still that would provide pure, distilled water.

As touched on above in air sterilization, ultraviolet can be used to kill microorganisms in water.

SILVER IONS

Ancient wisdom, supported by microbiological studies, is that silver ions kill microorganisms. Simply storing silver in water helps. Running a small DC current (i.e. from a cheap solar battery charger) through two silver electrodes submerged in the water distributes the ions and is said to make the water a disinfectant.

WATER STORAGE

The size of the cistern you should have is dependent on the patterns of your water use, and rainfall collection. Too small, and your tank will overflow during a "good" rainfall. Too big, and you've wasted space and money. For example, if you rainfall and water needs are essentially the same month to moth, the largest tank you probably need is enough to hold 1/12 of the annual rainfall. If your rain all comes in one monsoon month, you need to be able to store the entire years supply.

If you cannot obtain or construct a true watertight tank, note that sand will store water about 50% of its bulk. In sand, it is possible to store water13 without it evaporating. You can for example dig a hole, line it with plastic, and fill it up with sand. The water in between the sand grains is is less likely to evaporate than in an open air pond.

ATMOSPHERIC CONDENSERS

(Creating and collecting "dew") Have you ever taken a predawn walk thru a grassy field, and gotten your feet soaked, even though it did not rain during the night? The grass radiates heat to a clear sky, cooling, while still surrounded by moisture, or with moisture containing air

blowing over it, which condenses on the cooler grass.

There are what appear to be the remains of large ancient condensers, such as a pile of rocks, on insulation, with catch basins and pipes leading out at the base. (See Appropriate Technology appendix.) Even the cooling system referred to as "earth tubes" contemplates moisture removed from the cooled air.

PHYSICAL PRIORITY III - FOODCRITICAL FOR SURVIVAL MUCH

BEYOND 3 WEEKS

If the grocery store shelves are empty, you can’t get there, or you can’t afford to make a purchase, what’s in your garden? Do you think that you can afford NOT to have one?

Industrial farming, overgrazing, etc. has stripped the soil of many essential nutrients and killed off the soil life which in “healthy” soil perform a great deal of the "work" transforming waste materials, and even inert rock dust, into a form which can be used by your crops.

Live as though there is no tomorrow, but farm as though you will live forever.

North African Bedouin proverb

The obvious goal in gardening is to create the ideal condition for each plant, of light, heat, moisture, air (roots and leaves), and nutrients. That which is taken from the soil14, must be returned. Can we undo our damage, yet "tilt" micro-ecosystems toward producing crops that meet our needs? (Not necessarily our WANTS.)

A detailed discussion of optimal growing conditions and crop planning is in the appendix "Micro Environment Sustainability System" (MESS).

SEEDS

One of the most valuable projects you might undertake could be collection and preservation of seeds. Hybrid crops will not do well without the chemical fertilizers and pesticide protection, and they generally WILL NOT breed true, that is you cannot keep seeds from your hybrid crops and expect the plants next season to be the same. (I


read it takes six generations of back breeding for a new trait to stabilize.

Find the sources for open pollinated crops that fit your needs, and get the seeds now. If you're not growing now (why not) rotate your storage seeds. Keep the seeds dry, cool, and of course secure from pests.

CUBA AND POST OIL SUSTAINABILITY

The "success" in sustainable farming reported for semitropical Cuba is about 1/4 to 1/3 of an acre per person. My personal experience is that "traditional" backyard gardening would take the same, around 10,000 sq.ft. (1/4 acre) per person. China sustains what we in the U. S. would consider a starvation level diet on .2 acre (about 8,700 ft. sq.). Most of the world does not have even this area of productive cropland. You need to do better.

BIOINTENSIVE GARDENING

An excellent intensive gardening resource is John Jeavons, and Ecology Action. Their presentation of the "biointensive" bed system projecting feeding a person out of 1,000 sq.ft., is among the best commercially available. (The Biosphere II project officially had about 1300 ft.sq. of garden per each of the 8 scientists, but they also had the entire 3+ acre dome.)

For the full benefit, the entire Ecology Action "system" must be used. While the biointensive beds create among the most efficient natural growth mediums, the necessary time (years for the miniature ecology to mature) and energy investment (i.e. for the double digging) means you should initiate work on this valuable long-term asset immediately.

Note, in a 2002 personal discussion with a member of Running on Empty (www.runningonempty.org), Mr. Jeavons commented that a larger area may be needed, perhaps up to 4,000 sq.ft. if conditions are not carefully monitored and controlled. (See MESS appendix)

You need to investigate crops that are appropriate for your specific area, needs, and tastes, with a general goal is to grow the largest amount of calories and nutrition in the smallest area / smallest use of resources.

AQUAPONICS

This is a combination of a fish tank/pond and a garden. The tank water is circulated through the garden, which fertilizes the garden, and cleans the water for collection and pumping back to the fish. (See reports from the "New Alchemy Institute" from back in the 1970's.)

Growing tilapia in a tank of about 640 cubic feet (4166 gallon), which weighs around 33.332 pounds (don't put it on the roof with a LOT of reinforcement) should be capable of providing a protein aspect for a homestead of 10 people. (See further details in the neighborhood chapter, and the MESS appendix.)

ALGAE

With ideal growing conditions, the mass of live algae in a tank can double every 24 hours. I’ve read accounts of spirulina or tredici being grown in clear tubes, with relatively fast flowing water, alternating in sun exposure and a cooling bath. (Yes, I've found I can grow spirulina in the alkaline water I get by flushing "fresh" water thru our local sand... It is supposedly healthy, but I've yet to acquire the taste...) That said, the rapid growth of algae provides the opportunity for production of animal feed/supplement or "biological waste" for composting to enrich the soil.

AEROPONICS

NASA funded research (i.e. aeroponics - roots suspended in a mist of nutrients), has implications of feeding a person from 22.5 sq. Meters (about 16' on a side or 256 ft. sq.) Their research though has focused on special crops tailored for a narrow range of closely controlled living conditions.

Their high-tech approach makes reliance in a crisis situation questionable, but provides insight into what is possible. If adapted to readily repairable & reproducible appropriate technology and used with hardier crops it would be a very valuable art. (Consider if you replaced the roof area of a "typical" home with such a garden, which could feed a family of four living below.)

CONTAINER GARDENING


The commercial product "Earthbox" (registered tradename) claims significant improvement over random soil or mere containers, perhaps offering production between biointensive, and the NASA approach.

Their patented container appears to be nearly identical to non-circulating methods shown in various technical and non-technical19

hydroponics and aeroponics books, which is to provide the plant roots with unlimited access to water, nutrients, and air, without drowning or suffocating them.

The earlier textbooks show 1" to 3" of soil held on a grid, over a 1/2" to 3" air space, over water maintained in steady depth of 1" to 3".

The water depth must be carefully maintained. While plant roots CAN grow into water, if left exposed to the air, these roots not only dry out, but in 1 to 3 days, change, irreversibly, from water absorbing to air breathing roots. After the change, if re-submerged, the root drowns, and kills the plant.

There are various approaches which appear to offer benefits similar to still water hydroponics20

on a larger scale. Consider a waterproof layer, covered with a wicking material, then 3" to 6" of compost (not soil, for lighter weight, and better nutrition). A method such as an upside down jar of water is used to keep the wick wet. These beds could be put on a flat roof, or layer of concrete.

FORAGING

If you don’t (yet) have a garden, perhaps you are tempted to go grazing. Be certain of what you're doing, as a small bite of certain plants is enough to kill an adult. Also though, consider this as potential protection for your food crop. If it doesn't look like a garden, and doesn't look like normal vegetables, perhaps anyone encountering it, will leave it alone. Hunter/forager societies

are estimated to have required a square mile to support each individual.

LEAF AND GRASS CONCENTRATE

There is a safer way of grazing, with many edible leaves, (grasses, vines, bushes, and trees) and more that can be used to produce an edible product when the excess fiber is removed. You can even use dried leaves, making this a valuable survival art.

Dried Leaves. When leaves are brittle, remove coarse stems and grind to a fine powder. Dried leaves can be easily ground in a variety of ways. Make sure leaves are very dry or they will clog the grinders. About 20% of the flour in most recipes can be replaced with leaf powder.

Experiments with how much leaf powder you can add to recipes without an unacceptable effect on flavor or texture. About one tablespoon or more of leaf powder can be taken directly daily. Keep the leaf powder in a well sealed container, away from light and in a cool place.

Fresh Grass / Leaves. Making Leaf Concentrate at Home15. Wash and cut leaves into pieces 2 - 3" long, use only fresh green leaves known to be edible, such as alfalfa, Swiss chard, lambsquarters, blackeye peas, wheat, mustard, kale, or collards. Grind the leaves to a pulp to rupture the cell walls of the leaves liberating protein and other nutrients.

Press as much juice as possible from the pulped leaves, and pour the pulped leaves into a sheer nylon or polyester cloth of the type used for curtains. Squeeze out as much juice as possible. You should not be able to squeeze any juice out of a handful of this pulp when you are done.

Heat the juice rapidly to the boiling point, stir very gently to prevent burning and remove from heat as soon as the leaf juice boils. A green curd

19 Incredible Vegetables from Self-Watering Containers, Edward Smith. Mr. Smith shows converting almost any container to self-watering.

20 "Amaranth to Zai Holes: Ideas for growing food under difficult conditions", for sale in hard copy, or online electronically free from http://www.echonet.org/.


should float to the top. Separate the curd that forms in the heated juice in a closely woven cloth. When this wet curd has cooled, squeeze the "whey" out of the curd. It should be dry enough to crumble.

You may want to make a press to apply more pressure than you can with just your hands. This can be used for pressing the juice from the pulped leaves as well.

What remains in the cloth is leaf concentrate. 10 lbs. of leaves should give you roughly 1/2 lb. leaf concentrate; 4 1/2 lbs. of fiber for mulch, compost, rabbit or goat feed; and 5 lbs. of

"whey" for watering plants. If not used right away, leaf concentrate can be dried at about 120 F, ground to a fine powder, and stored for later use in airtight plastic bags away from any light.

FOOD STORAGE

The present, relative abundance of food, and secure supplies, is a hollow shell, which will collapse when oil ceases to support it. When you are once again dependent on your own garden, or local farms, crop failure can literally mean starvation if you can not daily pick the 2,000 calories needed.

A example from the web of a homegrown food storage to provide around 730,000 calories per person is:

325 lb. Grain (i.e. whole wheat, pasta, oats, rice, barley, several years)80 lb. Legumes (various beans, peas, lentils, seeds, etc., 5 to 10 years)50 lb. Milk/dairy/eggs (dried, 5 years)20 lb. Meats (dried, 18 months)10 to 30 lb. Fruit/vegetables (dried, 2 to 3 years)60 lb. Sweeteners (sugar, honey, syrups, etc., indefinite)40 lb. Fats/oils (butter, nut butters, natural cooking oils, etc. Note:

Hydrogenated processed oils are Not nutritive, 2 to 3 years)20 lb. Sprout seeds (alfalfa, all whole grains, beans, lentils, cabbage, radish,

broccoli, etc., 2 to 3 years)1 lb. Leavenings (yeast, culture samples can be kept reproducing indefinitely)5 lb. Salt (despite its OVERUSE in present society, it becomes critical in the

absence of processed foods, indefinite)

Residents of "First World" nations have become accustomed to minimal physical work, and high calorie intake. While both of these are ending, it may not necessarily be all bad-news. Studies have shown that low calorie diets, IF the food is otherwise high in vitamin/nutrient content, can result in a longer and healthier lifespan.

If you have the money, high-tech (high cost) freeze dried foods are available, with shelf lives of 20 years or so. Good backup for a crash induced emergency, and there are distinct short term advantages for concealment by avoiding the need to garden, but when they are gone, they are gone.If you are considering the MRE (Meal Ready to Eat) option, they come in boxes of 12 meals, (H,W,D) 9 1/4" x 11 x 16 1/2. For a year for each person you're looking at 92 boxes, a stack 16" deep, 5 foot high, 16 foot wide. If you put your stack against an outer wall, it will provide additional insulation, which, if you will permit an opinion from someone who has eaten MRE's, (and not cared for them) insulation may

be their best use. To store enough for a multi generation family home, you need a room 14' x 16'.

If you prefer working up a food storage program around food your family normally eats, look up in nutrition (diet) guides the calories per pound, and volume per pound for your selected food items, and run you own calculations on how much you need to store. Some examples of calories of "common" food items are in the "FACTOID" appendix.

Most foods can be safely and adequately stored using sun powered drying. If you have air-tight containers (even clay) an additional layer of protection is afforded by vacuum packaging.

"Old time" food storage was in root cellars, or covered pits, in which food remained fresh for months, if not years. When without all else, dig a hole, line it with dry grass, twigs, leaves, etc.,


and stack you food inside such that air can circulate around it. Then seal the top.

When your power fails, you may have in the form of your old fridge or freezer a pre-made container to bury, cover with insulation material, and instant "root cellar".

If you are doing fermentation, such as for alcohol, consider bubbling the CO2 into the food storage container.

LOW TECHNOLOGY EVAPORATIVE REFRIGERATION

Set up a large container, such as a clay pot, or other porous material, with a small water tight container inside, and the space between filled with sand or perlite, kept moist. The evaporative cooling keeps the inner container well below the ambient temperature.

CHEMICAL FERTILIZER GARDENING

I include this under "food storage" because I consider it just as temporary and unsustainable of a measure as storing from the abundance of chemically grown food.

Readily available and cheap (at the moment) are the typical plastic "kitchen" garbage bags, I think they're something like 14 gallon bags. I suggest 2,000 bags and enough fertilizer for 2,000 plants for one season. "Miracle Grow" (tradename) and other chemical fertilizers are also cheap for the moment.

Put bluntly, dig a hole, line it with the trash bag, backfill with local soil, bio waste, etc., and fertilize per instructions on the container. You're NOT creating a sustainable food bed, but you will grow an emergency crop. (Add your daily humanure if you're inclined and have determined the safety.)

SPROUTING

This natural process decreases the carbohydrate content, and greatly increases the vitamin and protein content, as well as increasing the volume and mass of many food seed, i.e. the bag of dried beans in your storage program. (Tomato or potato sprouts are poisonous, as all seeds treated with fungicides, etc.)

PROTEIN NEEDS

The human diet needs 53 to 58 grams of protein per day (.47 gram per kilogram, or .213 gram per lb., of body weight) consisting of 22 essential amino acids. 8 of these cannot be manufactured by the human body, and must be present in the right16 proportions.

A diet incomplete in protein leads to various physical infirmities (think of the photos of third world children, skin and bone, but with gas bloated abdomens). Regardless of a surplus of any given amino, the ability of the body to utilize the proteins is limited by the absence of any of the 8 that is not present in sufficient quantity. The excess are utilized by the body as mere carbohydrates.

Eggs are essentially complete. Most meats are complete, and animals such as chickens, cows, goats21, etc. can feed on forage, turning unused/compost material into essential protein. (Ruminants, such as cows, don't need the protein and grains in their diets that they are fed in feedlots. They do however need nitrogen materials, which they convert to protein.)

PROTEIN COMPLEMENTATIONAppropriate combinations of plant materials can result in a meal that has a complete protein matrix.

Product Serving Protein Calorie CarbohydratesMung 1 cup dry 49 gram 718 130Soybean 1 cup dry 68 gram 774 56Peanut raw 1 cup dry 38 gram 828 24Sunflower 1 cup dry 33 gram 821 27

21 It is the fat and bone of goat meat that give the meat a strong taste. Separated meat only will have a much milder taste.


Soybean and Mung, and some peanuts approximate meat in completeness. (Please note the other nutritional factors for these)

Sunflower seeds contain greater growth promotion nutrition than does meat.

Rice is missing Isoleucine & Lysine, but if served in combination with cheese, or most beans, becomes a complete protein.

PIT OR UNDERGROUND GREENHOUSE

Earth sheltering provides a more stable climate for human habitation and for your garden. You may even go as far as an underground greenhouse, which provides you greatly enhanced ability to control the growing conditions.

Relatively recent developments in natural lighting provide an opportunity to bring natural light into spaces not practical before. Examine "Solartubes" (mentioned later also), which can route sunlight thru a relatively small opening. Some versions have flexible tubing for the light, lending it to bends / curves for routing thru even thick shielding materials. It should be possible, for example, to route the tubes from the roof of a single story home, down to the basement.

Short of a high-tech greenhouse buried in the basement, a simple pit, covered with an appropriate clear or translucent material, can serve to provide area for growing food well into freezing weather.

UNDERGROUND INSPIRATION

The Forestiere Underground Gardens in north Fresno, CA is a complex of underground rooms and garden courts that was the home of Baldasare Forestiere. The sections are inter-connected by underground passageways and promenades. These passageways contain planters and a wide variety of plants.

Working alone he carved out columns, arches and domes from the local hardpan sedimentary stone. Some ceilings have skylights, normally open but easily covered with glass.

He had a wide variety of trees, some growing as deep as 22 feet below ground level. There is a

fish pond in the garden court off the kitchen and bedrooms.

His work of nearly forty years, without blueprints or plans, stands as a monument to what one determined person can achieve.

ENGINEERING INSPIRATION

The Zhaoxian bridge in China spans a 115 foot arch over a river. This bridge is built of formed and interlinked stone and has been standing and in essentially constant use since the year 610.

21,000 BC - boomerang use case painting in Poland18,000 BC - flint arrowheads, Spain15,000 BC - drawing of bridled horse 8,000 BC - domesticated peas/lentils 7,000 BC - domesticated sheep/goats 4,000 BC - irrigation canals, S. Russia 2,500 BC - 300' wide x 37' high dam 2,000 BC - glass 700 BC - banking with mortgages 600 BC - silver plated copper coin 100 AD - hand powered double acting fire pump

URBAN INSPIRATION

The Dervaes family has, instead of waiting for politicians, or big-business to present a solution, have made the decision, and put forth the effort to make their urban home in Pasadena, California a micro homestead. (Who says you have to head for the hills). They present their story as the “Path to Freedom”, with ongoing updates at their website17.

GREENHOUSE COVERINGS

Glass, plastic, mirrors, etc. can be selective surfaces, passing only the frequency and intensity of light needed for optimum growth. There are some indications that small cells of "dead air", even without an air tight membrane, can serve as a greenhouse to increase temperatures for plant growth. Think of shiny shade cloth.

CROP SELECTION

Perennial crops offer no-till (do you like digging?) growth of food. Do your research now as to "native" or other crops appropriate for your


climate for edible landscaping, and for your garden, containers, greenhouse, or more, depending on your resources.

Despite farming's focus on a limited number of crops, there are thousands of edible plants. See www.echonet.org as a good resource for plant listings. See also The Land Institute, http://www.landinstitute.org/, which is doing significant work on perennial food crops, eliminating tilling.

PHYSICAL PRIORITY IV – SHELTER

A naked exposed human is a physically ill-equipped animal. We need the technological achievements our minds have provided.

CLOTHING

Your personal portable shelter from the environment. Forget fashion, which is an affectation of the consumer economy.

What raw material is readily available in your area, or can you readily grow?

What is the most durable material available (that you're willing to use)? I keep reading that hemp makes the most durable cloth available, but I have no experience with it. The hemp products I've seen in stores did not appear to have any special properties, and new hemp hats were coming apart on the shelves.

What is practical and effective for your local climate?

What can be made and maintained with appropriate technology?

EARTH SHELTERING

The temperature of the earth at a depth of approximately 20 feet is essentially stable at the annual average surface temperature. A home at that depth would probably not need any mechanical HVAC, as it only needs to remove the body heat of the human occupants and that generated by the activities, but it would not have much of a view. It can though be well lighted.

The technical aspects of correct earth sheltering are explained well by John Hait in his book "Passive Annual Heat Storage". The techniques will improve the feel of even a traditional home, but works best in homes specifically built to take maximum advantage of the buffering.

The greatest source of energy on earth is the sun, which appears to travel a fixed pattern in the sky that is readily estimated. To maximize the benefits of shade, or of solar collection, the suns pattern of movement must be taken into account.

If your roof is exposed, consider from R 70 to R 100 in your ceiling.

To artificially "lower" your home, insulate the ground for 20 feet out around your home with three layers, separated by heavy plastic sheets for waterproofing, of "Dow Blue Styrofoam", white styrofoam board, or other appropriate insulation, then carefully cover the insulation with dirt, sand, gravel, etc to protect it from weathering.

Low-tech/natural insulation layers, such as grass, leaves, etc., with some waterproofing means or even layered with a high clay soil will help, but eventually need to be replaced. Berming earth up the sides of the home provides additional protection from the large temperature changes of open air. Even the roof can if you chose have a layer of earth on top of the insulation. The soil need only be thick enough for the plants grown there.

An obvious heat storage medium is water, which pound for pound will hold more than dirt or concrete. Jars, tanks, in or above ground pools, etc. Whether you simply carry the jars in/out each day/night, or have moveable covers on your pool, or a pipe and pump system, it's just a matter of setting up a means where the water is heated by the sun, or exposed to the night sky for cooling by radiation.

EARTH TUBES

A low energy method (after they are buried) to tap the stable ground temperature for a surface home are buried pipes. The typical approach is horizontal trenching, with pipes of a size to allow reasonable air flow.


Consider though a pipe leading straight down into the ground (as in a shallow, perhaps driven well) 20 to 30 feet. This avoids the need to disturb large surface areas, and the dig & backfill of horizontal trenches. Any appropriate method of routing water down and back up in a sealed system (i.e. a small pipe inside a larger pipe) can allow a transfer of temperature to/from the depth.

Each pipe can be expected to heat/cool the ground in a 3 to 4 foot diameter circle, therefore space the "wells" 3 feet apart. When the surface is significantly cooler than the bottom, a natural thermosyphon should occur. With appropriate manifolds and valves, warmed or chilled water can be pumped from/to collectors/radiators or circulated in a hydronic system of pipe embedded in a concrete floor/wall.

GOOD OLE GLASS

Equator-facing windows, vertical or angled to be 90 degrees to the noon sun in the winter, or skylights can provide significant passive solar heating in the winter while minimizing glass exposed to summer sun. (In the summer, the sun rises and sets NORTH of the East/West glass alignment, and the glass can be shaded on the outside.) Summer solar gain can further be avoided by almost any approach that provides a well-ventilated shade area about a foot from the main structure.

DAYLIGHTING

Conventional skylights admit too much heat in the summer, and require a large opening in the structure of your home, that siphons your winter heat. More diffused and useful light is admitted, with less heat, by "lighttubes", essentially mirrored pipe with a lens cover on each end. Venting can be separately done with insulated pipe with removable caps.

The combined opening in the structure is much smaller, the risk of weather damage is less, and maintenance is less. A firm in Europe is producing panels to channel light in via fiber optic cables, allowing greatly enhanced flexibility in placement of the "collector" and the inside light emitter. Solar tubes, fiber optics, etc. also offer a means for nighttime interior lighting of separate/private rooms by one central light source.

The are other options which have potential for development not only as lighting, but heating, cooling, and power, and crops in a controlled environment. An appropriately designed light scoop, facing the equator, should admit light in the winter, yet block the summer heat.

FIREPLACE

An interior fireplace must have an external air source. Since the fireplace is probably only used when it is cool outside, arrange the air source such that it draws from the pantry, which would then be vented to the outside, cooling the pantry. Consider a fireplace in a "sunken" family room. Water filled pipes around the fireplace, and in the higher floor of the rest of the house could provide auxiliary heat by thermosyphon.

Note, a fireplace assumes you've got a sustainable source of something to burn. How large of a forest do you own? Is a fireplace sustainably practical? Wood has on an average around 5,000 BTU per pound.

Note, every square yard perpendicular to the sun receives every hour 3,412 BTU. Therefore one pound of wood equates to a pane of glass 44 inches on a side exposed to the sun for one hour. Assume an average wood with a specific density of .5, or a weight of about 32 pounds per cubic foot.

A cord of wood is 128 cubic feet (4' x 4' x 8'). The above averages therefore puts the weight of a cord at around 4,096 pounds, containing 20,480,000 BTU.

A cord of wood is potentially a sustainable harvest from 1/2 to 1 acre, grown over a period of a year.

At the best yield of 2 cord per acre per year, it's 40,960,000 BTU per acre per year.

If we assume an average of 6 hours per day, 360 days per year, the BTU stored by the best cord wood yield from an acre of trees represents the daily sunlight heat potential of around 5 1/2 square yards, or a square area of glass just over 7 foot on a side.

Assume use of flat panel collectors to raise water temperature from 70 degrees F to 100 degrees F. Each BTU represents a one degree temperature


increase in one pound (1 pint) of water. The above collection area receives 112,596 BTU during the day, and would need an insulated tank of at least 470 gallons. This is a volume of say 060 cubic feet - Think of a cube 4 foot on a side. Direct solar collection, if you have a system to use and store it, is arguably over 800 times as "efficient" a method of collecting and storing solar heat as growing firewood.

Grow wood for building material. Grow wood as a fuel to use in creating a long-term useful item, such as glass. If essential, grow wood as an emergency fuel, but PLEASE, don't plan on wood heat as your primary home heat source.

SOLAR WELL

Along a similar line of thought to putting the fireplace in a pit, consider wells or pits facing the south winter sun. Glass covered, reflector lined, essentially Winston cones. At the bottom, a solar collector, a coil of pipe, or a large tank. We now have, during the day, on the bottom, an intensely hot tank of water. Pipes run "up" to the floor of the house, in a thermo siphon, capable of keeping the floor warm, without a powered pump. A simple valve would be the only required moving mechanical part, to shut the system down when desired.

SKY HEAT EXCHANGERS

Roof / external mounted tube collectors, flat or with reflector concentrators, can heat water during the day, or cool water during the night. Cooling can be enhanced by misting or water evaporation. Used for cooling, the circulating water might "thermo siphon". The same principle that helps make the elsewhere mentioned atmospheric condensers work, cooling by sky radiation, also provides a means of cooling a large mass, to store “coolness” for warm weather daytime use.

Even during the day, when the sky is clear, the right combination of shading from direct sun, insulation from side heat sources, and in particular orientation of the radiator to the “coolest” area of the sky, can lower temperatures of such radiator to below the ambient air temperature. Experiments report the ability to radiate 100 to 200 BTU per hour per square foot. The radiation frequency is 8 to 13 um, so you're

looking for a glazing material transparent in that range. (Try polyethylene)

STRUCTURE BASICS

In the end, ANY system that provides you a waterproof living space that is heavily insulated, has extensive thermal mass or other thermal storage, and a practical means to get heat into and out of the storage can provide a comfortable home.

STRUCTURE UTILITIES - ENERGY

Frankly, to survive as more than a "dirt farming peasant", you need a power source beyond human or animal muscle, which does NOT rely on fuel, or power delivered from some unseen and uncertain source. See Appropriate Technology in the appendices. Unless we suddenly leap to "STAR TREK" technology, the future energy picture will be one of greatly reduced personal energy use. Run wiring capable of handling separate a/c and d/c loads. What do you REALLY need to operate?

ELECTRICAL NEEDS

Electricity is the superlative form of energy in use in modern civilization, without which aspects such as long distance communications, computers, other electronics, etc. would be inoperative. When you’re planning your finances, you look at what you can do for yourself, and what you need to pay others to do or provide. When you can no longer simply plug into a seemingly limitless electrical grid, you will look closely at what NEEDS electricity.

Why would anyone NEED to generate electricity, to spin and heat an electric dryer, when hanging wet clothes in a sunlit space would also dry the clothes, and perhaps the drips water the plants?

Even refrigeration can be driven directly from a windmill or waterwheel. Ice can be made using a solar concentrator or by applying a hand-pumped vacuum to a container of water. Low levels of locally produced electricity CAN provide the power to maintain a technological, learning and developing society. A "typical"


American household has access to 22 kilowatt (110 v with 200 amp service) 24/7.

Check your own bill, and see what your real time use has been. Can you reliably generate that much power? Then you must be prepared to buy the power (hoping someone else manages to generate it), or reduce your power usage to what you can generate.

POWER OPTIONS

The prime energy source on earth is the sun. It powers the photosynthesis process in plants, creating the energy supply for all animal life. It is readily concentrated into a limited area with simple mirrors or other reflective/convective surfaces.

If you can generate electricity beyond your needs, your spare kwh could be valuable barter currency to exchange with neighbors without power.

With technology we understand, and can produce today, we can produce electricity from the sun by:

Turning generators with moving wind, caused by the sun (natural, and artificially induced wind up what is essentially a smokestack) Such natural power is intermittent, but a viable addition. A 2007 planned “Steel Farm” project is to build 15 windmills near Kingman, Arizona at a cost of $1.5 million each. Each generates 1 megawatt, so construction cost is $1.50 per watt, or $1,500 per kilowatt. If each kilowatt is sold at $.15, ignoring interest the construction cost is recovered in 10,000 hours of productive operation. (say 420 days of operation)

Turning generators with moving water, caused by the sun (natural, and artificially induced means to move water to a higher location, or from a pressurized container.) Power can be constant and regulated. Most naturally occurring cases of water in a high gravity location have already been exploited.

Where tanks can be positioned at significant differences in altitude (i.e. 100'+) water pumped by windmill to the higher tank can bank the energy (serve as a battery) for later expenditure by turning a generator when dropped again thru a turbine. Think outside the box… Can you

modify a turbocharger from a car to serve as the driving turbine in a micro-hydro generator?

Factors:

1kw = 1.3 hpWater flow in cubic feet/second x height difference in feet divided by 8.8 = hp1 cubic foot = 7.48 gallonAssume two 10,000 gallon tank, one 100' higher than the other. To generate 1kw of power1kw = 1.3hp = flow/second x 100 / 8.81.3 x 8.8 = flow x 10011.44 = flow x 10011.44 / 100 = flow.1144 cubic feet = flow.1144 cubic feet = .856 gallon/second10,000 gallon tank / .856 = 11,682 seconds / 60 / 60 = 3.24 kilowatthours for this "battery".

Each of the above tanks is only about the size of a modest “above ground” swimming pool. Consider a well where the water level is more than 100 feet below the surface. A small windmill could easily during the day fill the pool, providing the evenings power for light and electronics.

Turning generators with "steam" engines (water and other medium, open and closed cycle) Power can be relatively constant and regulated by using the sun to heat a storage medium, such as water in an insulated tank, which then provides power at night.

In example, since closed cycle heat engines are driven by a difference in temperature, as the outdoors cools at night, and the contents of an insulated tank remain warm, the power available may actually increase. Light concentration can DRAMATICALLY increase available power. The "steam" can also be heated by growing, collecting, and burning bio-fuels.

Open cycle. The working fluid, which is heated to the boiling point, is channeled to expand and push a contained piston or turbine, then vented to the atmosphere. The typical working fluid is water, which may in some locations be too scarce a resource to "waste" as steam. This engine design also "wastes" the energy used to heat the water up to the steam point.

Closed cycle. The working fluid, which is heated to the boiling point, is channeled to


expand and push a contained piston or turbine, then routed to a condenser for cooling below the boiling point, and then pumped back into the heating chamber. In theory (Carnot) the efficiency of a heat engine is limited to nc = T1(hot gas temp)-T2(cool gas temp) / T1.

Historically, low temperature solar engines are operated using freon or butane, in with temperatures of 80 C. In a low technology situation though, it may be necessary to use only "natural" mediums. (Perhaps water in a closed system that operates partially in a vacuum, so that water boils at a lower temperature.)

Food for thought. As shown by the closed cycle engine, the useable work is done by the change of state from liquid to gas, not the rise in temperature to the boiling state. Open cycle engines (think of the old steam engines) lose ALL of this initial heating energy. Closed cycle engines retain a significant portion, but must still clearly cool the medium before re-injection to the vaporization chamber. Rather than directly using steam to turn a generator, I've wondered about using steam to pressurize a tank of water (insulated from the water some way?) then using the water to spin a micro-hydro system.

Solar photo-voltaic. Direct conversion of light to electricity. The present silicon crystal panels remain a "high tech" item to produce, are fragile, and essentially impossible to repair in a low-tech environment. Power is ONLY supplied when light shines directly on the panel. Light concentration is likely to overheat the panel, and cause it to "burn out". Estimating a 1/4 acre homestead of around 10,000 sq. ft., at around 1 kw per sq. yd, while in full sun the entire lot receives just over 1,000 kw of power. If covered with 10% efficient solar panels, you'd have 100 kw available during sun hours. (But, no space to grow plants.) Set aside 8,000 sq. ft. for your garden, and using 2,000 sq. ft. for power, with the 10% panels you have available the same 22 kw you do now, but only during sunny days.

For a small scale example, the above photo is an electric mower, 50 watt solar panel, and 150 watt inverter set up as a push about power supply. Remember the sun's changing path, combined with the panel putting out the greatest power when perpendicular to the sunlight, means you will probably want a "tracking" mount.

Solar collecter spacing. An east / west swing from sunrise to sunset of only 120 degrees appears to require side to side spacing between each device, at each extreme of arm swing, of at least the width of the collector surface. To track, the device pivot has got to compensate for the latitude of the site, then the tracker must be adjustable on the pivot to compensate for the slow change of the seasons...

If each device was just fixed re seasons, say at 30 degrees, there is still a minimum of 1/2 of the collector panel width between each device on the north/south axis to avoid shading. So to be able to optimize panel exposure, each 1 square yard panel needs a ground footprint of 9' x 9' or 81 square feet. For your homestead, the good news would be that your plants can grow around the tracking mount.

Keep in mind though the cost of 222 panels, at 100 watt each, necessary to generate this much daytime power. At this writing, p/v panels cost in general $5.00 for each watt generated. Therefore, you're looking at a cost of somewhat over $100,000.00 Do you think you might settle for say 2 kilowatt of electricity, at a little over $10,000.00?

INTERNAL COMBUSTION


Bio-fuels can be burned in internal combustion engines, for propulsion or generation. This is not however an efficient means of providing a conversion from sunlight to motion or electricity. Bio fuels can also be burned to produce heat. But remember that to produce around 60 gallons of biodiesel, you need to shift an acre of cropland from producing food to fuel.

Biodigester. Animal excreta, food and crop scraps, etc. are placed in a sealed tank (can be as simple as one drum upside down inside another slightly larger drum) for controlled environment rotting. Most of the gas produced, primarily methane accumulates in the upper upside down drum, where it can be lead off in hoses for use as a fuel. Using human excreta only the "minimum" for a practical useable produce would be input from 15 people. For a practical "village built" system the upper limit appears to be 300 people.

CHEMICAL REACTIONS

Should you find yourself with large quantities of refined metals, guidance for creating large expedient batteries is found in "How to Recycle Scrap Metal into Electricity", by John Hait.

AETHER / ZERO POINT RADIATION / SCIENCE FICTION

There are ongoing experiments on theories whereby at least heat, if not electrical energy itself, can be obtained from "sub atomic" activity, that may or may not be "radioactive" in nature.

There are numerous "conspiracy theories" floating around that there are already successful devices in operation. A particular example is retired Colonel Beardon, who has been issued a patent for an electrical generator, that has no outside input, or internal moving parts. Lacking evidence, or the ability to buy a device, or "guaranteed" construction plans, this remains entertaining reading, but not a proposal on which to bet your life.

MUSCLE POWER

While human powered generators are a poor choice for other than short term use, human muscle, the legs in particular, can meet many needs. The book, Pedal Power in Work and

Leisure, James C. McCullagh, relates many human powered devices, including a pedal powered winch used to pull a plow. A reasonably healthy person should be able to pedal and generate 75 watt for an extended period, perhaps 200 watt for a short period, and 750 watt for a few seconds.

BIOFUELS

Fossil fuels are merely stored ancient solar power. We can manufacture fuels (biofuels) that would allow modern engines to operate, but not at a rate anywhere near the present annual usage.Per the CIA factbook, the world has in land: 148.94 million sq km, of which humans have planted in permanent crops: 4.71%, or 7,015,074 million sq. km. This is an area 2,648 km on a side, or 1,645 miles on a side, or 2,707,299 sq. mile.

Expect best biofuel yield per year to be 50 gallon per acre. Expect each person needs 1/4 acre for food. Expect each person needs 10 acre for wood and other long-term durable materials.

Recent U.S. use of just oil was 10 billion barrels per year (420 billion gallons), divided by say a population of 270 million, we get 1,555 gallons per year per person. In biofuels this requires 31 acre per person. Add the rest in, and each person in a U.S. lifestyle needs 45 acres.

A square mile is 640 acres, divided by 45 = 14 people provided resources per square mile.

If there is currently 2,707,299 sq. mile planted in crops, to NOT further dig up nature, a current U.S. lifestyle using biofuels could allow a GLOBAL population of 37,902,186.

6,600,000,000 - 37,902,186 = 6.5 billion or so must die in the time remaining for fossil fuels, AND in the same time we must re-work a global infrastructure into one that can be operated with less than 40 million people.

As of 2007, a large portion of the global population is 20 or younger. At current consumption globally of 30 billion barrels per year, and the largest daydream of 1,200 billion barrels of oil, we have 40 years until depletion... MUCH LESS until demand permanently exceeds possible supply, and anyone not self-sufficient crashes.


It's not that biofuels do not have a place, it's that they cannot power an infrastructure like the "first world" of today.

HYDROGEN

Present technology to electrolyze hydrogen from water "loses" more than half of the electricity.

The INEFFICIENCY of hydrogen as a battery was borne out in the 2005 Department of Energy "Solar Decathlon" competition, where the New York Institute of Technology found their hydrogen fuel cell power storage approach didn't reach the 25% efficiency they hoped, vs 80% for lead-acid batteries.

There are however experiments with high temperature catalysts (see Fuel from Water, Michael A. Peavey) which may prove concentrated sunlight for heat can replace a significant portion of the electrical current. As I show later in this treatise though, no known technology can provide a “hydrogen economy” using fuel at our recent rates.

LIGHT STORAGE

Certain natural and man-made materials have theproperty of absorbing light and releasing it in theform of a moderate, essentially heat-free glow visible in darkened conditions. (Try the trade-name "Alien Skin") At the present, none commercially available provide what would be considered as sufficient work-light, but a large panel can light a room sufficiently as to permit occupancy, moving about, and work on tasks which do not require visual details. My theory (untested) is that a glowing panel at the large end of a Winston cone should produce a small area of work/reading light at the apex of the cone.

HOME CONSTRUCTION OPTIONS

Any appropriate means to produce sufficiently strong walls and roof could be considered a success. In many places, the construction material can be the earth itself. Even if you are not yet building on site, you may want a secure, concealed on site location. Consider a "septic tank", or "fresh water tank" as your first construction. Neither should raise suspicion, and either can provide water tight, underground storage space. It will probably cost more to have

a tank installed, than to buy either in a heavy gauge plastic.

Soil doesn't stack well, a significant consideration when mounding or berming you structure, and ESPECIALLY if you're digging. For safety, set your slopes such that the slope retreats horizontally at least 1 1/2 foot for every 1 foot of vertical rise. I will try to use a 2 foot per 1 foot rise in the appendices to this treatise where such concerns are applicable in calculations.

Engineer in four dimensions, height, width, depth, and time. Plan so that dividers, furnishings, utilities, etc. can be adjusted to change the primary use of a space. Your actual structure depends on your personal resources and design preferences.

It can be a hut. It can be a detached house, or an apartment building. It can be a mansion. It can be one room, or provide separate space for everyone. It can be underground, or super insulated with an active thermal exchange. It does not matter.What matters is your ability to provide for the ongoing (present and future) life-support needs of your family.

Assume a multi generational, stable population family homestead of 8 people. If your food production is at the "best" biointensive level, than 8,000 sq. ft. (approximately 1/4 acre) would be the minimum area for a homsestead, based on the food limit. If you home is underground, or has a roof garden, the only loss for the structure is skylights.

Per the Tucson MEC - Thermal Mass. Designs utilizing thermal mass should have suggested heat capacity between 18 to 30 Btu/cu.ft. Walls without external insulation need 12 inches minimum thickness or 8 hours time lag. External insulation can be used (R-9 to R-11) to reduce thickness of thermal mass to no less than 4". Surface area of uncovered thermal mass (in the direct sun zone) should be minimum 9 times the area of south glass, with 1ft2 of additional south glass for every 40 ft2 of mass located outside the direct sun zone (a simplified method of calculating thermal mass and south glass areas). Summer Ventilation. Thermal-mass buildings shall be provided with a means of venting to the outside at night during the months of May


through October to avoid overheating. Operable windows totaling at least 20 percent of the total glazing area, located for effective cross-ventilation or ceiling fans or a whole-house fan sized to provide 10 air changes per hour may be used.

Glazing. All glazing facing between 20 - 165 degrees or 195 - 340 degrees shall have a minimum summer shading coefficient of 0.39. All glazing facing between 165-195 degrees shall have a minimum summer shading coefficient of 0.5 or less. This may be accomplished by the use of overhangs, covered porches, tinted glazing, or other approved methods.

EARTH SHELTER TECHNIQUES

One approach is well presented in the "Earthship" series of books by Michael Reynolds, ranging from single room pods to luxury homes. It's not that earth is a good insulator, rather the advantage comes from that fact that earth is NOT a good insulator, and it takes a lot of heat, or cold, to make a large mass of earth change temperature.

While Mr. Reynolds emphasizes use of tires, cans, etc. in his structures, the functional aspects are relevant regardless of the construction material. In his third earthship book, Mr. Reynolds has valuable suggestions on a "retrofit" for a typical suburban home. See John Hait's book "Passive Annual Heat Storage" for scientific details of the thermal buffering system.

Surface coated stacked concrete block is advocated by architect Bruce Beer at his website www.thenaturalhome.com. Blocks are stacked without mortar, then filled and coated with cement.

Mike Oehler, in "The $50 & Up Underground House Book" presents his PSP system (post/shoring/Polyethylene), basically an underground pole building. Regarding wood in contact with the soil, in most soils, the area of decay is just below ground level, where soil microbiological activity is greatest. Often a post can be almost completely rotted out at this level, while the wood several feet deeper in the ground is still solid. So it's possible that a post, buried two feet or more into the ground, in an excavation already as much as six feet or more in

the ground, will last a very long time. In addition, Oehler points out the old-time observation that charred wood doesn't rot. He chars the bottom two feet or so, by roasting them over a campfire, propane torch, etc. For additional insurance, wrap the post bottom in several plastic garbage bags secured with duct tape.

Conventional thinking involves digging a hole into a hillside and plopping a structure there with a bank of windows facing downhill. This makes the uphill side a solid blank wall, with the roof probably pitched back into the hill, so drainage from the roof runs into drainage from the hillside. Leaks are almost inevitable. Mike suggests an uphill patio, basically a terraced garden area, with its bottom at any desired height from the floor of the house, and its top blending into the adjacent ground level. It not only solves problems of drainage and lateral thrust (the pressure of the earth on buried walls), but it can function as an emergency exit or a second entrance. It can also serve as a built-in greenhouse. Naturally, it admits light and air, even from the uphill side of the house which would otherwise be a dark blank wall.

The Monolithic Concrete Dome is a single large dome, presented as energy efficient due to the reduced outside surface area relative to the inside volume. But it is difficult to build, and bury if you're incorporating earth berming. An extremely thin dome gets its strength from the curve shape. The larger the dome, the closer any given area of the dome approaches flat, losing strength.

CLUSTERED DOMES

A dome on the scale of a room is a much less daunting project than a home sized or larger monolithic dome. A home can be built one room at a time, as labor, materials, and need are presented. Greater curvature per area gives greater strength.

I lean toward a clustering of room sized domes, or a torus (donut) shape. In late 2005 I noted the Monolithic Dome commercial web page had torus designs. There is POTENTIAL that multiple thin shells, with soil sealed between have a greater strength to thickness that a single shell of the same total concrete thickness.


In addition, concrete "beams" in a catenary curve can be produced by suspending a chain from appropriately selected points such that it attains the desired curve. Progressively coat the chain with concrete and allow to cure. If properly done and turned over, you have a load-bearing curved beam constructed of concrete.

THE DIRT ITSELF

Soil can though be formed into bricks, and baked (even in the sun). It can also be "rammed" into wall molds to form monolithic walls. Neither is waterproof though absent a stabilization materials, such as added concrete.

Clay can be "fired" to make it waterproof. Clays vary considerably in chemistry but most require about 1800 - 2000 F to develop a glassy ceramic bond. The glassy bond is developed by melting the silica in the clay and allowing the resulting glass to freeze the remaining grains in place. 2000F can be achieved using natural gas, coal, charcoal etc. and air pressure. Too much heat and the glass becomes too fluid and the shape becomes brittle. Once heated the ceramics must be slow cooled because they will crack if cooled too quickly.

DESIGN FACTORS

Assets, time, and limited labor may not at least initially permit large new structures, but small does not have to mean primitive and uncomfortable. Consider motor homes and boats, where individuals and families live comfortably in facilities the size of the living room in a typical American home. I suggest you tour travel trailers, motor homes, power or sail boats, etc., for ideas. Aspects to plan for in your home include:

DAYLIGHTING

Glass block along the top of all walls that are exposed to the outside air provides daylighting, as do other higher tech approaches (solartube, and fiber optics). Beyond daylighting, similar physical methods would permit one light source in a home to provide controllable “nightlight” for the entire structure. (Note, external reaching systems such as the solartubes easily provide light to maneuver inside to approximately the same extent you could outside (i.e. in a full moon, you can move about easily).

STRAW BALES

Where there is sufficient growth, stacked bales, stucco covered, make viable, high insulation walls (with the added benefit of stopping most pistol, and low power rifle bullets), or additional insulation to an existing structure.

RAISED BULWARKS

Your home can be surrounded by artificial mounds, to provide visual and audio separation, while not excessively impeding airflow, foot traffic (all species...) as well as defining and controlling where private property rainfall flows.

RETROFIT

Do you have the time and assets to custom build? Most will have to retrofit. If your intent is to join or remain in an existing community, it's probably your only option. It may even be the best option.

For example, I'd love to take on a project such as turning a parking building into a city homestead. Who wants to park on the roof anyway? Cover it with your solar panels and garden. Your homestead needs to have sufficient solar exposure for your power, heat, skylights, and garden. What are you going to put under yours?

If you find an appropriate location, but the residents are not yet ready to accept and act on peak oil & long term sustainability, start anyway.

Years ago, as the mine shut down, and the primary source of income disappeared, the town of Bisbee was dying. As the story goes, essentially "hippies" moved in for the low cost, and put out art for sale hoping for some income. Word got around, the the location has become a tourist destination and art centered community.

Get involved. Contact community leaders in all areas. Contact the media. Join groups that may have part of the picture (i.e. global warming, biking, gardening, solar power) and starting from appropriate common ground guide others to the greater awareness you see.

WHAT ROOMS DO YOU NEED


How many rooms and their extent and outfitting, is based on your needs and resources. How many people live at the home? Absent easy energy to move and travel, expect to see a return to most families remaining in the same place generation after generation. After all, where are you going to go? Once you realize we are living on a "spacestation", with no "away" to move to, a stable population is essential.

DEMOGRAPHICS

At the individual homestead level, this means each adult can only parent their personal eventual replacement, whether their biological child, or adoptive. Given the bisexual nature of the human species, at the family level this means on the average no more than 2 children per couple as the biological replacement for the parents. While the same individual (male or female) can parent 2 children with 2 different individuals of the opposing sex, it shows in later discussions on genetic matches in a minimum population, multiple parent-partners creates half-related children, complicating the genetic mix in following generations.

For an animal, once physical prowess has passed, with no mind or knowledge to remain of value to the community, or a community that recalls and rewards earlier contributions, the creature is typically left on it's own to die. Something similar is frequently seen in nomadic human societies or human society where the population is beyond sustainability, as the old are pushed-out when they can no longer physically contribute to the community.

A stable stationary society allows the development and ongoing possession of tools and knowledge, passed on and used generation to generation, with knowledge and experience transforming a weak toothless grandma/grandpa into a venerable sage. Make your life count, and pass it on.

Depending on the average age of childbirth, and lifespan, we could then see families of 3 to perhaps 5 generations, for a population at each homestead of 6 to 10 people.

Some arrangements may need to be made to adjust financial equity for marriages, where one of the two siblings moves to the homestead of

the new spouse, vs bringing the new spouse to home.

Remember, in a situation where we have already reached the maximum sustainable population, whether it is the number of homes in a remote secure valley, within city limits, or the world, there is no new space to build a new home and expand out.

PANTRY

A "root cellar" room inside the home along the north wall. Ice / freezing capabilities increases the food storage options greatly. Solar powered absorbent / refrigerant (no compressor) was accomplished in the 1800's, and once made, can operate for decades. Proven combinations are:

Lithium bromide / water (LiBr/H2O)Water / Ammonia (H2O/NH3)Sodium thicyanate/ammonia(NaSCN/NH3)Lithium nitrate/ammonia (LiNO3/NH3)Calcium chloride/ammonia (CaCl2/NH3)Strontium chloride/ammonia (SrCl2/NH3)

Evaporative cooling (where water is a readily available resource) can make a large difference. A simple approach, perhaps to hold food, is a covered fired clay pot, recessed in sand filling a much larger, unfired clay pot, keeping the sand moist, and the device shaded. For a higher tech consider and air tight container, and a vacuum pump. Fill the container part way with water, and pull a vacuum. As the pressure lowers, the water boils at lower temperatures. While some of the water boils off, some will freeze.

KITCHEN

As potentially your greatest need for solar heat, the kitchen needs to have the most unrestricted solar access. Consider keeping the heat, humidity and smells of the kitchen totally isolated from the air of the rest of the home.

Winston non-imaging concentrators could provide a constant hotspot for an oven.

Mirror or lens concentration on coils of circulating oil could provide a means to route concentrated heat to a "burner" coil arrangement for a stove cooking surface.


Once you have something hot, use insulation. An example, bring a pot of stew, cooking meat, etc. up to a rapid boil, and put the covered pot in an insulated box.

BATH

If you're using compost toilets, perhaps you want the bath well vented, separate from the primary home system. Provided you are not using soaps or putting chemicals down the drain toxic to plants, your bath and wash water is a valuable gray water resource. While we're in the bathroom, consider toilet paper. Absent some type of on-going specialist society, are you going to be able to make your own toilet paper? The options are more or less leaves, dirt, the bare flesh of your hand, or some leather/cloth that gets washed.

HUMAN EFFLUENT RECYCLING

Sanitation. Human urine and manure contains valuable nutrients needed by the soil. Prior to re-use, the pathogens present must be eliminated.

Compost toilet. Low or no water systems where the human discharges are retained at temperatures and with airflow for bacteria to process the discharges into safe fertilizer. Urine must either be diverted and processed separately, or most of it is lost to evaporation.

Expedient: Collect human feces and urine in a container (e.g, a 5 gallon bucket with a toilet seat on it) and after each use, cover the wastes with an organic cover material such as sawdust (or peat moss, dried leaves, or even dirt if it is dry enough to be absorbent). When the container is full, transfer of the contents to a compost bin. The cover material serves a dual function of suppressing odors and providing the carbon needed by decomposer organisms to balance the nitrogen present in urine. Each time the waste/sawdust mixture is transferred to the compost bin, it is covered with a sufficient amount of coarse organic material such as straw, hay, leaves or weeds. Kitchen garbage and yard waste may be put in the same compost bin. Once the last addition is made, the contents of the bin are allowed to compost for a year.

Establish a compost pile of about a meter cube. Effective composting requires:Sufficient moisture (50-75%)

Dry browns - dry leaves and grass, which are high in carbonWet greens - green grass and leaves which are high in nitrogenAir throughout the pileSoil organisms.

It is desirable to have a ratio of 25-30 carbon to 1 nitrogen or much more of the dry browns to the wet greens. The exact ratio is not too critical, but if your pile is not working very well try to get closer to the ratio and/or add some rich soil. If nitrogen is low some urine can be added. The pile needs to be turned so that all materials reach the desired temperature at some time during the process.

Daily additions of peelings, stems and stalks from vegetables and fruits keep the pile loose and temperature up. Piles which are tight have lower temperatures, possibly due to lack of air which, in turn, prevents the various organisms from working. Piles receiving very moist air will remain moist and tight due to lack of evaporation of moisture produced by composting and that being deposited on the pile by the users. The composting process will be slowed or inhibited by excess moisture concentrations.

Heat pasteurization. 30 minutes in a solar oven at 250+ degrees should kill all pathogens. However, a significant portion of the carbon & nitrogen is lost. Lower temperatures must be 150F (65C) for an hour, 120F (50C) for 24 hours or 115F (46C) for a week.

Solarization. Place a 7.5 centimeter (3 in) layer of compost from the toilet on the ground and cover it with a clear plastic sheet (1 or 4 mil thickness) when the outdoor temperature is over 27C (80F). The compost needs to be quite smooth and free of any plants or lumps so that the plastic film will have intimate contact with the soil and compost. The edges should be sealed so that moisture is not lost. The temperature should reach at least 55 to 60C (131 to 140F) for about two weeks. The compost should be very moist (50-75%) but not soggy, such that water can be squeezed out of it. If you need, and can generate the temperatures, quick pathogen treatment can be done, allowing less "careful" disposal.

Pathogens, such as the Hepatitis A virus, which is the most heat resistant intestinal pathogen, are


rendered inert by a temperature of 70 C (158 F) in ten minutes, 75C (167 F) in one minute, and 80 C (176 F) in five seconds (2)(Harp, 1996 Effect of Pasteurization, Environmental Biology). These temperatures are easily obtained by simple solar collectors.

Direct soil distribution. The book, "Future Fertility, Transforming Human Waste into Human Wealth", John Beeby describes a rotation system using perennial crops.

HUMANURE WARNING

Human refuse can have viruses, bacteria, protozoa, and worms (helminths). There are a number of each type that are possible. In urine, bacteria can cause typhoid or paratyphoid fever and worms can cause schistosomiasis. In feces, viruses can cause diarrhea, infectious hepatitis and poliomyelitis; bacteria can cause typhoid fever, paratyphoid fever, food poisoning, dysentery, cholera, and diarrhea; protozoa can cause diarrhea dysentery, colonic ulceration, and liver abscess. Some of the worm parasites that can be present are hookworm, various flukes, pinworm, various tapeworms, roundworm, and threadworm. These pathogens are of concern in human refuse.

If human refuse is applied directly to crops, the length of time that the pathogens survive depends upon soil moisture, pH, type of soil, temperature, sunlight, and organic matter. Bacteria and viruses cannot penetrate undamaged vegetable skins, but they can survive on the surfaces of vegetables, especially root vegetables. Sunshine and dry air can help kill the pathogens. If there is any concern about pathogens, compost should be applied to long-season crops at the time of planting so that sufficient time passes for the pathogens to die.

To have greater confidence in your compost for your garden, you can permit just your family to use your compost toilet18. Then you know what has been deposited in it. Another option is to just spread the compost from the toilet only on tree and bush crops. In addition, the more air that can be trapped in the pile, the better the pile will heat up and inactivate the pathogens that might be present.

Average pounds produced per person per year.Source: Future Fertility19

Nitrogen Phosphorus Potassium CalciumUrine 7.5 1.6 1.6 2.3Manure 2.8 1.9 0.8 2.0Total 10.3 3.5 2.4 4.3

Range required per 100 ft. sq. of garden

Nitrogen Phosphorus Potassium Calcium 0.1 - 0.5 0.2 - 0.6 0.15 - 0.50 0.2 - 0.8

Range one human's effluent can fertilize each year in ft. sq.

Nitrogen Phosphorus Potassium Calcium

Urine 1500 - 7500 266 - 800 320 - 1067 287 - 1150

Manure 560 - 2800 316 - 950 160 - 533 250 - 1000

Total 2060 - 10300 582 - 1750 480 - 1600 537 - 2150

Expect each person to produce around 1 gallon of manure per month, which should be applied to no less than 50 ft. sq. monthly, otherwise you're adding too much nitrogen to the growing medium. Layer manure, then 2" soil, seeds, and sprinkle soil. Move on to next 50 ft. sq., cycle back annually for 3 years, then shift to another set of beds.

Urine must be diluted with water from 5 to 10 to 1.

WETLAND WASTEWATER TREATMENT

Mishandled sewage creates one of the developing world's worst underlying problems. It leads to death and disease, contamination of land and water, and chronically unsanitary conditions for millions.

However, there an unsophisticated sewage treatment approach may fit the needs of the Third World, and a First World in crisis. This simple and inexpensive approach employs various aquatic plants grown in artificial wetlands20. Wastewaters merely trickle through man-made watery gardens in which living plants clarify the waste stream to the point where it is safe for people, animals, and the environment at large. In principle, this low-tech process should be ideal for the world's poor countries. Plants


grow extremely well in the heat of tropics. In fact, because there are no winter seasons, the wetland systems should work better there than here. Yet it is unknown.

PUMICE WICK

A variation of wetland and direct distribution is the Aerobic Pumice Wick presented by TOM WATSON. All liquid wastes drain into a filter tank to hold solids for aerobic composting, allowing the liquid to drain to a bed/tank. Set up an 18" bed of pumice in a waterproof base, with a cover of around 6" of soil. Plant roots access the bed use the nutrients and transpire the water. In the case of too much liquid, the wick acts as a filter and filtered water drains out of the exit pipe. Please ensure liquid does not rise to the compost level.

ENGINEERING SPACE

Workshop, machines, batteries, inverters, chemical storage, etc., keeping these clearly separated from the living space. Aim for no air exchange with the living space.

GREENHOUSE

If capable of being completely separated from the living space, yet circulate air if desired, plants can be kept warm even if there is no need for the heat in the home. Consider some plant mass in every room though, i.e. growing under the skylight.

BEDROOMS

What do you expect will be the makeup of your household? Think of the future. Plan a home to last hundreds of years. How many generations may need to live in the same place? Do you expect multiple occupancy of bedrooms, are bedrooms to be a private "home", or is it merely a private secure, quiet place to rest. I've seen very "tiny" cabins (rooms) on yachts that were luxurious.

A small space takes much less energy to heat or cool. Canopy beds were not merely for appearances. In cold times, draped insulation allowed body heat to warm the sleeping space. In warm periods open mesh allowed cooling breezes while minimizing the bugs. Envision

how small of an a/c unit would suffice to chill for the evening just the inside of a canopy bed.

How about modest personal rooms, with the possibility of linking them for space for couples, those who need to monitor infants, etc., or the ability to easily move walls? Say you've got a five generation homestead, two children per generation, where one sibling each generation left to reside in a similar multi-generation home of their spouse. There are probably 10 people at the homestead. Set the bedroom wing at 1,000 square feet. The effect of an "extra" child in a generation, children to younger couples, or increase in lifespan become immediately apparent to the family as they shift the bedroom walls.

OUTDOOR ROOMS

Walled and screened (bugs do seem to be everywhere) outside spaces can provide seasonal, (depending on your climate) if not year round extra living / storage / working space.

EQUIPMENT AND MATERIALS

Dead cars will be valuable sources of un-natural resources, auto windows, conveniently made of shatter resistant glass, not to mention sheet steel, wire, tubing, generators, pumps, and electronic parts. The same goes for "useless" appliances. Where early mankind had to mine and refine metals and minerals, for some time, we're likely to find them merely lying about.

SURVIVALIST WARNING

Do not fall into the trap of survivalists or emergency preparedness where you believe you can store sufficient supplies to "tide you thru" a period of crises, and wait for things to return to normal. If you survive better than others because of your preparations, YOU may be the one who needs to provide a rescue, or rebuild civilization.

"ATTIC SPACE"

Have you shared this scenario: You encounter under the sofa, behind the desk, etc., some possession or item of figurative scrap, which you've not seen in a long time. Realizing you are "never" going to need it again, you donate it, or


throw it away... Then the next week you desperately need it.

Contrary to those who advocate eliminating "clutter", or personal possessions in general, your homestead needs some significant secure storage area. If I recall correctly, the same "high chair" that endured my baby drool, was not only previously occupied by my older sister, but by our mother, uncle, older cousins, etc., being passed around as needed, and returned to the grandparents home for safe keeping.

STORAGE PROGRAM

There are many products and services that are readily, and cheaply available today, which may quickly become expensive or unavailable. Beyond merely equipping yourself for the projected work, a storage program may provide valuable trade goods (for that vital widget you forgot about), or the means for a new start.

Fertilizers, not only phosphorus, potassium & nitrogen, but also micronutrients. Should you find yourself forced to relocate away from your developed planting beds (or ignored making them) you've got a fallback position from which to start.

Empty plastic soda bottlesCanning Jars & Lids with extra insertsSolar dehydratoritems for meat smoking,SaltBlack pepperMolassesSalting barrels55 gallon barrels5 gallon bucketsMagnifying glassFlintKnivesToolsWireRopeCordFiberglassScreenScrews/Nails/BoltsFoilMylar/Plastic

SAFETY PRIORITY IPHYSICAL SECURITY & SAFETY

During a widespread period of socio-economic disturbances (the crash), or war, the scenarios are probably NOT limited by your imagination. Wherever you are, or will be, become familiar with the applicable laws. In particular for U.S. residents, examine the state statutes, county and municipal codes for the emergency powers of your officials. Before you buy, build, plan, plant, etc., know what is prohibited, and allowed ways to achieve your goals.

Be cautious of what you advertise. Whether "legitimate" or not, the "democratic" process (aka mob rule, there's more of us than of you, and we want what you got) may endanger your careful preparations.

WILDERNESS LOCATION

If you're planning a survivalist, isolated home-site, you're looking for an area that IS NOT one that will be on the first choice list for those who suddenly decide to head for the hills, as providing your own security may become a 24/7 job, precluding all else. You also would not want to be the likely route of a passing casual (hungry, angry) observer who is headed for greener pastures. Ensure your home is not readily discernable from the surroundings, or does not appear lucrative, then even if inadvertently encountered, it may be ignored.

Rolling terrain, hills, etc. interfere with long distance viewing and provide multiple concealment locations. An underground, or even earth bermed home may remain unobserved until someone is almost "on top" of it.

If you select isolation, consider just how sustainable or ecological you can actually be. How much damage does your new remote homestead do to remaining wilderness? Kids in a pup tent in the back yard naively look at it as a "roughing it" adventure. How much different is an attempt to create an ecological & sustainable human environment by destroying yet more of nature?

RETROFIT LOCATION

There are those who can't (financial, medical, technical, etc.) initiate a new self-reliant homestead in the wilderness, or couldn't remain at such even if handed to them free. I will argue


that any further such impact on remaining wilderness is contrary to any contemplation of ecological sustainability. We need to use our knowledge, intelligence and skills to repair what we've destroyed, and retrofit for long term sustainability, with reduced demands for new resources and recycle rather than discard. This includes homes, neighborhoods, and entire cities.

EMISSION CONTROL

If the surrounding territory is without food, power, and fuel, cooking odors, blaring music and lights, and smoke will not aid your concealment. The nutrients of your vegetables are better when fresh than cooked anyway. If you MUST hear your favorite tunes at ear-shattering levels, use headsets. For non-critical night light, take a cue from the navy, and use red lights, shielded so that direct light from the bulb does not escape the immediate area. You can see to work and move about, but there's no "beacon" in the sky or in the distance. For night reading or detailed work, be prepared to blackout a room. Smoke at night may provide a nosey human a clue someone else is around, but unless they're close, have a dog, or have gotten really good at it, they probably won't be able to easily trace the smell back to you.

PERIMETER SECURITY, CONCEALMENT AND CAMOUFLAGE

Your aquaculture tanks, neat orderly biointensive beds, greenhouse, solar panels, etc. will probably provide indications to travelers that there may be food available. When you simply must have a lot of square feet exposed to the sun, concealment is not simple.

Rolling, uninviting terrain may be among the best defenses for those who select isolation. If you have the right climate, a lot of space, and the ability, dispersing your food crops can lessen the odds of discovery, but it makes your gardening more difficult. Plant along the south slope, near the bottom of the slope, imitating the natural distribution of plants. Knowledge of "wild" foods, or dispersed planting of crops that are not generally recognized as food provides additional protection. Beyond mere concealment, perhaps look for ways to deliberately mislead potential visitors around your home, such as establishing what appears to be a well-used, easy to travel path that misses your home, while making the

actual approach path at least in appearance far more difficult.

For urban camouflage the goal is the same, avoiding attracting attention of undesirables. Install barriers that block sight and access, and that don't look out of place. Consider photovoltaic panels that are integrated into roof tiles, rather than the "sore thumb" versions advertising their presence. Enclose your garden space (which is touched on in the MESS appendix).

Whether wilderness or urban, your perimeter needs to be as secure as your resources and sense of security allow/demand. In a minimal homestead, where you have virtually a year-round growing season, and secure access to water, you need to maintain security of an area at least 100' by 100'. You need 400' of appropriate fence, or secure wall.

Unfortunately, as touched on later in property tax and eminent domain discussions, it may be necessary to stay "under the radar" of corrupt government officials. In this perspective, perhaps "Secret Societies" of the past are not the villains such are often portrayed, they may have just wanted to live and be left alone.

DETERRENTS

In a crash scenario, where laws and courtrooms have failed, interplantings of selected inedible crops may provide protection from human predators, much as there are plants to protect crops from insects and animals. (Be cautious though of what you, and your household touch, and eat!) Approaches to your site can be planted with discouragement plants, such as those with thorns, "poison ivy", etc. Think "Halloween" and brainstorm for ideas that will tend to send intruders in a different direction. As there are ultrasonics that frighten animals and bugs, are there ultrasonic or subsonic frequencies that effect humans?

INTRUDER DETECTION

What you don't know about, can sneak up and kill you.

If you can maintain modern powered sensors and alarms, a modest investment should provide warning of approaching "company". Complete


systems, or individual components are available from various suppliers, such as at http://www.iautomate.com/glossary.htm. The "X-10" modules provide a means to select just the aspects that meet your needs. Also helpful might be microphones distributed at your perimeter, and "night vision".

You can also turn to a mobile, voice activated, self-propelled, auto refueling and self replicating detection system, often referred to as a dog. I'm not a pet type of person, but a couple of dogs could easily be worth their food.

Expedient low tech. Things that make noise when disturbed, or make the intruder make noise, or deter an intruder from a particular path, some of which may be frowned upon by pre-crash local authorities.

Landscaping. Thorns are a ready deterrent for an unprepared human. Rocks can make approaches much more difficult to transverse quickly and quietly than smooth soil.

Non-electric sensors. Bells or other noisemakers. Pull strings, rods, or hydraulics (sealed containers with a hose between them) that ring a bell.

Parabolic dish "microphones" are available, which use a stethoscope type headset. Large lens, low power binoculars can assist your low-light vision.

Maintaining a full time human lookout for a single family homestead would be my last choice, due to fatigue and the waste of labor. Consider, the military generally sets security watch-standing in four hour shifts.

The person on duty need not be capable of defending the home, but rather just an alert set of eyes and ears, to sound the alarm in the event of an intruder. (80 year old grandma can push an alarm button.) Even so, your multi-generation homestead may have, at best, 6 people capable of standing watch.

Limit official watch-standing to the 16 or so hours when the homestead is not busy with chores being done, and everyone is required to stand a 4 hour guard watch at some point virtually every night. You must trust your electro/mechanical security system, your

watchdog, or seek something better and less taxing to your individual family time and resources.

COMMUNICATIONS

Although it is arguable that some 20th century humans have become communications "junkies", access to news, and the exchange of information with others is a vital aspect for security and continued development. In the event of a high altitude nuclear “EMP” burst, all bets are off regarding the survival or use of any electronic device, including obviously communications. Devices stored in “shielding” may or may not work. Short of an EMP, many other situations can effect local and distant telecommunications.

If broadcasters are still on the air, reception only devices can provide critical information. The NOAA weather radio system has an “alert” system where some radio’s self-activate. After an initial alert though, you may find you want to have the radio on 24/7. A small radio with “D” batteries wired in may last for some significant period of time, but still using up your batteries, even if solar recharged. (see “toys” later) Your news needs CAN though be met, perhaps for DECADES, without power by a “crystal” radio.

Two way communications takes more work.

Cell Phones – Cell towers may have limited battery backup, and may be overwhelmed by call volume. Don’t try voice, send a text message. It takes a tiny bit of your phone power, and only an instant of tower processing time, potentially able to “sneak thru” a small gap. Don’t be too optimistic though.

CB Radio – Little development of the radios has happened since the 70’s, so while the prices aren’t bad, the equipment is primitive. Useful antennas tend to be large (4′ to 8′ on vehicles and larger for “base” or home stations). With smaller antennas the effective range is drastically reduced. Transmissions tend to “leak” into all kinds of other electronic devices, in your home and neighbors you will often be heard on TV speakers, corded telephones, electronic keyboard speakers, etc. Sometimes, during favorable atmospheric propagation, range can be as great as several thousand miles. Get units with Single


Side Band (SSB) capabilities and the Weather receiver.

49MHz Personal Communicators - Limited very short range use (1/4 mile max). Very small, usually single channel but up to five. Early cordless phones, baby monitors and a few other devices share this band. Extremely low power drain, 2 or 3 AA batteries and can be in service for months. $30 to $50 each.

Family Radio Service - (FRS). Frequencies around 462MHz and ½ watt power limits the range. 14 channels for use. Some units feature 38 ”codes” which let your unit respond only to other units transmitting a designated tone. Don’t expect more than a mile. $50 each for basic FRS models, $90-$190 for higher-end models with additional features.

General Mobile Radio Service - (GMRS) like the FRS operates in the 460MHz region. GMRS requires an FCC license with a fee and users must be 18 years or older. Power is 1 to 5 watts, for a range of 5 to 25 miles, depending on terrain and antenna position. There are 23 GMRS channels split up for base, mobile relay and fixed station or mobile station use. Each license is assigned one or two of eight possible channels or pairs as requested by the license applicants. In order to avoid interference or conflicts in use, the FCC recommends monitoring existing frequencies in your area before making your application and requesting your channels. GMRS radios are bigger, higher power means more batteries (as many as 6 AAs) and a higher price. Expect to pay $200 for handheld 2 watt units and considerably more for 5 watt base station transceiver.

Amateur Radio - “Ham Radio” is the most regulated, perhaps the most expensive, but may be the useful. All hams and their stations must be licensed by the FCC.. To receive a license, you must pass a written exam. Any license above the entry level also requires a proficiency in Morse Code. There’s no fee for the license (which is good for ten years), no age requirement and operators are allowed to use any frequency for which their license qualifies them. There is a nationwide system of repeaters on the 144MHz and 440MHz bands built, installed and maintained by active and well-populated local

amateur radio clubs. Traditional amateur frequencies in the shortwave bands provide excellent coverage for local, regional, national, and even international, communications. Unfortunately, there’s not one radio for all of these capabilities which is why hams typically have three or four separate radios and antennas. The starting level is the “Technician” class license which requires a written test based on a text available through many sources. This class allows the user to operate(among others) in the 2 meter band (144MHz). Small handi-talkies for 2 meters are relatively cheap and give a range of 20-50 miles depending on terrain, power and whether or not you’re using a repeater. Many repeaters provide access to 911 services through the handi-talkie. $200-$500 for 2 meter transceivers. Each radio carrying person needs a Technician license.

Long-range communications without a ground infrastructure grid seems to be limited to ham-radio22. *I would appreciate input on a "sustainable" approach to radio.

Toys – Wind up flashlights, radios, etc., have very limited long-term use. Consider, plastic cranks and gears, springs that fatigue, etc., and the cost to replace such (IF they can be replaced) vs if you are home, a far better option to devices that wind up, have solar panels, etc., is a big box of batteries, and independent dedicated battery chargers. On the flip side, IF the cute toy would help your sense of security and takes up less space and weight than extra batteries, go for it. Just don’t have you life dependent on it.

EVERYONE FIGHTS

If your child, spouse, best friend, etc. is attacked, would you ignore the situation, or help them?

If any member of my household is assaulted, or an intruder detected, I would hope that everyone would respond in some appropriate manner based on their skills, physical capability, and the situation presented.

When you are attacked, you have to deck your opponent. - Hillary Clinton (Presidential Candidate)

22 In 1879 a "Morse Code" portable 2-way wireless was operated in London. The device is in a museum.


A general legal guideline in “sane” jurisdictions for personal23 use of physical force, or threatening or using deadly force, is in protecting yourself or someone else from a clear danger of immediate serious bodily harm or death.

WEAPONS

Pre-crash, selection of weapons is of course subject to locally applicable law, which may have strict, or unusual requirements.

Self-defense law varies by jurisdiction, and in the United States can be quite different state to state. Many jurisdictions require that you, the victim of a violent crime, retreat, or attempt to run-away, and that you must be trapped before you are allowed to defend yourself. This is not (2006) the case in Arizona.

In Arizona, USA, private ownership of even fully automatic weapons is not prohibited, and obtaining a "concealed carry" weapons permit is relatively simple. But for some reason, the only weapon PROHIBITED in Arizona is nun chucks.

Firearms. Many people mistakenly claim weapons are the source of crime rather than a reaction to it. This is rather like blaming your flat tire on the spare you carry in the trunk.

It's not that a weapon becomes a necessity when a society starts to break down… it is weapons that allow society to be maintained. Defense of self and others is just one of the areas where we’ve abdicated our personal responsibility, in the case of defense to the military and the police. How effective could the military and the police be, if they were unarmed?

Our complacency may be coming back to haunt us, consider without the military, and the police, how long would an unarmed population remain free? History, and, recent news show what happens when armed force is absent. In the

simplest terms, it's a question of who is able to exert or threaten force, and who is not.

In a likely coming scenario of expensive or non-existent energy, supplies, products, and probably food, a greatly scaled down economy, and with it scaled down tax revenues, and therefore government tax revenue, we are going to have to be much more self-reliant.

We are about to enter a potentially very dark period, and fear is immobilizing. Those who will not stand and defend another, or even themselves, rely either on the good-nature of those around them, or the acts of heroic others to act in their stead.

There are evil people out there. There are many today who have no reservations about taking whatever they want, and I would conjecture that the numbers of such will increase in the coming years. Consider the news stories about those who quietly submitted to an assailant, hoping to minimize the confrontation, only to be tortured to death. Consider these evil people being emboldened by an effective lack of police.

Selection of appropriate modern weapons often spurs strongly opinioned debate, which I leave to you and your friends. While I do not encourage anyone to adopt any particular weapon, I simply report that my preferred sidearm is a .45 ACP pistol, and a 45-7024 lever action rifle. Whatever your selection, examine it from a sustainability position, if we do indeed experience a deep crash, and a "dark age" period, can you maintain the operability of the weapon, and provide a continuing supply of ammunition?

Regardless of the weapon selected, follow the basic rules: “Treat every gun as if it is loaded. Never point a gun at anything you are not willing to destroy. Finger off the trigger until the sights are on the target. Be sure of your target and what is behind it.”

23 Check the laws in your jurisdiction for your legal ability to threaten or use physical or deadly force, AND check the laws in your jurisdiction as to the scenarios as to where the government is “justified” in use of such force against you. For example, what happens if you refuse to pay you taxes, and decline to volunteer to go to jail?24 The longest verified shot from a .45-70 was Two Miles. The Report of the Secretary of War, 1880 included "… Mr. R.T Hare of Springfield Armory who has the enviable distinction, so far as is known, of being the only person in the world who has hit the 'Bull's-Eye' six feet in diameter… at 3,200 yards.”


I point out though that starting as we are from the bottom up, and considering the great leverage in security provided by availability of modern firearms, should make clear the utter folly of the anti-firearm extremists. A firearm is a tool. It can be a work of creative art. It can be the means by which a diminutive, frail individual can refuse and prevent injury or worse from others far stronger, and numerous. It is, as Samuel Colt commented, a great equalizer.

Examine the motives of those who oppose firearm possession by other than those whom they would anoint with special power and privilege, and ask why.

Sustainable. The first weapon that comes to mind as "sustainable" is bow and arrow, which literally grows on trees. Other tree based weapons would include include the spear and it's atlatls throwing holder which significantly increases the range and power of a spear throw. With an investment of more time and effort a sling arm, trebuchet, or catapult can toss crushing projectiles long distances. The online encyclopedia "Wikipedia" indicates the pneumatic reservoir (pump up a storage tank of air) guns have been in use since around the 1500's, and may be considered rugged and sustainable in low technology conditions.

In light of articles on potato or tennis ball "guns", powered by an exploding mixture of alcohol, gasoline, butane, etc., I continue to wonder if a functional rifle could be made powered by an exploding alcohol/air mixture.

"Clouds" of fine flammable dust can explode, as has been demonstrated by explosions in grain silos.

Also, a powered centrifuge might be able to serve as a repeating high-velocity "sling". Might sounds over a PA system distract attackers? (Pre-positioned speakers behind places where attackers might hide, or sounds of animals or gunfire, or I've heard there are "sounds" below audible frequencies that create nervousness in many people.)

SUPERSTITION / FEARS

Real or imagined animals, ghosts, etc. may unnerve those who are already disoriented, having seen their entire "world" collapse.

LIGHTING

When you decide to light up the area, consider that you WANT the light "in the eyes" of intruders, but NOT in your eyes. Once a light is activated, it's location is obvious to all nearby. If you want your light to remain, despite "hostile" approaches, consider what a slingshot, air rifle, or well thrown rock will do to most lightbulbs.

If practical, place the bulb in a protected area, and put the light where you want it with reflectors. Even aluminum foil will reflect a significant portion of the light, yet projectiles thrown at the light will just pass thru the foil.

ANTICIPATED "INVADERS"

What type of hostile "enemy25" is expected? In the 1950's and 1960's, talk of atomic war prompted some to prepare fallout shelters. At the time, and perhaps in retrospect, some saw the shelter building activity as foolish. Your self-reliant home may be similarly cause you to be the object of criticism by those who will not see the problems we face. But if done well, those shelter spaces continued to be an asset, and may once again, in the coming crash, prove their value as fallout shelters. Similarly, your self reliant home, even if there is an energy breakthru, has reduced your living costs, while providing peace of mind and a form of "insurance".

Organized Army. As shown in the operations of formal Armies, against less well equipped and trained adversaries, "strongholds", even those constructed by the oil rich Iraq regime, are no match for computer guided bombs. Probably the best defense against a formal Army is to simply avoid a conflict in the first place. Don't be obvious as a desired asset. Don't be an enemy.

Mob. A stronghold has value against a mere mob, but I would still propose every home has it's own reinforced safe-room, rather than one

25 As opposed to you directly confronting an enemy, can you remain hidden from view, or if discovered redirect any attack such that one enemy of yours is pit in battle against another enemy of yours, vs you doing the fighting?


group location. Interconnect these safe-rooms with communications wiring, pipe, etc. as technology and resources permit.

Individuals. If not hostile, do you feed them? Even if you send them on their way, if you've fed them, will they return? Will they return with others, or send others your way, as an easy "mark" for a free meal? Do you let them camp on the property, or ignore their camp just off the property? How to guide them to establishing their own sustainable village?

Friends / family. Perhaps the hardest question of all. If you've got a year of food storage, and gardens sufficient for your family, and not much more, what will you do?

Real animals. In a disaster, pets may wander away, or be cast out from homes that can no longer feed them, or people heading to shelters that do not permit pets. Such animals, when hungry, can readily revert to their instincts and become pack hunters.

What is your response to a "government" that decides your stored food is now illegal "hoarding"?

BIOLOGICAL DEFENSE

If you can, keep a gas mask near by, and complete body cover. Check out the firms that sell hazardous material handling clothing. Short of this, at least get a quality face mask (NOT the cloth/paper ones) designed for use in painting.

If you think you have been exposed to biological agents, get to your physician. In the absence of professional medical care, implement home remedies. Note, guidance on the web indicates that, should you have antibiotics available, DO NOT start their use until you are certain of the infection. Antibiotic use may adversely effect your "normal" resident bacteria, giving the "bad guys" an advantage.

Stop eating your normal, cooked food diet, opt instead for a very light diet (almost light fasting) of fresh fruits and vegetables.

Drink lots of pure water, and take:

1000 mg every two hours of Natural Vitamin C with bioflavanoids. If infections symptoms such

as aches or fever begin, take hourly. Raw garlic, one small clove crushed several times per day. Colloidal silver solution, one dropper several times per day (see generation instructions elsewhere in this treatise.) Echinacea— several times per day Goldenseal— several times per day Olive leaf extract— several times per day Grape seed extract (or other high-potency anti-oxidant)— several every few hours.

"SAFE ROOM"

Potential dangers still include events not necessarily "aimed" at your, such as hazardous releases, extreme weather, earthquakes, eruptions, flood, etc. Examine FEMA, which has materials describing building a room in/near your home for tornado safety, and NBC warfare protection.

SAFETY PRIORITY IIREVENUES & RESOURCES

At the beginning of 2007, the U.S. government asserts if an individual earns $10,210 or less per year, or a family of four $20,650 or less per year, then under federal guidelines they are living in "poverty". If you must pay rent, buy food, water, power, etc., pay to own and operate a vehicle to GET to work, you probably are impoverished. (And GREATLY at risk in the coming financial collapse.)

But if your homestead is fully paid for, and capable of meeting your minimum "life support" needs, you need not panic in economic disruptions.

How secure is your job, business, or other income? What investments other than a secure home have you selected? Inflation MIGHT raise income and/or the cash exchange value of other assets, allowing payoff of a mortgage with inflated dollars. Or income might disappear and paper assets fall to zero value, putting your possession of your home in jeopardy.

You need to understand21 the financial markets and products, and realize the risks you may be taking by going along with the crowd. (For a broader presentation, see the Financial Issues Appendix)

A TAXING SITUATION


Say you own your home free of any mortgage, and you have no personal commercial debt. Your home is fireproof, and you're quite content you can take care of yourself. You collect all the water you need from rainfall, and grow your own food in your biodynamic garden. Solar cells provide all the electricity you want, therefore you don't have any need for cash, or to work.

Wrong.

You have forgotten about your property taxes26. The government will decide how much they believe your home is worth, and how much you owe for the mere privilege of having your home setting in the community.

If you improve your home, your tax will go up.

If your neighbors improve their homes, your tax will go up.

If big picture inflation (caused by the government) raises prices, your tax will go up.

While outside the domain of the local community, the illogic is similar with vehicle registration - a fuel sipping low air pollution new hybrid is taxed far higher than an ancient gas guzzling, leaking polluter. These taxes are contrary to logic, if as professed the purpose of the taxes is to achieve some social policy. (Of if a policy statement is intended, consider how sick such a policy appears to be.)

You may have expended all of your liquid resources obtaining and outfitting your homestead, and be out of a job. The taxman won’t care.

Warlords, (mafia bosses), etc. demand protection payments from the serfs, funding the warlords enforcers and hangers-on. How is the property tax so different? Somehow, you must come up with the arbitrary protection fee, or the county will impose a lien against the title of your property. That lien can then be sold, and if you fail to pay off the back taxes and interest for three years, your title can be foreclosed in court, and someone else will own your home.

For perspective, what if the county announced that each year it was going to take an intangible property tax 1% of every bank or other financial account in, or owned by someone in the county?

This economic cannibalism by government edict is the anti-thesis of security, and the anti-thesis of the operation of eminent domain, where the government takes your property and pays you. It functions to discourage permanent improvements.

In short you are forced to sell goods or labor - forced to work. Your earnings will of course be subject to federal and state income tax, social security tax, medicare tax, etc., all before you receive any funds to use to pay the property tax.

If you improve your home or business, the county government will raise your tax, regardless of your cash flow. And it can get worse.

Coming the other direction, up from the grassroots of your self-sufficient homestead, the better job you do in changing your lifestyle, and setting up your home to eliminate dependence on the grid, or fuel flow, or the commercial food system, the less you are, for now, a source of revenue… And later, the greater you are a source of supplies if the local government decides to quit pretending, and admit how far we've come in the government being a group of mobsters, demanding protection payments.

If you minimize the taxable aspect of your home, and live simply, you may face being forced off of your property under “Eminent Domain” proceedings. In earlier years, this was only used when the government needed your property for a public purpose. The U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2005 however upheld:

“…that local governments may force property owners to sell out and make way for private economic development when officials decide it would benefit the public, even if the property is not blighted and the new project's success is not guaranteed.”

26 WHAT TO DO: Politics, lobby and become an activist for the elimination of real property taxes, starting at the least with residential property that is owner-occupied. At the most basic level, this type of tax hits the hardest those least able to pay, and forces those who would otherwise be able to eliminate their excess resource use, and involvement in the marketplace, to perform some service to be able to pay their tax.


Some state governments implemented protections. Some, such as Arizona in the 2006 election, had protections implemented by a referendum coming not from the elected officials, but from the people.

REGULATORY TAKING

Those who have or desire power over you must have a means to reward those they desire, and punish those who fail to obey. Direct theft in the form of taxes or taking of property under eminent domain is obvious. Less clear but perhaps more direct in establishing control is exampled by "environmental" regulations over the water in a prairie pothole, and the quality and quantity of pothole water sources. (Yes, there are members of Congress who author and submit such proposals.)

As repeatedly submitted, the law would allow federal control of your rainwater collection. When you have achieved local self reliance in life support, you see less need to work for cash. As others follow your lead, and real income and tax revenues decline, you must be vigilant for those who will seek to ensure your obedience by creating a monopoly on some essential aspect, such as water.

INCOME FOR INCIDENTALS

Are you planning on some continuing stipend, such as a pension from a private sector employer, or the government, a stipend from Social Security, or investment payouts? Do you really believe they can be depended on?

RETIREMENT INCOME

Are you entitled to a pension? Where does the money come from? Where does that entity (government or private sector) get the money, when the economy is not functioning? The news in 2006 included growing mention of private sector firms being unable to pay promised pensions. General Motors at least offered employees a cash departure option, in lieu of a pension and benefits. Which would you take, a promise of a payment in the future, or cash now that you could invest?

U.S.A.SOCIAL SECURITY

As of 2005, the news is finally mentioning Social Security, and the disaster that the system is. When the "baby boomer" generation, which includes some of the highest earning (and tax paying) citizens retires, stops paying taxes, and becomes eligible for some of the highest Social Security payments promised, a fiscal disaster awaits. The U.S. federal government can't make the promised payments without taxing and taking not only 100% of the annual gross earnings of the nation, but it could require taking everyone's property and selling it to someone outside the nation.

The most likely course is to make SS "means tested", so that if you have a retirement income, you won't receive SS. The most likely means for the government to make Social Security payments, is to simply print the money, inflating the currency to a disaster.

PRIVATE INVESTMENTS

Do you believe that in a collapse of the infrastructure, you will be able to sell your stocks/bonds? Will you still receive interest income? Could you find yourself HOPING to sit back and relax, but with no USEFUL money actually coming in? The boomers are highly invested in securities. As they retire, they will want cash for their spending. If SS payments are limited, stock sales will come faster. The oil crash may make some stocks worthless, requiring further sales.

To example a corporation. Envision a 100 unit apartment building, held by a corporation that only owns only the facility. The three corporate officers live in the building, getting a free apartment but no salary as a requirement of their management of the operation and maintenance of the building. The overall averaged net unit monthly rental income is $500 per unit. There are 10,000 shares of stock outstanding, 1% owned by each officer. The stock does not pay dividends, but instead re-invests all profits in improvements in the facility. Total annual profit for the facility is $600,000, or $60 per share. If you were looking for 5% annual earnings, in theory you might be willing to pay $1,200 per share, at a facility estimated value of $12 million.

As inflation raises the dollar “value” of the facility, and the rents, it makes it look like the


cash value of each share is greater. Would you buy this stock as an investment? Is it an investment?

Your officers gain from the new pool and recreation area, the investment in solar panels, insulation, geothermal heat storage, etc. Do you?

Your investment has no actual cash-flow value. Your investment brings no right to any physical possession or facility use. The numbers look good on paper, but you only make any profit if you can convince someone else to buy your shares at a later inflated value. It appears this is a “speculation” (perhaps something short of a gamble) where the only way you physically gain is to run a successful campaign for corporate officer, and get a free apartment (worth $6,000 per year).

Earn – Provide goods or services to someone else at a profit to youSave – Accumulate your earnings in a safe manner.Invest – Expend savings on an asset with apparent and enduring value, producing income.Speculate - Fluctuating value depending on public opinion.Gamble - More likely than not to lose value.

UNEMPLOYMENT / WELFARE

As with pensions, anyone receiving or counting on unemployment or government welfare benefits must plan on a future WITHOUT any such benefits. It's simple, the economy crashes, tax revenue disappears, therefore welfare disappears.

The author seeks a clear, factual explanation from anyone who can demonstrate that in a low energy, essentially self-sufficient future any program that entails mandatory over-production by “someone”, to be taken at the point of a gun, to provide for non-productive members in a society, can be sustained. Can anyone who is rational vote for any politician that advocates such?

INFLATION

Inflation, although appearing as a general increase in prices, is in other terms a decrease in the value of currency. Inflation is often

exampled by Germany in the 20's, when they printed a billion Mark note on only one side, to save ink, and a classic story of a man who took a wheelbarrow of money to the store to buy bread. When he couldn't get the wheelbarrow thru the door, he left it outside, certain no one would steal the worthless money.

He was right, someone dumped the money and stole the wheelbarrow. But inflation dates back to the earliest currencies, Rome inflated its currency, even though based on precious metal coins, by mixing other metals, clipping the coins, or making them smaller or thinner. "Modern" inflation, like the German situation, does not require physical alteration of the currency, to shrink its value.

In an inflating economy, in general, depositing money in fixed percentage income investments (bank accounts, bonds, etc.) can be a guaranteed LOSS for you, if the rate of return after all applicable taxes does not clearly exceed the rate of inflation. This guaranteed loss also applies to anyone who is living on a fixed income, whether from employment, or a pension.

In a continually inflating economy, in general those who borrow at fixed rates, and use the money in carefully selected investments, will be able to pay off their loans with cheap dollars, and build fortunes thru leverage. This plan of course requires appropriate selection of investments, and a continuing economy that actually pays out the inflated dollars.

MONEY

Money is simply an agreed unit of exchange, so that there is no need for a complex barter system. The money specified by a government taxing authority, is the money in which they want to be paid. You must somehow generate the required currency.

Expect to need a completely separate means, independent of the government currency, to value local transactions outside your homestead.

Whether the government mandated public currency, or your local currency, once the units are determined, currency can of course be promised for future delivery, loaned, found, destroyed, etc.


Consider a currency denominated in some easily understood unit, where the unit itself represents a potential barter item. You have as a goal a means to continue local transactions without the distortions created as the government manipulates the national currency as a means of government policy.

The "Gold Standard", touted as an essential means to avoid currency devaluation (inflation), is in reality simply setting a clear barter unit to denominate currency. As a demonstration of holding value, it is probably true that the same $20 gold coin which in the 1800's would buy a new gun, or a quality suit, will due to the value of the gold in our devalued dollars be exchangeable for the same goods. Gold can be mined, or used, altering the stored supply “backing” a currency. Gold may be attractive to some, and have some minor yet significant uses in a technical society, but it is not essential to the function of a simple or modern society, and may not be an optimum unit of currency.

Locally, anyone can create money. Consider a local barter note system where a plumber fixes the pipes in the home of the dentist, in exchange for an "IOU" note good for a root canal. The plumber trades the note for pipes and parts from a demolished building. The note can continue to circulate for so long as people are willing to trade for it, perhaps even past the retirement of the dentist. Your neighbor provides you a bushel of apples, and you in return give them a promise to provide one kilowatt-hour of electricity.

The challenge is not in creating a currency, but in creating one where the units are standard and easily understood, relatively stable, and the system is generally accepted. Finding gold adds units to the economy, but no new functioning value, as would more bushels of apples, or an increase in power generating capability.

FINANCING YOUR HOMESTEAD

While a lot of your homestead can be "sweat equity", unless you inherit it (or stand to inherit) somehow you are going to have to pay for the real property. There are real estate markets where for example speculators, who have bought for the purpose of re-selling at a higher price, have temporarily flooded the market with borrowed cash such that the price of homes

clearly exceeds the ability to pay of the "typical" family that would ordinarily be expected to purchase the home. In such a scenario, due to the mortgages, the price correction is not likely to take place unless and until the speculators are unable to sell or rent to cover the mortgages, and default repossessions occur. As of late 2007 though, the federal government is talking about “bailing out” the loans of these speculators.

Please pardon the bluntness, but IF you have to pay for such, WHY? Our parents, grandparents, etc., had to have lived somewhere, why is it that we seem to take it for granted that each generation is going to have to "make it on it's own", to go out and mortgage their life, forced to work to pay the finance company.

Why don't we all inherit a stable functioning homestead? Some things wear out, or become obsolete, but a well done home can last generation after generation. Too many of the decisions of our ancestors, and ourselves, have been short-sighted.

If you are not living at, and standing to inherit a fully functioning multigenerational homestead, make it part of your plan that your children will.

Could you pull together your parents, grandparents, etc. to one location, or at least within walking distance, to consolidate your resources and natural interdependent support group?

If your home is financed, beware of foreclosure by your finance company if you miss payments. If there is any significant "equity" in your property, in an economic downturn you become a likely target. Even if property values have for some reason declined, YOUR property with equity has become a more viable foreclosure target. Remember that in a foreclosure sale, the bank gets paid first, then the banks lawyers, and IF there is anything left, it might go to you.

U.S.A.INDIVIDUAL RETIREMENT ACCOUNTS

In most cases, the home is the largest investment for a family. In the U.S., those with funds in an IRA, 401k, etc. potentially have another asset approaching the value of the home. To tie these together, your IRA money CAN be invested in real estate. While you cannot live on the


property owned by YOUR IRA, you can live on the property owned by your NEIGHBOR's, or even you siblings IRA, and they on yours. If you need to live and work somewhere other than your retirement / retreat location, put you IRA money in the "second home".

A valuable point to consider is using a ROTH IRA as a savings account. Your interest grows tax-free. The ROTH is not subject to garnishment / seizure under the typical lawsuit, yet it has the advantage to you that if you need cash, you can withdraw your original deposits WITHOUT TAX OR PENALTY.

ECONOMICS

Getting in place a homestead that can meet your life support needs should be a first priority. Consider though, can you grow all of your own food, make your clothes, build your home, engineer a car, appliances, etc?

To the extent that you own your own shelter, garden space, make clothes, etc., you are capitalist27, owning the means of producing your necessities. In continuous ownership by the same family, the usefulness and value of capital improvements accumulate to the benefits of coming generations. To the extent that your own assets provide for your life support needs, you eliminate the need for outside income and purchases, making you an autarky.

Does it make sense for every individual / family to do everything for themselves? Will your spouse do open heart surgery if you need it? If you think there should, or must be specialties, you've created economics. Some level of grouping can get by with a complex barter system, where ditch digging is exchanged for chickens, which are exchanged for dental work...

A long term sustainable economy will be... different. Start, with the elimination of "housing starts" as being seen as a positive economic indicator. In ecological reality, new housing construction means either some previous structure was or had to be destroyed, or some new area of nature had to be destroyed. "Gross Domestic Product" (GDP) figures include the money spent in the un-sustainable industrial food

system. It includes business that creates toxic pollutants, it includes cleanup of those pollutants, and medical costs of those injured, NONE of which is a positive effect. If significant quantities of people once again grew their own gardens, the personal improvement in food quality, safety, and security, would be presented as bad news, an economic "downturn" as spending at food merchants reduced.

LIFECYCLE PLANNING

If solar panels have a useful life of 20 to 30 years, and I anticipate a continuing need for electrical power, I have that long to find an alternative. Silicon cells are a high-tech process. Low tech p/v cells can however be made from blackened copper, and thermocouples also offer direct sunlight (heat) to electrical power conversion.Regardless of what you buy or install now, can you maintain it, or replace it? Understand it?

PARTS & TOOLS

With a modest collection of quality hand tools, even a neophyte can make modest repairs, disassemble obsolete equipment, or fashion vital devices. Imagine trying to "double dig" you garden without a shovel, or loosen a bolt without a wrench.

Obsolete devices are a potential "goldmine" of parts and raw materials.

APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY

That which is available, affordable, and sustainable in the most likely situations. This has been essentially ignored in our century+ long oil party. Hopefully you will be inspired to personal research and planning.

Numerous articles on creating your own "home grown" technology are available online at http://www.vita.org and at http://www.itdg.org. When the functional lifespan of your purchases ends, will you still have a need for the product or service? If so, can you repair or replace it with what you have remaining? The greatest source of energy on Earth, is the sun. It evaporates water for rain, powers worldwide thermal

27 Note, the authoer would argue that corporations are not "capitalist" in nature. They hardly represent individual private ownership and responsibility, and are in many aspects creatures of and subservient to the government, rather than the purported individual owners.


currents in the air and water, and thru photosynthesis provides all of the food consumed.

On your own property, with you own property, with your own creativity, what can you accomplish?

Solar/steam micro hydro for power. Consider a large tank of water capable of withstanding modest pressure, not necessarily much about typical city water pressure. Could solar concentration then be used to generate steam in an insulated bladder, to push water thru a micro hydro generator into another water tank?

Vertical axis windmill. Even numbers of opposed arms, each holding flexible material sails. On the power side, the wide billows the sail open, pulling a cable to help hold the opposing sail closed as it moves to windward during rotation.

Clay/ceramics. What could be more “appropriate”, dig clay, add water, form, bake in a solar oven.

Other solar devices. Israeli research has developed a relatively simple means which uses a parabolic mirror to concentrate sunlight onto a fiber optic cable, which then leads to a light scalpel, useable as a laser scalpel. Sunlight can be used to directly “pump up” a laser to firing power. It can heat dangerous compounds past the temperature where they separate into harmless atoms or compounds. Light can readily be manipulated by lenses or mirrors. Given a crashing infrastructure, my feeling is that shiny material is going to be easier to obtain than precision formulated and ground lenses. Take the simple fact that light reflects off a flat mirror at the same angle it strikes the mirror. Now envision many tiny mirrors rather than one large one. If the angle of adjacent mirrors are adjusted right, the light can all be reflected onto a single spot, or spread to provide diffuse illumination from a single bright beam.

In sixth grade, as part of a statewide “Solar House” competition, once my daughter got the concept, she was able to use cardboard and mylar gift wrap to make an 8” wide parabolic curve. She used this to concentrate on black plastic ½” irrigation hose. It melted the hose, but not before it proved that in minutes it raised the temperature of water flowing in the hose to past 114 degrees F.

Her design, shown above, is a two story courtyard home, with second floor outdoor decks on the south 1/3, and the solar panels on the roof. It is intended to be earth sheltered halfway up the lower floor. This combination active / passive model took first place.

KNOWLEDGE

What does a human know by instinct?

We have no instincts for even food. A human must think about what is food, how to find it, grow it, hunt it, preserve it. We have no instinct for making fire, writing, reading, or even speaking. We must each learn from the preceding generation. - The Virtue of Selfishness, Any Rand

Web and computer files are the fastest means of finding and gathering information, but rely on continued computer technology. Unfortunately for surviving humanity, the web may be an early victim of the collapse. Download to local storage any file you file valuable, and print all of those you find essential.

Microfiche is a means of storing a great deal of information in a small package, that can be read with a child's toy microscope.


Books probably remain the most practical means of gathering, storing, and passing on knowledge. Your local library should be able to order for you on "interlibrary loan" virtually any book. Read, please! A potential sustainability library (with a lean toward a desert environment) is in the Bibliography28. Used bookstores, several of which have online search functions, can yield may priceless "gems".

Plan as though your library is the only one that survives the crash, if your luck is bad, it might be.

Sustainable agricultureFarmingGardeningTreesHydroponicsOrganic Farming / Pest ControlFood conversion technologies? (soybeans to tofu, sugar beets to sugar)Solar energyPassive SolarPhoto voltaicHot WaterHomesteadingSlaughtering / Meat PreservingHomebuildingTool MakingCloth MakingHusbandry (horses, cows, pigs, chickens, etc.)TechnologyOld TechnologyHow things workTechnology RepairMedicineHomeopathyHerbology MathElementary Math (Teaching)AlgebraGeometry / TrigonometryCalculusStatisticsLanguageReading (Teaching)EnglishWritingSpanish (simple translation)French (simple translation)German (simple translation)Chinese (simple translation)Russian (simple translation)

HistoryGeneral HistoriesMapsPoliticsArt / musicPeopleLiterature100 greatest books of 20th century100 greatest classics

Planning for a library points out an obvious factor, which is language. You and your family must understand each other. It does you no good to have books you cannot read and comprehend. You should understand and be capable of using the language which has been used to preserve the information you need.

EDUCATION

How are you as a teacher? Can you serve as a teacher for your children, for even the basics of K - 12, let alone some technical specialty? If you must, or choose, to undertake this challenge, good news for you is that standardized testing has shown that home-schooled children can learn as well, if not better, than those who attend a more traditional class. If your homestead is remote and isolated, you have little choice in whether you will home-school, only in the curriculum you will prepare.

It seems obvious, that if you have access to "experts" in any particular field, they should teach that field. If you have neighbors, do you know their background and abilities?

SOLAR PATH

Earth is a sphere, around 8,000 miles in diameter, orbiting the Sun in a path of a slight ellipse at a distance of around 92 million miles in 365 days. We rotate on our N/S axis once every 24 hours. Our axis is tilted about 23.5 degrees relative to the plane of our solar orbit. This tilt means that every day the apparent path of the sun across the sky is a little different. That said, the path can be calculated, and accounted for in positioning of solar interfaces (p/v, heat collection, plants, etc.

28 Start with publications such as Amaranth to Zai Holes, available online free from ECHO.


Referring to the above diagram, set the angle between the ground and the north pole of the sky at the same number as your latitude. The daily path the sun takes will be 90 degress to the sky pole. Assume a line from the center of the ground position that is 90 degress from the sky pole line. To locate the path relative to the sky pole, the highest summer sun will be 23.5 degrees to sky-north of a right angle, and the winter sun will be 23.5 degrees to sky-south of a right angle. The circles scribed are the locations where you see the sun from the center observation point.

The Earth constantly presents an 8,000 mile diameter disk to the sun. Due to factors such as reflection, refraction, and the angle of the surface in relation to the sun, probably only around a 5,000 mile diameter disk receives useful sunlight. This area when not shaded receives energy at the rate of around 1kwh (3412 BTU or 859,845 heat calories) per sq. yard of direct solar exposure. In planning your solar harvesting, remember that in general in your summer the sun will rise polar of east and set polar of west. In the winter, it will rise equator of east and set equator of west.

TRANSPORTATION

Absent an energy breakthrough, biofuels cannot possibly be generated to meet present demand. Much of the population will have to walk, or perhaps ride a bike.

Pedal power, referred to as bicycles, but more properly human powered vehicles, can meet a great deal of local transportation needs. Per power used, a bicycle is the most efficient vehicle available, with a typical adult on an upright bicycle able to maintain a speed of 10 to

12 mph. The same person on the recently “rediscovered” recumbent should achieve a higher sustained speed due to lower air resistance and the ability to provide a more efficient braced "push" on the pedals without also straining back, neck, arm, etc. muscles as is required on an upright bicycle.

A recumbent bicycle enclosed in a streamlined fairing has been pedaled at sustained speeds of over 65 mph - try THAT on your mountain bike.

Personal powered vehicles. The cost and complexity of batteries, fuel cells, etc. may keep personal vehicles from returning to anything approaching the widespread ownership and use of today's industrial nations, or at least from resembling a 20th century automobile.

In 2006 federal law classified bicycles with a electric motor of 750 watt or less, and not capable of traveling under power more than 20 mph, as NOT a motor vehicle. States may not require them to be registered, or require a driver’s license to operate them.

It takes 3 minutes (at 20 mph) to travel a mile, so the electric bike uses 1/20 times 750 watt = 37.5 watt/hours to go a mile. Grid electricity costs 8 cents per 1,000 watt/hour. In running a mile, the electric bike needs 3.75% of a kilowatt hour, or about 3/10 of one cent of electricity.

Round-trip travel between the further most points of a grid city 11 miles on a side (see Chapter VII) would be 44 miles. The electric bicycle would require 1,650 watt/hour, or just over 13 cents of electricity, and just over an house of travel time each way. (Less if you pedal.)


Until human powered light vehicles, such as variants of bicycles are the PRIMARY means of transportation, perhaps a bike friendly community needs a separate network of bicycle roads or "tracks." The author recalls at least one such separate bicycle path in Seattle, running behind homes and businesses, with independent bridges over major roads, allowing essentially non-stop bicycle travel for 10+ miles. It was primarily for recreation. (The author prefers restricting heavy vehicle use and opening up the local community roads for manual or low power bicycles – such as the 750 watt federal limit.)

The test: Are you comfortable sending your six year old to/from 1st grade on the bicycle paths between your home and the school?

BREAKTHRU PROMISES

Amory Lovins, of the Rocky Mountain Institute (www.rmi.org) essentially presents in his online book "Winning the Oil Endgame" that advances in materials (light and strong) and in fuel cells will so revolutionize transportation that we will somehow be able to continue to drive where and when we want, with no problem of fuel availability or price, but he presents no consideration for expanding population, or the initial energy source for generating hydrogen fuels.

Consider for a moment alcohol as a fuel. Corn is a potential alcohol crop, but I remain convinced that it will be more valuable as food, and as a beverage for escape of misery, before it will be a practical fuel.

All biofuels have the same "problem", the efficiency rate of converting sunlight to a useful fuel is horrible. Corn for example manages to convert at best 2/10 % (two tenths of one percent) of sunlight to food matter, then, at a wild guess, 80% or more of that is "lost" as solids in the brewing process... You end up with say 4/100% (four one hundredths of one percent) conversion of light to fuel...

The most promising biofuel engines are diesels. A diesel burning "clean" fuel releases 15% to 20% less CO2 per mile than a gasoline engine, and gets 40% better miles per gallon. A diesel can for example be run on pure plant oils (peanut, olive, etc), or diesel can be made from organic waste. It can never be a gallon per

gallon replacement, but it is a viable fuel for essential mobile power.

Vs P/V panels at 15% conversion to electricity, then 50% efficiency splitting water to get hydrogen as fuel... You end up with 7.5% (seven and one half percent) conversion of light to fuel...

Despite the much "better" numbers, solar p/v - hydrogen is a "loser" in any thought of keeping the present fuel gulping infrastructure going...

In my daughter's 6th grade, she was part of a group of kids who engineered a single seat, solar powered three wheeled vehicle. With a 200 watt motor, it could operate at something over a walking pace solely on solar power from the panels it carried. But it was hardly what is seen today as transportation.

In 2006 MIT battery advances in lithium-ion technology, labeled A123 Systems, by use of nanoscale particles to coat the battery electrodes doubles power density, with peak energy of up to five-fold, and great drops in recharging times. They are on the market as M1 batteries in Black & Decker portable power tools.

To attain increases in speed, great increases in power are required, or efficient streamlining. A standard, upright and open bicycle would require:

HorsepowerMph 21 .25Mph 26 .50Mph 60 6.00


Compare to the earlier faired recumbent, pedaled by a .20 hp human at 65 mph+.

Biofuel trains. Great increases in the efficiency of burners, and steam engines show potential for continued long distance land travel by efficient trains on well graded and maintained track. This is however not a consideration until a sustainable community is well beyond the level of a single family, or small gathering.

LIVESTOCK

Animals do not necessarily compete with humans for plant foods. Before the inedible portion of plants or food scraps can again be available to plant roots, it must be broken down again by compost bacteria and insects, or a meat animal.

Beyond being a food source, they also provide a source of leather and other materials, as well as service as beasts of burden.

Burros. The small donkey of the dry lands of the world is supremely adapted to living off the browse and meager feed often available, and for its size is surprisingly strong and a magnificent beast of burden. Not to be laughed at, the burro can easily be adapted to useful roles on the farm, including basic transportation and pulling carts.

Chicken. Hybrids will not properly nest. 5-10 chickens, 1 rooster. Feed daily handful of grain & food scraps. Japanese jungle fowl (Biosphere II)

Fish. Tilapia, catfish, or local varieties. 10" min, 48" max deep, 12-15' dia. Dip in the pool (as if a teabag) a bag of horse manure, as food for algae. Scrap meat and bugs as food for fish. (Grow flies on trays of manure & water, and drop larvae into the pool)

Goats. Goats may be produced for about the same purposes as cattle, and their smaller size makes them suitable for many situations. They are often grazed on open range in arid regions. They are browsers (nibble at a variety of plants), and sometimes are better adapted to production of useful meat than cattle, especially in heavy scrubland. While goats may be raised for milk, the really fine milk varieties are not well adapted in the tropics. Sensitive to rain and cold. Nigerian dwarf (Biosphere II)

Ostriches have been around for perhaps 150 million years, and have some traits of dinosaurs, such as wing claws. The meat is red with less fat, less calories and less cholesterol than skinless chicken or turkey. The Ostrich egg is equivalent to 2 dozen chicken eggs, averaging about 60 eggs per year. An Ostrich may have 12 square feet of find quality leather. They have a unique immune system, and oil rendered from their fat has medical benefits. Adult males are eight to ten feet high and weigh 350-400 pounds, with the female slightly smaller. The Ostrich can run at speeds of up to 40 MPH for sustained periods (can they pull a cart?) An Ostrich will live to be 50 - 75 years old.

Pig. Ossabaw Feral Swine (Biosphere II)

Pigeon. Nest in groups, mate for life, live 7 years, become attached to their home nest, lay every 6 weeks. Take young birds at 1 lb. just before new eggs are expected.

Rabbit. 3 doe, 1 buck, in hutches out of the rain. Feed greens along with some oats or bran.

Sheep. In addition to the wool-bearing sheep of the temperate zone, there exist hair sheep which are much better adapted to the tropics. In addition to their value in producing meat, such sheep are often used to control weeds in orchards, and thus constitute a profit-producing biological control.

SYNERGY

Appropriately layered, putting all of the above together, we could all be living in a home which provides our daily needs, air, water, food, shelter, for our multi-generation family.

Solar utilization. In theory, a 1/4 acre area that receives at least moderate sunlight in reasonable weather conditions can meet the food and home energy needs of a multi generation family.

Food. 8000 to 10000 sq. ft. of crop area exposed to the sun (1/4 acre). In the summer, depending on latitude and weather conditions, experiments have shown some crops actually do better with reduced sunlight, perhaps as low as 1/3. As opposed to shading, can you engineer a means to divert part of the sunlight to another level? This


could double, or almost triple (losses in the system) your effective solar growing area.

Consider a two floor greenhouse. Facing the sky is a "shade layer" consisting of a matrix of diffusion grids, and light collectors with light tubes. The overhead diffusion grids scatter the light to the top floor of crops. The light tubes route light to a lower floor, with more diffusion grids to scatter the light to the lower floor crops. In the summer, you may be able to grow two crops in the same square footage of one.

Solar utilization for power. With clear skies, every square meter of direct solar exposure receives around 1 kw of power. Low efficiency panels (10%) requires 10 sq. meters (12 ft. per side, 144 ft. sq.) exposed to the sun for an hour for every kwh of electricity you need. Remember, that if the sun is not directly overhead, the panels need to be tilted, and therefore shade more ground space than they have exposed to the sun.

Daylighting and solar heat collection. One solar tube type device per room, and heat panels exposed to the sun.

Multi level. With your family living under your food source, your structure if spread under the entire growing area could be 10,000 sq. ft. per level, plenty of room for a multi-generation homestead. Does your family have a business to operate? How about a business on ground level, home above, and garden/solar collection on the roof?

As reported in Mother Earth29 Issue # 42 - November/December 1976, the Farallones Institute of Berkeley, California project “The Integral Urban House”, was a 100-year-old Victorian house, adapted into one of the then country's most innovative and successful "urban homesteads".

The project was on a 1/8-acre city lot. While the solar exposure area of the lot is insufficient to provide complete subsistence for a family, the innovations in the structure are great "food for thought" regarding optimizing a micro-environment for human habitation, and that such

an environment is NOT "natural" by any stretch of the imagination.

Regardless of your location, what you need is a mini-ecosystem that is tailored to your family needs. Surely, nearly 25 years later, we can do better.

SAFETY PRIORITY IIIMORAL & PHYSIOLOGICAL

Do you believe anyone has the right to enter your home against your will, take your water, food, money or other property, unless you are the one who refused to perform your side of a trade, or deliberately or carelessly caused harm to someone else?

Do you base your relationships with others on religion, national origin, race, etc., or the positive and pleasant nature of your interaction with them?

POLITICS

"One faction of society's leaders22… suffers from myopia (short sightedness), in that they refuse to see the long-term energy fundamentals or the consequences of a serious energy crisis. The academic and environmentalist community, on the other hand, seems to suffer from hyperopic (farsightedness), an inability to recognize a serious crisis when it is close at hand. In the middle are a few lone voices, such as ourselves, wondering how the nation will manage to dedicate the necessary trillion dollars to develop alternative energy if none of our leaders see it as a critical issue."

While many will not admit it, elected leaders (at all levels) and heads of major industries are aware of the problems. What they do not have a grasp of is a solution they can impose which preserves their position and power. The U.S. Department of Energy is experimenting with probably every energy device imagined.

If you are one of the (relatively) few who see the problem in advance, and prepare, do you want government, big, or local, to steal from you your home, storage of supplies, food, seeds, etc.? Or

29 Mother Earth News has online a searchable index of vitually every previously published article, and should be considered an initial go-to source for ideas or palns for simple self reliance projects.


do you see the government's job as PROTECTING you from such theft by others?

We need to educate public and elected officials on how their actions affect individual abilities and local businesses, and in particular what they need to STOP.

A belief that any current political party, or politician, has everything "right" for long term sustainability is naive…

Attempts to foist such a belief on others is disingenuous…

Our current industry, politics, and personal paradigms developed in an era of cheap abundant energy, expanding population, and what seemed to be unlimited resources… All of this is ending…

We need to not only work on personal preparations, and remove the roadblocks to further realignment of the infrastructure, but to remove the artificial incentives and support that feeds the current mindset. One of our first "pushes" has got to be removing the "zoning" restrictions that essentially outlaw home-based businesses. We need to get rid of the stupid barriers, not only to home-based businesses, but in some places even clothelines are banned… Multi-use zoning, or eliminate zoning? What animals are allowed?

We need to re-think from the grass roots up, not bumble blindly on…

Be warned though, those who do not to follow the expected normal conduct of the majority are often subjected to harassment, persecution and prosecution, and even physical attack.

Members of groups such as this, who "see" a problem such as peak oil and other resource depletion that is yet ignored by most of the population, may for the time being be seen as some type of "kook". We must act with caution, to avoid fueling the fire of such a belief by others. At the same time, we must "wake up" such of the rest of the population as can be awoken. Calm, rational presentation of facts must be an underlying principle.

We must focus on the goal of preparing ourselves, our homes, neighborhoods and community for the self-sufficient and self-reliant lifestyle that logically appears necessary when energy decline becomes the obvious norm. While we recognize preparation needs to start now, we must also recognize the challenge presented when others wait too long.

We need to not only work on personal preparations, and remove the roadblocks to further realignment of the infrastructure, but to remove the artificial incentives and support that feeds the current mindset.

Multi-use zoning, or eliminate zoning?

What animals are allowed?

We all bring with us the "baggage" we have accumulated during life. Our notions, infrastructure, industry, politics, religion, etc., has all developed with a paradigm of continued expansion of population, and apparent unlimited resources and energy.

Peak oil shows that paradigm is ending.

I argue re-thinking everything from the grass roots up, not only the physical needs of a single person, but our laws and government.

We have evolved a complex (mess) government. What is really needed? What changes are needed? (As indicated earlier, what about starting with elimination of real property taxes? At least on all residential property?) Do you realize that "tax freedom day" is probably in July? This reference means that in general, if you allocate your salary for the year, the first 6+ months or your labor goes to pay your various level taxes.

If there are government rules or programs that are contrary to long-term sustainability, seek them out, bring them to the attention of the electorate, and seek their elimination.

Government is essentially "out of control". As we have it, the government is a thief and multi-level coercive, not a protector our friend.

ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE


A homestead should be planned to provide, in the long term, for the relevant family. In general, this starts with a voluntary partnership of a husband / wife, and such extended family members as voluntary live together. With no elsewhere for generations to move to, it will fluctuate at around 4 generations.

At the homestead / family level, it may seen ridiculous to comment on a formal organization structure, but the thought is relevant to later discussions.

A family may have some aspects of "voting", or members in some manner providing input, but in the end a family is probably "run" by the member(s) most capable of doing so. I believe you will find extended families for the most part to be meritocracies - leadership based on talent or ability, with significant influence from the owner of the major assets, or the wisdom of the elders.

ECOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS

In planning / executing your plan, have you taken into account the ecological aspects of your actions? Are you planning on buying a plot of trees, and clear-cutting them down to build your structures, sell for income, and burn for your heat? Do you intend to pump-down a groundwater supply, divert a large portion of a surface supply, etc? What are the net effects of your plans?

SAFETY PRIORITY IV HEALTH SECURITY

It is a common event, that we ignore our health, even for the sake of fun, or for the sake of our family. We certainly work in jobs where our health is impaired.

Your health however should be a priority, not an afterthought. Do you know what is "good" for you, and what is not?

The transition period to a post-oil paradigm may be a distinctly unpleasant period. Given the extent of dependence on oil, the scenarios are probably NOT limited by your imagination. A defeatist attitude often expressed about nuclear war is that the living will envy the dead.

Can you physically, and/or emotionally cope with essentially what may be a life-long emergency? The concept of limited resources? Can you physically respond to squatters, or raiders, or worse?

PHYSICAL CONDITIONING

Disrupted industries, food delivery, contaminated air, water and food, and just plain hard work may prove to be more than many can physically handle. Are you ready to live on in tough times?

Immunizations. There are numerous nasty germs out there that are kept at bay by the technology and services of our modern civilization. Absent protections, and with increased breeding grounds, "old" diseases may gain new footings. These diseases remain "typical" in third world countries. Consult your physician for what additional immunizations you should have if you were planning an extended trip thru a variety of impoverished third world nations.

Exercise. If you're not in shape, work with your physician now and establish an exercise program. In selecting your exercises, consider the type of physical labor you are likely to be doing. My personal focus is on bicycling and shoveling.

Nutrition. Not only for weight loss and conditioning, but to build your immune system.

MEDICIAL CARE

Unless a member of your household is a physician, nurse, paramedic, etc., your home medical care is probably going to be limited. Anyone who requires ongoing medication, or their care provider, must plan in advance for a long term storage program of medications, OR of some locally renewable alternative. A broader discussion of home remedies is in the appendices to this treatise.

There is good news though, even in primitive conditions. Although we like to think that our medical science should be credited with overall better health and the decline in mortality, in reality medicine probably accounts for only a small percentage of the improvements. A better


and more varied diet, and basic sanitation are far more deserving of credit.

Complex medicine is more useful in treatment of injuries, and those diseases which have become more noticeable as people susceptible to such survive, where in earlier centuries conditions would have meant their early demise. Unfortunately, we have to a large extent moved past the benefits of improvements in food availability, to agricultural practices, processing, and diets that while of sufficient calories, are deficient in other essential nutrients, and contain additives, which may be damaging us.

That said, if you need the care of a physician, and such is available, how do you pay for it? Do you expect your doctor to work for free, or for barter? Do you believe any insurance program you may have will continue to function?

HEALTH INSURANCE

General Motors (2006) has $64 billion in outstanding UNFUNDED healthcare obligations, which is $50 billion more than its market capitalization. Do you want to be dependent on this? In a scenario of hyper-inflated currency, do you believe any government program would be viable? If Congress just "drags it's feet" about passing an annual budget, the programs shut down. In a localized economy, friends, family, and physical assets will probably be required. Consider health insurance as an agreement among a group of people to pool funds such that if one member needs an expensive procedure, the group has/will agree what portion of the accumulated funds can be so exhausted. The typical member is NOT though "on the hook" beyond money already deposited, and is free to drop out, or move on to a different pool at will.

The income tax code has made it difficult for employees to move on, as the range of insurance pool options are often selected by the employer.

When the government runs the "health insurance" program, the average citizen30

typically DOES NOT have any other option in selection of treatment, even if they want to pay independently. The government decides who gets what, and who pays what.

Whether thru an employer, private contract, or mandated by a government, big picture investment or tax insurance accounts can easily become mere numbers on paper. Financial investment values can fall to zero. The value of currency can fall to zero.

Your "natural" insurance pool (health or otherwise) consists of your friends and family, those who come to your aid (we would hope) without need of monetary payment, or a government compelling them to do so.

THINK BIG PICTURE

There are those who believe they are rugged individualists31, who can head off into the wilderness and go it alone. How well can you provide for yourself and your family absent the present infrastructure?

You can do on your own property and with your own assets anything you have the capability to achieve that is not legally prohibited. BUT: Assume you, and/or your family completely equipped a homestead with everything from this chapter, planning on isolation. Do you have the technology and technique to repair or replace a broken plate or cup? How about a p/v panel? Or even a light bulb?

Preparedness, even modest efforts, can make a huge difference in how well you survive a crisis situation. But survival preparations alone do little for a long term outlook for your heirs, and humanities future.

First do no harm. Have at most two children, and given our overpopulated state, preferably one. Take responsibility for your own household and life support. Share the knowledge, and work with at least two other households to awaken and guide them toward sustainability. In your

30 The Roman empire offered not only "bread and circuses" for masses of idle citizens, but also medical coverage. It was typical for a physician to be paid by the local government, to provide care free of charge to the population in general. This arrangement did not draw the best physicians to public service, in particular when the wealthy and powerful would pay well for resident or visiting doctors. 31 While everyone must be capable of providing for their own life support needs, it is impossible for any one person to globally shepherd a project of personal responsibility.


security, and the security of your family, friends, and neighbors, you gain the strength and resources to look to greater development.

The achievements of an organization are the results of the combined effort of each individual. - Vince Lombardi

Location. Where do you want to place your family homestead? In the wilderness? Do you have everything you need? Do you have neighbors for help if you need it? ABSENT the

crash, what about a simple medical emergency, or even a visit to a grocery store?

With a secure home, reliable water and food, in short when you at least temporarily feel secure, you can begin to reason out a bigger picture, how we got where we are, where we need to go, and the next steps. Setting aside the present paradigms which developed in a short-term fact pattern, what limits do you face as you contemplate a scale larger and longer than a single family?


Sustainable Civilization: From the Grass Roots UpChapter II - Physical Sustainability Factors and Limitations

The present infrastructure and ideologies of civilization developed in an era of cheap abundant energy, expanding population and what seemed to be unlimited resources. All of this is ending. Given present knowledge and science, humans are faced with physical limits. We need to recognize what these limits are, and re-think our civilization from the grass roots up, not bumble blindly on.

HISTORY

In this past 100 years, the incredible development of our global society and population expansion was made possible primarily by oil, which provided a store of cheap, concentrated, portable energy, as well as plastics, medicines, clothing, pesticides, paint, and thousands of other products.

God blessed the United States with an original supply of about 260 billion barrels; only Saudi Arabia had more. From 1859 to 1939 the U.S. produced two-thirds of the world's oil. Part of the motivation for Japan and Germany in WWII was their lack of resources to cope with the combination of expanding population and increased per person demand, with a particular shortage of energy in the form of oil. It could easily be argued that American oil, and the industrial output it nourished, was a major factor in World War II, as was our hydroelectric power which allowed for production of great quantities of aluminum for aircraft. For oil, taking California as an example, this one state had more than all Axis territory combined. As recently as 1950 the U.S. was producing half the world's oil.

Today, we now don't produce half our own oil, and absent a scientific energy breakthru, we should probably preserve it for national defense use as the oil era ends.

Starting immediately, should make every effort to use our power, technology, knowledge and resources to transform our oil-dependent society into one that is sustainable, above the level of mere subsistence. That said, much of the remains of our inheritance must be used to play

world-policeman and prevent war on a global scale. We will, probably, continue misguided programs that sustain a growing underclass of individuals who return nothing to society.

With the food production and shipping made possible by oil, as well as energy to transform the landscape, and overcome the environment,


humans have overpopulated32 like a plague over the planet. For the present, humans can live in places, and in concentrations that are impossible to sustain without oil.

Our strategic reserves, established as a "buffer" against OPEC economic actions, and for security use, represent less than 30 days supply at our normal use. And, these reserves can not be pumped faster than a flow which would be around 17% of our normal daily use. So, the governmental reserves, if NOT used for the military, could keep 17 percent of the economy going for a few months. Our total domestic supply could only operate the nation's present infrastructure for a relatively brief period. Until we have an alternative, we're stuck providing security to keep the foreign oil flowing.

In 1859 when oil was struck in Pennsylvania, Americans traveled on horseback; in 1969 they drove Mustangs and flew to the Moon. In 2069, those who survive will probably walk. Will your heirs, if they live, live in a comfortable self-reliant modern city, or hide in caves?

FOSSIL FUEL FOLLIESRETURNING TO "KING COAL"

A century or so ago, humanity switched, in large part, FROM coal TO oil as the primary fuel. The U.S. has perhaps the largest remaining coal supply, estimated to be around 270 Billion Tons, currently being used at the rate of around 1.7 billion tons per year. (158 years at 2006 rate)

Every barrel of oil has around 6,048,000 BTU, and every ton of coal around 20,000,000 BTU (equal to 3.3 barrels of oil).

If coal were as readily accessable, easy to process and use, the U.S. coal supply is equal in BTU's to around 890 billion barrels of oil. I've seen on the web conversion efficiency rates of 40%, so the conversion uses about 7.6 billion tons of coal to make 10 billion barrels of oil, for a combined coal and liquid fuel lifespan of 29 years, with a total of 290 billion barrels of oil.

But of course, BTU's are not the only issue. There is the dangerous work of mining, the environmental damage left behind at the mine, the pollution from coal use, and it is of course NOT able to directly power most of the present machines.

In June 2006 the reports are that a coal to liquid fuel facility would cost $7.5 billion for a plant that could produce 150,000 barrels per day (around 54 million per year). It would take 182 of these facilities to replace the U.S. annual use of 10 billion barrels, costing about $1.4 trillion to build.

Amortize the plants over the production in their useful life and without interest or profit for anyone the plants cost $12.96 per barrel.

In 2005 the price of coal used at synfuel plants was $42.78 per ton, so the coal cost for each barrel is $32.41. Taking efficiencies into account and amortization of the construction costs, with no inflation, and no demand increase, the production cost of coal-oil is around $44.37 per barrel.

For perspective, the per barrel well-head cost of oil in Saudi Arabia in the 1950's was 7 cents. In the early 1990's it was little over 50 cents. The estimated23 cost in 2005 is $2.80, while a barrel is selling for over $60.00. (21 times cost) At that ratio, coal to oil would retail at $931.77 per barrel, with a gallon of gasoline at around $22.18 per gallon. (Your calculations may vary.)

The coal-oil investment would represent a 29 year timeframe to come up with something else. (Less when you consider rising demand and increasing difficulty mining.) Will we re-throne King Coal? It is at the top of the President's 2006 Advanced Energy Initiative.

GREENHOUSE GAS & GLOBAL WARMING

32 When is an area overpopulated? When its population can’t be maintained without rapidly depleting nonrenewable resources.... By this standard, the entire planet and virtually every nation is already vastly overpopulated.- Dr. Paul R. Ehrlich, Stanford Professor of Population Studies and author of The Population Explosion (1990).


Without some level of greenhouse gases (i.e. CO2, water vapor, & methane) most of the Earth would freeze. For perspective however, the present (400 ppm) level of CO2 is reported to be higher than at any time in the past 650,000 years. The level of these gases are effected by factors such as the number of animals (including humans), plant cover, in particular forests which can store a great deal of carbon, and the release of "new" carbon from the human activity of use of fossil fuels.

We seem to be clearly approaching a level of greenhouse gases where there is potential for dramatic global warming, telling us of the need to cease fossil fuel burning. At the same time we are warned of impending peak oil, where oil cannot be pumped fast enough to meet demand. The clear consequence of peak oil, to be followed by decline, probably quickly in pumping rate, is the dramatic increase in the price of all oil derived products and services, and the end of many of such.

The Kyoto treaty is often presented as an essential example of international cooperation to reduce carbon emissions. However the treaty is clearly flawed, in that it fails to require that quite a number of countries actually comply, even if they join in the treaty.

China, with an estimated population of 1.3 billion (and still growing) has become essentially THE worldwide source of a large variety and volume of consumer products, and which in its burning rate is (2006) the #2 volume polluter in the world, rapidly catching-up with the U.S., is for treaty purposes EXCLUDED from compliance.

As of 2006, China is constructing the equivalent of one large coal-fueled power station EACH WEEK. Over their roughly 60 life span, these facilities could collectively put into the atmosphere the amount of CO2 that has heretofore been released by ALL OF THE COAL BURNED SINCE THE DAWN OF THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION.

Sulphur dioxide emissions in China rose 15% in 2005. There are areas of China that are black from coal soot and slag heaps.

The rising demand in China for all resources puts it a #2 for fossil fuels, and #1 for virtually everything else. Cement, uranium, aluminum, corn, soybeans, zinc, and in particular copper.

Despite extensive expansion, there remain even significant cities where electricity is not yet available in private homes, and only intermittently for businesses. China has underway nuclear plants expected to average one new plant each year for the next 20 years. To transmit and use this electrical capacity, China will need a lot of copper. So much that estimates are that if every ounce of remaining copper in the world were mined and sold in China, the demand could not be met.

The Canadian tar sands project in Calgary, and the pipeline to carry the oil to market is China funded: from Canadian tundra to Beijing taxi, 17 days.

Pollution, is pollution. CO2, is CO2, the atmosphere does not care where the CO2 was generated, it still effects the temperature the same.

SHALE OIL

"Colorado24, Utah, and Wyoming harbor a store equivalent to 2 trillion barrels of oil--more than all the crude that has been produced worldwide since the petroleum age began. A Rand study estimated recently that 800 billion barrels might be recoverable, which would be more than triple the proven reserves of Saudi Arabia and could fuel current U.S. demand for oil for another 80 years. But there’s more to the story.

As with oil sands, enormous amounts of energy would be needed for both the heating and freezing processes. Rand estimates that a single 100,000-barrel-a-day operation would require a dedicated 1.2-gigawatt electricity generating station--a size that would be comparable to one of the nation's largest power plants, like the New Hampshire nuclear giant, Seabrook, which serves 900,000 customers."

To generate that power using the oil recovered form the project would probably require burning at each site 14,256 barrels per day. This leaves a net for each site of 85,744 barrels per day. To fuel the U.S. would require 319 of these. To fuel the world would require 958.


Commentary: This supply is distributed undergound over a 16,000 square mile area. Liquid oil can flow to the pumping site. The proposal for shale oil is to drill and heat the rock while in the ground, then pump the oil as it separates from the rock. This only works of course in a limited around around the drill site, which must be moved (Redrilled).

If shale oil had to meet 2005 U.S. annual use, with no increase in demand, the above best recovery estimate would fuel this country for 68 years. It could substitute for world (2005) use for 22 years.

TAR SANDS

Canada has in its tar-sands an estimated 175 billion barrels of oil, spread out in locations the size of the State of Florida.

These oilsands look and feel like molasses, and are found in bands 6 to 10 meters thick. Two tons of oilsands yield about 1.25 barrels of tar and a barrel of crude oil. However, if all planned development is put into operation, the expected peak flow rate is around 1.095 billion barrels per year. This rate would meet a grand total of 3.65% of world demand, for a period of 158 years. It would keep some governments in military vehicles, and the ultra rich in some toys, but if somehow processed fast enough to be humanities sole-source it would fuel "civilization" for about 5 years.

Despite difficulties in processing, under construction in 2005 was a 1,160 km pipelinle to carry the oil to the Canadian Pacific coast.

BIO-FUELS

While manmade bio-fuels meet or exceed fossil fuels in quality, they are impossible to produce in the quantity necessary to sustain the present infrastructure.

In full page color ads (2006) Chevron tells us, "With current technology, one acre of soybeans yields 60 gallons of clean-burning biodiesel fuel". Yes, but with 2006 global use of fuel at 1.260 Trillion gallons, it would take 21 billion acres of soybeans to replace our fuel use. The world has 4.898 billion25 acres available. If all of the cropland was planted in soybeans, we might

replace 23% of our annual fuel use, but no one would eat.

An early 2006 article in Mother Earth News on biodiesel presents an apparently optimistic view of biodiesel production. The article indicates that the United States has 6 million acres of cropland that are fallow, asserting that if all of this acreage was planted in rapeseed, it could conceivably annually provide 6 billion gallons of diesel fuel. Setting aside considerations of putting our last fallow cropland into use, let's put this amount of fuel into perspective. In barrels, this is 142 million barrels. Approximately 2 BILLION barrels per year are used in the U.S. in the food production industry.

Therefore, the loss of every "spare" acre of farmland could replace perhaps 7% of the fuel used in farming and food processing.

There are, absent fossil fuels, means to sustainably obtain clean water, nutritional food, appropriate clothing and shelter, but not in sufficient quantities to sustain the present population, let alone provide any excess.

ABIOTIC THEORY

There are theories that oil is constantly being produced deep in the earth by reactions in the temperatures and pressures there, as opposed to being buried biological matter that grew in ancient sunlight. It may be true, but even if it is, the rate of production can't keep up with our annual use. If oil was being produced deep in the earth at the rate of 30 billion barrels per year, long ago the entire planet would have been oil.

THE NUCLEAR OPTION

A nuclear fission reaction26 releases around 10 million times more energy than chemical processes. Current (2005) world uranium use is around 65,000 tonnes per year. with production of around 40,000 tonnes per year, the difference made up from drawn-down of stocks and the use of material from the Nuclear Weapons.

For the past decade (2006) prices have been low due to use of "old" material, which is expected to be exhausted by the middle of the next decade. The price of uranium was $23 per kg in early 2003, and $110 per kg in 2006.


Uranium is not particularly rare. There is an estimated 40 trillion tonnes of Uranium in the Earth's crust. To date we have mined less than one ten-millionth of this. The relevant information though is what can be recovered using known technology.

Estimates as of 2005:

Readily recoverable at around $130/kg is 4.7 million tones. If each 1 GW light water Nuclear Power Plant consumes 30 tonnes of fuel per year this "easy" to get uranium represents 157,000 reactor/years. Say we already have 441 (1006) in operation, so it's enough to keep them operating for 355 years.

If these reactors represent a continued output of 1 billion watt/hour through the year, then for example at 100% efficient conversion of oil to electricity that it would take around 5,280 of these reactors to replace our 2005 oil use. Then the "easy" uranium extends our present global energy use levels by 30 years.

There is potential for additional recoverable uranium of 35 million tones, for a total land based estimated available and useful supply of 39.7 million tons. If known supplies are all mined it could provide power for 1,300,000 GW/reactor years (each equal to burning 9000 tonnes of coal per day). In 2005 oil equivalent it represents energy for nearly 250 years.

Good news. A nuclear plant may produce 93 times more energy than it consumes. Or put another way, the non-nuclear energy investment required to generate electricity for 40 years is repaid in 5 months.

The oceans may represent a repository of a further 100 million tons, for another 600 or so years, IGNORING of course the energy & method to ensure every single ounce of the ocean passes thru the collection device, and the energy of isolating a microscopic quantity per ounce.

In total, if uranium fission is used to meet energy demands equal to those at the turn of the millennium, it MIGHT provide power for 620 years. This timeframe of course must assume no increase in population, and no per person demand increase by anyone in the world.

For an eventual future global population, if stabilized at 6.6 billion, and eventually all living at something like the U.S. level, the total uranium would last:

Years of PowerReliable Recovery 1.4Questionable Recovery 11.9Ocean Recovery 29.9Total 43.2

Some CO2 emissions arise from the construction of the plant, the mining of the Uranium, the enrichment of the Uranium, its conversion into Nuclear Fuel, its final disposal and the final plant decommissioning. The total estimated CO2 emitted per KW-Hr is less than one hundredth the CO2 of Fossil-Fuel based generation.

The Chinese Nuclear Power Industry has contracts to build new plants of their design at capital cost reported to be $1500 per KW and $1300 per KW at sites in South-East and North-East China. The greatest growth (2006) in nuclear power is in China.

There is of course the concern over spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF), which is highly radioactive. The TransUranic component of SNF must be isolated from the environment for 100,000 years or more. The fission products typically reach background levels after 500 years.

There is research into "burning" the TransUranic's in either advanced reactors or accelerator driven subcritical assemblies, but this technology has not yet been developed to work on a large scale.

The bad news. There is of course the small problem storing 39.7 MILLION TONS of highly radioactive waste for 100,000 years. The time "storage cost" of this waste we impose on our children is immense, for 200 or so years of power, a horribly short-term view.

THE ENERGY LIMIT

Our readily available source of sustainable energy is solar. There is logically a maximum amount of solar energy that would be available to an Earthbound human society. Imagine we covered the entire surface of the Earth with solar


http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-12/27/content_506929.htm

panels (think Trantor in Asimov's stories, or Courasant (spelling) in Star Wars).

Every square yard of the surface of the Earth exposed perpendicular to full sun receives around 1kw of energy. A square mile contains roughly 3 million square yards. Using 10% efficient panels is represents AT BEST 300 megawatt of generation.

The Earth presents an 8,000 mile diameter disk to the sun. But remember, the world is not flat, is tilted relative to its orbit, and rotates. The further you are from the equator, the less sunlight per square meter of surface, therefore covering polar regions with solar panels would be impractical. To provide continued collection in the non-polar regions, the entire earth would need to be belted with panels. At any given moment though, probably a circle of 5,000 mile diameter or less would face the sun adequately for solar collection. Area = Pi x radius squared. With present solar panels (say 10% efficient), how much power could we intercept?

It's an area of 19,634,954 square miles exposed to the sun. It is 60,821,233,704,000 square yards, each intercepting, when not shaded by clouds, an average of something under 1 kilowatt. (For design/building purposes, remember the curve of the Earth. To expose a 5,000 wide area probably requires 7,500 mile wide be covered on the surface of the Earth.)

Assume half are shaded by clouds at any given time, so it's intercepting something under 30,410,616,852,000 kw. Readily available p/v panels are around 10% efficient, so we could expect to have 30,410,616,852 kw.

Let's compare the energy to our oil use.

Recent annual oil use was 30 billion barrels, or 126 billion gallons.

A gallon of fuel has 144,000 BTU, equal to around 36.7 kwh.

If we use the array and the electrolysis process to obtain hydrogen from water, the best efficiency rate discussed is 50%, or that we must put in twice as much power as we gain back when we use the fuel.

Every hour the array operates is could produce hydrogen fuel equal in BTU's to around 414,313,581 gallons.

Operating 24 hours a day, say for 360 days a year on the average, it could produce 3,579,669,339,840 gallons.

The good news is that such a global solar array could provide electrical energy and convert it to hydrogen fuel roughly equal to 28 times our recent annual oil use.

Remember though, the bad news is that the surface of the planet is covered with solar panels, with essentially no open exposure to the sky, on land or on the sea. And of course, there's all the silicon for the panels, wire, metal, etc., exponentially beyond any supply of such materials we dream may be available to us. As touched on in an earlier comment on China and copper demand, there is probably not enough copper left to mine on Earth for this type of project.

To replace "just" our recent 30 billion barrels per year is an array constantly in the sun of 701,248 square miles. To have a five thousand mile wide swatch of constant sun at the equator equal this area, we would need a solid band of photovoltaic cells around the earth at least 140 miles wide, across oceans, mountains, etc.

The "real world" power per facility footprint is of course NOT as good as the above. In 2005 Stirling Energy Systems started planning on a solar thermal generating facility for the desert in southern California.

The facility, to generate 500 megawatt, will have a footprint of 6.25 square miles. (Roughly 19 million square yards.) This planned facility tops-out at 80 megawatt per square mile, vs the 300 of theoretical top using 10% panels. In a quick estimate, to expand this real-world facility to be large enough to replace our annual oil use would require a continuous band built around the equator of the Earth around 540 miles wide.

Geothermal appears to present an opportunity for a lot of energy, almost anyplace on Earth. It does. There is of course a limit, if you "cool" a large area under your generator; you may lose your heat. In the extreme you may change the physical characteristics under you site such that


you generate earthquakes. Carried to extremes worldwide the cooling rock, cracking and contracting, could provide openings for water and air to seep downward.

The nuclear option. Present fission reactor fuel and technology provides a window of opportunity to provide concentrated, high electrical generation, for a limited period of time. At a cost. Reactors tend to have a lifespan of 50 years, after which the reactor must be taken apart and stored long term, as must the depleted fuel. As of 2006, no country on the Earth has put into place a permanent storage program. The U.S.

has been debating about it's "Yucca Mountain" site for twenty years. If nuclear power expanded to one million megawatts, the waste produced would fill this discussed, but as of yet non-existent facility, every three years or so.

Scientific American suggests thinking along the lines of what they call the "2,000 watt society", where they posit having available 2 kilowatt of power per person. They conclude that 2kw per person is technically feasible for an ongoing industrial society.

Consider the U.S. 2006 energy picture:

2006 Data Overall Transportation Industrial

Residential Commercial

Electric Power

BBL/Equal 25 BBL Total 28.00% 22.00% 11.00% 39.00%

10 Oil 40.00% 11.200% 8.800% 4.400% 15.600%

5.75 Natural Gas 23.00% 6.440% 5.060% 2.530% 8.970%

5.75 Coal 23.00% 6.440% 5.060% 2.530% 8.970%

1.5 Renewables 6.00% 1.680% 1.320% 0.660% 2.340%

2 Nuclear 8.00% 2.240% 1.760% 0.880% 3.120%

100.00% 28.00% 22.00% 11.00% 39.00%

What if the U.S. had to generate all of our power from solar photovoltaic’s?

To put it in electrical terms -

1 Barrel = 42 gallons. 1 gallon (roughly) = 144,000 BTU or 36,700 watthour.

25 billion barrels is roughly the electrical equivalent of 38,535,000,000,000,000 watthour.

Readily available (limited quantity) photovoltaic panels are 10% efficient in converting sunlight to electricity, such that for every hour that a square yard of such panels are in direct sunlight, 100 watthour of electricity is generated.

We can guess it’s going to take a large array.

Let’s say the average daily solar exposure of our array is six hours of sun, with a further adjustment of 50% of the array being in shade, dirty, undergoing work, etc. Also assume an optimistic total “loss” of only 5 days of sun per year. (Thinking of the author’s residence state of Arizona)

How large does such an array need to be to generate 38,535,000,000,000,000 watthour?

38,535,000,000,000,000Divided by six (hours per day)6,422,500,000,000,000.00

Divided by 360 (days operation per year)17,840,277,777,777.80

Divided by 50% (adjust for various blockages and partial downtime)35,680,555,555,555.60

Divided by 100 (watts generated per square yard)356,805,555,555.56 number of square yards of collector

Divided by 3,097,600 (square yards in a square mile)115,187.74 square miles of photovoltaic panels, or an area say 340 miles on a side

Then the “hydrogen economy” arguments want to use the electrical power to electrolyze water to replace 10 billion barrels of portable fuel. If we really want to do so, what is the efficiency LOSS


mailto:%3D@sum(C11:C15)





in splitting water? In labs it is 50%. In the 2005 Department of Energy "Solar Decathlon" competition the New York Institute of Technology found their hydrogen fuel cell power storage approach didn't reach the 25% efficiency they hoped, vs 80% for lead-acid batteries. If you really wanted to use the array to split hydrogen from water, 40% of the array would need to be at least four times the size. The total array would need to completely cover 253,413 square miles, or an area 504 miles on a side.

An obvious point must be the engineering challenge of constructing over 250,000 square miles of photovoltaic material, and the applicable mounting frames. If such is to be a stand-alone array, envision the response from environmentalists regardless of where you wanted to place it.

A complete coverage approach ignores though that current p/v panels lose generation efficiency when much off from being perpendicular to sunlight. In other words the panels must be able to track the sun. To track the sun, there must be space between the panels.

As touched on elsewhere, if each device was just fixed re seasons, say at 30 degrees, there is still a minimum of 1/2 of the collector panel width between each device on the north/south axis to avoid shading. So to be able to optimize panel exposure, each 1 square yard panel needs a ground footprint of 9' x 9' or 81 square feet.

To incorporate tracking, the area of the array must as an example be NINE TIMES the area of the actual p/v panels. This calculates out to be 2,280,717.25 square miles, or a square area 1,510 miles on a side. If you want to keep it inside the U.S., and in the lower latitudes, it will not fit. It will not fit within the continental U.S.

At the moment, the bulk of the energy being used in the United States is being purchased and used by the private sector. The cumulative cost of the array, if say each 100 watt unit costs only $500, is $178,402,777,777,778.00. That is $178 TRILLION (With a “T”).

Putting photovoltaic panels where the demand is does not necessarily work. In higher latitudes, in overcast climates, etc., the power generated would not be worth the effort or cost. There may

not be a lot of time left to implement some functional alternative.

THE ECOLOGICAL LIMIT

Pre-agricultural man lived "off the land," consuming only the bounty of nature, which could sustain a global population of about 2-20 million human beings. (3/10 % of the present population)

Per the CIA World Factbook, of the world land area 13.31% is arable land, (4,898,576,237 acre) with permanent crops planted on 4.71% (1,733,455,603 acre) of the overall land area.

Use whatever crop selection and per person use you like for nutrition, materials, animal feed, and energy, and divide it into the above numbers.

There are estimates that humans may already be diverting 40% to 50% of the productive life of the planet to essentially exclusive human use, this in a time when energy and technology permit food growth on marginal land, and processing for storage and long distance shipping. Absent improvements in for example food productivity per acre, we are therefore within one population doubling of ecological disaster.

But we are not poised for such productivity improvements. We are more likely facing the loss of significant areas of existing farmland, estimates range from 20% to 50%, which has been "overworked" and no longer viable. We are also facing reduction in the level of crops from remaining farmland, perhaps to production that is only 25% of the present, absent chemical fertilizers.

To calculate the maximum possible supply of food for an Earthbound solar civilization, let's use the same 5,000 mile disk as with solar power above (food is, after all, a chemical store of solar energy.)

If the same swath as with solar power was instead turned into an 7,500 mile wide biointensive garden, completely surrounding the Earth, 50% clouds, it would intercept in BTUs:

207,522,049,398,048,000


Converted to calories, it's: 169,231,652,138,178,722,753.

Shaded 50% by clouds, 2000 calorie per person per day, 365 days per year, given overall photosynthesis efficiency of 1/10% as observed in food crops today, it could provide food for 115,912,090,505 (115 billion) people. No other animals. No open place to walk. No fuel. No solar electricity. No ocean waves... Just feeding people.

Absent such sci-fi technology, the reality is we are already diverting around 50% of the productive life-force of the Earth for human purposes, and that with the additional input of fertilizers, pesticides, and green revolution crops.

Agricultural man could produce about 10 calories of energy with the expenditure of about one calorie of energy. This meant that a single man could produce enough food for his immediate family, and still have a surplus to sell, or be "taxed" to support nonagricultural urban civilization and a total global population of 200-300 million.

Remember though, early agriculture was set up on farmland selected from the best produced by God's natural processes. Compare the "Fertile Crescent" of 5,000 to 10,000 years ago to the conditions in the area today. Farming techniques may have contributed significantly to the effective death of the environment in that area.

Industrial man probably uses over ten calories of energy to produce a single calorie of food, which is completely unsustainable. Most of what you see in the industrial world is a transitory illusion made possible by a one-time windfall supply of energy from fossil fuels that were accumulated over millions of years. When the fossil fuel reserves deplete in 50 years OR LESS, the modern food system will simply disappear along with them.

Unfortunately, in the U. S. and many other nations farming is dependent on several key unsustainable factors:

Oil, for machines and fertilizers

Hybrid plants, specially bred, consuming artificial fertilizers

Ground water, massive pumping, exceeding "recharge" rates that will take tens of thousands of years, or more to refill once we cease pumping.

Without oil 2% of Americans working in our present industrial farming CAN NOT feed the remaining 98%, let alone any type of surplus to help the rest of the world. And there are many nations who are, or will, be far worse off then the U. S. Absent input of oil based fertilizers, it could take up to three times as much land to produce the same amount of food. If the irrigation cannot be indefinitely sustained, then don't count on the food produced from use of the water.

The population surge of the industrial age has passed 6 BILLION, and has not yet leveled off, but it will, very soon, whether by voluntary action, war, or starvation.

The only practical source of sustainable food is that grown close to the consumers, recycling natural wastes into fertilizers. The most practical source of fertilizer for the crops is recycling in as small and closed a loop, as meets with health and safety, the humanure and urine. Returning to manual labor is not practical for huge farms that are isolated from the human population they feed, and the labor necessary to tend the farm.

During the last 40 years, perhaps 30 percent of total world arable land was abandoned because it was no longer productive. Potentially, half of the current arable land now in cultivation will be unsuitable for food production by the middle of the twenty-first century, further lowering sustainable population.

When crops produced are consumed elsewhere, (i.e. farm goods are shipped to the city, or overseas) non-chemical agricultural practices can not completely make up for the massive withdrawal of nutrients from the soil. While artificial fertilizers can, as in hydroponics, literally allow plants to grow on lifeless rock, the plant cannot contain what is not in its fertilizer. And the fertilizers used do not contain the full spectrum of minerals that the plants, and humans, need.

The U.S., with the heavy application of fertilizers, has around 2% of the population


working in farming, and uses just over 1 acre per person to maintain our present diet. (It was just in 1998 that the U.S. food demand first exceeded its production capacity, with a net importation of food) China manages to keep its starvation level population alive with just .2 acre (8736) per person. But these production levels are based on fossil fuel dependent fertilizers.

EXPECT 5/6 FOOD PRODUCTION LOSS

What happens when, as oil supplies dwindle, and prices rise, that farmers cannot afford them? It is projected that absent the chemicals if the same farm fields are continued to be worked (say by extensive manual labor) that production would probably be 1/3 of the present yield. Without the ability to pump deep groundwater sources (which will themselves be depleted shortly anyway) up to 1/2 of the present farmland may simply be unworkable. There is the possibility that the food factor may limit us to only 1/6 of the present population, or a total global population of 1 billion. This does not however mean every nation will necessarily experience a loss of a little over 80% of it’s population. There are locations which are at this time at what appears to be at a sustainable population for food.

All truth passes through three stages:First, it is ridiculed;Second, it is violently opposed; and Third, it is accepted as self-evident.

- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

There are locations which are at far more than six times the sustainable population. While an initial reaction to population density is to “correct” it by redistributing from the crowded to the less crowded, this punishes those who have been limiting their own numbers, and rewards those who have been careless.

Absent a store of fossil fuels, if we want to continue to operate any type of combustion engine (including for these purposes fuel cells) we may need to divert food production land to fuel production

This would further reduce the practical standing population.

REACHING A SUSTAINABLE POPULATION

Exploring a population of 1 billion for a few moments (the size which can at least be fed)…

Assume an average lifespan of 80 years. If the ages of the 1 billion residents are spread across 80 years, there would be 12,500,000 of each age. We should expect about that many births each year, and that many deaths, keeping the population overall in balance. We have however 6+ billion.

Numerous estimates put the oil crash on or about 2020. Meaning, on or before 2020 we “need” to get the population down to no more than a billion or so. First, births must be no greater than the future sustainable level (12.5 million), preferably less until stability is clearly established. 5+ billion will, quite probably, die of untimely and unpleasant means by 2020.

If the crash started significantly now (2005), and progressed evenly and slowly over 15 years, we would be looking at 346.5 MILLION deaths per year (334 million population reduction + 12.5 million of birth balance), well beyond the present 75 million or so averaged deaths each year. It is not a pleasant topic, and one ignored by many. The deaths will not be randomly distributed, from any one cause, or all at once. Expect them to come in waves.

THE GENETIC WILDCARD

In our efforts to create more productive plants, and profits in the agricultural industry, we have bred and widely use hybrid plants. While in themselves producing more food material than their natural "cousins", the hybrids have little genetic diversity, and are subject to widespread crop failure when disease strikes.

In addition, the children of the plants, their seeds, may be sterile "mules", incapable of reproducing themselves, or at best multiple throwbacks vastly different from the sought crop. This makes it impossible to store up seed from your own crops, and forces farmers to return to the seed "manufacturers" every year for more seed. Not only does this entail unnecessary costs, but also failure of the hybrid production could lead to a sustained scarcity of crop seeds, and huge food production shortages.


I've read that NO hybrid corn will pick up cobalt, a necessary micronutrient for vitamin B12 formation. Don't you wonder what we're doing to ourselves?

Beyond hybrids problems, agribusiness has also begun to specifically add a "TERMINATOR" gene (their own wording) to crops, to guarantee no seeds produced can grow. They cannot however guarantee what will happen when pollen from these "TERMINATOR" crops is spread to natural plants.

A greater yet opportunity/threat is inter species genetic transfer. Until genetic splicing entered the scene, "new" plants or animals were limited to products of those entities which could breed with each other. The new technology allows splicing animal and insect genes into plants; i.e. fish genes for production of oil have been spliced into tomatoes to help protect them from cold. These products are not mere unique breedings, but virtually a new life form.

Of the 10's of thousands of species man lives with, only cattle, sheep, pigs and goats are globally employed as livestock, and only the chicken is a true global contributor among the birds. And of the 20,000 food plants, hardly more than 100 have been properly domesticated, with a mere dozen or so bearing the bulk of the burden of feeding humanity. Perhaps we should work with this resource on a natural level and keep the genetic transfers to the lab.

EUGENICS

Most of the civilized world has for decades been conducting a widespread program which has dramatically increased the numbers of those least capable of contributing to society, (whether from actual or pretended disabilities), and DEGRADES the overall quality of humans as breeding stock for future generations.

THE WATER LIMIT

The only naturally sustainable source of fresh water is that which is naturally replenished by precipitation. A large part of America's cropland is watered by pumping from deep underground ancient stores, which are being pumped dry. When the underground water runs out, the crops stop. For example, there is little doubt that when

the Ogallala Aquifer is depleted, the 12 million acres it irrigates, (perhaps 1/3 of the U. S. cropland) will be out of service. The Ogallala overdraft as far back as 1975 was 14 million acre/feet per year, the flow of the Colorado River, and about 1/2 of the total U.S. groundwater overdraft. The situation is similar in other nations. This not only affects the food supply, as discussed above, but the greater priority of clean drinking water.

Desalinization of ocean water is possible, but known technology does not make it a viable source for enough freshwater to feed, and quench the thirst of the present population.

The author has read data which indicates the global water evaporation rate is around 92,000 cubic miles, with the rainfall returning to the land amounting to around 25,000 cubic miles of water. If we could collect every drop of rain that falls on land, it would amount to around just over 27,000 trillion gallons. If we collected just 1/10 and used it without re-evaporation losses for just biointensive gardens, it would provide for a population of around 42 billion.

THE TOXIC LIMIT

Mankind's hazardous wastes cannot be handled by the natural ecosystem, where energy is obtained from the sun each day, and continuously converted by living creatures into waste that is completely consumed by other living creatures. Mankind however produces waste that cannot be consumed by living creatures.

For industrial society to be sustainable, ALL waste of industrial activity must be recycled. This increases the amount of energy that must be used for any given process, further reducing the sustainable population. Despite progress in the past few decades, accurate information is not yet available to determine the energy needs for such recycling. It is in the best interest of all to simply avoid, or minimize those processes that produce hazardous wastes.

THE DISEASE FACTOR

Diseases have found our towns and cities where human populations are dense to make great incubators. Our remedies for epidemics of diseases such as tuberculosis, measles, smallpox,


flu, cholera, and polio, are being undermined by new strains of diseases that are resistant.

Mismanaged concentrations and mixes of human and animal wastes, and mutigenic substances are ideal for the propagation and mutation of pathogens.

If the overall health of humanity is eroded by decreased living conditions, disease will run rampant. Swift, worldwide transportation of people and goods is quite an achievement. But diseases also benefit from our transportation systems. Viruses that were once isolated in a small pocket of the world can now travel anywhere, and spread before they can be noticed. Even our miracle drugs, which once seemed on the verge of wiping out diseases, are now themselves responsible for new mutations.

We've introduced "air tightness" in buildings (in the name of energy efficiency) and air conditioning (and, incidentally, the reduced rate of airflow in the cabins of modern jet airliners, also in the name of energy efficiency). Keeping people breathing the same re-circulated air makes the transmission of airborne pathogens all the easier. It also leads to new environments to concentrate and multiply deadly bacterium that otherwise were kept in check by natural means, i.e. the occupant of air-conditioning systems: Legionella pneumophila, the causative agent of often-fatal Legionnaire's disease, is in it's natural state a minor soil component kept in check by the micro ecosystem of healthy soil.

THE CONFLICT FACTOR

Warfare is the historical response to the pressure of local needs, or greed, or the perceived unfairness of better off neighbors, or those who refuse to strip their own resources and join the death of a failed society. Leaders will need to shift the responsibility and blame for failure elsewhere. America, with the highest standard of living on Earth, the greatest purchaser of oil, and producer of food, is the most visible, most likely target of this redirected anger. The accumulation of atomic, biological, and chemical weapons has spread dramatically, and they are now in the hands of many small nations, who have long histories of conflicts with neighboring nations, and short tempers.

Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The U.N. and those behind the scenes control the world, with agendas probably contrary to your personal freedom and achievement.

If we can’t sustain the present population, what are you suggestions for avoiding such conflicts and their spread? How do we avoid further destruction of the natural ecosystem, the human life support ecosystem, and the artifacts and knowledge of civilization and manage the least painful and damaging way out from our self imposed crisis? (Reminder: Excess food, viable currency, and industrial products are not available in the emergency.)

Please forgive the flippant analogy, but we are in a horror show game of “Musical Chairs”. Whenever the music (essential aspect) stops, anyone who does not have a safe chair, dies.

People will fight to get into chairs, and pull others off, killing each other and others around them. Chairs will be destroyed in the process, making each round worse.

FINITE MINERALS AND METALS

We cannot be dependent on a one-way thru put of any finite resource. Expect present garbage dumps to be future small-scale "mining" sites to seek pre-processed materials such as metals, glass, and plastics.

QUALITY OF LIFE

Is humanity as a whole, and the citizens as individuals, better off in a world with some maximum population existing at a starvation level, unable to maintain a sane organized civilization with teaching, medicine, etc., or with much lower numbers, well fed and healthy, with reserves of food, the ability to produce biofuels, etc.? With the globe covered by human sprawl & refuge, or with distinct human enclaves isolated from a protected greater volume of natural environment? With a long-lived educated and experienced population, or short-lived neophytes who must reinvent the wheel each generation? The future will be what we make it by the accumulation of our individual decisions and actions.

EARLIER CRASHES


Starving frightened33 people do not care about sustainability. If sustainability is to be achieved, people who are not starving must supply the necessary leadership and resources. There must therefore be someone who retains a viable society, when all else fall into chaos.

"In the end," says the Grand Inquisitor in Dostoevsky's parable, "in the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, make us your slaves, but feed us."

Human societies as far apart in space and time as Rome, Mayans, and Easter Islanders came to ruin by expanding beyond the capacity of their environments to sustain them. They depleted their local habitats, and had to disburse. Humanity as a whole survived, however, because there were always places elsewhere on Earth capable of supporting people.

Today, of course, humankind has become a global culture, one increasingly driven by a philosophy of competitive expansionism, one that is subduing and consuming the Earth. The numbers are simple, the present population cannot be sustained. When the present infrastructure fails, the population will crash, potentially destroying all that we have accomplished so far. The problem is that dulring the crash, and once demolished, there is place to hide while the worst passes, and the tries to heal itself.

Do not harbor a belief that the end of cheap fuel will end war. Long before modern weapons or equipment wars went on for decades, with each side stripping the countryside bare for miles. No fortress, means of concealment, ability to offer bribes, is as effective a defense as the ability and the will if required to crush an attacker.

COMING SOON

In many ways, the next hundred years may be the inverse of the last hundred. As fossil fuels dwindle, supply lines collapse, and societies disintegrate, muscle will gradually replace machinery. "Home grown" will replace

"imported". Cities as we know them may be impossible to sustain.

Activists from both the Left and Right -- armed with selected facts and ideologies -- but devoid of logic -- will form political agendas, select the best liars for leaders, and take to the streets demanding that government take us back to "the good old days". The worse our problems become, the more they will act instead of think. The less they think, the worse our problems will become. Social order will disintegrate, and Roadside Warriors will go mad, killing, raping, torturing, and burning...

There are various locations, ranging from islands, remote valleys, selected cities, and nations, that may still have enough arable land per person, economic and natural capital per citizen to actually make a rapid and functional transition to a sustainable yet technological society, even in a post-peak scenarios with declining supplies, IF we focus our efforts, and our resources, on that goal. We must immediately cease wasting our resources, time, and money, and cease subsidizing unproductive consumption.

The future development of agriculture must be directed toward closed loop ecological yet economically viable solutions. It may be highly mechanized, or it may be hands-on. But we must recognize it requires a greatly reduced population. It is important to keep the productivity of farmers' labor high enough to avoid a heavy burden on the economy in the form of government subsidies and unstable agriculture. For a society to continue to develop each farmer must be capable of feeding a significant serviced population.

The practicality of achieving self-sufficiency in food production requires a stable population. The American public must understand the issues of immigration and population growth and their implications for future food security in their country now while there is still time to make adjustments. Self-sufficiency in food production and other basic resources should be viewed as a strategy to guarantee a continued high standard of living and national security to U.S. citizens in the face of turbulence that can be expected

33 The author is a fan of “zombie” movies. When you are running from one crisis, only to encounter another, it is at the least difficult to think and act long-term. How many survivalist guides provide any long-term consideration such as collecting seeds for storage?


around the world in the next decades. There is no time for delay, choosing not to change the current pattern of high immigration and population growth is a suicidal trap.

The bulk of the population of the world does not live at the American standard of living, nor can they.

There is not enough water.

There is not enough food.

There is not enough energy.

The world is finite. The resources within the boundaries of every homestead, neighborhood, city, and nation are finite. We must all, as individuals and nations, live within our resources.

Within our finite resources there is some level of population and per person resource use that is sustainable. More specifically, there is some minimum level for a population which if in isolation could continue to produce healthy new generations. There is some density level where conditions are optimized for ongoing interactions among the neighborhood residents, and the beginnings of specialization to provide the root for greater specialization, production and research beyond mere hand to mouth existence.


Sustainable Civilization: From the Grass Roots UpChapter III - Neighborhoods and the Web of Life

What is the minimum gathering of multigenerational family homes such that if in physical isolation could maintain ongoing generations, provide basic safety and increased food security?

We have fragmented families in neighborhoods where no one is related or even knows anyone within walking distance. Much of this can be attributed to quick & cheap transportation, making work commutes and a friend across town as "easy" to reach as a neighbor. Responsibility must also be attributed to expanding government programs, making a plea to a bureaucracy that does not judge your shortcomings, more likely than a plea to family for friends, who will.

Multiple living locations, communication and commute costs, and no readily available family support has been great for the businesses and government agencies who fill the gap, all loved by the tax man. Absent an energy miracle this is ending. We need to re-think what really matters to us, where and how we live to provide a solid foundation for our civilization.

INTRODUCTION

An individual or family, with an earth sheltered home, a large enough water collection area, and a "biointensive" garden, (best case 1,000 ft. sq. per person) could potentially live quietly in isolation for the lifetime of the youngest member of the family. But the technology could easily outlast the residents.

A single-family isolation approach is a "dead end" for the family, and if replicated, potentially for civilization. If effect, you’re hoping that your children will be able to leave the isolation, and amidst the ruins find others who have also been waiting in isolation. You’re hoping that someone else preserves civilizations while you hide. What type of survivors and civilization do you think you’re likely to find?

If located in relative isolation, such as a survival gathering, there is some minimum starting and

stability population size for a community with ongoing successive generations, without the need for "immigration", or exchange of husbands/wives from outside.

PHYSICAL PRIORITY IPOPULATION STABILITY

Whether a multi-family isolated neighborhood, or the global population, the total number of humans MUST NOT grow beyond the reliable renewable resources. In general, when averaged, it means no one should parent a child beyond their own replacement and the replacement of their mate. (Thinking of immigration, provided of course that both mates were already accounted for in the relevant population.)

Given nutritional food and reasonable sanitation, improved living conditions and health care, prolific child production is not necessary to ensure that a sufficient next generation survives. In simple fact, any number in the next generation which exceeds the present generation is the SOURCE of our problems. We must use our intelligence to overcome our biological tendencies.

Birth rate. No couple should have more than their personal replacement children. (Every birth or other new-arrival that exceeds replacement levels, assuming that steady-state policies are thereafter followed, means an eventual permanent standing increase of the population of from 4 to 6 people.

Childbirth Age. The average age at which a family has children, divided into the average lifespan provides the average number of standing generations. An increase in the age at which conception occurs reduces the overall standing population and demand on resources, while a decrease in the age of conception increases the standing population and resource demand.


Lifespan. The average lifespan divided by the average age at which children are conceived provides the average number of standing generations. To maintain a stable number of standing generations, a long term increase in lifespan must also in the long-term be balanced by an increase in the average age at which conception occurs, or an appropriate one-time adjustment in the birth rate to reduce the number of new mating couples.

To maintain a large enough gene pool, genetically the “better” choice is children born to older parents. As we passed the end of the 1800’s, improved nutrition and sanitation can be credited with an increase in the average lifespan, yet we not only did neither adjustment, we made increases in the other factors also.

In reference to the above population stability factors, I'll use "standard" families, with extended households (i.e. one set of grandparents resides in the family home), two children per couple, childbearing at age 20, lifespan of 80. The average extended family home could have 4 to 6 generations living there. (8 to 12 people)

Immigrants. An isolated "Neighborhood", being sustained at the minimum reliable level of renewable resources, should make the concept of immigration restriction clear.

Assuming average lifespan of 80, children born to parents in their 20's, there are more or less five generations alive at any given time. Assume each new person (immigrant or child beyond parental replacement) after arrival then follows a parental replacement only child bearing guideline, the population can be expected to settle out at a permanent increase of 5 people for each new potential breeder.

If you don't have extra water and food, how can you afford to increase your population? Can the scope of your facilities be expanded without violating your principles? Has there been an untimely death in your group?

Is someone willing to "forgo" a child (their biological replacement) and "adopt" the outsider as someone to be sustained on their family resources? Note, if a resident of a population restricted community brings in and marries someone from the “outside”, provided the couple only has one child, the negative effect on

community resources will abate when the first of the husband/wife dies.

We can readily calculate the upper limit for a population, based on available resources, and per person resource use. But if you intend to plan for optimum living conditions, and the GREATEST available resources per person, you need to find the LOWER population limit for each level of community.

POPULATION LOWER LIMIT

I have been unable to locate a definitive study, however, provided the genetic makeup of the starting population has no inherent problems, consider in an isolated population starting with "unrelated" couples, who each have one boy and one girl. Current law in many U. S. states is that first cousins may not marry. Just working it out "on paper":

A deliberately selected group, all of essentially the same age, all unrelated. For this exercise, assume each couple has one boy & one girl.

WARNING: A narrow genetic base implies a risk of inbreeding. In a population of few childbearing individuals the risk of inbreeding is high. The genetic history of parents is particularly important in a small population, isolated community.

One couple, all children are siblings, dead end.

Two couples, the generation 2 four children can marry, but the third generation are first cousins, dead end.

Three couples, the generation 2 six children can marry, but most in the third generation are first cousins, dead end.

Four couples, the generation 2 eight children can marry, and the following generations being 1/2 first cousins CAN avoid first cousin marriages, but each has only one person available as a spouse. In addition, there is a cycle where both brother and sister of one family must marry the sister and brother of another family. While this does not technically violate the first cousin rule, it is a repeated pattern of genetic concentration.

Five couples, the following generations can marry and avoid first cousin marriages, and


avoid the four couple forced cycle of brother & sister family "A" marrying sister & brother of family "B". But in avoiding the brother / sister cycle, it appears each person alternates between only one mate potential and a choice of two.

Six couples, the following generations generally each have a choice of three mates that avoids first cousin marriages. This is probably the smallest practical genetic gathering to wait out a long-term dangerous situation.

At this point, I ask your indulgence as I comment on support for monogamous human mating. The six couples just commented on are of course twelve people (six males & six females), who have twelve children as their replacements. I use an extreme example to demonstrate the "defect" of multiple mating partners. Envision eleven females, and one male, who parent the same twelve children. All of the children are half brothers or sisters, and given present genetic knowledge, should not mate and produce children.

Six extended families does not however provide a wide safety margin (i.e. for sicknesses or accidents) or the ability to maintain and pass on specialized knowledge and skills, or maintain and develop much technology.

If we assume the initial Homestead association group begins with members of random age, the likelihood of practical mate matches in a gathering of just six families is reduced. Tossing around some random numbers. Children born to couples at some point between are 18 and 36. We could easily find an 18-year or more age gap between potential mates. Increasing the number of families by a factor of 3 (to 18 families) in theory reduces the likely mate average age gap to 6 years. (See discussion later of 20 homestead "units" for Homestead associations.)

WARNING TO OVERLYSENSITIVE PEOPLE - GENETICS

Children constitute unique genetic compositions, resulting from mixing parental genetic material. The result is genetic variation of the offspring, which in turn may enhance, or diminish capabilities.

The genetic quality of offspring will affect a group, and humanity for years ahead, or forever.

Since the cost of rearing a healthy child is essentially the same regardless of genetic history, overall for humanity the investment will pay better when applied to good quality genetic stock. The cost of caring for a chronically ill or physically defective child may easily exceed the capabilities of a typical family, in particular in a post-oil low energy era, when it is not possible to force “public assistance”.

In the past when most of mankind lived generation after generation in villages, you had access to the detailed family history of potential mates. In our highly mobile society this family memory has been removed as a source of information, and many protest its reasonable replacement with readily available scientific genetic information. In the coming decades absent an energy and resource miracle, we are quite likely to see a very large drop in the total number of living humans. Humanity needs those who survive to be the “fittest” for the applicable circumstances.

The collection of homesteads is the lowest level, probably the BEST level, to consider what in human terms, “survival of the fittest” means for long-term civilization. It is perhaps NOT what you would first think. Early tools, stones and knives required physical strength, and hand to hand combat ability was essential to survival. The bow, a more refined tool, allowed for lesser strength but a distinct skill to provide distant neutralization of a much larger adversary or animal. Our continued progression has made mind and precision more important than strength, in a feedback loop. The drive to overpopulate was early on another survival trait, as many died as children, or before they had their own children. Like other early "cave" aspects, given the now global coverage of humanity, the drive to expand population is obsolete.

The "gene" for prolific procreation is now a threat to the entire race. The “gene” to initiate force, to impose your will on others, is obsolete. The “gene” to waste, pollute, overproduce, overrun nature, etc., is obsolete. In the “wild”, these arguably obsolete genes would quickly and easily out-produce (in the form of children) and out-number those who have gone beyond the mindlessness and greed of our primitive animalistic origins. The “mutation” toward long-term thinking keeps occurring, but in the past was readily overrun.


The “up” side is that at least for the present, resources such as the internet provide a means for the isolated occurrences of those who are awake to reach out to each other, organize, and come together.

A significant question is how those who are awake to sustainable population requirements react and interact with those who think they have the god-given right to drop as many children as they want, force others to not only pay the costs of childbirth and raising THEIR children, but that others need to get out of the way so THEIR children can further procreate.

PHYSICAL PRIORITY IIOPTIMIZE LIVING CONDITIONS

On a modest 1/4 acre lot if the family home and structures are underground or earth covered (see PAHS), the entire surface of the homestead could be available for food production, say around 10,000 ft. sq. At the best biointensive yield, the lot itself could feed the family.

How about a 10,000 sq. foot multi-floor building, a business on the first floor, living quarters above with a greenhouse/garden on the roof?

As touched on in Chapter I, the ability of a ¼ acre multigenerational homestead to provide for the family has two significant factors, sufficient sunshine for crops, and sufficient water for crops.

A simple greenhouse can provide a lot of leeway regarding solar exposure time. If there is not enough natural rainfall, water can however become a significant limiting factor.

With 12” of rainfall (presented for reference purposes, adjust all estimates for your local information.) a multigeneration homestead of 8 to 10 people would need to collect water from an area of 52,000 to 65,000 sq.ft. The homestead is 10,000 sq. ft, leaving 42,000 to 55,000 sq. ft. If your water collection area is to be integrated to your homestead, if you’re in isolation and have no other water source, you need 1 ¼ acres+.

Looking only at the food production area for a moment, consider now a 100% safety food production factor. But instead of making it

integral to the family homestead, make it part of a mutual investment area with the homesteads all surrounding a large field.

The first point where the number of homesteads surrounds an adequate core plot is 20. In a deliberately planned neighborhood association units of 20 families (160 people) seems reasonable. This number meets or exceeds the minimum genetic in both deliberate and random, as described above.

Arranged in a square it is around 600 ft. per side, consisting of 100 ft. per side homesteads, surrounding a core 400 ft. per side "safe" area. (3.66 acre). This area fits in a typical city layout where there are 8 blocks per mile.

In any existing community though it is not likely that 20 families are going to be able to buy out the 16 families occupying the prospective central field, to demolish the structures. A pre-crash option might be for the 20 to establish an LLC and progressively buy the core for temporary use as rentals.

Pre-crash do not expect politicians to look favorably on attempts to shift from maximum density of voters to a local balance of housing, food production, etc. Your livestock doesn't vote, and vacant land planted in crops does not pay the politicians as much in property taxes as yet another building. “Compromises27 between the demands of urban / industrial growth and agriculture will always result in the conversion of agricultural land to urban and industrial uses. The reverse conversion never happens.”

If the overall 20 homestead area is in isolation from other resources and needed to be surrounded by water collection, at the upper (safer) estimated area the neighborhood needs a water collection band around it 304 feet think, or the neighborhood needs to measure 1,208 feet on a side.

CENTRAL FIELD CHALLENGES(TRADGECY OF THE COMMONS)

The central field presents the blessing, and curse, or what might be a commons area.

To present the “curse” aspect, let’s say for a moment that every separate homestead collects every drop of rain that falls on the homestead. In


the central field though, the rain reaches the ground. If the families agree to one central wells, and NOT put down private wells, or private wells but with no pumping beyond each homestead pumping 1/20th of the agreed total estimate of aquifer recharge, consider:

What does the group do if family “Gulpy” pumps more than their 1/20th share? This hot summer month, family “Gulpy” pumps twice their share of groundwater. YOU needed extra water also, but did NOT cheat. How does the group handle it? (The water is gone, and cannot be put back.)

Each family can “shun” the Gulpies, until they feel the indiscretion has been atoned. If YOU do so, and everyone else loves the Gulpies, YOU may be the one shunned. Is there a good solution? None the author has uncovered. In the opinion of the author, in general, ANY commonly held asset is a disaster waiting to happen. There needs to be clear guidelines, and penalties, agreed to in advance, penalties able to be imposed by any aggrieved party without outside repercussions.

Who can show affirmatively this functions?

A general concept you must incorporate is, IF people can cheat to their personal advantage, they will. Whether it is direct theft, or theft via others acting on their behalf, expect the need to deal with those taking more than their actions and assets have earned.

From the individual perspective, if you have any dependence at all on any commonly held aspect, you are just ASKING for a problem.

AFFIRMATIVE CENTRAL FIELD OPTIONS

Tree food crops. Even using a single dwarf variety, trees tend to produce yield greater than that which can be used by one family, and many trees require a pollinator mate. A potential use of this central protected field would be as an orchard.

Merely as an example, on a grid of 15 foot spacing, there is potential for 625 trees. If evenly planted in the crop spread of Apple, Apricot, Almond, Cherry, Fig, Pear, Peach, Persimmon, Plum, Pomegranate, Quince, and

Walnut, there could be 52 of each type, for a potential annual yield of:

Crop Ttl.Yield Per Person

Apple 208 Bushel 1.30 BushelApricot 104 Bushel .65 BushelAlmond 2080 Pound 13.00 PoundCherry 3900 Quart 24.37 QuartFig 1300 Pound 8.00 PoundPear 26 Bushel .16 BushelPeach 208 Bushel 1.30 BushelPersimmon 104 Bushel .65 BushelPlum 104 Bushel .65 BushelPomegranite 104 Bushel .65 BushelQuince 52 Bushel .32 BushelWalnut 2600 Pound 16.25 Pound

The above and below scenes are of a roughly circular grass courtyard in one area of an outlet shopping center.

The area shown is somewhat smaller than the area encompassed by the 20 homes would be, but it provides a flavor for what the area could be.


Tree energy crops. At the best yield of 2 cord per acre per year it's around 150,000,000 BTU per the field per year. (930 some cubic feet of wood – with better uses we hope than burning)

Tilapia34 fish farming provides liquid fertilizer, high in ammonia. While caution is required as to the plants which first receive tank outflow, the project provides high quality protein. Columbia28 reports four tilapia per week per person provides a key protein diet aspect. If each 8’ diameter tank grows 600 fish over a growing period of six months then to provide one week of protein for the upper estimate of 200 people per neighborhood requires tanks 9’3” in diameter. A steady supply requires 26 tanks in operation, a add walking space around each (for a tank footprint diameter of 12’) and you need a space about 60 foot on a side, easily fitting into a corner of the central field and providing valuable fertilizer to other central crops.

The fish reportedly have minimal swimming requirements for individuals health, with recommendations that the tank diameter not be below 8’, with a minimum depth of 4’. Floating plants serve as a “nursery” for eggs and baby fish. Common floating plants include: duckweed (Lemma minor), water hyacinth (Eichornia crassipes), and water lettuce (Pistia Stratiotes). Duckweed is a popular plant for use in living machines. It has been shown to remove (by bioaccumulation) as much as 99% of nutrients and dissolved solids in wastewater. Duckweed grows at an extremely rapid pace and can double its mass in less than 2 days. In field conditions, duckweed has produced as much as 13 to 83 tons/ha/year.83 Since it grows at such a rapid pace, duckweed requires frequent pruning and harvesting.

Power Generation. Set up in photovoltaic panels of a square yard, with a two foot walkway around each, it readily holds 6,400 collector units. At 10% efficiency panels, it generates 640 KW per hour of full sun, or 32 KW per homestead per hour, averaging something like 5760 KWH per homestead per month. How does that compare to your electric bill now? The p/v power option has two significant challenges, initial purchase cost, and maintenance. (Unlike trees, that can be self-replicating.) If the field were limited to non-water use aspects such as power, it could also serve as rainfall collection, and could provide 15% of the neighborhood water needs. This would reduce the water collection band to a thickness of 269 feet, and an overall area for an isolated neighborhood of 1,139 feet on a side.

Beef. To grow animals for meat and other uses, look into “Mini cows”. New breeds of pint-size heifers and bulls are making it easier for small areas such as the neighborhood central field to be used to raise cattle for milk & meat. Breeders claim that while each animal may be smaller, more meat can be produced overall from each acre. The miniature cattle (42 inches at the hip) are between 500 and 700 pounds, said to provide enough meat to last a family of four to six months. Their footprint concentration is about two per acre, so the central field could support eight of these animals.

Obviously, the entire field does not have to be dedicated to a single purpose. The mix could include some of the above, animal grazing space, and facilities common to cooperative housing facilities, a commons building, perhaps a pool.

A goal should be developing a facility where the residents enjoy spending such time off as they have, reinforcing neighborhood bonds.

34 Tilapia - a hearty freshwater fish native to the Middle East and Africa which grows rapidly within a range of environments, with a high tolerance for bad conditions including relatively low oxygen and high silt, with a diet that can include algae, agricultural "waste", or bugs (see notes elsewhere on fly-farming). The growing fish must be fed roughly one and one-half times their average daily body weight throughout the course of their lives. They have 19.7 g protein and 2 g fat per 3.5 oz (100 g) serving. Tilapia need warm-water from 82° to 86°F. They need minimum dissolved oxygen level of 3 parts per million, requiring some pumping system in a crowded tank. Tilapia grow best in water with a pH of 7; as nitrogenous wastes (urea, uric acids) build up and make the water acidic, neutral pH is maintained by added buffers such as KOH or (Ca(OH)2), added daily or every other day. Iron is supplied through the addition of an iron chelate once every three weeks and the recommended amount is 2ppm.


HOMESTEAD SOLAR EXPOSURE

If your family homestead is in isolation, the height of your trees, towers, buildings, etc., is not a real concern. Once you elect to build and live in close to other solar dependent families, you must take into account everyone's effective solar window.

Envision a flat field, with just ground cover type crops, and all human structures underground. Everyone would essentially have 100% of the prospective solar window within their property borders.

Something similar is achieved if everyone agrees to not build or grow anything higher than a selected limit, say for example 20 feet. For a mental exercise, envision a 20' high wall around each property border. Some areas inside your domain may not receive direct sun at various times of the year, but this can be compensated by making the inside of the fence reflective, or in a more extreme choice placing a reflective grid over selected areas, or the entire property.

ASSET BASED COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT (ABCD) – KNOW YOUR

NEIGHBOR

If you have not been life-long friends and neighbors, there is probably much you DON’T know about each other. There will be those reluctant to say anything about themselves. Why? Your academic record, job record, court matters, etc., are all public records.

Somewhere there are probably people who remember your first steps, your first words, and when you became potty-trained. Somewhere short of this, there is vital information that your neighbors should know about you. What you chose to put in your “bio” can say more about you then the words themselves.

“HIRING” YOUR NEW NEIGHBORSKILLS & EXPERIENCE

The smaller that a community is, the greater the importance that each member be trained and experienced in a variety of complimentary emergency and functional areas, and that everyone be readily capable of interacting with each other as necessary.

Universal Qualifications.

(1) Common language(2) CPR - First Aid.(3) Self-Defense / Weapons Skill(4) A grasp of basic sustainability concepts.

Specialists to consider. In selection of specific individuals (if you can select) you not only want someone compatible with your group and our philosophy, but someone who can teach their "specialty" to others well enough that others can assist the specialist, or take over as the specialist if need be.

It’s obvious you are not going to have a dedicated specialist for everything. But people may be quite knowledgeable in something vital that is their hobby. Are your "specialists" open to learning other skills so they can continue to be fully integrated functioning members of the village absent an immediate need for their personal unique training? (i.e. If no one has a tooth problem, what does your dentist do?)

MODERN TECHNOLOGIES (i.e.: existing skills, educated skills

DoctorMidwifeDentistChiropractorNurseNaturopathArboristHorticulturistFarmingVeterinarianMechanicElectricianElectronicsPlumbingHVAC engineeringCarpentry

OLDER TECHNOLOGIES (i.e.: possibly existing as "hobby skills")

GardeningWood CarvingClay workingHuntingFishingTree cuttingVegetable canning


BakingMachine repairSewingQuiltingPotteryGlass blowingWeather predicting skill

Lost or Little Used Technologies (i.e.: probably rarely practiced skills)

BlacksmithingHorse shoeingSheep SheeringGunsmithingHand yarn and fabric makingCotton ginningSlaughtering / hog dressingHide tanningMeat preservingHome building: Log, Rammed Earth, Straw Bale, Heavy Timber Framing, etcBarn raisingHand tool carpentryFurniture makingHand plowingHand wheat preparation (drying, winnowing, grinding, etc)Windmill design / buildingWater mill design / buildingWagon / horse buggy buildingBoat BuildingStone MasonShoe MakingMedicinal plant identification and useButter churningMilkingCheese making

FUTURE TECHNOLOGIES

Genetic engineeringChemical engineeringNanotechnologyPhysicsElectronicsGravityMagneticsWarp fields?

ABCDVIRTUAL INFRASTRUCTURE

An example might be a virtual library, where whether a paper or computer file, all of the

members would simply need to provide a list of the books in their possession, that they are willing to loan out to other group members.

Think along the same lines for tools or other durable materials.

As long as the use of such lists remains the voluntary exchange or lending of goods or services, one might expect people to be quite forthcoming with information. If the community implements any approach that commandeers property, expect cooperation to cease. This points to the problem of such lists getting into the hands of thieves.

INFRASTRUCTURE ACCESS

A single family or small group can't anticipate everything, and can't gather everything. I guess the "plus" side is that (at least in the USA) it's difficult to find ANYPLACE that is very far from some town.

If you are building a remote retreat community "from scratch", (NOT recommended by the author) costs and difficulties are reduced while the resources of a functioning community are within reach.

All 20 families can live in a single room, or individual family homesteads, built per the resources of each individual family, or in a multi family condo complex, or in a motel arrangement with everyone having a private room, and common service facilities. It does not matter.

What matters is adequate sustainable life-support and minimum biological levels such that reasonable genetic safety can be maintained. Life support needs to be “local”, and essential life elements recycled locally, if for no other reason than to provide incentive to ensure that that materials put back into the food system are acceptable in the food system to the intended recipients of the food.

Regardless of how the population is housed, the relationship of population size, solar window, water supply, essential nutrients, human scale, unavoidable limits, etc, does not change.

The internal infrastructure of an isolated community will probably of necessity initially be


limited. You are, after all, basically working with the assets of at most a dozen or so families (i.e. 20 family minimum unit). Over time, with the labor of multiple generations consistently upgrading the site has potential for significant refinement.

A clear advantage of building new on virgin territory would be cheaper land purchase price. Remote cheap land would for example certainly make it more likely that a community of 20 families could afford an area 1208 on a side (about 34 acres) with a four acre center court, vs attempts by 20 families in an existing community to buy-out 16 other homes to establish the center court in an existing town setting.

But, if the community is a remote retreat, physical refinement may by be outweighed by loss of education and technological abilities. A particular challenge will be education.

EDUCATION IN ISOLATION

If a gathering of 20 homestead units has "perfectly" randomly distributed population ages, multi-generation families, etc., it might have 2 kids per class / age, and some approach to "Home Schooling" will probably be required.

"Home schooled" children have demonstrated that traditional classrooms may not be essential, or even rational, but those programs rely on educational materials developed "elsewhere", published and shipped, and on non "expert" parental teaching. Home schooled does not mean second rate. Education should be emphasized in all aspects of the Homestead association.

If there is not an overall crash, the web offers expanding opportunities for education, without "leaving home". Following a crash, the homestead association should as soon as possible document all of the resident knowledge. Note though, homeschooling or any teaching approach with too small of a class is an in-efficient use of the teaching resource.

SAFETY PRIORITY I PHYSICAL SECURITY AND SAFETY

A single family can be surprised while asleep or distracted. A single family can easily be physically outnumbered. Clustered homes raise the stakes for potential invaders, making it more difficult to determine the exact number and nature of residents and their habits, as well as putting the help of family and friends within the carry of your voice.

Neighborhood watch. Regardless of other factors, an awake and observant person is likely to be an essential factor of a security program.

With a large enough population, a gathering of homesteads can maintain a 24/7 "on duty" watch. There are 168 hours in a week. If security is stood once per week, for a four-hour period, there are 42 watch periods. An isolated family would be quickly worn down providing continuous surveillance. Six families would mean each family would have to provide someone "on duty" once every day. 20 families would mean each family would have to provide someone "on duty" only once in nearly every three days.

The person “on duty” does not need to be a muscular guard. In a low-tech environment, the guard must move about the overall complex in some “random” manner to sense what is happening. In a high-tech environment, it could be an elderly grandma sitting and watching favorite movies, while also having camera and audio feed from throughout the complex wired to the same room. To protect the property and lives of the neighborhood residents, what is called at the first step is just a version of “Neighborhood Watch” - someone to watch and listen, and sound the alarm if warranted. (What other “laws” do you care about?) As the homesteads gather, the per-day watch standing for each homestead dwindles, but the requirement for security does not.

With just this level of community, we see the potential for specialization, as one or more individuals or families would rather volunteer to pay someone to stand watch for them, than stay up on their own.

Each home already has its own food production, power generating, etc. area. Whether isolated or gathered, each home needs to be fenced from


unwelcome invaders. As an example, putting a secure fence around six independent 1/4 acre homesites requires around 2,400 ft. of fence. If concentrated around the perimeter of clustered homes, it would enclose the entire 20 homestead site. Not to mention a circled gathering of such homes provides significant controlled gardening area with essentially no additional outlay in protective fence.

Every home should have its own safe-room. These can all be interconnected with communications wiring, pipe, etc. as technology and resources permit. Communications among homes can be carried over a wire for thousands of feet by sound powered phones, using only the minute current generated by the impact of voice sound waves on a microphone. The technology is robust, and simple.

ANTICIPATED "INVADERS"

Hostile. In isolation or otherwise in the absence of organized law enforcement, self defense is required.

Neutral. I'd suspect that no matter how well hidden, both pre and post crash activity make a neighborhood of such homesteads attract attention and visitors. The gathering of homesteads is better off in security though than an isolated family. Residents still face the ethical / moral question of how to deal with outsiders, especially those who do not show obvious hostility. Who decides?

If the group does not somehow have extra common assets, the food or shelter for such guests will be from individual family assets. Yet the guests pose a threat to all. Discuss it in the group.

LOCATION

A modest gathering of homesteads has wide choice in location, as it only requires cooperation among some low number of families. Location is still however a significant consideration.

Ecological concerns. Do your plans include paving/over and / or building on that wonderful piece of wilderness you found? How are you going to keep your life support infrastructure separate from the surrounding nature?

Pollution. What would be the point of creating a retreat to sustain our families into the future, only to discover it's been located on top of a toxic waste dump. In the USA, I understand the federal EPA, and state equivalents, track all known significant threats. While still available, obtain all relevant information on your location.

Low natural risks. Winds, floods, earthquakes, volcano's... These types of disaster are all reduced in impact by advance warnings, and prompt outside assistance. Typical emergency planning for today, is to expect no more than 72 hours before significant help from outside the damaged community is on scene. I suspect that for quite some time, the advance warnings, and help, will be absent. Inherent risks should be minimized by careful site selection.

Security. There may already be prepared sites out there, which are remaining silent for security. This is certainly a consideration, and if I can manage to prompt a group to come together, once we've reached our initial "critical mass", it is possible that we would also cease public discussion that could lead to excessive temptations in a time of crisis. The location itself can be the first level of security. If your location is uninviting, most people won't even think of looking.

Transport corridors. If you are in isolation, major highways, railways, etc., may be pathways for refugees of a "crash". There with still though be a need for ready access to appropriate paths for appropriate commerce.

Even if transport is reduced to dependence on human power, i.e. bicycles, would you rather undertake a cross town, or cross country trip on foot, carrying your supplies on your back, and walking across raw land, or have your goods strapped on a bike, and pedaling, even on broken roads? The existing roadway grids could probably remain as viable pathways for quite some time, even in the absence of repairs, due to the also missing heavy traffic.

Use of a bicycle as a primary means of transport imposes limits (weight, speed, endurance, and angle of incline) but also offers advantages (aerobic exercise, no artificial gas generation, greatly reduced "road" needs. Typical automobile roads have extreme changes in altitude, “bad” for a bicycle rider. Enter old


railway beds. Many old, abandoned railway beds, often stripped of the track and ties, continue to exist as stone paths. Per an average of several web bicycle safety sites, project the sustained speed of an average adult on an upright bicycle is around 10 to 12 mph.

If you are considering a remote retreat, or ease of human powered transport between cities, remember that for railroad tracks significant effort went into providing smooth, gentle grades and turns for the trains, therefore these may be nearly ideal locations for bicycle paths. In addition to their city terminals, early railroads required stopovers for taking on more coal, wood, water, etc. These resupply stops, now abandoned, may prove to be appropriate locations for a retreat gathering of homesteads.

Virtual. I'd suggest a significant aspect of a banding together homesteads that are self-reliant and self sufficient in the basics, is the synergy possible in association with other similarly prepared and functioning families. So long as other neighbors around you are not a "threat", and you are within reasonable walking distance of those you are officially cooperating with, I don't see that it is a "show stopper" to make your family preparations, even though you're actually inside a greater, non cooperating (YET) community. When neighbors wake up, you and your associates can serve as guides for the late-risers. Absent physical co-location for security and the advantages of a single large gathering, to some extent a community could be “virtual”.

SAFETY PRIORITY IIREVENUES AND RESOURCES

Everyone in your neighborhood owns their home free of any mortgage. All are fireproof and grow enough food to feed the family. Someone from each homestead works enough to pay the property taxes, but otherwise each family more or less specializes in some craft, and the crops grown. Since everyone gets along on the barter system, and no money changes hands, you ignore the rest of the taxing authorities.

Wrong.

Your local “sales tax” authorities may consider all of your barter exchanges a commercial transaction, and demand their tax.

The IRS29 is also quite likely to consider your exchanges as commercial transactions, subject to income tax, self employment (Social Security & Medicaid) tax, etc.

And it can get worse. Say the neighbor kid double-digs your garden, and you barter some of your canned goods in exchange. If the tax authorities deem the kid your employee, vs an independent contractor you potentially owe minimum wage, tax withholding, and such other labor law requirements as are imposed in your jurisdiction. (Our laws are “nuts”, and even the tax authorities DO NOT know what they say.)

Although no money actually changed hands in any of the above events, if they are deemed taxable you will have to obtain official currency somewhere to pay the tax officials. Most likely, someone from each family will be forced to work at a “real” job to earn cash.

Government agencies, in particular the tax authorities, have a vested interest in fragmentation of families, friendships, and communities based on such. If you are growing your own food, looking after your neighbors, helping each other, taking turns letting the kids gather at homes, and not hiring someone for these "services", the tax authority has no easy basis to establish and siphon off part of the effort. Government agencies have a vested interest in discouraging people from taking care of themselves, or each other, and in CREATING problems, and expanding problems, to expand the scope of the solutions the agencies offer.

ECONOMICS

Even for a small gathering, if intentionally established in a remote undeveloped area, the potential cost is significant. The land purchase, although cheaper than a similar area within or close to a community, nevertheless alone poses difficulties. Unless there is extensive group cooperation, pooling of funds and agreement is reached, the purchase may need to be initiated by one or a few wealthy individuals. Within such a gathering there is the likelihood that the standard currency will be used, as will a “gift / favor” approach to activities.

Internal trade in a small community of family / friends can be barter / loan, with informal accounting. If a goal is the same 2% in farming


as the U.S. today, in each association there are 3 people doing the gardening/farming.

Posit a gathering of 20 families having agreed to use "MONOPOLY" money as a medium of exchange. Someone finds another game box, and divides up the money. Is anyone richer? Prices rise, but everyone can still afford the same purchases. What happens though if the second game finder slowly filters the excess money into the economy by purchases that benefit that family? In the long-term overall the community is no more wealthier, however, the sneak has personally profited to the percentage the additional “cash” relates to the initial cash. The extra monopoly money adds no new value to the community, but does inflate everything.

The U.S. dollar is no better. The federal government, via the NON-GOVERNMENTAL agency of the Federal Reserve, puts printed, and debt generated cash into the economy, benefitting the government and the federal reserve, but lowering the value of every other dollar in the hands of, or on deposit on behalf of, EVERYONE ELSE.

There is an entertaining, yet for all practical purposes accurate, audio file floating around of and old lecture, titled "Wheat Receipts". I found a version on it online at:

http://www.markswatson.com/Audio.html

It explains the federal reserve and other banks, which would include a barter / bank system, in terms of the operators of grain storage facilities. We encounter… problems… whenever anyone has the opportunity to create new symbols of wealth, without bothering to provide the labor or goods that make the wealth real. As presented in the lecture, farmers store their grain in commercial towers, blended with wheat from others. The farmer is issued a receipt. A grain tower owner realizes that the towers are never completely empty, and he could if he wanted sell the wheat he believes will never be asked for. He elects to issue a receipt to himself for the amount, which representing a claim on wheat in the tower, he can sell for cash.

So long as there are banks that can “loan” the money you have in on-demand deposit, the same situation could develop regardless of what you call the currency.

Nevertheless, your group, your community, whatever the level, NEEDS a currency that is disconnected from the highly manipulated and completely artificial federal currency. You need to realize that all voluntary exchanges between two parties are barter. Money or currency is simply some agreed intermediate barter item, where everyone is readily willing to exchange their goods or services for the barter item, or the currency representing the barter item.

If the basis of your agreed barter currency denomination is something that can be created, it needs to be something that if created adds value to your local economy of at least the same usefulness as the unit created. Finding gold adds potential units to the economy of a gold standard economy, but new gold found in a mine does not add real useful value to the economy, and essentially dilutes the currency, just as a government printing press does. In comparison growing a commodity such as wheat, or generating a useful amount of electricity does add clear value.

What do you, your neighbors, your community do to generate material wealth, or more on point while the present tax authorities exist, to generate “dollars”? Earning external income presents another question for such a gathering that is in a remote site. While communications and transport remain, almost any specialty could be engaged in, though I suspect that post-peak oil that productive "industrial" activity would be limited to handicrafts, or repair / reworking of existing products. Once internal stability is achieved, it could be that external income needs would be minimal, and perhaps met by retirement or investment payments, or a few working outside the group, and purchasing the outside goods needed within the community.

POLITICS

Until the rest of society, and politicians, catch-up with the requirements of long term sustainability, your group may need to stay “below the radar”. There are of course things that need to be presented to your local officials.

Existing zoning and/or business license/taxation requirements may pose sufficient barriers as to prevent some from implementing a "sideline" business that they might otherwise have an


interest in operating. The very people who would benefit in the future from such hobby businesses waiting in the wings, will probably balk at changes today that would allow them to start to develop. But it must be done.

What else do you see that needs to be changed, to get the various levels of government OUT OF THE WAY of achieving long-term sustainable civilization?

TECHNOLOGY

So long as the external infrastructure continues to function, the gathering should be capable of keeping up to date with the rest of the world (given appropriate funding).

A question: Assume your family, and nineteen other families, have completely equipped homesteads with everything in presentations to this point, and are planning on isolation. Do you have the technology and technique to repair or replace a broken plate or cup? How about a p/v panel? Or even a light bulb?

Once in isolation it appears limited to “Handicraft” technology for new items, or reworking and replacement of more complicated technology. Within a short period of time in isolation, expect technology to be limited to scavenger activity, then decline. (How do you make a bolt, or an eyeglass lens?) I would expect to see significant reliance on natural biological processes. (Growing plants and animals, fermentation, etc.) I would also expect to see significant reliance on herbal medicine or “home remedies”


The closest example is the cohousing movement, which in simple terms is privately owned dwellings with their own traditional living facilities, but also with perhaps extensive jointly owned facilities (food preparation & dining, meeting rooms, recreation facilities, library, workshops, children's space, etc.) which are essentially reserved for the use of the owners.

The physical design is usually such as to encourage personal contact and use of the common areas. There is no required sharing of income or other personal assets. There may also

be other jointly owned assets, vehicles, tools, machines, etc.

Cohousing facilities, and quite a number of neighborhoods, have restrictive covenants, rules for the neighborhood that one must agree to follow as part of obtaining title to the property. As with an easement on the property, the covenants survive even seizure of the property and a resale. I solicit input for covenants for a long-term sustainable neighborhood.

With private ownership of the means of providing for life support and comfort needs, as well as potential sources of income for the organization, it is by definition a capitalistic autarky.

While such fictional entities are still available under law, the common areas and the overall neighborhood may want to create and operate under a corporation, or a limited liability company.

Please note my "two cents" is that such entities that do not hold owners and operators of a business responsible for what the business does are contrary to a long-term sustainable community as ecology, where "negative" feedback and consequences are required.

Typically each homestead (regardless of the number of people living at that location) has one "vote" in areas of management where the association has discretion. I solicit feedback on further organizational thoughts, association rules, etc.

The person voting for each homestead may, or may not, be the same person who in general is "in charge" at home. In general family homes are essentially meritocratic, lead by the person most qualified. All members may provide input, perhaps the “owner” of the home (the elders) and the primary wage earner(s) have significant input, or perhaps “veto” power, but in general someone (in our home, the wife) has the “final” say.

Depending on local law, it may be in the best interest of the association for all "common" areas to be owned by a corporation, limited liability company, etc., with the goal of minimizing the liability of any individual family / homestead to a third party who may be injured on such


common property, and seek to sue the association.

As with the thought of virtual organization for the community, where the homesteads are not necessarily physically next to each other, neither does the common field, or other common assets need to be directly connected to any of the homesteads.

Consider there is a vacant lot, or perhaps a run-down and abandoned home in your neighborhood. Don’t whine about it to the city, organize a group and buy it, and put in the “sweat equity” to turn it into a common facility for your group.

INSPIRATION

The four acre El Monte Sagrado Resort in Taos, New Mexico, with 40 guest suites is not exactly a permanent living environment, but it strives to provide a comprehensive design solution for a high desert environment. It incorporates rainwater collection, minimum energy to provide heating and cooling, re-use of organic wastes in production of food, earth-based building materials, etc. Water is the critical limiting resource in our high desert environment, with the ancient irrigation network near Taos area having once made it the breadbasket of area.

The facility was previously a motel of small adobe casitas, which were restored and incorporated into the new resort infrastructure systems. Compressed earth blocks made with a hydraulic press were used for 8 of the units. The facility uses a "living machines" approach for wastewater from toilets, showers, etc. with initial collection in tanks to moderate flow. They use ultraviolet disinfection and only the amount of energy around that of a common light bulb. They avoid using chlorine as it is reported to create carcinogenic and estrogenic compounds biologically harmful in minute quantities.

CALL TO ACTION

Where do you want to be when the oil-based infrastructure is no longer operationally viable? In your independent home, in a community of similar homes, or competing for scraps from a failing society?

At the present, numerous oil wells are estimated to "dry up" before 2010. Rationally, as more wells empty and production levels will fall, oil will no longer be cheap, or abundant, and all of humanities oil dependent technology will wheeze to a halt.

Admit, as oil ceases to be cheap and abundant, the present infrastructure will fail. I have no crystal ball, and cannot tell you what the reactions of nations, and people in general will be. But my guess, based on what we see with minor interruptions and shortfalls, such as the Bolivia seizure of oil fields, and front page news in the Financial Times of Iranian youth signing up to volunteer for suicide bomer missions, is that it will not be pleasant. The first priority must be surviving the crash.

What response to you intend to tell your grandchildren when they ask, "where were you"... when you used the last drop you could afford... what were you doing when others were preparing for the tragedies of the "transition" period... or when others were preparing for the inevitable, post-oil paradigm? Are your children and grandchildren well fed, in safe surroundings, or in the wilderness?

There will be those tough, resourceful, wealthy, or lucky individuals, and their families, who make it through the transition "without a scratch", and do fine. I'm hoping that I fit some such category, and that my family survives... But I've come to believe that everyone who joins in the creation of an appropriate sustainable community will vastly increase their chances of success, and quality of life. If we "close the loop" locally on water, food, utilities, etc., we reduce our "footprint", and reduce the need to conduct economic activity to earn funds to make payments on such.

Consider where we are, our resources, our beliefs and opinions of the future, and act now. Right now, we can not only communicate by phone, over the web, etc., but we can research nearly anything we can imagine, and by a mere "click" cause books, tools, materials, devices, etc., to be shipped directly to us. How long do you think this capability will continue when things start to get "tight"?

If we are going to not only CORRECT the mistakes of the past 100 years, and move on to


developing to our greatest capabilities, there must be some groups that avoid the worst of the oil collapse. While "online" discussion can connect like-minded people in their thoughts and planning, it does nothing for any of us regarding physical world preparations.

SUMMARY

A modest neighborhood of self-reliant homesteads can in theory provide life support, and new generations, for an indefinite period.

But in isolation (physical or mental) such a neighborhood is going to find maintaining modern technology, and indeed knowledge, difficult. Realizing there are limits to physical resources, even on a global scale, redevelopment must take place within at least basic guidelines to avoid re-acquiring long term dependency on a short term resource.

Look at history, and the reasons stated (and unstated) as to why earlier civilizations failed. Research periods of crisis (i.e. the “Great Depression”30)for causes, and analyze the acts of significant “players”, and their underlying motives.


Sustainable Civilization: From the Grass Roots UpChapter IV - Sustainability Principles or Guidelines

The apparent principles and guidelines of our present civilization ignore natural limits. Once we recognize these limits exist, we need to shift the focus of our thinking to different paradigms.

INTRODUCTION

"Sustainable" is a word you will more readily see added to the name of programs. Real change though will be difficult to actually implement and maintain given present individual attitudes, institutions and paradigms.

Civilization, operated on sustainable principles, could eliminate starvation, poverty, pollution, etc. But such will not be implemented by a starving population or by those who benefit from the present system. Such will be resisted by the selfish and greedy who contribute nothing while demanding others support them. It will be resisted by those who feel THEY have the “right” to have as many children as they want, to do what they want, to go where they want, regardless of whomever else upon which the COSTS of such actions are imposed.

Given humanities civilization is now global, for many practical purposes, we've got to recognize we are living in a closed environment. Our resources are finite. Other than energy from the sun, there is virtually no input to our resources. Absent a breakthrough in technology, we are effectively limited to the confines of the Earth for the foreseeable future.

HOW LONG

The word sustainable implies the ability to continue for an indefinite period. To put sustainable into an easier to comprehend timeframe, consider seven generations.

"In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations"

- From the Great Law of the Iroquois Nation

Seven generations is somewhere between 96 and 280 years. A properly maintained and managed neighborhood or cooperative housing association provides a minimum genetic population, and can provide for the life-support needs of residents for seven generations and beyond. But it appears clear that a homeowner association scale community, if isolated, will be unable to sustain much technology, education, or skills.

Humans and all other animal life on earth are dependent on plants to use light to recycle our wastes and mortal remains to create food. We in particular are dependent on our agriculture art and technology. Without it, the natural systems on the Earth could not support the present human population.

Given present science, what comprises a sustainable community?

There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.- General Colin Powell

PRESERVE GOD'S NATURAL ECOSYSTEMS

We must avoid interfering with any unique micro environment, or the environment overall, such that we cause species extinctions, or such that natural evolution is prevented. Therefore a key initial question, what is the upper limit for the portion of the environment to be devoted to human use? 1/10? 1/3? 1/2? More? Less? Please note, humans are already using 50% of the productive life of the world.

Within such dedicated space, or indeed the entire world, simple logic shows the number of humans who can be sustained, and the per person ability to use resources, are inversely related. The smaller the population to be maintained, the greater the resources per person.


Despite the appearances of vast remaining wide open spaces, estimates are that almost 50% of the productive life of the globe is already diverted in some manner to human use.

FEEDBACK LOOPS

If you stick your hand into the fire, you need the negative feedback of searing pain letting you know there's not much time to get your hand out.

There are consequences to actions; whether those of an individual, family, neighborhood, city, nation, or humanity as a whole.

Foul your air and you're dead in 3 minutes.

Foul your water and you're dead in 3 days.

Foul your food and you're dead in 3 weeks.

You may be able to temporarily obtain resources from elsewhere, but in a long-term sustainable world where everyone is in balance, there may not be excess to share.

POPULATION CONTROL

Some maximum population can be fed, but with no resources available for any other purpose. A technological civilization, in particular to continue developing, requires "excess" resources that can be invested for the future, and lost in failed projects.

At the other end of the scale, there is certainly a minimum human population, and distribution program, for safety, maintenance and development of skills, knowledge, scientific discovery, etc.

The smallest human population is that required for genetic safety. (A tribe? Six families? Twenty families?) While this size might be appropriate for a "survival" community, or a well organized and supported project (i.e. an interstellar mission) it is doubtful that technology could be indefinitely maintained, let alone development continue.

We need to allow for some specialization, maintain skills and simple technology.

Somewhere there is a range of population that allows continued human achievements without

destruction. It requires however understanding and individual responsibility to achieve the local action which is essential to achieve stability on a global scale - unless you WANT war and pestilence.

Every factor I've examined indicates the population must decline dramatically. Once we have reached sustainable levels, the population can only be permitted to fluctuate within a limited range. Consider the factors of fluctuation, lifespan, child bearing age, and birthrate..

Lifespan. Given other factors being stable (child bearing age and birthrate) an increase, or decrease in the average lifespan of a population will cause a one time increase (lifespan divided by child bearing age) in the number of generations alive at any given time, and therefore the total living population.

Child Birth Age. Given other factors being stable (lifespan and birthrate) an increase, or decrease in the average age of parents when children are born will cause a one time increase (lifespan divided by child bearing age) in the number of generations alive at any given time, and therefore the total living population.

Birthrate. Given other factors being stable (Lifespan and child bearing age) an increase, or decrease in the average number of children born to parents, in simple fact, ANY deviation from a strictly replacement birth rate, will cause a continued, and essentially geometric change in the actual number of people alive at any given time.

Regardless of the size of the population units, it appears practical to blend living, working, entertainment, etc. facilities in as close proximity as practical.

INFRASTRUCTURE

Modern civilization, as we experience it, is a product of the present global socio-economic-industrial infrastructure. Surely, no one believes this present infrastructure is indefinitely sustainable. Flying the face of logic, we have expanded our numbers such that much of the present 6+ billion human population depends on this infrastructure not only for an economic livelihood, but for essentials of life (water, food,


shelter, etc.) Our infrastructure itself though is dependent on the destruction of a finite resource.

What does human-scale infrastructure look like?

Background. We cannot indefinitely burn fossil fuels, pump groundwater stored millennia ago, mine, etc. The easy discoveries and recoveries of such are past. Very soon, we must begin to live with the declining supplies.

The Earth, and every definable (political or geographic) area has a maximum population that can be maintained using local resources or sustainable trade.

The present global population is well beyond sustainability even for food, let alone a functional and developing civilization. There are some places and peoples who may have attained a stable population, but none is good example of stable population and sustainable resource utilization.

Most places on the globe are so overpopulated (and still expanding) that they have no chance of attaining higher standards of living, let alone sustainability, absent a massive, premature, and unpleasant death of the bulk of the population.

Those in poor, but expanding population areas, in seeking to emulate higher resource use nations, or emigrate there, are acting contrary to sustainability.

The smaller the sustained population, the greater the resources available per person. But a small population is vulnerable to the "needs" of the majority being imposed unwillingly. If the world is not composed of sustainable units, conflict is the logical outcome.

A small, sustainable community, must be capable of resisting unwelcome and oppressive "neighbors", and needs appropriate defensive and policing capabilities.

Throughout the globe, humanity needs to "...get it's act together...". But there is no indication it will do so in time to prevent a crash.

RESOURCE BASES

Use of a finite resource (i.e. fossil fuels, minerals, ancient groundwater) in a manner not

readily recycled is foolish. Having the infrastructure of civilization dependent on such use is insane.

Use of a renewable resource beyond the reasonably reliable applicable renewal rate is foolish. If it takes 50 years to grow a tree, our use to growth relation must be balanced. For every tree needed annually, we need to have fifty growing. (Growing in the human resource dedicated areas.)

Technological innovations may for example, possibly eliminate our dependence on fossil fuels (ancient stored solar energy) prior to effective exhaustion of this resource. Absent such leaps in technology, we will, relatively soon, need to again rely on our annual solar energy allotment.

Further, it is not in the present day "best interest" of business or political leadership to prevent the crash, or even take steps to mitigate it.

Air / O2 / CO2. In theory, the area of plant material necessary to balance the breathing of a human is the same as that needed to produce food. The same area is that which can be practically fertilized by the humanure and urine from an adult.

Micronutrients. Whether from humanure, ruined clothing, a damaged wood item, or the body of a human, when the micronutrients that comprise the object, or person, are no longer needed, they need to be recycled to the growing medium.

Physical Limits. Absent scientific breakthroughs, humanity is effectively restricted to the limits of the Earth for the foreseeable future.

ECONOMICS

First, do no harm. Present businesses make huge profits selling products engineered for short useful life and disposal, with no concern for the damage to the environment. Pre-crash, while cheap fossil fuels are still available, sustainability engineered products might compete, but to a limited public.

Consider, no one asks you what the "payback" period is for an investment in a new "Corvette", but put up solar panels, and expect the question.


We already arguably divert 1/2 of the production of the planet to human uses, and we continue in most places to despoil our own communities, and common resources. It must stop, or after an oil shortage, we will face shortages of safe places to live, safe food, water, and air.

Fossil fuel has for around 150 years put into the infrastructure concentrated easy to manipulate energy, with only the minute cost of initiating the digging (coal) or pumping (oil) process, after which diverting only a small portion of the coal or oil sufficed to drive and expand the removal, refining & distribution process. It has been a great self-enhancing feedback loop, soon to end.

Absent a breakthrough, we will not have the "free" energy store such that we can expend 10+ times as much energy to get a can of corn to your home, as there is food value in the corn.

High shipping prices should lead to a concentration on local production and virtually closed recycling loops for necessities.

Centralized design and manufacturing of critical components, with local assembly and craftsmanship of non-critical components, cases, frames, etc.

Proactive maintenance and repair.

Solar energy. Sunlight powers the photosynthesis process, and feeds virtually all life on Earth. It powers the evaporative process, giving us rain and hydroelectric generation. It powers the winds and wind driven waves. But as great as it may seem compared to the size and capabilities of a human, it is still limited. The probable maximum effective solar collection area of the Earth that faces the sun at any given time is a disk of around 5,000 mile diameter.

An economy requires a stable and readily acceptable currency. As touched on earlier with mention of the "Wheat Receipts" lecture, even a fully "backed", gold-based currency remains subject to fraud and inflation by whomever issues the receipts. Far worse than this, virtually every nation today uses "fiat" currency, which only has value because the government directs that it does.

The present (2007) currency is backed by the "full faith and credit" of the nation, which in

reality means the productive capability of the nation. Now remember what happens to the economy with peak oil. What is a real currency that cannot be subject to false receipts, theft and deliberate inflation? One that creating more of the backing adds actual value to the community?

Wheat is a real example where the entire community gains when more “currency” is generated. Finding more gold does not necessarily add to the capabilities of an economy. Beyond food and life support, it really appears that power is the prime driver of a robust like to know.

POLITICS

As human groups become larger and more complex, we tend toward establishing and expanding formal government, whether by a religious cast, or secular organization. All tend toward becoming kleptocracies, using the force of government to involuntarily take from those who produce and accumulate, whether to enrich the king and royal caste, or provide for an underclass that keeps the "generous" politician in power . Can human civilization exist without surrendering to the power of thieves?

What is the minimum "necessary" level of government, how to achieve it, and maintain it? Perhaps most significantly, can such be maintained against opposition that is organized in a more authoritative manner?

Business and political leaders advocate trying to attract new industries and populations to their areas, then complain and wonder what to do about the consequent increases in taxes, pollution, congestion, crime, costs, etc.

Political and business leaders use the circular arguments of self-fulfilling predictions regarding population growth, which then CAUSES population growth. Consider the process where projections of the "inevitable" future population growth in the area are made. Plans are then generated to ensure the infrastructure can meet the projected future “needs”. They then borrow to finance the needed expansion of basic infrastructure, ignoring real improvements for those already living there. Typically, programs are then put in place to attract the new business and residents needed to pay for the loans. When the new businesses and people move in, those


who “predicted” the growth pat themselves on the back, and look to the future...

Dumping toxic waste on the land of the poor TEMPORARILY keeps it out of your personal ecosystem, but only temporarily. It must not be generated.

Growth means in the short term more votes and money for leaders, but only in the short term.

It is easy to talk about sustainability, but too often it‘s just talk, with no personal conviction, (i.e. Al Gore and his four children representing a 100% increase in the population in one generation.)

Many nations and their citizens will continue to believe that the environment can be preserved without the need of addressing population growth.

Re political leadership, consider the career of a politician who announces legislation drafted to remove incentives for a growing population. To attack the root cause of humanities problems, overpopulation, would lead to a short career. But it needs to be done.

"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." Sir Winston Churchill

Those who feel they have a right to take from others will resist sustainability. It will be resisted by those who benefit from an expanding population, and by those who want to pander to the above.

Given present technology, it is unclear as to how the majority of the present population can be sustained.

We must however voluntarily attain sustainability, or it will be imposed, probably not in a pleasant manner.

Criminal Sanctions. Laws and police action tend to grow in areas where is easy to show "accomplishments", vs real protection, leading to an enlarged force with an emphasis in the wrong areas. That tossed out there must still be some

means of maintaining order in disputes between individuals, to deal with fights, theft, assault, etc. Ignoring crime leads to a free-for-all.

Prisons as in place today are gymnasiums and institutes of higher criminal education, with a significant portion of the prison population consisting of those arrested for created victimless crimes, vs those who commit actual assault to person or property.

Taxation. Fee for service? At what level do you accept that you no longer get to decide who benefits from the fruits of your labor or investments? With a collapsing economy, tax revenues will fall, regardless of tax rates. Higher rates lead to greater avoidance, until either government is swept away, or becomes openly totalitarian.

Regulation. At what level do you accept that someone, not one whom you voluntarily submit to, is authorized to initiate force to make you change behavior, even though you are not harming anyone else?

1. Compassion which gives a drunk the means to increase his drunkenness is counter-productive.2. Compassion which breeds debilitating dependency and weakness is counter-productive.3. Compassion which blunts the desire or necessity to work for a living is counter-productive4. Compassion which smothers the instinct to strive and excel is counter-productive.- Attributable to Benjamin Franklin

TERRORISTS

Why can’t we all just get along? Because there are those who would kill you for a jacket, the change in your pockets, to make a point, or for the fun they find in it. There are those who would hold a gun to your head to force you to comply with their whims.

Via oil, Americans are voluntarily helping to pay for the rope which will hang them. Via our own government, we are involuntarily taxed to pay for programs and policies that are contrary to our best interests.


A thug, is a thug. A terrorist, is a terrorist. The typical terrorist “cell” member has been told who to trust, and devalues everyone else. How does this differ from our politicians who mandate what you do, say, spend you earnings on, etc? The “enemy” of civilization, is first anyone with a birth rate higher than replacement who then seeks to force others to bear the consequences. It is anyone who insists that THEIR approach to civilization is one worthy to be imposed involuntarily on others at the point of a gun.

Whether you see it or not, we are engaged in a multi-front war. The object of war is not necessarily to destroy the enemy, but to destroy his will. Terrorists seek to do so with preemptive acts of violence. Politicians seek to do so thru a combination of promised government benefits, that must be funded by theft.

Regardless of what YOUR religion is, if it is NOT radical Islam, you are going to be involved in a religious war. Our civilization cannot continue to use resources at the same rate as at the turn of the millennia. Regardless of your personal resource use level and you are going to be involved in a resource war.

On September 11, 2001 the citizens on flight 93 did not sit on their hands. They used their cell phones, and discovered news of the World Trade Center impacts. When big government plans failed, it was the acts of free men that prevented the final flight 93 from reaching its terrorist intended target. What of security measures and gun control? Everyone on all of the flights, and in the two World Trade Towers would have been safer if every citizen had been armed.

You, your family, your community need to be “armed” with the information and abilities essential to resisting thugs, and terrorists.

Recognized terrorists do not want you to be armed, neither do the politicians who see you as their surfs.

TRIAGE

Not everything we see today is practical or sustainable. We must salvage what we can and prepare to move on. We must prepare to survive the fall of the present infrastructure, which is a model of NON-sustainability.

What must be saved?What should be saved?What can be saved?

What should not be saved? What must not be saved? What cannot be saved?

Into the weeds...

What must be saved? Knowledge, skills, and technological capabilities. How much has been wasted in humanities history by the same discovery, invention, or even simple fact, being "rediscovered" multiple times?

Knowledge. I can't tell you off-hand which plants grow well with each other, and which can't stand each other. But I know the information is important to efficient gardening, and that the information is out there in books. I don't know which piece of information, invention, or discovery can or will become critical, so we need the maximum possible under whatever conditions we encounter. Post crash, I'd want to have access to an intact university, or at least city library. My own library is merely a few bookshelves of selected text.

Skills. Almost lost skills, such as blacksmithing, may need a revival. But if we lose skills such as precision surgery, bringing them back will quite probably be MUCH more difficult than resuming smithy work.

Teachers. What is the minimum level community expected to be capable of sustainably training specialized teachers of K to 12? (Or do we use the apprentice system?)

Medical. Continued practice of medicine requires either people get hurt and sick a lot, or a lot of people occasionally getting hurt or sick. I'd suppose that "apprenticeships" can/will return (for lots of purposes) if there is no formal university.

Technology. Even if it's a museum piece, like a Pentium computer that won't run anymore…A key point of mine is to avoid the folly of reinvention / rediscovery of the same thing, which has occurred OVER AND OVER in our history.


What should be saved? Examples of as many aspects of our present tools, technology, and even household items as can be practically managed, if for nothing else than eventual inclusion in a museum. In past (localized) collapses, the centers of civilization were abandoned to scavengers and the ravages of nature, with the loss of priceless cultural treasures.

What can be saved? If we have the will, we can save most of our present scientific and technological knowledge and technology. (I.e. a limited number of internal combustion engines can be run on biofuels.)

What should not be saved? Programs that foster or enable population expansion.

What must not be saved? Any attitude, program, operation, function, incentive, etc. which requires, promotes, or encourages an expanding population, or the use of a finite resource in a manner which, given present knowledge and technology, irreversibly precludes it's reuse in any other practical manner.

What cannot be saved? Most of the present human population, any part of the infrastructure dependent on cheap, abundant fossil fuels, in particular oil.

SUSTAINABLE CIVILIZATION, CAN WE ACHIEVE IT?

Humanity must transition as quickly and thoroughly as possible to a rational sustainable basis for civilization. "Sustainable" clearly implies the ability to continue for an indefinite period. Stepping back from indefinite, to a more readily understandable timeframe, consider just seven generations.

Physical Growth has Limits. A community may have "sustainable growth" in the economy, education, or development of technology or infrastructure, but applied to any material thing, or the population, it is an oxymoron.

Consider "housing starts". Construction of each new home added to the inventory is a drain on resources. In recent years wood construction has been decried as unfriendly to the environment. But wood is a renewable resource, and with reasonable care in construction and maintenance

can last far longer then the time it takes to grow replacement trees.

It‘s not that building ONE house of wood adversely effects the environment, it’s that building an expanding number of houses to meet expanding population demands is bad. With that realization, new housing starts that would consist of digging a hole are also unsustainable.

With a variety of materials and designs, homes can be built to provide reasonable temperatures without the need for externally powered HVAC. They can be built to last hundreds of years to house generation after generation. But a stable population is a necessity.

Population growth has limits. Every defined area, whether political or geographic, has an upper limit of population and resource consumption that can be sustained by the local resources or by sustainable trade. We must eliminate any incentive toward population growth.

There are families who make the conscious decision to limit to two (and preferably for the immediate future) one child. This needs to be encouraged as a voluntary act, or it will have to be enforced involuntarily, whether by humans, or nature.

We're only borrowing the physical present from future generations. Sustainable development must meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. We must also sustain human progress.

WHAT COMPRISES A SUSTAINABLE CIVILIZATION?

Limited intrusion on natural ecosystems. No more than ten percent (10%) of the ecosystem is appropriated solely for human use. (At the present, estimates are that 40% to 50% of the biosphere is diverted to human use.)

Recycling. We must not be dependent on consumption of a finite resource. (Fossil fuels, mining, ancient groundwater, etc.)

Stable population. We must limit our own numbers.


Human enclaves. Living, working, food production, recreation, etc. are consolidated, with open space around and interspaced. Human communities can be "ecologically sound", with natural processes meeting our needs, such as "living machines" processing human sewage. BUT, an ecosystem optimized for human habitation is NOT COMPATIBLE with a natural ecosystem.

Consider: We can grow food in biointensive gardens, live in earth sheltered homes within walking distance of shops or stores… But do you want wild rabbits or deer in your garden, bears wandering your sidewalks, or fleas in your bed? Human activity must be kept isolated.

Homes, business and public structures are engineered for long term service. Aspects which require periodic maintenance (pipes, wires, etc.) are accessible without damage to long-term aspects. (Stop digging up streets to access utilities!)

Spectacle test. Is the health and general physical condition of the residents such that the local technology can meet their medical needs? If you need eyeglasses, can you or some make them?

Technological progress test. Are there excess resources to be risked in development that may fail? Is there a broad knowledge base, and the availability of communications? Is there enough population for specialization, and a market for developments?

Governmental drain test. Programs, policies, and full time government positions are a drain on the productivity of any society, which requires the society to produce more than would otherwise be required to support the costs. Unfortunately, too many in full time / professional government / political / police military positions see themselves as rulers, rather than public servants, and are engaged in personal empire building. We must be prepared to wage war. If fighting on the level of war is required, total involvement is required, from the extra food to be grown, it's delivery to the troops, resupply efforts, etc. There are no civilians in war, only those incapable of actively fighting or providing support. But unless we’re involved in a war, maintaining a professional full time military is a drain on resources.

It is similar for police. They cannot be everywhere that real crime is, and the incentive is to criminalize actions that can readily show progress in dealing with crime by the police. Technically in most of the U.S., every citizen has the authority to make a citizens arrest, but it's discouraged by the professional police. We need to encourage personal initiative with offenders taken to the "on duty" staff.

We can’t continue to ignore and downplay self defense. Winning peace, not just at the level of "war", but down to local one-on-one crimes takes eternal vigilance at all levels.

It is the same for protecting the environment, it takes eternal vigilance of concerned citizens. There is no terminal point when we can declare we’ve saved the environment. It, as with many aspects, appears to require universal involvement of citizens. Absent such personal responsibility for security, there should be no vote, or other citizenship "rights" accorded.

Stable population test. Consider the energy and resources lost in public infrastructure, businesses, food processing, etc. to meet the needs of the spiraling growth of world population, which could instead be invested in progress.

There is an immediate need to develop strategies aimed at eliminating world population growth. The long term consequences of population growth are going to be demonstrated to all nations as the oil crash progresses.

Can you think of any problem we face where having more people makes it better?

Communities and civilization can slow their population growth by removing the many visible and hidden public subsidies that support and encourage growth. Welfare as it exists in America today must be eliminated. Its programs provide incentives for the unproductive to reproduce excessively. It is the same with dependency deductions, employer provided health insurance for families regardless of size, free public schooling, etc.

Stopping population growth will require educational, technical, and outreach programs in the areas of social responsibility, family planning, contraception, immigration, and


resource use. We must make clear the greater the degree to which the carrying capacity has been exceeded, the more probable it is that coercion will become a factor in these programs. It also requires a review of governmental programs and taxes, which “reward” population growth, or penalize those who are successful.

The food chain is nature's equilibrium mechanism. It functions to prevent unlimited expansion of populations of flora and fauna. Primitive human societies were often able, if not forced to maintain approximately constant populations and to live within the carrying capacity of their ecosystems. The methods they used to maintain approximately constant populations were often cruel and inhumane.

Technology has given many people the feeling that, through our own efforts, we are exempt from the cruel constraints of limited carrying capacities. Be prepared for the consequences WHEN our infrastructure fails.

Ancient civilizations have vanished, in part because they grew too large and their size exceeded the carrying capacity of the ecosystems on which they depended for support.

Education notwithstanding, civilizations today show considerable tendency to repeat the mistakes of earlier civilizations, but on a much larger scale.

Cheap international trade allows the developed countries to draw on the carrying capacity of the entire earth, providing an illusion of sufficient local life support.

Living machines. We need human communities to be fully integrated living ecosystems optimized for human habitation. “Science writer Janine Benyus points out that spiders make silk, strong as Kevlar but much tougher, from digested crickets and flies, without needing boiling sulfuric acid and high-temperature extruders. The abalone generates an inner shell twice as tough as our best ceramics, and diatoms make glass, both processes employing seawater with no furnaces. Trees turn sunlight, water, and air into cellulose, a sugar stiffer and stronger than nylon, and bind it into wood, a natural composite with a higher bending strength and stiffness than concrete or steel. We may never grow as skillful as spiders, abalone, diatoms, or

trees, but smart designers are apprenticing themselves to nature to learn the benign chemistry of its processes.”

Pharmaceutical companies are becoming microbial ranchers managing herds of enzymes. Biological farming manages soil ecosystems in order to increase the amount of biota and life per acre by keen knowledge of food chains, species interactions, and nutrient flows, minimizing crop losses and maximizing yields by fostering diversity. Meta-industrial engineers are creating "zero-emission" industrial parks whose tenants will constitute an industrial ecosystem in which one company will feed upon the nontoxic and useful wastes of another. Architects and builders are creating structures that process their own wastewater, capture light, create energy, and provide habitat for wildlife and wealth for the community, all the while improving worker productivity, morale, and health. High-temperature, centralized power plants are starting to be replaced by smaller-scale, renewable power generation. In chemistry, we can look forward to the end of the witches' brew of dangerous substances invented this century, from DDT, PCB, CFCs, and Thalidomide to Dieldrin and xeno-estrogens. The eighty thousand different chemicals now manufactured end up everywhere, as Donella Meadows remarks, from our "stratosphere to our sperm." They were created to accomplish functions that can now be carried out far more efficiently with biodegradable and naturally occurring compounds.”

No processes with toxic waste. In fact, no manufacturing or any other process with "waste". Close the loops, use the waste as a resource in another process, or otherwise recycle it, and recycle products which have passed their useful life.

WHEN IS IT TOO LATE?

The complete era of the use of fossil fuels by humans will be a vanishingly short fraction of the span of human existence on the Earth. (Hubbert 1974)

The supplies of all non-renewable resources will effectively expire when the costs ( in cash, in energy, in ecological and societal disruption ) of making available a quantity of the resource exceed the value of the quantity of the resource.


Comprehensive educational, technical, and outreach programs in the areas of efficient use of resources will be needed in order to help achieve sustainability.

Peak world production of petroleum will probably happen before the year 2020. Peak production of coal and oil shale, may occur in the 21st Century. Other fossil fuels probably will not be available in globally significant quantities for more than a few decades into the 21st Century.

The probability is very small that technological breakthroughs will produce new sources of energy not already known at the end of the millennium that will have the potential of supplying a significant fraction of the world's energy needs for any appreciable period of time.

WHO IS GOING TO DO IT?

Maslow in his hierarchy of needs theory contends that only after humans meet 'basic needs', do they seek to satisfy successively 'higher needs' that occupy a set hierarchy. If you have a homestead, and neighborhood that can provide your life support needs, YOU may be the one called on to re-build civilization.

SO WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

The challenge of making the transition to a sustainable society is enormous, in part because of a major global effort to keep people from recognizing the centrality of population growth to the enormous problems of the U.S. and the world. We must have no further net overrun of nature by humans.


Sustainable Civilization: From the Grass Roots UpChapter V - Ecovillage

What is the minimum level gathering to allow individuals to practice personal specialization in providing daily goods and services, even basic schooling, within walking distance?

A typical present day community is dependent on a constant inflow of energy and goods, and outflow of "waste". Providers of goods and services, even basic schooling, often requires trips beyond walking distance, such as long bus rides for children. What happens when the fuel which allows this to happen stops flowing?

INTRODUCTION

Consider if you will an "ecovillage" to be the primary unit of society. A homestead may provide indefinite life support, and a modest neighborhood continuing generations for an indefinite period, but it is doubtful that complex technology, specialized or technical knowledge, or even "modern" K - 12 education would be maintained in an isolated neighborhood of 20 families. The next logical step “up” in complexity is the infrastructure for basic education, community meeting places and marketplace, location for unique limited demand services, etc.

Ecovillage does not necessarily mean that human activities are harmlessly integrated into the natural world. As touched on earlier, humans in general do not want to live in direct contact with nature, in simple fact humans generally want to override what would have naturally occurred.

This does not mean that humans can, or want to continue in complete isolation from other life forms, rather humans want to choose the life forms the cohabitate with.

The word “ecovillage” frequently initiates thoughts and comments along the lines of finding that perfect pristine piece of idealist wilderness, and quite frankly cutting, digging, paving, and planting there to meet human desires and needs, essentially destroying the local

microenvironment in the name of creating a human ecovillage.

Wherever the location, it must be possible, and within the scope of community capability for the local resources to sustain the climax stage population for the indefinite future, and the population must be large enough (without exceeding the local resources) to be self-sustaining not only in the physical essentials of life, but also education of the children sufficient to at the least continue maintenance and operation of the infrastructure, awareness of plant and animal requirements and characteristics, etc.

Research has shown that merely assembling climax stage factors does not a climax stage environment create. The climax stage tree may need the fact that earlier pioneer species have accumulated nitrogen, opened pores in the soil, etc.

Developers may construct collections of new houses & roads, but it is not a neighborhood or community until the people are there and make it their own. Expanding this thought, the author if further skeptical of those who purport to create a village in the wilderness. In general, the designer/builder has no contact with the prospective owner/occupant until after the facility is constructed. A wilderness location means of course that the facility is cut-off from human infrastructure, it is in essence a pioneer species, and does not represent a long-term climax stage.

Frequently new developments are houses and roads, and little else. The houses were probably built at the lowest cost, to present the greatest attractive appearance, disregarding practical long-term use. A heavy rainstorm or wind, settling of disturbed soils, and there may be more than a few surprises. Existing neighborhoods, in particular perhaps those that pre-date extensive auto ownership and grid utilities may in this author’s view be better


candidates as a basis for evolution into a climax stage, low power human residential community. The evolution may take deliberate guided effort, or perhaps for those who realize they must take personal responsibility for their own situation, it will simply arise as the “right thing to do”. If an ecosystem develops and runs on information and feedback, hopefully false-starts and blind alleys can be avoided if clear facts are available to the residents on how to build (or grow) their community.

A primitive village would hardly notice the effects of peak oil. What would happen in YOUR neighborhood? Could the children can play openly in the streets? (Can they now?) Do you know and trust your neighbor? Can you and your neighbors tell when someone is in the area who does not live there?

The ecovillage concept considered here is a deliberate microenvironment for ongoing generations of human habitation, embedded within a larger system to provide more complex goods and services.

One does not have to be a developer or politician to seed development of more ecological communities. You do not necessarily have to have personal contact with members of the community. Think how many lives have been changed throughout history by the great works of literature. The author has no delusion that this treatise is a great work, it is just one of many attempts to alert people to the need for change, and samples of the information and tools available. It is hoped that presented with the basics for life support, ongoing generations, basic education, and specialization, and the true extent of current community “footprints”, that people will take responsibility for their past actions, and act toward a more sane future.

LOCATION

Every location has its unique advantages and disadvantages. Wherever you decide to reside, or reside by default, you must ensure sustainable access to the above life support factors, air, water, food, shelter, etc. If we are indeed confronted with a worldwide disaster, natural or manmade, humanities future will need numerous far-flung self sufficient seed communities.

Not everyone can live in a "Garden of Eden". Indeed, as the lyrics of the song go, "...call someplace paradise, kiss it goodbye..."

Is the site conducive to daily walking scale for even the young & the elderly to make such physical trips as are required? Can a fix of built and growing aspects function to provide a new level of resource complexity?

I encourage every reader to brainstorm on locations and all aspects of your planning. Location, and the resources of the location, can vary significantly the area needed per person. An "ecological village" will have greater area requirements than a "survival" location.

Air: An ecologically sustainable village concept includes a consideration that the village air usage (i.e. CO2 from breathing) is balanced by plant activity in the area under village control.

Water: The renewable water supply (in the worst year) must exceed the total needs of the population, AND allowances for the natural surroundings.

Park space for flora and fauna: The "common" areas of the village need space for an appropriate "park" ecosystem. I don’t want to call it "wild" or "natural", as it's intended for a place for humans, and therefore still excludes any "threat".

While it is a "bonus" if isolated village property is surrounded by BLM or state preserve lands, since those are under the "ownership" of someone else, they really should not be counted in overall village planning. For example, if the village determines that human activity should only predominate on 20% of the area, and that one acre or so should be dedicated per each family, then the village would need to own 5 acres for each family residing therein.

My personal selection for location is "high desert", in Arizona. My current job is in Arizona, so work on a project here is within the realm of practicality. Over the years, I've grown to tolerate, if not appreciate the heat. In the appendices I further develop a high desert village scale, and other proposals.

Wilderness. Do you believe we need to preserve such wilderness as remains? Then do you object to proposals for human habitation which requires


any further paving over of, or disruption of a natural ecosystem. We should use our intelligence and capabilities to "rescue" some area already disrupted by some lesser concerned human.

Urban. Just as a wilderness "gathering" of families does not necessarily mean all of the homes are clustered into a single compound, neither is such clustering an absolute requirement for an urban ecovillage. What is required is the contact and cooperation that goes with the village concept. The town / city is not a natural ecology, but it is the ecology of a technological human civilization, and we must find a way to make it work.

The above photo, taken by the author while on a trip along the California coastline, shows the potential for multi level structures, here with retail on the lower level, and living spaces above. Envision the spaces behind a square block of such a structure as being an orchard.

PURPOSE

To provide, in a manner which is sustainable for an indefinite number of future generations, a location where all human life support needs are met. To provide a location where following generations have access to at the minimum the same resources as the initiating generation. To provide a location where following generations can be adequately educated such that they can at a minimum maintain the basic knowledge expected of a high-school graduate.

POPULATION

The practical upper limit for an ecovillage is the life support capabilities of the relevant

ecosystem, organizational issues, and "human scale". The practical lower limit is that needed to maintain knowledge and relevant appropriate technology.

Education Factor. Assume a healthy population at an essentially stable number, with an average lifespan of around 80. Assume a kindergarten to12 classroom size is 20 students per grade. On the average then the community needs to have 20 citizens of each age, for a minimum population of around 1600. This is a collection of 10 Homestead association units (20 families per unit). This now implies the beginnings of a core services area, if for no other purpose than a modest school, and marketplace.

To use education to set an upper limit for an ecovillage, if we want the kids to walk no further than one half mile each way to school, the organized and occupied area of the village is a mile on a side (640 acres). Setting aside the central 40 acres for school, marketplace, and other village common functions, this walking (human) scale max ecovillage has 60 Homestead association units (1200 homes), for an average population of around 9600, with an average of 120 students in each grade, requiring 72 teachers.

ECONOMIC

Reaching beyond the scope of personal friendships and a gift / lend / borrow economy, and with expanded specialization, a formal currency and organized economic system is probably required.

The currency must be in some unit that all in the community can understand and readily translate the goods and services of the community into the denomination of the local currency. While there will certainly be need for some translation of the local currency into the national currency, the exchange rate must NOT be pegged at some specific value, or the local currency will suffer whatever fate befalls the national currency.

Whether internal or external, confidence in the medium of exchange, and stability of it's value are required. Think in terms of the "gold standard". The U.S. economy has experienced great changes in prices (value of currency) since the 1800's, but consider, in the 1800's, a $20 gold coin would buy a quality firearm, or good suit.


"Today", $20 can make such a purchase, BUT, a $20 gold coin or such amount of gold can still make similar purchases. How do we get a stable currency without fixing its value to an arbitrary mineral?

As a defined unit of exchange, the author presents for argument the kilowatt hour. Electricity is the premier means of power. It can be generated and utilized or promised for future delivery. It can be expended in investment, or the means to generate can be collected and held as a store of value. Generating more of the basis for the currency adds useful value to the community, which can be expended on luxury, entertainment, or invested in a means to further generate power, or eliminate some power drain.

Family homesteads are privately owned. Homestead association / association units have some "common" assets, which are still privately owned by the association. The entire community can be privately owned by a collection of the associations. "Private" ownership of streets and facilities permits the village, under present laws in most areas, to enforce "NO TRESPASSING" aspects not only at homes, but in otherwise “public” areas such as sidewalks and streets.

Artisan technology. If for no other reason than a larger concentration of population, hopefully specialists, and individual interactions, I would hope the group would be capable of higher technology than simple handicrafts, repairs, reworking, etc. With time and practice, a skilled person could hand-make, if needed, screws, bolts, and more complex parts, as well as unique services inside the community, and for potential surrounding populations.

Farming. 2% of the population is 192 people This size group of farming workers should allow for significant specialization - custom knowledge of custom crops.

Ecological aspects. Earlier "homestead", and "cooperative homseteads" discussions really deal primarily with survival on a physical level, an individual family, and a large enough group for continued generations. The village represents a great jump in capability, and threat if environmental impact is ignored.

POLITICAL

A stable minimum population of 9600, living in multigenerational family homes, is a community of around 1200 such homes. Given this population, which exceeds an expanded family / personal friends scope, this level probably needs formal administration and internal security.

Starting at this level, it appears that "government" cannot necessarily be dismissed out of hand. But what is the minimum required "government? Do you grant or acquiesce to having someone else power over how you live, or do you merely want someone to turn to with a grievance whenever someone else "steps on your toes"?

Internal organization. Absent order imposed by an external authority, the group needs an internal charter to define operations. The charter, being agreed upon by the originators, and impliedly agreed to by everyone who inherits from the originators, or later joins, should only be capable of being modified by unanimous agreement of each property ownership.

Where the charter provides leeway for decisions, each property / homestead location to have one vote, either direct or by proxy. The homesteads are gathered into associations of 20 homesteads each forming the neighborhood associations. The ecovillage groups together 60 of these associations, therefore direct representation to the village of one person from each association is a village counsel of 60. My recommendation is to have these positions unpaid, to help avoid incentives for "empire building", extended meetings, lavish offices, etc.

Existing authority. While present government remains viable, any unit will have to deal with such external authority. Under present law in the U.S., if the community organizes as a formal government, it becomes subject to a great deal of requirements, at many levels, and loses a great deal of it's ability to deny external access to it's property.

Growth. If the village is the only entity in an area, or the most viable to lead appropriate restructuring, it probably needs to consider eventual growth beyond the village size, and what the maximum community size per the resources would be.

CREATING INFRASTRUCTURE


If there is time, finance, and resources, an intentionally constructed, sustainably oriented gathering is probably cheaper, and would function better, than attempting to adapt an existing neighborhood. (Consider building a solar oriented, earth bermed home, vs. modifying an existing home) But in location selection also consider the need to avoid any further destruction of natural ecosystems.

It does not matter whether the village is composed of individual homesteads, or a single arcology, or anywhere in between. What matters is the relationship of population level to resources.

Interior Roads. If the gathering is to create, in a brief period, in physical isolation the physical infrastructure that would have otherwise taken decades, or perhaps indeed centuries to evolve, I expect that heavy vehicle access will be necessary. But that does not necessarily mean that natural surroundings must be destroyed, or paved over. If we are anticipating the end of motor vehicle traffic as we know it, interior "roads" could be two paths of stepping-stones, spaced wheel width apart. Should a road, in the future, need to be manually removed, or relocated, (or used as building blocks) such individual pavers could far more readily be moved than the work involved in breaking up a monolithic concrete or asphalt road. While internal paths may generally only carry foot traffic, bikes, etc., nevertheless on a general grid, for a 1 mile on a side village 18 mile of access pathway/road is needed.

Service and Supply Court, walking scale within.

I suggest thinking of each Homestead association unit in terms of the cooperative housing

movement, where jointly owned facilities allow for interaction and economics of scale. (i.e. a central pool vs multiple home pools) If each village has set aside a central core of 40 acres, (a square about 1300 ft per side) there should easily be room for schools, marketplace, some small industry, etc.

These photos are more of the same outside center referenced elsewhere, where autos are kept out of the shopping area.

Although the particular facility shown has a focus on retail sales, the same buildings could obviously function as offices for physicians, dentists, school rooms, etc. It presents a pleasant, stress relieving atmosphere.

Supply sales. Some services, and supplies, are used so infrequently that every resident doing it for themselves, or owning the item, is simply irrational, especially in a post fossil fuel era where high "real" fuel costs impose high real costs on good and services.

For example, there are times now that I need a truck, but I don't need one every day. When I do, I rent one. It should be the same with the


village. The entity should own the large, infrequently used resources, and rent them to residents at a rate designed to maintain and eventually repair the item, and provide reasonable income to the entity, to lower the temptation to create taxes.

Fish farming. Serves as a local source of high quality protein, and fertilizer for crops. It can be done on a very small scale for a family, or a community project. In utilitarian tanks, or aesthetic pools.

A fish farm could be incorporated into a much larger facility. The decorative ponds, streams, pools in the above shopping plaza could perhaps if interconnected serve an overall "farm".

Library. If there is spare space and labor available, a physical library as is thought of today in an American town can be operated. In a village though an alternative that works for a library (and other functions) is to establish a simple central information resource showing books owned by individuals, with borrowing being either a private transaction, or processed thru a central resource manager.

Layout of streets and paths. For an isolated community, rolling terrain provides advantages not only in security, but in esthetics. Even with an urban environment, the terrain surrounding buildings need not follow the level streets and sidewalks. The typical U.S. neighborhood development is first bulldozed as flat as possible. Consider instead rolling terrain, with earth bermed homes.

At each home you could have a wall of glass, looking out onto your own small garden, deck, natural terrain, etc., which as you reach the edge of the property rises in a gentle slope, then drops down again on the next property. You see only nature, not your neighbor's wall. Even if there are flat paths or roads cut thru the terrain to connect the homesites, with planning the "road" could pass such that the homes were not really visible.

The slope and mass between the homes absorbs and deflects noise and vibration.

Minimum outside open lighting reduces electrical demand, preserves the beauty of the night sky, and preserves night vision. When the human eye is in the dark then exposed to light, it takes at least several minutes for "night vision" to return. In that time, places appear dark and threatening which, if night vision were preserved, would be relatively clear to see.

SECURITY

At the ecovillage level, at least at the upper size levels, the community may have its own assets, funded by donations, or taxes. What type of hostile "enemy" is expected? In the 1950's and 1960's, talk of atomic war prompted some to prepare fallout shelters. At the time, and perhaps in retrospect, some saw the shelter building activity as foolish. Your self-reliant home may be similarly cause you to be the object of criticism by those who will not see the problems we face. But if done well, those shelter spaces continued to be an asset, and may once again, in the coming crash, prove their value as fallout shelters. Similarly, your self reliant home, even if there is an energy breakthrough, has reduced your living costs, while providing peace of mind and a form of "insurance".


Organized Army. As shown in the operations of formal Armies, against less well equipped and trained adversaries, "strongholds", even those constructed by the oil rich Iraq regime, are no match for computer guided bombs. Likewise though, standing Armies readily fall victim to hidden insurgents. Probably the best defense against a formal Army is to simply avoid a conflict in the first place. Don't be an enemy.Mob. A stronghold has value against a mere mob, and while each home has it's own reinforced safe-room, at the ecovillage level the ability to gather the entire community in the courtyard in a secure spot has great advantage in self-defense capabilities. (Think castle.)

Individuals. If not hostile, do you feed them? Even if you send them on their way, if you've fed them, will they return? Will they return with others, or send others your way, as an easy "mark" for a free meal? Do you let them camp on the property, or ignore their camp just off the property? How to guide them to establishing their own sustainable village? Perhaps the hardest question of all is the arrival of Friends / family. If you've got a year of food storage, and gardens sufficient for your family, and not much more, what will you do?

Central management. Provided the numbers of incoming "visitors" (and the threat they may pose) does not overwhelm the village, the village may want to set up a formal "visitor center" to serve as the contact point for arrivals, assess skills and assets vs village needs, and perhaps set up an arrangement to add to the village, or work on set up of a new one, leading to development of a city.

TECHNOLOGY

It would probably be a significant challenge for a village of 1,200 families to establish a functioning community in secret and isolation. As with an isolated neighborhood, so long as the external infrastructure continues to function, the gathering should be capable of keeping up to date with the rest of the world. A question: Assume your group has somehow established a square mile, or more, of homesteads, roads, schools, etc. You can achieve anything possible with your own property and own assets, that you have the capability to achieve. BUT: If in isolation, does

your village yet have the technology and technique to repair or replace a broken plate or cup? How about a p/v panel? Or even a light bulb?

Producing a silicon p/v panel requires some minimum level of "high tech", and an ongoing demand to require ongoing production to maintain the facility in operation. If each homestead has twenty five 100 volt panels, the collected homesteads of the village have 30,000 panels, with an expected lifespan of 30 years. A replacement schedule could then require production of around 1,000 panels per year. Can you village then produce say 3 or 4 new, or re-worked p/v panels every day?

SYNERGY

Each unit, homestead, neighborhood, ecovillage, ecocity, are parts that build toward a sustainable civilization. Do not expect the physical, or mental, transformation to be a quick process.

In the August 2006 issue of Scientific American, an article on developing expertise indicates that it takes approximately a decade of heavy mental labor to master any field. This would imply then that until any individual or group has been intensely involved in thinking and acting "sustainably" for such a period of time, it is still not going to be "natural" to them.

We have a physical infrastructure that has developed around fossil fuel waste, with over 100 years of work that must be re-done.

As education and management of more complex communities comes to the forefront, we need to ensure that the projects into which we invest our time and assets are in our long term interest, or acknowledge our interest is other than long term.


Sustainable Civilization: From the Grass Roots UpChapter VI - Sustainability Programs, Politics, and Technology

Sustaining civilization goes well beyond air, water, food, shelter, and new generations. It is also about education, specialization, development of technology, etc. Do you believe that a few friends in an isolated "village" can sustain civilization alone?

INTRODUCTION

Village size organizations can function on a barter system, and may not have much need for formal laws, or a complex economy for internal purposes. Absent a large-scale disaster, they could provide a healthy, nurturing environment for an indefinite number of generations. But villages appear to be limited in the amount of specialization that can take place, and if unable to communicate, and conduct physical exchange of unique products, development is so inhibited that mankind's progress would essentially come to a standstill, and most likely regress.

POPULATION

A stable population is essential. Children may be a joy to the parent, and of value to the eventual future of the community, but typically until adulthood they are a burden. And any children beyond replacement for the parents pose a threat. Yet despite wars, famine, pollution, resource depletion, and a crowded globe, most of humanity still doesn't get the picture.

In a limited resource (air, water, food, etc.) situation, the lower the overall population, the greater the amount of resource that can be expended per person, with surplus for experimentation, research and development.

BREEDING

In a group of free individuals, there is to some extent always a breeding program ongoing, where the wealthiest, best looking, most successful, etc., mate with peers, or can be more selective in selecting a mate. (Or the strongest and most prone to violence do what they want.)

We have however in the "developed" nations had an ongoing misguided program of expanding the numbers of the least-fit, those who without assistance would have never "made it" on their own, and from whom society never had any hope of any beneficial contribution.

Conversely, in growing numbers, those with higher education, significant earnings capacity, and better living conditions have opted for less than replacement level children.

This needs to be corrected. The physically and mentally fit must no longer be subjugated to the less fit.

To maintain a stable population level, yet improve humanity overall, there will need to be some form of restriction on breeding, whether bringing back "taboo's", economic incentives (or disincentives such as IMPOSING a tax on every child, vs granting tax deductions), or outright enforced controls.

We have governmental incentives to have more children, and other incentive programs which increase the population. While there is such government, THESE MUST STOP. In the end, these transfer the cost of children from the parents to unrelated families. Eliminate tax deductions for children. IMPOSE a tax on the parent of any child beyond replacement.

If people do not voluntarily address procreation, eventually either mother nature, or the government will. What if the government imposed a license requirement on having children? This would encourage creation of a market in parenting sales. Say NO parent has the right to more than their personal replacement child. "Wealthy" could have more children by buying the parent permission of the poor. The poor person(s) then does not have children, and the estate of the wealthy is divided among a larger "pool" of children, diluting how much each gets. Parenting rights cannot be "sold" until


a person reaches a proper mature age (30?) A married couple, who decide to have only one child, could sell their remaining parenting right. Parenting rights can also be sold to the government, for example in exchange for old-age care, or left by will.

THE BIG ECONOMIC PICTURE

The federal government is running $500+ billion annual deficits with trillions in debt on the books. If the baby boomers start to retire in 2008 as they become eligible, government costs in Social Security benefits will soar, even as tax revenues plummet. The debts of Social Security and federal pensions are not on the books, with estimates running from $57.8 trillion up to $74 trillion. Our "fiat" currency is already strained almost to the limits by the tax/spend & borrow/spend politicians.

U.S. consumer debt in 2006 is around $2.2 trillion dollars. Our desire for cheap foreign products sends $600 billion more OUT of the country every year than comes in.

As of late 2007, the sub-prime real estate finance “bail out” promises to be yet another millstone tied around the neck of the floundering U.S. taxpayers. (Apparently those in power in Congress, and the Whitehouse, have not read the history of the Great Depression. In both scenarios the bulk of the borrowers were essentially in zero down loans, and of such a financial status they could walk away. Those who took and made such loans knew the risks, but did so anyway.

Locations, such as China, that do not have the web of environmental, labor, wage & benefit, etc. laws and regulations in place in the U.S., are obviously at an "advantage" when examined strictly on the question of cost of production in currency.

For so long as products from such locations can be imported without application of a tariff at the U.S. border that brings the currency cost up to equal what internal production would cost, the typical consumer is going to continue to purchase the lowest price tag item. It doesn't matter whether the item is imported and sold by a large chain store, or a mom & pop store, it still has driven out some aspect of local production,

and sent a significant percentage of the purchase price out of the community.

It is difficult to envision how the federal government can divert economic disaster, and individuals may not want the government to even try.

Traditional government means to manage the economy are spending, interest rate control, financial liquidity, etc. These tools work to tweak the economy away from inflation or deflation. Our federal government though simply has such a large amount of debt that it cannot be paid, even if the economy would remain robust, because any realistic debt repayment schedule would strangle a robust economy. Our government will not even slow down on adding new debt.

A problem presented in economic discussions with rising real energy prices is they are both inflationary and deflationary at the same time. Oil as energy and feedstock is a significant component of much of the world economy. Inflation as we have come to accept is essentially the government dumping more “dollars” into the economy, allowing the government to siphon off value for its purposes, even as it lessens value of the currency. As the real price of oil is driven up, so goes the real price of goods and services.

Real price increases force people to limit spending, some things just will not be bought, slowing the overall economy. Our government officials, accustomed to getting what they want in the way of their benefits, and handouts for their voting public, can be expected to rely on their favorite hobby of keeping the money flowing, further ruining the national currency.

Federal cash, or cash equivalents, fixed dollar payments, etc., could easily become useless. Although currency may become useless, you still need a local means of exchange that bypasses the gloom of the big picture.

THE LOCAL ECONOMIC PICTURE

Every community has drains on its income, some perhaps not so visible. Perhaps the largest drain on income, and indeed even accumulated wealth, has been inflation, followed by taxation. Add up how much of earnings is lost to Federal and State income tax, Social Security tax, Medicare, etc.,


vs the amount that returns to the community in viable benefits from these governments. I'll tie this back to what I allude to re pension or social security payments, where I expect the big picture to cause problems with traditional currency.

Even the most innocent appearing, "mom and pop" store, can be a significant drain on the local economy. A foreign product or service, is a foreign product or service. In a store selling for example items that are virtually all made in China, the only part of the funds spent there that could continue to flow in the private, local community are the after tax profits.

As bad as consumer spending on foreign produced products is, if the spending is financed, yet more money leaves the community. (Where do you send YOUR credit card payments?)

Do you have a company pension plan, 401(k), IRA, whole life insurance, etc.? How much of your money in these products do you think circulates in the local community? As a distinct example, purchase in the marketplace of stock of a local firm sends your money to the sellers account, NOT necessarily (or likely) someone local.

Another drain on local wealth I would conjecture that is often overlooked are those who earn income, live frugally, and send a significant portion of their income to family located elsewhere. It doesn't matter whether the elsewhere is another U.S. city, or a foreign country, it is still money leaving the community.

In 2006 the Miami Herald estimated that migrants sent over $300 billion in remittances to home countries. It’s nice to help relatives “back home”, just realize what you are doing to your “new” home. As an example, money drained from the U.S. economy and sent “home” to Mexico from the U.S. is the second largest aspect of the Mexican economy.

India ($24.5 billion)Mexico ($24.3 billion)China ($21.1 billion)

The money flow has become ''the world's most effective poverty alleviation program,'' said Donald Terry, a top official of the Inter American Development Bank (IDB). However, he also notes that, ``if you're No. 1 in

remittances, you're not developing jobs in your local economy.''

CURRENCY TO FACILITATE TRADE

Barter is typically thought of as a direct trade of goods or services. You grow a flock of chickens, and need a tooth cavity filled. Both you and the dentist are by your activities creating physical value. The barter exchange occurs when you and the dentist agree on an equal value, for example 8 chickens for a tooth filling. "Buyer beware" applies to determining the value to you of what you trade for. Your property and skills are your measurement and storehouse of value.

General acceptance of common means of value, i.e. grain or gold (grown/mined), or the modern equivalent of grain to feed an industrial economy, electricity, all permit less direct transactions. You raise chickens, the farmer grain, the miner digs the gold, and the dentist tends to teeth. You all create physical value. Whether you carry around grain, gold, or indefinable dollars, your transaction with the dentist is nevertheless still barter - a trade of a physical value for a physical value. "Buyer beware" applies to determining the value to you of what you trade for. While "buyer beware" includes the quality of the grain or gold, manipulation of the inherent value of the "currency" remains virtually impossible and taxation difficult. Your property and skills are your measurement and storehouse of value, some of which can be held in the more convenient barter/coin form.

The next step is a receipts (debt) currency. The grain, gold, or power is held in some secure manner, and some token representing the commodity is in circulation. In theory the currency still represents barter; the receipt can be exchanged for the agreed item of value. This step in economics introduces though relative ease of fraud - you cannot tell a "real" receipt from one with no value behind it. For example, if the grain silo owner, who issues grain receipts, knows the silo is never empty, there is ready temptation to write an extra receipt that lets the silo owner perpetrate a fraud on his neighbors - create economic value, without any physical value or cost to the silo owner (at least no cost until caught). Your property and skills are your


measurement and storehouse of value, some of which can be held in the more convenient receipts/token form (if you trust your silo owner).

When you get to an un-backed/fiat currency, such as is in use in virtually every nation on earth, the numbers on the currency represent nothing, which government officials love. You still raise chickens, and still need your tooth filled. There is (for now) still a marketplace where people will pay you dollar$ for your chickens, and the dentist will probably still accept the money. The government can though print as much currency as it likes, and typically does. The extra money in circulation - people with more money - leads to increased spending and rising prices. With higher prices the government prints more money. Those who lose are those who have an income defined in some fixed dollar amount, or those who hold economic value in the form of dollars vs. physical assets.

A backed currency is one where the connection between the stated currency value and the barter item represented remains stable. As with grain, gold, or kilowatthour the item you agree upon as a basis for barter does not need to be fixed in quantity; in fact you might want it to be something easily increased, IF such an increase means an increase in the capabilities and therefore physical wealth of your community.

LOCAL CURRENCY

A primary goal of establishing a local currency is to facilitate ongoing local economic activity irregardless of economic fluctuations (money confidence problems) elsewhere.

All exchanges between parties are, in effect barter. Currency functions as a common means of exchange, allowing exchanges to be multi-step, item/service to currency, then currency to item/service, vs direct exchange. The currency unit must be easily understood, and accepted by the community. In essence, the only viable method to fix a currency value is to denominate it in some clearly definable "commodity". The currency in essence then serves as receipts for such a commodity, or a promise to deliver such.

To disconnect from the fluctuations, and potential crash of the present national fiat currency and the looming global crisis, the unit

of the local currency must NOT be directly tied to the national currency, nevertheless there needs to be a means of converting between the two.

Currency Base

Does the barter backing have to be a physical object, such as grain or gold? The author presents an argument for currency based on the kilowatt-hour (kwh). In the modern world, electricity is the premium type of power. It is a "commodity" that can be created and used to perform valuable work, or entertainment. It is clearly defined, readily measurable with the right tools, and virtually impossible to "counterfeit".

Virtually every modern community is already wired and metered to measure the physical withdrawals, and in growing cases deposits in the flow of kwh. The power can be sold to those using the national currency, adjusting for the fluctuations of the national currency, while keeping the local connected economy completely separate from the fluctuations of the dollar. Those who want to opt in/out of the kwh currency just come or go based on the kwh price in external currency as of the time of their transaction.

1 - kwh 1-kwh

Power To Build The Future

1 - kwh 1-kwh

As a receipt, the power company issues such whenever it receives a net deposit from local generation, fuel sold to the bank/generator, etc.. The power bill would be paid by the same note.

The chicken grower takes the birds to market, and receives the kwh notes in exchange for the birds. The notes function as any other currency, at least within those entities who accept them pre-crash, such as the dentist.


THE INDIVIDUAL PICTURE

How secure is your job or business?

What are you invested in?

Are you planning on retirement with a pension from a private sector employer, or the government, or a stipend from Social Security? The federal government can, if it elects, cease Social Security, make it means-tested, or perhaps worse, pay everything promised in useless printing press money. For now, private firms that default on their pension plans might have the deficit covered by the federal government, with the same eventual printing press challenge.

You need to understand31 the financial markets and products, and realize the risks you may be taking by going along with the crowd.

RETHINKING THE LOCAL ECONOMY

To become sustainable32 means to integrate our economic and social lives into the environment in ways that maintain and enhance it rather than degrade or destroy it; sustainability is a moral imperative to pass on our natural inheritance not necessarily unchanged, but undiminished in its ability to meet the needs of future generations.

Sustainability also includes the concept of carrying capacity, which means finding the balance point among population, consumption, and waste assimilation. Carrying capacity applies to the economy, taxation, and government programs as well.

Sustainability is NOT per se an environmental movement, although preservation of nature is an aspect. It is more about creating a sensible stable human community. At the present, while the benefits of growth accrue to the few, not necessarily even local, the costs of growth tend to be distributed across the community. The cost of growth needs to be borne by those who benefit from such.

Every decision one makes--in life, community, and business--can be gauged against this definition. The simplest way to do so is ask yourself whether your choice supports the local community. As peak oil returns limits to our

horizons, you cannot escape the fact that you are an intimate and interconnected member of the web of life where you live.

Disconnect from consumer culture. As with eliminating your dependence on oil, this doesn't mean never again make a consumer purchase. But stop buying what you don't need, or that which has no enduring significance. Try to shop for locally produced products, those (somehow!) produced without toxic byproducts and large inputs of fossil fuel energy. Realize though that for so long as the present picture global economy remains, local cannot compete on a price basis with the far side of the planet.

Carrying debt for the purpose of consumer spending is a waste. Conversely though, debt for the purpose of controlling an asset that even "holds" value in inflation may be a prudent move. (At least while the current economy continues to function.) If you pledge the asset though as security for the debt (i.e. a home mortgage) and do not have sufficient cash reserves to keep up with the loan, realize you may lose your bet (and your home).

In conflict with an exhortation to stop consumer spending is the fact that money in the bank is, thanks to (primarily) government generated inflation, a guaranteed LOSS in purchase power. As a sad example, as of OCT 2006 you are probably better off holding rolls of pre-1981 pennies, than deposing money in a bank or credit union.

If the peak oil crowd is right (no evidence to the contrary) then to the extent any good or service is a "daily" need, it will either need to be taken care of at home, or somewhere within essentially walking distance. Things taken for granted today are likely to become a "luxury". But until and unless enough people wake-up, and in fact until things get bad enough, many things are not going to change.

A personal example: I am a lawyer, nearing retirement from Army civil service. If the "worst case" scenario comes to pass and we are in "survival" mode, I do not expect that my neighbors will have much need for services of a lawyer. Nor do I have confidence that my pension (or Social Security) will be paid, or that if it is, the money will have any significant


meaning or value. Even though I see a coming problem, I CAN'T see resigning.

I am also an Arizona Master Gardener. At the moment, there is no significant money to be earned as such, but it may become a valuable retirement skill, if for no other reason than to feed my family.

In the meantime, I research, experiment, prompt discussions, and write.

LOCAL PRODUCTION

If your community is to become truly sustainable, it must adhere to the definition of sustainability. Too many people think sustainability means the continuation of the status quo of the Industrial Growth Society.

In most places the current business environment is hostile to small business and home-based business. We dare not however wait for the Greater Depression before trying to do something about our situation. One of the ways to take back power from the people who have taken over our political and monetary systems is to break their strangle hold on the local economy. Local production not retail is key. The value-added to the community is in production, not reselling something from somewhere else. An area where people show a willingness to pay a premium price (greater than that for "slave labor") is custom and quality handicraft. This 'small shop' approach fits a coming paradigm of high energy costs for shipping. A level playing field is not going to happen while cheap energy allows slave labor products from 12,000 miles away to enter without the tariffs to compensate for the present safety nets here. We want our safety nets and benefits, without personally paying for them. This cannot continue. If the fuel costs for shipping had to be paid for in purchase of "present day" energy, instead of the underground storehouse of ancient sunlight, even distant slave labor would have difficulty competing.

Given our current situation it will be difficult to get the public to see the need for local, higher cost products. Everyone is encouraged, and to encourage others to start small and think big. There is essentially NO reason for local unemployment. Surely there is something you

can do, make, fix, etc., with greater skill than another, and they have a specialty in turn.

As an example, if someone wants to get into the shoe making, or other such business, for now, it must just be their hobby, as we're NOT going to compete with the imports from China.

KEEPING THE ECONOMY LOCAL

Support a local currency if you find a means to disconnect such from big picture inflationary trends.

Pre-crisis though, creating a local currency, and a web of business using such, is potentially going to be "frowned upon" by multiple levels of government who do not want their revenue streams interrupted.

My "Two Cents" is we need an atmosphere and local rules that encourages home enterprise. Existing zoning and/or business license/taxation requirements may pose sufficient barriers as to prevent some from implementing a "sideline" business that they might otherwise have an interest in operating. The very people who would benefit in the future from such hobby businesses waiting in the wings, will probably balk at changes today that would allow them to start to develop. But it must be done.

In a sustainable community, some business operations will be "short term", some ongoing. For example landscaping and building for rainwater harvesting is going to be for the most part a short term business. Although it takes skill initially to get collection in place, once someone sees what needs to be done, the work of the business is easily replicated, and if done well, remains functional for a long period of time without further intervention.

An obvious problem is going to be those with living arrangements that precludes any significant growing of food. They will have to purchase such from savings or earnings, steal it, or leave. Along with growing food goes safe recycling of the human effluents back to the growing medium. A great deal of food can be grown in compact areas if the growing medium is kept fertilized, and it receives the attention required. Intensive gardening requires indefinite attention, and a variety of knowledge, and appears to be a practical ongoing business with


this specialist allowing others to pursue their specialty.

RETHINKING THE LOCAL BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT

How to improve the business environment for local enterprise, and make our communities more sustainable and self-sufficient? Tossed out for consideration:

Identify and plug the (economic) leaks.Identify products that could be produced locally, but are not currently. Identify skills that are present in the community and those that need to be developed to produce these goods. Establish a network to facilitate local business development. Create a local green business directory. Appeal to local loyalty to entice market share from non-indigenous enterprises. Improve the self-sufficiency of your community through economic development with special focus on food production and small scale water supply systems. Create an increased sense of community by working together to start and support local enterprises.

Establish a local currency to improve the use of capital, facilitate trade, and encourage doing business locally.

Publish a newsletter and website to promote your efforts, encourage participation, provide an objective source for local business news, and alert readers to issues not covered by the mainstream media services.

COMPELLED ALTRUISM

In a rapidly expanding economy, with what was seen as an unlimited source of energy and vastly enhanced growth of food, "charity" at the point of a government gun was not widely objected to. It became un-acceptable to question this wealth transfer (theft) and the destructive results.

This meddling to breed for the least capable is perhaps the program most dependent on an overproductive, expanding, resource wasting economy. Consider that when the (virtually) free energy subsidy of oil ends, and socio-economic activity relies on current energy flow, there will

be greatly increased real prices (in terms of earnings per unit of labor). This greatly reduces the lifestyle of the working and makes every cent of earnings critical.

At the same time living expenses for the working rise, they will rise for the non-contributing. This means that as workers have rising concern about their jobs, and find their useful income dropping, the socialists will be demanding greater and greater percentages of workers income.

How much of this are you going to tolerate?

IMMIGRATION

We must think and act more realistically than present immigration procedures. Immigration refers to arbitrary government regulated movement of individuals. There are those who advocate elimination of any limits on immigration. What if the government was taken out of the picture for setting rules, and deciding who can move where, and is instead limited to protection of individual rights?

If a community has realistically implemented sustainability concepts, it should be clear that an immigrant (adult or child) to a long-term sustainable community would cause a net increase in the relevant population unless they are a replacement for a native born resident.

NOTE: The assumption is that the community is already AT the maximum population that can be sustained on the available water, food, etc. If every other community is also at maximum population, or worse (as we have now) well beyond long term sustainable population, purchase of the needed extra resources is not a viable option. Given these (which I believe may be best-case) parameters, how do you address immigration?

Each multi-generation homestead if already at their safe population has internal incentive to restrict new births, as each new mouth takes a portion away from everyone already there.

Perhaps the immigrant could purchase the parenting right of an existing person, in effect for population purposes becoming their instant "child", subject to the limits of their "adoptive" family. Perhaps such an immigrant should not


parent a child until they have been here for some time period, consider (15?) years.

LIMITS TO NON-RESIDENT ACCESS

Related to consideration of permanent immigration is the issue of those who have no permanent connection to the area lingering about. Do you want continued personal security? Do you want the ability to exclude unwanted intruders from your home and business? At what point do you want to cede control? You operate a restaurant, and someone parks their hot dog cart on the sidewalk outside? How about your neighborhood? Your schools?

Under current law you only have control authority within your privately owned property, you home, perhaps your neighborhood if it's not open to the general public (think a gated neighborhood, with privately maintained streets).

Face it, people will move away from danger, and toward wherever they perceive as a "better place". If your home or neighborhood is, or appears to be better off then others, you become a likely target for thieves (with or without government credentials). Get involved in your community, in particular any aspect which involves the "law" and your private property rights, self-defense rights, etc.

Current U.S. law allows for the most part non-residents to freely walk about public (government owned/controlled) sidewalks, streets, lots, etc. But we are contemplating extreme times. What if you don't want strangers hanging about in your neighborhood in the middle of the night? If your neighborhood sidewalks and streets were once again private property, with mere easements granted to other property owners, only residents would have the right to use such, and only for what the easement authorized. Authorities would then be called on to enforce trespass laws, or where the law allows private citizen detention for the trespass.

What about taking your entire community (city) "private"? If your community remains viable, while others that have failed to prepare are in collapse, what is the legal basis for maintaining your resource to population balance? A new person, is a new person. Must you, will you, wait until you are overrun?

How do you improve the quality of life for the residents already in the city while avoiding the growth that news of the good life would cause? Each family, neighborhood, village, and city should look after itself first. Personal then local welfare, working upward from the grass roots must take priority over daydreams about addressing the problems of those who take no steps to solve their problems themselves, or make them progressively worse.

Water collection and food growing at the home level makes it clear what the life support limits are. I suggest it is similar with sidewalks, roads, and other currently considered "government" property. It needs to return to private ownership.

Government is force. We need a paradigm of voluntary cooperation and partnerships to work together. This means though not only work such as building a new library, but also working together to establish and maintain limits. Public projects and programs paid by taxed theft or slavery discourages involvement by the victims of the theft, and by those who benefit by it thru no effort of their own.

Consider a community with limited water. The city takes all the water, and gives it away. Demand would rise, supply, recycling and conservation development would fall, and the per person supply would diminish. In contrast if each homestead is free to use their own collected water, yet must pay the full costs for other water, efficiencies are encouraged, as are naturally imposed limits to new development and expansion.

We are not likely to see, or desire, sustainability imposed from political authority. But we need to have governments stop rewarding actions contrary to sustainability.

PLANNED FUNERALS

Deaths must essentially match births. There are those who are chronically depressed, and dream of suicide. Why do we stop them? Perhaps society should accept voluntary suicide, perhaps of adults over 30, or under 30 when diagnosed by (3?) physicians with a terminal and painful or debilitating condition.

UPPER COMMUNITY LIMIT


It appears in history that numbers approaching 1 million were the upper limit for cities. A city of a million, if part of a larger civilization may expect some significant percentage, say 80% of it's population to be permanent residents of extended families, giving us around 100,000 homesteads, with the other 20% considered transitory, coming to the city on less than a permanent basis for education, to learn or practice a trade or skill, etc.

A transitory population will have some needs that differ significantly from permanent residents. Some homesteads may absorb the temporary population, whether due to charity considerations, providing for a relative, or a paid border arrangement. If however the temporary residents are present for a purpose such as attending college, one might expect them to be concentrated near the purpose of their visit. Facilities such as college need to be within a regular daily commute for permanent residents, but also have appropriate temporary living quarters. (Note the need for expanded community production to be able to provide “life support” for the temporary residents.)

The limited resource and population base of small villages provides little reserve capabilities to cope with disasters. Even minor disturbances in water or food supplies, or a natural disaster damaging infrastructure, could be a death knell for the village without outside support.

CREATIVITY

The U.S. patent office estimates 1 patentable invention per year, per every 1,000 people in the population. But don't let statistics mislead you into believing an energetic isolated eco-village should expect 9 new ideas every year.

It takes creative people, educated and with extra time and resources for significant advances. It takes easy access to previous knowledge, tools, expert assistance, etc. An information and goods exchange among a network of eco-villages should be expected to yield far more new inventions each year than the same villages kept isolated. Communication and trade must be maintained, which in a low energy environment probably means being physically nearby.

Not every invention is in the best interest of civilization (think of a device that could destroy every living thing, so simple to make any kid could do it...) Even without posing a physical threat, inventions are not necessarily welcomed with open arms. There are always those who oppose anything new. With innovation the demand for a product or service may wane (buggies and horsewhips after the auto).

Not every site has the same resources. Not every group of people has the same capabilities or interests. Specialization nurtures expertise. Trade nurtures specialization. But it also nurtures the "theft" of inventions, reducing the reward for the inventors efforts.

We need an environment that nurtures positive creativity, avoiding careless waste of resources, contamination of the environment, and unacceptable risks. Thoughts?

ECO-ECONOMY

Your first step, determine what product or service is being produced or provided in a manner contrary to your ecological belief system, and stop buying it. Convince your family and friends to stop buying it. Get them all to tell the provider why their business has been lost.

"The earth is finite. It cannot provide for continually growing numbers of people. It can't even provide for anywhere near the present population. Current economic practices which damage the environment, in both developed and underdeveloped nations, cannot be continued without the risk that vital global systems will be damaged beyond repair. Pressures resulting from unrestrained population growth put demands on the natural world that can overwhelm any effort to achieve a sustainable future"

- World Scientists Warning to Humanity, the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Prices must reflect the ecological reality of the situation. As touched on earlier, fossil fuels have been replacing human labor at an arguable "exchange" rate of a gallon of fuel doing around 562 hours of human labor, which at the U.S. minimum wage each gallon is around $3,000 worth of human labor.


Oil has annually provided in recent years energy to power civilization that is roughly equal to the dedicated labor of more than 250 billion slaves. This is ending. It's not so much as what an eco-economy CAN be, as what it CANNOT be.

"In a sustainable society, durability and recycling will replace planned obsolescence as the economy's organizing principle, and virgin materials will not be seen as a primary source of material but as a supplement to the existing stock"- Lester Brown, Worldwatch Institute

When human numbers were small, and the earth covered with a dense, diverse ecology, a tree cut here, an animal or fish taken there, made little difference to the system as a whole. With our vast numbers now, and technology, we clear-cut entire forests and eliminate entire species.

For all practical human purposes, we have done, and continue to do damage that may never be repaired. Limited population is an essential element. The very life processes of each person places that much of an additional demand on the counterbalancing ecology. Any projection of the future is at best, a guess, based on present information. But using present knowledge and technological capabilities, a sustainable, technological society can continue to exist, and develop.

Try looking at the world as a series of sealed bubbles. You are personally responsible for what you do, or allow, at home, your property, your town, country, the world. You can't pollute. In multigenerational family owned homesteads each generation has the incentive to continue to upgrade the homestead.

Air. We've got to stop pollution. Humans have burned fuels for energy for a long time, and we today burn at LOT. If we didn't derive the fuel by concentrating the energy component from the environment (carbon from biofuels, hydrogen from water, etc.) we shouldn't be putting it into the environment. (Biofuels and systems to split hydrogen from water will be major factors for portable power, unless of course Mr. Tesla's broadcast power proposals were accurate, and are implemented.)

In theory, if the community is growing its own food, it should be balancing the CO2 output of the residents, perhaps not exactly locally (due to open air and winds) but on the average. The best the community can do for other air pollutants is to avoid producing them, and refuse to deal with anyone who does.

Water. The Ogallala Aquifer WAS a huge store of "fossil water", under around 225,000 square miles in the Great Plains region (the U.S. "breadbasket"), which has long been a major source of water for agricultural, municipal, and industrial development. Use began at the turn of the century, and has now greatly surpassed the aquifer's rate of natural recharge. Some places overlying the aquifer have already exhausted their underground supply as a source of irrigation. Given high power pumps, it may only be decades before vast areas are pumped "dry". Given the loss of high power pumps, the irrigation will cease. Probably 1/3 of the U. S. cropland is irrigated in this unsustainable manner, and will then "disappear".

The Colorado River examples another source, while renewable, allocated beyond its natural flow. Often nothing reaches the ocean of what was once a river that could handle ocean-going shipping. The next cycle of lessened rainfall in the catchment area will have serious repercussions for those dependent on this water for their life. Limited population is an essential element.

We do not have the technology to replace the quantities of "fossil water" that have been squandered. If "global warming" fears materialize, heat and reduced rainfall pose a deadly threat. Ocean water can be "de-salted", but not in sufficient quantities to maintain the present population and the necessary crops, nor is enough energy likely to be available to transport the water to distant fields and population centers.

If the air is clean, then rainfall should be clean. We need to then avoid polluting it within the community, including "salts", concentration of which threatens crops, and soil life.

Food. Bio-intensive, perhaps in concert with some aspects of the hydroponic, aeroponic and aquaponic systems. Most farmland is "mined out" of trace minerals, and does not produce


appropriately healthy food, and absent chemical fertilizers, is incapable of producing a quantity of food anywhere near present production.

Cropland must have trace minerals restored, and be maintained in such a manner that these minerals are returned to the land and crops, including our bodies when we no longer need them. We can grow terrific crops, and properly nourish a few, or greater quantity of lesser quality crops and feed a greater quantity of less healthy people. What we have today is a version of the LATTER.

Industrialized food production, processing, long distance shipping, etc., obviously subjects this vital life support aspect to far greater "uncertainties" than does growing food locally.

TRADE

It does not appear probable that long distance shipping of products, in particular overland on roads, or by air, is sustainable absent fossil fuels. While many of the components of high tech devices require such unique processes that they are not likely to be made "locally", in many locations, there is likewise no need for entire devices to be assembled, packaged, and shipped.

In example, the high tech manufacturing "essential" components of a computer are no where near the overall mass and volume of a complete computer. Frames, cases, connectors, etc. can be hand-crafted locally for assembly.

ENTERPRISES

Manufacturing. "Key" components of systems or devices.

Pedal power transport and devices (people today could use the exercise anyway)Wind driven devices, motion, moving matter, energy generation / storageLight rail (REALLY light, powered by P/V or small biofuel engines)

Energy generation / storage. Solar p/v, thermoelectric, thermo heat-engine, biomass production. Providing power not only for the community, but outlying customers.

Selective surfaces are materials that reflect, or absorb, given qualities of energy or matter. A

diode only allows electricity to move in one direction. Certain membranes allow thru water, but exclude "contaminants", including dissolved salts.

High concentrations of u/v, an ionizing frequency of light, can provide significant "excitation" of water molecules such that the electricity needed to electrolyze water is BELOW that which can be generated when the hydrogen is again burned or used in a fuel cell. This is not an over unity device, since the extra energy is coming from sunlight. If the complete spectrum of light is used at the concentrations necessary the water heats too much, decreasing the electrolysis efficiency and making more complex containment necessary.

Assisted living homes in the pre-crash economy often receive significant income for providing relatively low levels of service to residents. (Typically taxpayer subsidized) Post crash there will still be those who cannot personally provide the care that a fragile weak person requires.

Holistic medicine. Avoid injury and illness, vs complex and expensive corrective steps. Those taking personal risk based on their employment, should be insured by their employers for those risks. Those taking personal risk on their own behalf, should shoulder the bills for such risk. Like unto regular oil changes and other maintenance in a car prevents major repairs later, it is similar in many aspects for our bodies. A campground may have post crash value as low-cost temporary lodging.

Gardening. For those who can't / won't grow their own food, skills in creating and maintaining an effective and low - maintenance garden could be a growing demand.

Recycling. There is no away to throw things to. Components and materials must be taken apart, sorted, stored, and made available again for new projects. If there is no garbage pick up, and no "city dump", would you pay to have things taken away? Would you run a business where you were paid to take "stuff" away, and paid again for the parts after you took them apart?

Sewage management. Forcing someone to manage your feces / urine would be slavery. If you realize you must recycle such to survive, but don't want to, and the city won't let you connect


to the sewer, how much would you pay to not have to worry about it? (Ties to gardening)

An ecological economy is by its own terminology NOT based on a once-thru process of disposable goods. The fossil fueled industrial age COULD have given everyone high quality, high durability goods, and permanently lifted worldwide living standards. What we DID was produce at the lowest cost, lowest quality possible, a "disposable" product.

With current economic thinking, advertising, and business practices, an ecological economy appears at first to be an antithesis of a healthy economy. It does NOT seek change for the mere sake of change, deliberate repeat business by planned obsolescence, etc.

Nanotechnology promises a revolution in materials engineering, and product construction, provided we do not lose the underlying support community for such high-tech industry.

Quality. A thoughtfully designed and executed product can have lifetime appeal and usefulness, and be a cherished heirloom, passing from generation to generation. A quality item is less likely to be replaced merely because "new and different" is produced.

Durability. Don't you have that favorite shirt, pair of shoes, watch, etc., that you just love to wear? Do you wish they would last longer? Why don't they?Standardization of components. Imagine trying to play music if every record, tape, or CD required a special player. Along the lines of the shipping discussion above, standardized components and subcomponents, assembled to make various devices, yet designed to be re-arranged at the consumer level, leads to enhanced recycling.

Recycling, of not just materials, but individual components and assemblies. Current electronic devices, while "neat", are in most cases not repairable, requiring the entire device to be discarded when there is a single component malfunction.

Food. Of the highest nutrition, in appropriate proportions. Grain, potatoes, rice, etc. continues to be presented, even by physicians, as the base of the food pyramid. These carbohydrate items

are the most profitable for farmers, and for the food processing industry, as cheap carbohydrates are processed into "snack foods". Most of these contain little though beyond calories, and certainly do not qualify as a healthy diet.

Consider for a moment, have you ever heard the phrase "corn fed", or "grain fed" in reference to fattening up cattle, hogs, etc. for the slaughter?

As discussed earlier, much of the farmland in use today has been depleted of the micro-nutrients we need. Yes, plants can still be forced to grow on the depleted soil, but the food cannot contain the nutrients we need. The growing medium must be fully restored, from "outside" sources if necessary, and the minerals eaten must be returned to the soil. Therefore recycling must include the valuable atoms which comprise our bodies, once we non longer rely on them.

No net loss.

Expanded copyright and patent protections. These protections encourage new ideas, discoveries and devices to be brought to the public, by ensuring that the proper credits and accolades, as well as the financial benefits of the creation accrue to the creator.

Short term patent protection, such as the 17 year United States patent, provide a relatively short period for benefits to accrue to the creator, then the invention becomes "public domain". In some instances, the inventor may not find the financial risk of research to be worth the potential gain of an invention. Compare this to copyright protection, where the song "Happy Birthday" still warrants royalties…

We've got lots of sunlight. But so far, getting from sunlight to energy types used in current commerce and technology is not efficient. Low energy input approaches are required. Some perspective. Say we're looking for a kilowatt of electricity. Compare use of a 10% efficient p/v panel, to the area required to grow food for one living horse. Or for producing 1 hp of power from an engine burning wood, or other biofuels?

RELIGION

Take your pick, they are all a leap of faith. There is no ongoing event to evidence that any particular formal religion has a rational factual


basis. Most clearly have biases that are clearly contrary to a long-term sustainable civilization.

POLITICAL STRUCTURE &CHALLENGES TO POLITICIANS

Humanity is past a sustainable population. In an ideal world, we would use the remaining oil ONLY to create an infrastructure that is sustainable on solar input, and voluntarily focus on reducing the population to sustainable levels.

But what would happen to a politician who proposed measures appropriate to these ends, such as:

Repeal income tax dependency exemptions, child tax credit, and all deductions for child care. Have a one-time only, limited time grant for abortions, then cease public spending for any pregnancy related cost or child care costs, and cease welfare. Eliminate immigration for other than critical national defense abilities. Eliminate government mandated union membership. Eliminate deductions for donations to "charities", providing health insurance, life insurance, or other benefits other than salary.

These have all contributed to a situation where motivation to independent action has been suppressed, to gain the "benefits" of a steady job. Such jobs making taxation easier. Leading then to demands that the government "fix" the disparity between those with, and without such benefits, by the government assuming the insurance business.

Repeal social security, Medicare, etc. These programs “reward” the non-contributing of society, or impose the expense of the ills, or ill conduct, of the few on to the productive members. Consider the Social Security reform discussions, with means-testing as a favored approach. This means that those who pay the most into a government mandated, gun to your head “retirement” program, get the least benefit from this program. A completely irrational approach. “Charity”, should be voluntary, not imposed at the point of a gun.

Eliminate corporate double taxation, where corporations must still pay corporate income tax on profits of stockowners, whether or not paid out. (For that matter, eliminate the limited liability aspects of business entities. If investors

“own” the “upside” of their investments, why do they not own the “downside” and costs of business liabilities. How is it that some fictional, paper entity can be found “guilty” of torts, or crimes, and the human owners get off free?)

Eliminate federal deductions for state income tax, property taxes, etc.

Eliminate estate and gift taxes.

How do we avoid corruption? How do we avoid institutionalism?

Democracy, or one person, one vote, majority rule, is self-destructive. It is mob-rule.

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinnerLiberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote -Benjamin Franklin

"Democracy is a regular feature of decaying civilizations. When a democracy is established, the destitute consume the capital of the wealthy, and the civilization must then decay until invasion destroys it." - Sir Flinders Petrie.

Twentieth Century welfare programs in the U. S. example the defect. Greater payments were made to those with more children, encouraging greater births in families who could not afford to care for the children, leading to following generations of welfare recipients that grew greater in numbers, both from excessive births, and expanded scope of the programs. Welfare is one example of the "tragedy of the commons", or "public goods game", which shows cooperative progress is endangered when it becomes clear that it is possible and "profitable" for individuals or groups to "free ride" on the productive efforts of others. In games experiments, a functional "out" from such a "tragedy of the commons" is for the producing, cooperating members to be able to punish welfare free riders, even if it means a cost to those punishing.

The disproportionate weight given to the vote of city dwellers also examples the defect. In an area which should be the center of education, research, manufacturing, etc., attracting the best of humanity, many present cities are gross drains


on resources, far beyond any benefit returned. Estimates are that the current city of Los Angeles, California, has a "footprint" of ecological effect that is larger than the entire State of California. Do you believe that the entire population of LA are contributing citizens?

On the U.S. federal level, the Constitution originally contained some protection against such "mob rule", by assigning to each State two senators. Originally, the Representatives were elected by the people, and Senators were sent to represent the State Government. Therefore, Senators owed their allegiance essentially to the governor and legislature of their home state, NOT to the people. The distinction is that they had incentive to avoid proposals that cost the State. When it was changed that Senators were elected by a democratic popular vote, such protection was lost.

Each distinct PROPERTY, or some other fixed unit, regardless of the number of people living on the property, has one vote. It is up to the owner of the property to decide how the speaker for that portion of land is selected.

A vote can only change the primary charter if the vote is unanimous. (Protecting the original intentions of the founders, those who after sought admission to the village under the terms of the charter, born under the charter, etc., from the arbitrary democratic mob rule of any "majority".)

The village or city does not have the power to "tax". It does though have the authority to sell goods and services that are determined excess, with members having first priority to purchase such.

Decisions where the charter does not clearly control must pass by a 2/3 majority of the total possible votes. Likewise earlier such decisions can be overturned by a vote of more than 1/3 to modify or eliminate. This in effect means that for any such action to remain valid, more than a 2/3 majority must want it in place at any given time.

The tragedy of the commons must be avoided. When an asset is held in common, and all have an unlimited access, the typical result is prompt depletion.

PRIVATISM

“Give a man the secure possession of a bleak rock and he will turn it into a garden; give him a nine year lease of a garden and he will convert it into a desert”. Arthur Young – English Writer.

MILITARY SOCIETY

(Please excuse my drift into a science fiction work) The people in the U.S. military command, control, and maintain some of the most complicated hardware on the planet, in conditions that are often far from pleasant.

Our military are volunteers. Whether they signed up for a job, for the educational and other benefits, or as a career, our military people are just that, people. The military organization is the most "integrated" I am aware of. We see every race, religion, national origin, economic background, etc. in the military, at any level. For the most part, it is promotion by merit, vs popularity.

STARSHIP TROOPERSRobert Heinlein

Rico's teacher, Mr. DuBois, asks "'What is the moral difference, if any, between the soldier and the civilian?" "The difference,'" Rico answers, "lies in the field of civic virtue. A soldier accepts responsibility for the safety of the body politic of which he is a member, defending it, if need be, with his life. The civilian does not"

"Can you tell us why our system works better than any of our ancestors?... Because under our system every voter and officeholder is a man who has demonstrated through voluntary and difficult service that he places the welfare of the group ahead of personal advantage"

The point being that those who voluntarily bear the burden should make the decisions and get the benefits, not "free riders".

I cannot see how that a individual, neighborhood, city, state, or nation, if "prepared"


for the crash, will be able to survive without obvious means of defense, and the obvious ability and willingness to use it. We can’t continue to ignore and downplay self defense. Winning peace, not just at the level of "war", but down to local one-on-one crimes takes eternal vigilance at all levels.

(ST) "Naked force has resolved more issues throughout history than any other factor. The contrary opinion, that violence never solves anything, is wishful thinking at its worst."

In a home invasion, or if one of your family is assaulted, I advocate all should respond. In my personal capacity, I started teaching our daughter how to shoot when she was 4. At 11 she could handle a .45 ACP pistol and/or carbine reasonably well. Firearms are no toy to her. She's also taken martial arts training, as well as all of the other crash and post oil era training/education I can think of.

Your local police cannot be everywhere that real crime is. Technically in most of the U.S., every citizen has the authority to make a citizens arrest, but it's discouraged by the professional police. We need to encourage personal initiative with offenders taken to the "on duty" staff.

We must be prepared to wage war. If fighting on the level of war is required, total involvement is required, from the extra food to be grown, it's delivery to the troops, resupply efforts, etc. There are no civilians in war, only those incapable of actively fighting or providing support.

But unless we’re involved in a war, maintaining a professional full time military, separate from other normal functions of society, is a drain on resources.

(ST) "Once someone asked me if I knew the difference between a citizen and a civilian. I can tell you now. A citizen has the courage to make the safety of the human race their personal responsibility."

What's NOT going to work is a society attempting to maintain industries, programs, and people that drain resources without providing any benefit back to society in general. Perhaps time spent "drafted" into military service will be a means of paying taxes?

I do not see that a government limited to those who have so served is necessarily something to be feared. I can't though see the military involuntarily taking over from the civilian government, until / unless that government has already failed such that the population "demands" the change, and I still have a difficult time going from the concept of military control in a disaster period, to a long term military government

We readily see the "organization" advantages of the military in response to civil unrest, or natural disaster. Send in the "National Guard", which is the state army, composed primarily of part-time soldiers, people who have self-selected for the extra "hastle" that guard duty represents, including being sent into disasters, while earning less than in their normal jobs.

Americans readily demonstrate they are not frightened powerless peasants. Even little old neighbor ladies join "neighborhood watch" programs. Rather than demand police or military protection, I suspect they will BE the military civilization.

Perhaps I need to re-read my Heinlein to look for clues as to a practical long term "military" government…

(ST) "One of the older cadets took a crack at it. 'Sir, revolution is impossible . . . because revolution --armed uprising -- requires not only dissatisfaction but aggressiveness. ... If you separate the aggressive ones and make them the sheep dogs, the sheep will never give you trouble"

Rather than hold my breath for a military imposed organization, I'd still suggest everyone get their personal affairs re-aligned to survive the crash, and to cope as well as you can in the post oil era.

Create a neighborhood watch and neighborhood clean up program.

Implement your own "planned collapse", but realize the consequences, not only for you, but in the bigger picture.


You go off-grid, grow your own food, and enter into cooperative agreements with neighbors to swap your various handicrafts. You are no longer part of the tax base. As taxpayers "disappear", or per taxpayer revenue falls, government must raise rates, go further into debt, or cut non-essential programs.

Eventually, you are looking at government doing nothing but defense / law enforcement / emergency response… All potentially done by volunteers. But, gone are excess revenues that can be expended to provide life-support for non-contributing individuals.

Besides laws and paychecks, coercion can take many forms:

(ST) "Service guarantees citizenship."

Perhaps Heinlein will be proven right…

LAWS

Only those formal laws minimally required to provide for defense against outside threats of force, or provide deterrent and redress for inside initiation of inappropriate force. All government activity diverts the fruits of labor at the point of a gun.

Spending for military and police equipment, and the wages of the personnel, is in general a net loss to society, unless of course we experience an invasion, or someone (outside the government) forcefully violates you. The purpose of the military is to prevent a foreign invasion; the purpose of criminal punishment is to prevent another crime, whether from the same individual, or another; the purpose of civil courts is to address fraud or redress of initiated harm. When you get to any legal framework beyond this, you can quickly get into unlimited government intervention. Consider, Alvin and Bob feel that Dick has a problem, which they want to fix33. After a brief session, they decide what they are going to force John to do to help Dick. Dick at the point of a gun is not allowed any input or objection to the decision. The above examples what takes place when governments stray from their function of military and police protection, and courts of law.

While a government using a fiat currency can create currency using the printing press, it does not create value. If a government wants a subsidy payment to anyone to have any value, it must first take value at the point of a gun from someone who produces it.

Politicians pandering for the vote of the “poor and/or weak” rob those who produce, to divert the “fruits” of productive effort to their selected serfs, to perpetrate their own political power. But every cent so diverted to the sustenance of those who, in their own turn, do nothing, is a loss of funds that could have been supporting even greater accomplishments. And when such “charity” comes from politicians who depend on it for their power, you can be assured that money will continue to disappear into such a void. If we have a limited government, a significant challenge is to keep it limited. The primary "Constitution" cannot be changed without a unanimous vote of the representatives. Consider, you either voluntarily moved to live under this government, or were born under it. If you do not want it changed, why would you grant consent for some less than unanimous group to change the rules?

"Doctors without Borders" appears to advocate medical care regardless of local licensing. Actually, I concur, a government issued license should not be REQUIRED to practice medicine, or any other profession, rather it should be seen as a statement of "quality control". So long as the practitioner you elect to visit is required to tell you of their qualifications, or lack therefore, let it be a free and open market. If you CHOOSE to be attended by a “voodoo” practitioner, it is your chose, so long as you have not been fraudulently misled.

Economically, every handout to a beggar (by direct voluntary action or government theft) represents additional stress placed on the environment and drain on resources. We have, for a century, enjoyed virtually free energy, available only at the pumping and processing costs, vs any need to divert current production. This is ending. All of the excess production it has allowed is ending. With this, the excess tax revenues, ends.

GOVERNMENT "SERVICES"


Perhaps communities, indeed individuals, should select the services they desire to receive, and pay for them. If you live in a self-reliant multi generation homestead, fireproof, with someone armed always at home, and your neighborhood maintains the adjacent road, what city tax paid services do you need?

TECHNOLOGY

Living technologies vs sterile machines.

PHILOSOPHY

We are probably approaching the crash of our present “civilization”, not due to an alien invasion, or cosmic catastrophe, but due to our collective, blind, ignorant decisions, or lack of decisions, and lack of rational philosophy. Our now, and more importantly, our future, needs intelligent minds, who can understand, conceive and implement new ideas.

The data, numbers and calculations for sustainability are relatively simple. Getting people to see them, accept and act on them, is not.

Those few, who see problems and take personal responsibility for finding and implementing solutions, also continue to allow themselves to be ruled by those who have no clue. Whether the population in general is aware of it, civilization needs a philosophy that encourages the best from everyone.

There was a time when I looked at the tragic mess they’ve made of this earth, and I wanted to cry out, to beg them to listen – I could teach them to live so much better than they did – but there was nobody to hear me, they had nothing to hear with… Intelligence? It is such a rare, precarious spark that flashes for a moment somewhere among men, and vanishes. One cannot tell its nature, or its future, or its death.- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

We face danger, in particular the probability that a large portion of the present living population will die early, and unpleasantly. Each will probably have to work, and work hard, to survive. You will have to know what you’re

doing, or readily accept and follow advice from those who do. But be careful in whom you select to follow. Be awake, aware, and thinking.

As yourself what other human do you accept as your mentor, or on the dark side, your master? When your wages are no longer high, and money and luxury easy, what will be your view of those who refuse to contribute, and demand the government force you to provide for them?

If the rest of them can survive only by destroying us, then why should we wish them to survive?- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

If you do not want to be forced into a particular profession, act, etc., do not expect that you have any right to force others to follow your wishes. Humans must be free to trade as willing participants. Your will to participate may stem from hunger, but it is still your personal decision. Does a slave make a better product that a private skilled craftsman? To what other human do you grant a claim on your life, mind, body, and fruits of your labor that is senior to your own? Charity may satisfy some moral or religious good, but should it be imposed at the point of a gun?

In her writings, Ms. Rand had her characters defend themselves with their wit, technology, and ability to hide from government forces. In an era of satellites, and sensors of almost every sort imaginable, hiding anywhere on Earth is hardly likely to be a successful approach. It is probably impossible to hide in sufficient numbers that your community could be long-term viable operating independent from the rest of the world.

Sooner or later, it is going to come down to the question, who has the “right” to initiate physical force, vs the right to respond with physical force, and if you reach the point you are ready to resist, will it be physically possible?

Everyone has some potential to earn by the use of personal mental and physical capabilities, to provide some item or service that is of sufficient value to someone else that they are willing to trade some value of their own.

Your efforts improve the value of something, in simple example planting seed, tending a crop to maturity and delivery of the harvest to market.


Even the simple sedentary “act” of sitting on a front porch, as the eyes and ears to watch a home, or neighborhood, has value.

It is said that money is the root of all evil, if so then what is money? Money is simply an agreed common intermediary barter item, used to make simple the voluntary exchange of goods and services at an agreed upon value. Money is a unit of mutual trust. Therefore in attempting to tell you that money is evil, they are telling you to see voluntary cooperation is evil. Money is not evil; it is a symbol of trust and voluntary cooperation. Money is the means by which the productive and trustworthy in the world can meld their efforts into even greater accomplishments.

What then is evil? Killing when the one killed is not being punished for the first unjustified death? Forceful enslavement? Theft? Irrational mindless activity at the cost of others? Are these not all “evil”, whether practiced by an individual, a religious zealot, or the government of a nation?

Money, as it is circulated in the world of the early new millennium, is an illusion. If money is a medium of trade, it should have some type of clear value relative to the two ends of each trade. The currencies issued by national governments has no inherent value, it only has such value relative to the goods and services of the nation and world as the governments of the world support.

Even in short-term, localized emergencies, the value of money, whether barter or government currency, can disappear, even if only for a brief period. But even in a protracted emergency, barter, some means of exchange of clear value for clear value, will relatively quickly return. When confidence to any significant scale in an unsupported paper currency disappears, the currency is doomed.

What corruptions, typically attributed to business, are not in true scope attributable to the actions of government that enforces at the point of a gun monopolies for a business that would otherwise be competed OUT of business, or provides protections from responsibility for the owners and operators of the business? Do not in your mind inseparably mix business with corporations.

"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini

Corporations are children of special interest governments, where the government at the point of a gun tells the investors, customers, and victims, of the corporation, what actions taken on behalf of the corporation are subject to the rules of civil society, and what are not. The government tells you whom of the agents and owners of the corporation that are subject to the rules of civil society, and who are not. These corporate protections are not part of some agreement between you and the corporation; they are an agreement between the corporate originators, and the government, which is imposed upon YOU at the point of the guns held by the government.

When you hear stories of drug conglomerates being aware of simple natural cures for scourges of humanity, that are withheld because of a drive to profit, consider how such cures are withheld. An individual, partnership, or current artificial corporate entity has no power to keep a cure off the market, once discovered, even if hidden, it will be found again and again, with increasing frequency.

The current ability to keep cures and treatments off the market resides in the hands of over-powered governments. Even patients and doctors that have full knowledge of risks, and that are willing to take the risks, are prohibited under the law and regulations of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from taking such risk, unless the treatment has been approved by the FDA. The FDA test and approval process is time consuming, and expensive. Essentially, only those treatments that offer a significant profit for large scale drug companies can be approved. If YOU found a cure for every cancer in a few simple seeds in your yard, you would be PROHIBITED from offering such, as would physicians, regardless of notice of the risk, unless the FDA approval process had been followed.

Ask yourself, in day to day transactions, when is it that you reached an agreement with someone about value and exchange, and when was it that someone ordered you, ultimately with the threat of a gun, to act?


It is often alleged that inherited money, at least “new” inherited money, is squandered by the first generation after the one that generated the wealth. The producers knew the value of their efforts, and of investment. The heirs who never had to worry about their needs, or make any personal effort to plan or build for their future, have no idea of the value of what they receive, and squander not only the wealth handed to them, but their lives.

If the biological heirs of the top thinkers and producers are not necessarily “fit” to handle the value they stand to inherit, HOW could anyone thing that a large non-contributing population could possibly be a useful heir?

Without the thoughts and effort of those who produce the food, clothing, shelter, etc. of the world, not to mention electronic circuits and computer programs, what happens to those who have not clue of their personal capabilities, or drive to use what they have? We have a world where those who are awake and thinking have allowed themselves to be put under the rule of the insane and incompetent. We have a political system where those incompetent to handle their own lives, even basis subsistence, have become a major voting force, electing pandering and self serving politicians who impose control and taxes on those for whom the politicians could not qualify on merit to work for as household servants.

A return of thought and reason is essential to the overall survival of humanity. An example for “charity”, whether voluntary, or at the point of a gun. At an isolated bunker location, you have a room, water collection, an garden area sufficient to provide for ONE MORE person. Two show up. What criteria would YOU use to select one of the two? Make them dramatically different, one is a helpless whining idiot, and the other can clearly enhance the long-term chances of your group.

Rights are conditions of existence on earth, it is right for a human to use their mind, it is right to act on individual free judgment, it is right to work for your values and to keep the product of your work. If life on earth is the only visible purpose to our existence, it is right to live as a rational being. Any group, any gang, any nation that seeks to negate rights by force, is wrong, it

is evil, and must be resisted, and if it persists, destroyed.

A cancer eats away on the inside of an otherwise healthy appearing, cooperative and productive body. At first it just steals a little of the nutrition that would have otherwise provided nourishment for normal cells, but soon it invades and destroys productive cells, creating a growing mass of a dangerous parasite, that the defensive immune system of the body continues to see as part of its own, and refuses to excise it as the danger it is.

“Only a ghost34 can exist without material property; only a slave can work with no right to the product of his effort. The doctrine that “human rights” are superior to “property rights” simply means that some human being have the right to make property out of others; since the competent have nothing to gain from the incompetent, it means the right of the incompetent to own their betters and to use them as productive cattle. Whoever regards this as human and right, has no right to the title of “human”.

The only proper functions of a government are: the police, to protect you from criminals; the army to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breach or fraud from others, to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law.

Without specialization, without cooperative trade in society, each person only knows, and can only accomplish what is in their own mind, and possible with their own muscles. Anyone capable and willing to initiate force against a weaker opponent can steal the physical productive output of that weaker person (forcing them into slavery). But this drives mental and physical output “underground”, reducing the overall per person quality of life, for the temporary relative but not necessarily actual qualify of life improvement for the slave master. (How do the living conditions of a Pharaoh compare with the poorest worker of the 20th

century United States of America?)

In the middle ages, “secret societies”, such as we hear of the Masons, developed to protect the skills, and lives, of their members, so expect such may again become necessary, on some scale. For so long as the greedy are in power,


live modestly, without pretention, attracting no unnecessary attention. In the past, communication and organization of such minimalist yet developing organizations was hampered by lack of communication, a barrier removed by modern communications (at least for so long as such remains in operation). The more free and unfettered communities develop, the more the truly enlightened can again stand in the open and breathe free.

You need a dentist. A village does not even have enough people to demand full-time local service, let alone provide for training subsequent such professionals. A significant, yet arguably manageable jump in scale is required the more subtle yet valued trappings of civilization..


Sustainable Civilization: From the Grass Roots UpChapter VII - The City As Ecology

What is the minimum population that is a large and dense enough gathering of people to provide the opportunity for continued training in specializations? How many times was fire discovered, or the wheel, or the beginning principles of math, only to be lost when the individual with the spark of insight died?

Civilization exists to protect voluntary safe interaction among individuals.

There must be ease of interaction, not only in exchange of information, but of goods and services. For non-crash consideration of the infrastructure aspects, examine on the web the publications of the “New Urbanism” movement.

Taking a long term view, in a low energy paradigm, the city needs to be an ecosystem where its living and non-living aspects have multiple and interwoven sources of feedback.

The combined skills of technologists, economists, and ecologists are needed. A back-to-nature approach will not work - there are too many of us for that.- Eric A. Davidson, You Can't Eat GNP

PURPOSE

To provide on a local basis life support and sustainable community, including not merely the ability to repair existing technology and maintain current knowledge and skills, but to continue to advance. As an element of a larger civilization, each city can be seen as potentially the provider of a unique product or service specialty.

"A city's internal transportation system - the layout of its streets and roads, the layout of streetcar systems and subways - determines the character of the city, how its citizens live and work. It has less to do with the direct engines of wealth creation. Build subways and people will live in dense neighborhoods and walk to corner stores; build broad suburban streets and they will live in subdivisions and drive to the Wal-Mart." -Alex Marshall (How Cities Work)

"Above all else, a city is a means of providing a maximum number of social contacts and satisfactions. When the open spaces gape too widely, and the dispersal is too constant, the people lack a stage for their activities and the drama of their daily life lacks sharp focus." -Lewis Mumford (The Highway and the City)"City-making is an art rather than a product of statistical analysis or social service casework."

"The future will compel us to change our way of life, to give up the fiasco of suburbia and all its revolting accessories and re-condense our living and working places into the traditional human habitats called cities, towns, and neighborhoods." -James Howard Kunstler (The City In Mind)

MINIMUM SIZE

Preserving civilization on the scale of an "ecovillage" is probably not sufficient to maintain even present knowledge, skills, and technology, let alone make significant advances. Similar to a single family retreat (homestead), or a multi family (6 min 20 suggested) retreat (Homestead associations), an ecovillage can be too small to maintain "civilization", yet it is already too large to be an ad-hoc creation.

Education factor. Just providing on a sustainable basis teachers for K - 12 requires something larger. In Ecovillage discussed earlier we assumed each grade 1 to 12 classroom has 20 students, with each village unit requiring 72 teachers.

If each teacher works an average of 36 years, then for 72 teachers on the average two retire and must be replaced each year. If college for a teacher takes 4 years, with 20 teachers per college class, there are 80 teachers minimum "in the pipeline" at any given time, with 20 minimum graduating each year. An individual ecovillage only needs only 2 though.

To utilize the minimum efficient production of any given teacher specialist requires at least 10


ecovillages or a population of 96,000. If you want for example 8 different "specialists" in teachers, the number of ecovillages needed to provide for teaching the teachers jumps to 80, or a population of 768,000.

HUMAN SCALE

Los Angeles, New York, etc., are not likely candidates for conversion to low energy, low population sustainability. Such cities, that combine over dense population with sprawl will not survive a fossil fuel shortage, for example they cannot produce sufficient food within their borders.

Cities as we know them have exceeded the law of diminishing returns and become a gathering place for the excess and excesses of humanity.

Human scale clearly implies the ability for an un-enhanced human to access the services available within a reasonable amount of time and with a reasonable amount of effort. (Not necessarily “immediately”.)

RETROFIT

While some cities may be too large, on the other end of the discussion, how do you see a large enough group coming together to start a city-scale eco-community from scratch? There may though be existing communities, with plot division, roads, pipes, wiring, etc. already in place that could be steered into a path to develop along more sustainable lines.

What, to you, is "Human scale"? How far are you willing to walk to visit family or friends, the library or museum? How far to grow or purchase your food? How far to your employment?

Commuting distance. Absent "energy to burn", the upper size is the ability to get people and supplies around.

I would suggest that an "optimum" size is one where homes are within a reasonable bicycle ride of the city center minimizing "need", or demand for motorized intracity personal vehicles. (Per the average of several bicycle safety sites, expect

"sustained" speeds of 12 (experienced), 8 (average adult) and 6 (very young or very old) mph for a human on a typical upright bicycle. When younger, I recall almost daily bike rides from downtown Seattle to the mall, a one-way trip of about 12 miles…) A half-hour commute (reasonable?) to the city / industrial core should probably be no more than 4 to 6 miles or so from the most distant housing.

Let's carve out an arbitrary 9 square miles of city core, as a mile wide cross in the center. For the outer edge to be 6 miles from the far edge of the perpendicular aspect of the cross (75% of the city center) the city overall is 11 mile wide.

This provides 112 square mile "village" areas, at around 9,600 people each, or a city population of a little over 1 million.

Potable water collection. Using earlier numbers developed for the homestead at 12" annual rainfall, to provide for human use, and biointensive gardening on the homesteads , the water collection area is around 230 square miles, a dedicated water collection belt around 3.5 miles wide would provide for filling the city cisterns. The city is now 18 miles on a side.

Thinking in term of this same 230 square mile water collection area completely covered in present technology solar panels. This is around 712 million square yards constantly intercepting 712 million kw of sunlight. With 10% efficient solar panels while exposed to the sun it produces just over 71,000 megawatt of power.

Tossing more numbers, 6 hour/day average, 360 (Ariziona) relatively clear days, 10% intermittent coverage, annually the array produces around 138 million megawatthour of power. Before we get too cheerful on this, note that the present cost for around 712,000,000 one-hundred watt solar panels at $500 each would be around $356 Billion, with each of the 134,400 homesteads in the city being billed abour $2.5 Million.

Farming and food shipment. The city needs food. While each homestead has its own garden, the field inside each 20 homestead unit, adding the additional safety factor of farmland bordering the city for a population of a million, at 1/4 acre


per person, requires say 39035 square miles of farmland. As a belt outside the potable water collection, this would be a belt about 4.5 miles thick. The city is now 27 miles on a side. This puts the outer edge of the farming belt about 13.5 miles from the city center, and of course less for the housing areas, and most of the community centers of the villages. Not an unreasonable distance for even pedal-powered food shipment, if that's what is necessary.

Crop irrigation water collection. Depending on the rainfall of the applicable area, the water collection area outside the farming area will vary. A 12" rainfall could for example require 6 times as much water collection as is planted in traditional farming. The farm water collection belt is 14 miles wide. The city is now 55 miles on a side.

Age Distribution. Assume a healthy population at essentially some stable total population. Assume on the average that the lifespan is around 80 years. Assume that on the average there are the same number of people in each particular age. In a city of a million or so, there are around 12,500 of each age.

The entire city need not be constructed or altered at the same time.

Just as a thought, curved roads, or those with tree planted "traffic circles" at intersections provide a visual limit helping to provide a feeling of place, rather than a straight line running off to the limit of vision. You must keep in mind though, that a curved road

Consider three dimensional use of the space. Living space does not necessarily have to be at ground level. Say a big department store type building is 75,000 square feet. If built well, six homesites could be located on each such roof, while still leaving skylights to the business area

below. What about the "roof" of your home as a greenhouse?

ECOLOGY

It seems clear that a human optimized ecology is incompatible with a "natural" ecology. I'm not thrilled about jackrabbits in my garden, rattlers napping on the porch, or stepping on scorpions as I enter a dark room, but they're part of the "natural" ecosystem. And we as humans want to exclude them.

Which would you think is a better house pet, an angora cat, or a captured bobcat kitten? We can, and need, to live in a self-regulating ecosystem, BUT it needs to be "domesticated" flora and fauna. We can reemphasize "biological" means of meeting our needs, obtaining materials, etc., but we've already over-run enough of "nature".

An ecocity needs to provide it's own food resources. Consider, a hunter-gatherer in a good area may need a square mile per person. For a population of 1 million, you're spread over an area 1000 miles on a side. That's not likely to support a high-tech civilization. High population density appears a civilization prerequisite. High density, indeed simple high numbers of humans, requires a deliberately organized food web. It appears clear that making changes such that some city scale communities survive the crash is a requirement for maintaining civilization. The further we fall, the more knowledge, skills, and technology we are likely to lose. The further we fall, the harder it will be to regain ground. Fossil fuels have allowed us to make great advancements - let's not lose the achievements and waste the expended fuel, human creativity, and lives.

In a post fossil fuel era, I don't see how large scale long distance surface freight or travel is practical, nor is the extensive personal motor

35 Fuel Crop Commentary - If the entire farming belt were planted in biodiesel crops, the city might expect to harvest around 3,750,000 gallons per year. On a per-person basis, that’s a whopping 3.75 gallons per year. If you want to add cropland for production of fuel or materials, raising animals, etc. the farm belt and water belt must be expanded. But by how much? (Next pg.)

The “average” U.S. use (2006) is around 1400 gallons per person (every man, woman, and child). To produce 1400 gallons per person in the city would require dedicated cropland of 145,600 square miles (vs 390 square miles for food).


vehicle use of today. A city will encounter limits in sustainable population, most significantly in food and water.

As sprawl and suburbia (as we now know them) become impractical, the scale will need to be more "human" in terms of commute for regular daily activities (work, school, shopping, etc.) It doesn't mean that we have to lose civilization.

The infrastructure of human communities can be a unique ecology tailored not only our physical needs, but to our individual and collective aspirations. Properly developed, the need for external input for "life support", other than the sun, and occasional rain, can be minimized and essentially eliminated.

THE CITY AS ECOSYSTEM

An ecosystem consists of abiotic and biotic factors that vary in function, in location and time, which interacting with each other eventually reach relatively stable numbers and relationships. In a city as in an ecosystem, the early stages are occupied by pioneers who cope with the pre-existing conditions. As time passes, human presence and deliberate actions suppress “undesired” biotic factors in the community (i.e. insects, rodents, scorpions) considered as pests, or those that compete with humans for resources. Humans also alter physical abiotic aspects, and introduce and provide enhanced supportive physical environments for desired creatures.

Ecologically the focus of a city is a population humans living in a definite area. The dynamics of human population density, age distribution, overall size, resource use and paradigms affects dramatically other creatures. In theory interactions of abiotic and biotic and selected human intervention should leads to a human centered mature climax community. Perhaps for example humans tend to intervene too much in factors affecting their biotic neighbors.

In Biomimicry, Janie M. Benyus presents 10 "Lessons" humans need to learn, not only as individuals but as a civilization. Perhaps we should keep them in mind as we consider how we need to re-think and re-engineer already disturbed areas to better meet human needs while essentially eliminating the impact of human activities outside of human communities.

Can we learn to:

1. Use waste as a resource.2. Diversify and cooperate to fully use the habitat.3. Gather and use energy efficiently4. Optimize rather than maximize5. Use materials sparingly6. Don't foul their nests7. Don't draw down resources8. Remain in balance with the biosphere9. Run on information10. Shop locally1. In general in an ecosystem the nutrient cycle is closed, but the weblike physical infrastructure and food chain allow high diversity and density. The human community seen as an essentially closed ecosystem must take steps to eliminate the concept of waste, with everything going back into the web as a resource. Considering the biological matter and water that have and continue to flow into the city, one might expect it to be a lush oasis. Instead for the most part we continue to have a one-way flow where materials enter the city only long enough to become trash, to then be shipped away. The world is full such that we cannot expect to indefinitely draw resources from somewhere else, and dump our effluent in the home of someone else. When it becomes clear that it is in your best interest, what steps will you take to:

- Cease "waste" enabling activity- Utilize graywater and blackwater- Compost biological scraps- Pass on useful but no longer desired items- Disassemble broken complex items for parts reuse- Leave no waste to dangerous to reuse- Your thoughts?

We must rethink and rework our use of materials. The throwaway economy that has been evolving over the last half-century is itself headed for the junk heap of history.

Various studies indicate that modern industrial economies could (as an interim measure) function very effectively with a level of virgin raw material use as low as one tenth35 that of today.

We need to recycle36 all materials. Modern society uses a LOT of steel, which tends to dwarf


all other metals combined. In the United States, roughly 71 percent of all steel produced in 2003 was from scrap, leaving 29 percent to be produced from virgin ore.

Steel recycling began to “work” with the advent of the electric arc furnace, a means to re-melt steel from scrap using only one third the energy of that required for virgin ore.

With the appropriate policies, metal can be used and reused indefinitely. Mature industrial economies with stable populations will find it easier to get most of their steel from recycled scrap, simply because the amount of steel embedded in the economy is essentially fixed. Countries in the early stages of industrialization have little steel for recycling, and there is little enough raw material left.

Another recycling example is breaking down old buildings into their component parts so they can be recycled and reused. As with old-time efforts to deconstructing a barn or building, the same thought and care applied today can allow most of the material in a building to be recycled.

It SHOULD be a “no brainer” to design all products such as automobiles, appliances, and equipment so that they can be easily disassembled and their component parts recycled. Once “free” energy, and “free” raw materials are a thing of the past, linked with whomever wants to throw things “away” must pay for the long-term costs of such tossing, better design and reuse/recycling efforts will be in the best interest36 of business.

Relatively recent governmental responses to encourage recycling is to ban various materials from garbage/landfills. What about simply eliminating the government involvement in trash collection completely? Make businesses, and individuals, find their own means to safely dispose of trash, if there is such, or otherwise avoid generating trash in the first place. The legislative involvement here is to simply protect general property rights, no one can legally dump on your site without permission, AND you cannot allow effluent from your site to be imposed on your neighbor.

A refillable glass bottle used over and over requires about 10 percent as much energy per use as an aluminum can that is recycled. Cleaning, sterilizing, and relabeling a used bottle requires little energy, but recycling cans made from aluminum, which has a melting point of 660 degrees Celsius (1,220 degrees Fahrenheit), is an energy-intensive process.

Even more fundamental than the design of products is the redesign of manufacturing processes to eliminate the discharge of pollutants entirely. Many of today’s manufacturing processes evolved at a time when the economy was much smaller and when the volume of pollutants was not overwhelming the ecosystem. More and more companies are now realizing that this cannot continue and some, such as Dupont, have adopted zero emissions as a goal.

“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” Simply put arrange industrial activity such that the waste from one process can be used as the raw material for another. (As it is in nature.)

2. Effectively fully use area and resources. Animals claim territory, yet do not show aggression to other species who claim the same territory, and cooperate with others of their species. - Niches for Decomposers, Scavengers & Miners- Multi-Layer / Multi-Use

Animals and insects. They are part of an ecology, and can either BE pests, or used to control pests.

Commensalism - In commensalism, one organism derives benefits from its relationship with another. The other organism is not affected in any way by the relationship.

Mutualism - In a mutualistic relationship, both participating organisms derive benefits from each other. This results in a steady, long relationship. Some may argue that this is the situation with human’s food animals, but a more likely example is human association with pets.

The Ecological Niche of an organism describes how that particular individual "fits" into its ecosystem. Within its habitat, it must make use

36 We have local pollution laws, wage and benefits laws, etc. which at the present make the “cost” of energy to mine and prepare new materials, even on the other side of the planet, less than local recycling.


of available resources, withstand abitoic and biotic factors, with the help of adaptations. In other words, a niche is the role that the individual organism plays in its nonliving and living environment.

Within a city the humans can clearly be seen as the top predator, with the typical animal “prey” of humans specifically nurtured in controlled environments for the purpose of becoming food. There are though those humans who physically prey on other humans, whether for physical/monetary gain, individual gratification, or just psychotic drive.

In the world of unthinking plants and animals, a parasite usually physically lives upon or inside the host, with the host subjected to a long, painful relationship. Parasites and predators differ in that while prey suffers an almost instantaneous death, a host typically suffers prolonged pain, not necessarily leading to death. For e.g. – tapeworms. It remains similar at the human vs human level.

Humans who impose on other humans as predators or parasites present a situation that may warrant intervention by physical or deadly force.

3. Balance energy supply & demand: - Solar (Photovoltaic, heating, wind, hydroelectric, biomass)- Geothermal- Nuclear (Theory)- Minimize regular movement of mass and people- Minimize temperature extremes

4. Optimize rather than maximize- More nutritious and greater variety and quantity of food for lesser numbers, vs a starvation diet for many- Minimized energy needs vs toxic generation methods- A productive thinking population vs a mass of uneducated welfare recipients- Select annual crops for minimal residue- Perennial crops are a standing investment- Repair/Update vs Demolish and Build Anew- Quality vs Quantity

There are limits on human population size, upper and lower, determined by factors such as

resources and how they are utilized, knowledge and technology, and distribution and density of the population.

Concentrated populations are vulnerable to disease and environmental changes, but provide opportunity for accumulation of tools and knowledge, and the ability to readily exchange ideas.

Dispersed populations are less likely to develop science and tools to deal with disease and environmental changes, or advanced technologies.

Each human generation represents a significant investment in time, physical resources, and education before the up and coming individuals are capable of self support, let alone producing any net individual advancement. (How long would it take a new adult to pay back the parents for the time and resources invested during their childhood?)

Within an ecosystem, including a city, larger environmental factors such as seasonal changes, rainfall, growing season, even decomposers and predators affect the cycle of resources, and therefore the overall stable population range.

Even if life support factors are evenly distributed, at a more focused level, specialized environmental factors may require clustered populations. For humans, this could include potential daily factors such as work, school, and access to markets.

5. Use materials sparingly- Form fits function- Use fits need- Design for durability- Think "Lending Library"

6. Don't foul nests- No toxic releases- Bioremediation- Zero Fossil Fuel Burning- No garbage dumps (Find a way to recycle, or stop producing the item)- Avoid noise

Noise pollution – Can have physical consequences on the human body. We can reduce noise by producing less or, deadening it,


or masking it with other "white noise". Earth sheltering, plants, avoiding hard straight surfaces, etc. helps greatly in noise abatement, but in general those “assaulted” with sound at harmful levels cannot completely mitigate the noise. Eliminating the sound of engines will do are great deal to bring a quiet to a city. Running and falling water, wind thru the trees, etc. are natural examples of white noise. Brushing up against someone in a crowd is different from a deliberate punch. Your right to swing your arm in YOUR space ends when it enters your NEIGHBOR’S space that happens to contain his nose. In a similar vein, those initiating noisy events or processes with harmful sound levels must realize the limit of their right.

Considering toxic releases, the environmental effects of gold mining raises doubts about the net benefit to society. It involves extensive release of mercury and cyanide into the environment. To produce 2,500 tons requires the processing of 750 million tons of ore--second only to the 2.5 billion tons of ore processed to produce 1 billion tons of raw steel. The cleanup costs are left to someone else. To get an honest market price for gold means including the cost of cleaning up the mercury and cyanide pollution from mining plus the costs of landscape restoration in mining regions.

7. Don't draw down resources- Maintain groundwater levels and quality- Don't Kill the "Golden Goose"

8. Remain in balance with the biosphere- Avoid population expansion incentives

Whether complementary proteins in human food, ph or other factors for plants, the supply of fresh water, etc., there are abiotic and biotic factors which limit any given population. This limiting factor can be too little, or too much of “something”. I.e. for humans there can clearly be too little or too much water. The range of tolerance though can vary dependent on many other factors, such as is there material to make rafts, or ability to store rare rainfalls.

Within natural ecosystems, abiotic elements like nutrients are recycled and reused. Unfortunately most human communities have broken these natural cycles.

9. Run on information

- Feedback on benefits and consequences

In nature, ecosystems self-organize based on feedback, some benign, some deadly. Humans must realize when we are selecting for improvement in the human community, and when we are acting to our own long-term detriment.

Risk-taking has consequences. There are those who are lazy slobs. There are those who fill their bodies with dangerous substances. There are those subject to inherited illnesses and/or disabilities. An option for reducing the use of raw materials would be to eliminate subsidies37 that encourage their use. Whether the cost of irrigation water to farmers, paying farmer to NOT grow food, depletion credits to oil companies, etc. tax incentives seriously “skew” economic and therefore ecological decisions.

A growing policy is a proposed tax on the burning of fossil fuels. The tax is presented as a means that would reflect the full cost to society of mining coal and pumping oil, of the air pollution associated with their use, and of climate disruption. A carbon tax is claimed to lead to a more realistic energy price, one that will permeate the energy-intensive materials economy and reduce materials use. Obviously though, the tax revenues should NOT be used in any manner that creates a long-term dependency, as the indicated purpose of the tax is to discourage fossil fuel use. If the tax succeeds, then the revenue from the tax will be brief.

10. Shop locally- Import / Exports limited to luxuries

As the total mass of the human population has grown, instead of providing for greater, or faster recycling loops, and a more complex yet human

37 In the words of Ernst von Weizsäcker, “The challenge is to get the market to tell the ecological truth.” To help the market to tell the truth, we need not only a carbon tax, but also a landfill tax so that those generating garbage pay the full cost of getting rid of it.


centered ecosystem, we've broken feedback loops, destroyed much of nature, and isolated ourselves from the biology needed to sustain us. Considering the biological matter and water that have and continue to flow into the city, one might expect it to be a lush oasis. Instead for the most part we continue to have a one-way flow where materials enter the city only long enough to become trash, to then be shipped away.

TECHNOLOGY

What are your thoughts for appropriate technology in a post fossil fuel era?

With liquid fuels a premium commodity.With electricity in far more limited supply than today.

Long distance shipping (at least on land) inhibited by limited fuel and electricity.

Pedal Power. Certainly devices that are manually operated. Thinking… playfully… for

1 SMART GROWTH - DUMB GROWTH

Smart growth is better than dumb growth. Smart growth destroys the environment. Dumb growth destroys the environment. The difference is that smart growth destroys the environment with good taste. So it's like buying a ticket on the TITANIC. If you're smart, you go First Class. If you're dumb, you go Steerage. Either way, the result is the same.

OBSERVATIONS by Professor ALBERT A. BARTLETT

2 At his blog, Richard Embleton discussed "Peak Oil Methadone" - The problem with Methadone treatment for drug addiction is that it keeps the focus on the addiction, through the use of an alternative, rather than shifting the addict's focus to preparing for and building a life for after the addiction. The problem with keeping the focus in the peak oil debate/discussion on the energy component of oil and trying to find alternative fuels to replace the energy derived from oil is that it keeps the addicts (all of us) focused on the addiction rather than developing a new paradigm for life after the oil to which we are addicted is no longer available at a level that that addiction can be supported.

The pushers feeding our addiction offer us coal to liquid (CTL), natural gas to liquid (GTL), tar sands and oil sands and oil shale, electric cars, hybrid cars, all to continue our addiction rather than offering methods of kicking our addiction and moving on with an addiction-free life.We can not cure our addiction by continuing to substitute new alternatives in support of that addiction. At some point we have to get refocused. The longer that takes, the more difficult it is going to be and the greater the number of casualties that will result.

Kick the habit.Bypass the methadone.Get clean.Move on.

Individuals, industry, and governments the world over are starting to accept that we are facing a looming global oil supply crisis, but the "solution" focus in on finding alternative energy sources to replace the same level of use. So far most will not consider the question, "How to we reduce our energy consumption?" (To levels that can be met by sustainable resources.)

No known combination of alternatives provides on a sustainable basis energy anywhere near what we get from fossil fuels. They only buy us some time. We MUST use whatever time is left to make real changes.


a moment, can a computer be operated on the electricity generated by a pedal driven generator?

What other pedal driven devices? A rule of thumb goes something like this: a human's peak power is 200W, and can sustain 50W to perhaps 75W for longer durations. Add a "buffer" (lead/acid battery and charge regulator) to smooth out the output, would there be enough to power a small desktop computer (Case + CRT), and even more so, a laptop (energy efficient Case + LCD screen).

Wind driven. Would you like an intermittent breeze in your home? Consider a direct driven inside fan, turned when the wind blows outside.

Solar thermal. Relatively minor temperature differences can be used to circulate gas or liquids. The movement can be used to just move heat, or generate power. Solar can be used directly, or indirectly for cooking or heating. .

Flat panel.

3 Oil / food - 10:1 is by David Pimentel, Cornell University ecologist.

4 At $2.92 per gallon, your food represents $1.61 of gasoline. Use the formula Food Item Calories times ten, divided by 36,000, times price per gallon equals estimate of cost of embedded fuel used to grow the food item (Processing, shipping, sales costs not included)5 A SELF-EVIDENT TRUTH - If any fraction of the observed global warming can be attributed to the activities of humans, then this constitutes positive proof that the human population, living as we do, has exceeded the carrying capacity of the Earth.

THIS SITUATION IS NOT SUSTAINABLE!

As a consequence, it is AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH that all proposals or efforts to slow global warming or to move toward sustainability are serious intellectual frauds if they do not advocate reducing population to a sustainable level at the local, national and global scales.OBSERVATIONS by Professor ALBERT A. BARTLETT6 For a “worst case” scenario global warming advocates often point to the planet Venus, with its surface temperature hot enough to melt metal, as a global warming horror story. Venus is closer to the sun, and should be somewhat warmer, but for perspective, Venus has an outer atmosphere layer of sulfuric acid vapor, which reflects visible light from the sun in the yellow part of the spectrum, but absorbs or transmits all other frequencies. This logically means that the energy in frequencies other than yellow that Venus receives from the sun due to its closer orbit all make it to the surface.

Venus is covered by a "greenhouse" gas atmosphere of mostly carbon dioxide. Once the energy in light makes it to the surface, the CO2 retards it from being radiated back to space. Note though, it is an atmosphere that is PRIMARILY CO2, and please note that the atmospheric pressure is something like 92 times that of the Earth. In comparison, on Earth CO2 amounts to a few hundreds of parts per million (at the extreme it would be 1/10 of one percent) of the atmosphere, in an atmosphere that is, compared to the pressure on Venus, a vacuum.

As greenhouse gases increase, it would seem logical that we are in for warming temperatures, including the likelihood of the melting of glaciers, and the rising of sea level. But temperatures such as Venus do not seem rational. 7 Collapse Of Greenland Ice Shield – Consequences By Dr John James 08 August, 2006 The Greenland glaciers that cover the island contain enough water to raise sea level twenty feet, or seven meters. It was once thoughts (and that was only six years ago) that the glaciers would be self-sustaining even in a warming world because of size and so on. Not only are the edges melting fast, but the surface melt is seeping through the ice to lubricate the junction between the ice and the rock underneath. This is the unexpected factor that has turned scientific attention onto this escalating problem.

8 Richard Heinberg, "Powerdown"


Concentrating. In what technology other than solar can something as in-substantial as a sheet of shiny mylar be used to transform the diffuse warmth of the sun into a burning or melting tool capable of easily destroying the mylar performing the service?

Biological. Early man started by “taming” those plants and animals that readily submitted. With genetics, we have far greater potential, and of course far greater RISK in what we can achieve. Drugs from bacteria, food or fuel from algae. Potentially custom designed species, or “to order” humans.

Biogas. Biological waste, composted in a sealed container, can produce gas such as methane that can be collected in relatively simple water-traps, and used as fuel on demand. It is not readily efficient as fuel for motors, but it is a means to provide “stored heat” to cook in non-sunny periods, vs trying to store solar heat directly.

Sewage processing in "living machines" to fertilizer (if not applied directly)

Wood. For all our "scientific progress", we ever managed to replicate this wonderful "chlorophyll" thing, just to make non-renewable, non-self-replicating, chemical imitations (photovoltaics).

Electronics. Components and simple devices, while perhaps not at energy efficient as present circuits, can be hand-made. CPUs (central processing units), the heart of any computer, is probably the most technically difficult thing to develop and build on this planet, together with "rocket science", building and launching rockets and satellites. A "fab" (short for fabrication facility, the huge white room places that build CPUs) costs billions of dollars to build, not including costs to operate, the research and development, all of this of course null and void once we no longer have enough oil to power tractors and the such, let alone for extravagant energy use like spending millions of barrels to find ways to cram up as many transistors as possible on a surface less than an inch wide. At what level of civilization and what type of technology, can computers be sustained?

Simple Devices. Electronic components can be made by simple technology, but the larger hand-

made components use a great deal more power, and waste much of it has heat.

A question: Does such a city have the technology and technique to repair or replace a broken plate or cup? A p/v panel? If each homestead has twenty five 100 volt panels, the collected homesteads of the city have 3,125,000 panels, with an expected lifespan of 30 years.

A replacement schedule could then require production of around 100,000 panels per year. If p/v panels are broken, or fail on a regular basis, the city needs to produce or re-work 285 p/v panels every day. The Tucson MEC estimates that 8% of the p/v panels actually in use (2005) need to be replaced each year, which would be a daily replacement rate of around 685 panels.

Is P/V, at least as we know it today, practical long-term? Can a city of a million do better?

TRANSPORTATION

Movement of people, and things. At the present, things tend to be moved by a human controlling a heavy powered vehicle. For the relatively slow need of cargo movement within a city, can we switch to some type of "pipeline" system where only the cargo moves, perhaps in an underground canal system?

Intercity.

Vehicles with solid wheels, running on a relatively smooth and level track, are probably at the top of energy efficiency and effectiveness in moving bulk or heavy cargo on land, long distances, between distance points of origin and destination. If a train car is 10' wide, and 60 long, it' has around 600 ft. sq. of roof surface. Using primitive estimates, 1 KW of sun per sq yard, 20% efficiency panels, the car can generate up to 13 KW in direct sun. I think that's around 17 horsepower. It's an approach which can work to keep some type of between city travel going. Steep grades could get a boost from trackside panels, or how about a trackside connection between trains going up and down the grade… The down train uses generators to brake, feeds the slope grid, and it's used to help the up train. Or the power could be stored for later use, with some further losses.


Intracity. Trains / trolleys / electric bus on a fixed route, central power allows a lighter vehicle (no battery weight), regenerative braking to distribute to the grid of vehicles. If these vehicles are to travel at any rate significantly faster than a walking pace, they need to be isolated from the surface pedestrian traffic. The two obvious options are putting them on raised track, or as subways. With either option, “stations” higher than the track conserves energy, using the uphill to slow the transport on entering the station, and downhill to resume speed on leaving.

A subway tunnel approach offers the opportunity for much heavier cargo, with less ongoing maintenance of the system. The subway does not necessarily need to be a large or luxurious. Think in terms of a large concrete storm drain pipe, with a sit-down only scale subway car. The city has 121 square mile grids, which if limited to one "station" per grid (not necessarily so limited) would put everything in the city within two six minute (brisk) walks, and a few minutes subway ride. In a similar below ground pipe system, heavy cargo could be floated in an enclosed canal, moved by low power pumps moving water to the “high” side of the system.

Personal transportation. Lightweight, low power, streamlined vehicles can still provide relatively "high speed" personal transport, especially in a compact city. Although pedestrians can cross flow at corners without stoplights, it doesn't work for vehicles. But stop and go wastes energy. Thinking in terms of human powered vehicles, or neighborhood electric vehicles, "roads" would only need to be improved walkways, and could be elevated to be essentially level and permit crossings without the typical city stoplight every 1/8 mile. Pedaling a bicycle / human powered vehicle, the "engine" needs exposure to clean and flowing air, further making this a "fit" with raised tracks.

Emergency response vehicles hybrid / fueled (i.e. alcohol or biodiesel), able to travel unrestricted by power connections or track.

LOCATION

Which existing community, if any, do you believe has the greatest potential for development into a "sustainable" human centered

ecological environment, and what steps do you suggest to assist / guide such development?

A whole new city does not normally just happen. Cities typically develop at sites because of a natural resource, trade route intersection, etc. An ecocity starts with one of these existing cities and evolves.

Relative isolation from other large communities…

Walking to the city presents too much of a challenge in distance and/or conditions.

Adequate renewable resources within walking distance of the city center, which are or can be under control the city or city citizens. In particular for the author’s location in the desert southwest of the U.S., fresh water.

A variety of small businesses with potential post oil era viability.A climate tolerable without mechanical HVAC or burning fuel for heat.

Government / residents willing to accept/allow alternative construction, graywater use, etc.

Access to reliable power. A good stream/river drop for hydro, windmills, solar p/v, solar "steam", SOMETHING. (I don't see any practical substitute for electricity for nighttime lighting, or of course electronics, which seem to be a "floor" for continued progress)

ECONOMIC THEORY

Heirloom, one of enduring value. Design / engineer / build for quality and durability. In example, the author is still using a glass door bookcase inherited from my grandfather, meanwhile numerous "particle board" bookshelves I've purchased have crumbled, snapped, or otherwise quickly passed their useful life (not to mention the fumes from the particle board…)

Reduce. Design / engineer / build for zero toxics release. Act as though the city is inside a sealed bubble of its land footprint.

Reuse. When do you recall the metal structure of a washer or dryer wearing out? We need to engineer so that such durable parts can continue


to be used without costly and energy intensive reprocessing. We need to have components that are easily disassembled and if still viable reused. Think of used item stores, or "ebay" where people auction off their "trash to treasure" items.

Recycle. Design / engineer / build for upgrading or recycling. Obviously bio-degradable products can be returned to the soil by microbes and re-grown into something else. Complex, high tech materials or artifacts probably need to be

collected, categorized, and stored, or disassembled and stored, for re-use.

Self constructing / Self Replicating. Design / engineer / build to emphasize use of biological systems. Wood for example remains an incredible engineering / construction resource. Alcohol is a practical fuel where free roaming quick refueling power is required.

“The challenge is to get the market to tell the ecological truth.”

9 Reflections on Sustainability, Population Growth, and the Environment - Revisited Albert A. Bartlettwww.hubbertpeak.com/bartlett/reflections.htm10 United Nations 2005 demographic data used11 Jared Diamond in his book "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed" suggests five major reasons for the collapse of civilizations: - Environmental damage, such as deforestation and soil erosion - Climate change - Dependence upon long-distance trade for needed resources - Increasing levels of internal and external violence, such as war or invasion - Societal responses to internal and environmental problems

12 The Wall Street Journal, 20 December 2004

13 Per Bill Mollison as reported in his online public domain permaculture pamphlets.

14 "Future Fertility, Transforming Human Waste into Human Wealth", by John Beeby15 The folks at www.leafforlife.org have extensive free information available for download on edible leaf crops, and on processing non-digestible crops such that a high quality protein & nutrients concentrate can be produced.16 Diet for a Small Planet, Frances Moore Lappe17 http://www.pathtofreedom.com/ This site contains not only their story, and photos, but video coverage of their own, and various news services.18 See the book The Humanure Handbook, available online free to download at: http://weblife.org/humanure/index.html19 Future Fertility, Transforming Human Waste Into Human Wealth, John Beeby20 How to Grow Fresh Water, Dr. B.C. Wolverton

21 An appendix to the primary "Sustainable Civilization" document, which is also posted at the Sustainable Tucson egroup files area, is a consolidated introduction to estate and financial planning.22 The Coming Economic Collapse: How you can thrive when oil costs $200 a barrel, by Stephen Leeb, PhD with Glen C. Strathy

23 APS Review Oil Market Trends - Oct 3 200524 U.S. News and World Report, April 200625 CIA World Fact Book, https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/26A significant part of this information is from Martin Sevior, Associate Professor, School of Physics, University of Melbourne, which has further nuclear information in a wiki-based website (http://nuclearinfo.net).

27 Collected articles by Professor A.A.Bartlett,


http://nuclearinfo.net/

http://www.pathtofreedom.com/

- Ernst von Weizsäcker,

Sustainability is a broad concept, with a problem for sustainable economics exampled in the "529" college savings plans. In general, there is a choice between investment plans, and pre-paid tuition plans. If we were NOT saddled with an inflating currency, the cost of a college education would be virtually the same now, or 18 years from now, varying essentially based on the quality of the services and demand. In that scenario, the investment approach would seem to make more sense. In an inflating economy

though, you are chasing a rising target, and the pre-paid tuition may work out to be a better bet.

Jobs. Performing a particular service for the same entity on a regular basis.

Professions. Performing a particular service for a variety of entities on a regular basis.

Repair or replacement would appear to take a higher place then expansion or completely new facilities (at least not those that simply provide the same use or service as something already in

28 The folks at Columbia University Medical School, New York City, New York, have worked up a multi aspect theoretical food system where a city building is used to produce food for 50,000 city residents.29 Summary of U.S. Internal Revenue Service regulatory comments on bartering. Bartering occurs when you exchange goods or services without exchanging money. An example of bartering is a plumber doing repair work for a dentist in exchange for dental services. The fair market value of goods and services exchanged must be included in the income of both parties. Income from bartering is taxable in the year in which you receive the goods or services.

30 During the FDR period depression, why did the nation need 26,000 artists, musicians, and actors, & nearly 7,000 writers (other than to tell everyone how great his programs were?) In her book The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, author Amity Shlaes presents a review of the period of the “Great Depression”, essentially 1929 to the U.S. entry into WWII. Consider, a rise or fall in the price of stocks does not necessarily mean there will be any effect on day-to-day business operations, ability for farms to operate, etc. What then is the significance of the 29 price fall? Speculative purchase of stock with borrowed money, financing perhaps equal to 18% of the 1929 Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was stock purchases on margin. A margin purchase differs from a credit card or mortgage purchase in that you do not incur an obligation to make any regular fixed payments, but if the stock price falls you will be required to put more money on deposit. To example, say you buy 10,000 shares of stock at $1.00 per share on a 10% margin that is a promise to keep on deposit with the broker 10% of the amount needed to complete the transaction if you were forced to sell the stock. To start with you must deposit with the broker $1,000. If the price of the stock goes up, say 50% to $15,000, you sell and make $5,000. If however the price of the stock goes down, say for our example 50%, you are going to get a “margin call” from your broker. If the market price of the stock is now $5,000, if you sold you shares, you would still owe to your broker the $10,000 original purchase price. You broker is going to require you to deposit additional money, probably $4,500 to bring your account up to $5,000, a level where if the stock were sold, the net amount on deposit would equal 10% of the remaining value. Many of those who were gambling in this manner in the 1929 stock market not only could not afford a margin call, but had borrowed the initial deposit. Failure to pay on margin purchases was a major blow to the finances of those invested in the market, and lending money on such accounts. But it need not mean the collapse of the national economy; that took ill-conceived meddling. Although the time period was still one of cheap & abundant energy (in fact growing supplies), and far more people lived on farms, or closer to the land than today, it can be argued that the extensive government intervention in the marketplace deterred production and deterred investment and spending. Customers and businesses were taxed out of the marketplace. Research and investment was chocked off by the lack of after tax funds.

31 An appendix to the primary "Sustainable Civilization" document, which is also posted at the Sustainable Tucson egroup files area, is a consolidated introduction to estate and financial planning.32 The folks at the Sustainable Communities Network have focus area-specific suggested reading materials: http://www.sustainable.org/economy/econ_index.html


existence. Without resources being wasted in ongoing construction of new facilities, to perform the same “old” services (housing or providing for an expanding population) “new” facilities would rationally represent completely NEW needs or capabilities, vs rehashing of the old.

Even in so far as law, as personal responsibility and “common sense” is brought back into the picture, one would hope that frivolous legal cases would fade into the background. (Yes folks, this is an attorney commenting that we have far too many “B.S” – and I do not mean Bachelor of Science – cases in the legal system.) Far too many times, I’ve seen lawyers for parties “churn” cases, make motions, file documents, interrogatories, demands for discovery, etc., not necessarily for vital information, but as a means to harass the other party in a case while running up fees.

We need creative thinkers, those who can look at what we have, and what we know, and envision something that is better.

INFRASTRUCTURE

The city can be composed of individual family homesteads, of whatever construction each family can manage, or a single large arcology. What matters is the relationship of numbers of people, and reuse of resources.

Night outside illumination for paths, placed below eye level. If electrical consider centralized bulbs with fiber optics for the individual walkway lights. Just enough to light the ground but leave the night sky visible.

Venturi effects of terrain and structures which increase air velocity may be used to improve the harvest of wind energy.

Water collection. All rain should be directed into cisterns or on to a stream system. Wind could be used to pump water to "high ground" for gravity pressurization of the delivery system.

Modification and upgrades. The physical structure of the city, when physically modified, needs to be modified with future upgrade in mind. For example, how many times have the streets in your community been torn up and repaved because a particular pipe or wire was being repaired or added?

Multi-purpose Zoning. Interweaving work, play, learning, socializing, and other activities. So long as the noise, light, and visual interference of a home and a restaurant don't intrude on each other, why can't such be side to side? It is generally undesirable to have isolated areas devoid of "eyes watching". All of those facilities "needed" on a "day to day" basis should be within walking distance of the homes served.

Energy Co-generation. Using waste energy from one process in a different process which needs it.

AGRICULTURE

Present cities rely on the production of widespread markets to supply food. Absent cheap transportation the city MUST have a more direct connection with the food source. It must recycle the human and resident animal effluent safely, efficiently and effectively back in to the food production system. The city be able to feed itself from within the resources under it's control

33 See The Forgotten Man, William Graham Sumner, a discussion of who really bears the cost of government programs, and even voluntary handouts.

34 Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand35? Research the Factor Ten Institute organized in France under the leadership of Friedrich Schmidt-Bleek for improvements in the thru-processing of raw materials. Keep in mind though, that even a 1/10 new raw material use rate IS NOT SUSTAINABLE.36 In 2002, American architect William McDonough and German chemist Michael Braungart teamed up to coauthor a book entitled Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things. Waste and pollution are to be avoided at any cost. “Pollution,” says McDonough, “is a symbol of design failure.”


Open field agriculture is the present standard. This method, at least as practiced, is dependent on fossil fuel to operate farm equipment, process and deliver food to cities, and is also dependent on chemical fertilizers to feed the crops. It is an open ended process which moves from oil to food to cities to the dump or the sea. It is not sustainable.

Attempts have been made to use processed sewage sludge as fertilizer, but these have encountered the problem of contamination. Not everything that ends up in a city sewer has first been eaten and digested by a human. The typical city sewage is contaminated with metals, toxic chemicals, etc. that go down our drains.

Closed loop agriculture. We've go to close the loop on recycling the nutrients from human effluent as close to the source as practical, while also minimizing the opportunity for contamination. The closer that the recycling is to home, the more the residents will take personal responsibility for ensuring the safety of the system.

Urban Landscaping. City landscaping can be a food source. Microclimates created within the city can make for a rich urban ecology and substantial biodiversity.

Farm Staff. Current U. S. farming has I believe 2% of the population working to feed the rest of us. Shooting for the same %, the city needs 20,000 people working in food production.

Assuming 250,000 cultivated acres in a farming belt, it's about 12.5 acre for each person to work. With a shift to greater concentration on trees and other perennial crops in a permaculture approach and with "temporary" help is doesn't sound like an impossible task.

The city has 134,400 homesteads. If the home gardens are instead tended by master gardeners, working a 40 hour week, the gardener would have only around 1/2 hour per property. This again appears to point toward perennial / long term crops, vs annuals that must each year be coaxed up from a basic seed.

SECURITY

Keeping strangers away from one's back door is a significant design consideration.

Internal. An essentially pedestrian city provides a lot of eyes and ears in the public arena, and a mix of zoning minimizes regularly scheduled "abandoned" sites. Start with the concept of neighborhood watch, and expand.

Crime. We tolerate too much, and have abdicated too much responsibility to our elected and professionally paid law enforcement employees. Get off your butt, refuse to be intimidated, and act on the fact that you have arrest authority. If your state or local government does not allow you to do so, and does not allow you to be armed in the same manner as the police, perhaps you should consider it is time to gather and move your assets to somewhere that recognizes your independent right to exist and deal with the world.

External. The city must be prepared to exercise self-defense. Whether peacetime or war, a question is what about visitors? A city, that is NOT in collapse, in a world that is, will be a primary destination for many. But the city CANNOT accept everyone who approaches. There MUST be some approach, some “welcome center” where potential new recruits for residency are evaluated and an determination made whether there is excess resources, and whether they should be offered on a temporary / permanent basis to any particular individual, and the terms overall.

The next level up in government. In most locations at least in the U.S., a city can appoint as law enforcement whomever it wants. In argument, it could be every citizen of the city. If your state or higher government prohibits this, again, it may be time to move your assets.

Other governments. Your city, your state, your nation. What other government do you recognize as having authority to control your life? The United Nations?

Non-governmental organizations. If you did not vote for them, did not invest money in them, and do not care about their policies, don’t let them interfere with you.

POPULATION STABILITY

In theory the misery generated at the earlier discussed levels by an expanding population


should make it clear the city also cannot expand. But if your city gains attention as the most advanced in sustainability, and we are in the post-peak oil era, who believes that the city WON'T be challenged by a population influx? How do you stop it?

POLITICS / GOVERNMENT

When the government falls, those to whom violence and force are no stranger will take over. They will not necessarily be the best, brightest, or even the strongest. They may simply be the first to use violence to impose their will. Consider if you will the "turf wars" among gangs, and their escalation if there is no organized police force to oppose them.

At each level, surviving communities will need some form of organized government, and defense. When our complex and oil dependent government system dies, Feudalism may again rise to replace the missing layers of government. I discount "elected" officials, because, at least in our present system, those elected are primarily there due to a popularity contest, based on their promises to tax and spend, rather than an understanding and ability to manage. In those large cities which manage to survive, the police commissioner may be the individual with the greatest power. For smaller communities, the natural leader to arise seems to be the County Sheriff.

During and immediately post-crash, there will be an excess of people, well beyond what can be sustained. I suspect that there will be little tolerance for criminal acts, or thought of scarce and valuable community assets taken to support a prison population. A "kind" sentence will be expulsion. A "standard" sentence will probably be death.

If the city is a governmental entity, while authority remains, it must comply, including with access, allowing protests, etc. If the city entity was a private corporation, it would under present law be able to exclude non members.

However the city is organized, the charter needs to be fixed, unchangable except by unanimous agreement of all votes. How about each village has 1 senator to the city, selected by the

representatives of the Homestead associations. NO elected position to be paid.

A city of a million people, covering 121 square miles, with 134,400 homesteads surely presents a situation where some formal organization / governance is required. Doesn't it? What is the minimum required "government?

Radical concept? What if the government declined, or was unable, to register a lien on real property? You could and buy sell real estate, but it would not be available as security for a loan, or as an asset which can be attached in a lawsuit. Thoughts?

CITY CORE

Ecological Industry - A potential function of the city core is repair / recycling / manufacturing of complex products, and storage of parts / materials in the area most readily accessible by the bulk of the residents. Many aspects logically need to be centralized. Consider that a high temperature "foundry" can be solar powered, but the mirror set up would be a large device, requiring careful construction and operation, not practical to replicate or operate on a small scale.

The folks at Columbia University, New York City, New York, have worked up a theoretical food system where a city building is used to produce food for a significant number of city residents. Under typical present law, to actually implement such would require the support of city agencies such as building code, health, planning, sanitation, etc. Their model for concentrated commercial urban farming to feed 50,000 people in the City of New York is a 48-story building, either 90,000 ft2 or 250,000 ft2, depending on necessary requirements.

Doing the math, their preliminary statement appears to claim only between 1.8 & 5 square foot per person is needed to produce food, while their wheat discussion indicates a best non-stop production of 292 sq. ft. per person. Whether or not such a building is long-term sustainable given present knowledge and materials, it presents an interesting use for what may become abandoned city buildings. Outside of their food analysis, consider such a modified structure as a recycling, or bio materials resource. (See the book Biomimicry, by Janie M. Benyus) Use of a closed environment, provided the power is


available to manage heat, light, and water condensation, presents a tremendous opportunity for the growth of water intensive crops (i.e. cotton) without the waste of the precious resource in open field evaporation. It provides a very controlled environment for plant cross breeding experiments.

If you contemplate it, machines and industries can be formed into food webs and ecologies, just as living creatures. So far, they just can't do it on their own. Within a long term sustainable, ecological city, where there can be no constant external input, and no "garbage" to continuously dispose of, we must arrange our industry so that the effluent from one process is the feedstock of another.

The raw materials on Earth have been here essentially since the planet coalesced. Atoms in your body may have been part of Julius Cesar, or ancient dinosaurs. In the biological arena, everything is designed to be disassembled to some level or another, and re-used. We need to apply the same rationality to our industry and products.

The new "raw material" for industry will be "old" products. The easier used or broken items are to disassemble to a useful level, the greater the ease for creation of a new product. A comparison though:

Aluminum cans are readily recycled, but they require a great deal of energy to melt and re-engineer into a new can. Glass bottles are readily recycled, potentially by just washing and putting on a new cap. Re-use of the unbroken, uncontaminated glass bottle requires MUCH LESS37 energy and handling than recycling of the aluminum can.

Technology such as cell phones can avoid processing and laying miles of copper wires, but present cell phones are much more fragile than most hard-wire phones, and dependent on batteries that represent a constant flow of toxics. To get an honest market price for any product containing toxic materials means requiring the industry bear the cost of recycling.

We need approaches to high-tech materials that do not require use of toxic materials and leave dangerous residue. I understand we already know the principles of zero-pollution production,

but don't because it's still cheaper, in terms of money, to continue polluting. When dumping costs rise, business looks for alternatives. In the city (or on the Earth as a whole), there IS no "away" to throw things to. Even for substances well below the scale human can directly deal with, select organisms can remove remaining trace pollutants, and concentrate them for re-use.

Education. Higher education, or specialized programs are a natural, low energy, but high profit effort for a city. Even if the population of the future is concentrated in cities, there will be those who elect to live in less dense areas, who will nevertheless seek local services. They will need teachers, engineers, doctors, etc. The city offers clear opportunity for specialized education and experience that becomes a valuable trade item over a broad area.

Culture. Museums, libraries, art and entertainment, etc. are natural outcomes of the specialization possible in a city. A key aspect is NOT reaching the point where one aspect holds a gun to the head of another to force them to subsidize the lifestyle or choices of another.


A city of a million people, covering 121 square miles, with 125,000 homesteads surely presents a situation where it would seem some formal organization / governance is required. Doesn't it? What is the minimum required "government?

Do you want to live under a government that issues orders to you, or that reacts when someone interferes with your property rights? (Rights to your body, your personal items, and your real estate.)

How much authority over your property, your life, that that of your children are you willing to sign-over to someone else?

ETHICS / MORAL

Austerity will be a fact of life. To use a extreme example for us in the modern, "First World", what is going to happen, even in a city of a million, to an infant born with a lifetime crippling defect?

If the family is sufficiently wealthy, perhaps they could manage to provide for appropriate


care/assistance, even in their own absence. But, absent the artificially robust economy, profits, and taxes provided by the cheap energy from oil, how could even a city of a million afford a "publicly funded" program to provide for this child, or any other person incapable of providing some service to "earn their keep"? And if a city of a million can't afford to provide a lifetime of care, what happens in smaller communities?

In the 1950's and 1960's, talk of atomic war prompted some to prepare fallout shelters. At the time, and perhaps in retrospect, some saw the shelter building activity as foolish. But if done well, those shelter spaces continued to be an asset, and may once again, in the coming crash, prove their value as fallout shelters. The shelters were, and are, a form of "insurance". So it is I see every aspect and level of "sustainability", from your one tomato plant, to a self-reliant city of a million. It is personal insurance. It is "life insurance" for your family and heirs. It is insurance for civilization.

DEMOGRAPHICS FOR THE LONG-TERM

Population evenly distributed across an age range of 1 to 80. Average births do not exceed replacement with children born to parents who in an age range of 20 to 40.

There is no need for new home construction. Family homesteads, each an area approximately 100' x 100' (about ¼ acre) house multi-generation families of 8 to 10 people.

Homesteads are arranged into neighborhoods, each a square six homesteads on a side, twenty total. These surround a central courtyard 400' x 400'. Each neighborhood association (about 40 acre) is a gathering averaging 160 to 200 people.

Neighborhoods are arranged into villages, each a square eight neighborhoods on a side (one square mile). The central 40 acres is reserved for shops, schools, etc., putting schools and business within roughly ½ mile of every homestead. Each village contains 60 associations and is a gathering of 9600 to 12,000 people, with around 120 to 150 people of each age (grade in school).

Villages are arranged in a grid eleven on a side, with a city core of nine square miles in a central

“X”. The city has 112 villages and averages 1,075,200 people, around 13,400 of each age.

If basic education is considered as age 6 thru 18, there are 80,640 kids in school, requiring 4032 teachers.

Aiming for an educated workforce, and low stress "elder" years, consider the educated workforce to be ages 22 thru 56, this is around 407,400 people. Minus 4032 as teachers and 2% of the total, or 21,504 as gardeners, the employable population is 444,864. The city is large enough to sustain demand for specialists in education, medicine, sciences, etc.

CONSIDERING GREATER LEVELS

An eco-city of a million can be a tool to preserve education and skills, and continue development. It obviously exceeds the capabilities of a dispersed hunter gatherer society of the same population of a million, or any other non-urban approach.

I do not see how a dense, yet ecological community would be able to significantly exceed a population of 1 million, or occupy an area less than that set out above, which if you have limited rainfall, is an area 55 miles on a side (3025 sq. mile). Nor do I see how the same million spread less-dense could maintain the level of interaction necessary.

Yet to house 6+ billion people, it would take SIX THOUSAND such eco-cities, which would cover over 18 million square miles. The total temperate area of the Earth is around 37 million square miles.

What we actually have in place at this time is worse. We have 6+ billion people disbursed over the six continents of the globe, which logically means that our present cumulative human footprint EXCEEDS this area. Yet with our current "system", with all of the additional, non-renewable input, we still cannot provide adequately for the population.

To implement such low-energy eco-cities in sufficient time to provide for the entire present population appears to require magic.

If we wanted to limit ourselves to diverting say 10% of the total productive land space to human


activity, it would be 3.7 million square miles, limited to around 1,200 of such cities, or a total global population of 1.2 billion. That population though could live in relative abundance, and peace.

Setting aside for the moment the arbitrary laws written by humans, what would be the minimum physical requirements of peaceful interaction of individual ecological communities?


Sustainable Civilization: From the Grass Roots UpChapter VIII - Sustainability Laws

First Law. Non-renewable resources must not be used in a manner that precludes their future re-use, and the maximum sustainable level of renewable resource use is the minimum reliable level of renewal.

Second Law. Achievement of sustainable society globally requires that every definable area, whether natural or political, maintain a population and consumption level sustainable within the applicable borders, using the local resources, or trade in a sustainable manner.

Third Law. Personal or societal experimentation and development requires the availability of excess resources.

Fourth Law. There is no "away" where we can throw things, or move to.

Fifth Law. An economic system becomes fragile when it comes to depend on external exchange over which it has little control. - Ekholm

Sixth Law. "If an ethical foundation is lacking, a civilization collapses. Civilization exists in the effort to perfect humanity, and originates when a population is inspired to attain progress and to serve." Albert Schweitzer.

Seventh Law. "In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations" - From the Great Law of the Iroquois Nation

Eighth Law. Isolate Human Activity. An ecology optimized for human habitation and life support is incompatible with a natural state ecosystem.

Ninth Law. Protection of personal property rights is essential. People are more readily willing to present their surpluses for trade, if they are assured they are free to negotiate the trade, or not, without fear that the "authorities" will take their property.

Tenth Law. Survival of the fittest, but not perhaps what you would first think. Eleventh Law. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”

Twelth Law. There is no quick fix. Deep-seated problems require more than a positive mental attitude and collection of short-term success formulas.

Thirteenth Law. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Fourteenth Law. Law of the minimum. There are critical factors the limit living and non-living processes, regardless of the quantity of other factors present.

BACKGROUND ON THE LAWS

These laws are presented for consideration as physical principles, and not the arbitrary laws invented by society and governments.

Consider them as laws of the universe that apply to human civilization. They may occasionally be "bent", with consequences, but for the most part cannot be broken without dire effect.

In your own life, you must plan. What are your desired results? What are your personal guidelines? Your resources? To whom are you accountable? Who suffers the consequences of your actions?

DISCUSSION OF THE LAWS

First Law. Non-renewable resources must not be used in a manner that precludes their future re-use, and the maximum sustainable level of renewable resource use is the minimum reliable level of renewal.

Living and non-living resources can, given existing science, be renewable, or non renewable.


Consider aluminum scrap. It takes technology, and electricity, to produce aluminum. In general though, once we've produced metallic aluminum, it remains available for re-use. Even if discarded in our garbage, it essentially remains in a form that can be salvaged by simple human activity, and with low-level technology re-melted and re-formed into new useful items.

Consider fossil fuels such as oil or coal. If we use this resource as molecular feedstock to create plastics, and many other physical objects, the molecules essentially remain available to be recycled. If however we burn the resource as fuel, we have effectively destroyed it beyond our ability to recycle.

A prime example of renewable resource us is groundwater. If average use does not exceed the recharge rate, a well is a naturally filtering & refilling tank. But if you exceed the recharge rate too long or too deep you may cause permanent loss in capacity, and other problems such as surface subsidence, or cracks in the "filter" layers.

Second Law. Achievement of sustainable society globally requires that every definable area, whether natural or political, maintain a population and consumption level sustainable within the applicable borders, using the local resources, or trade in a sustainable manner.

Globalization has been a horrible mistake. Cheap (for most purposes, "free") fuels have lead to a global network of supply and distribution that is simply not sustainable when fuels return to being a "currently" paid cost. Global shipment of luxury goods is a non-event. Even the logic of moderate international reliance for durable goods is only moderately questionable. But an early 2006 advertisement by Archer Daniels Midland could easily be considered the "poster child" for peak oil. The ad shows an Asian teen, with the text:

Somewhere west of Shenyang, a teenager is stopping for dinner.

Which is why the soybean harvest west of Peroria is not stopping.

And why a soybean processor west of St. Louis is not stopping.

And why a ship's captain on the west coast is stopping but just for a while.

Somewhere west of Shenyand a teenager is stoping for dinner.

A dinner rich in soy protein.

Consider the implication. This youth, supposedly in China, is apparently depending on a soybean crop in the United States, and a network of fossil-fuel powered processing and shipment industries, for sufficient dietary protein on his plate.

Can you and your multi generation family subsist on food grown on your own property?

Third Law. Personal or societal experimentation and development requires the availability of excess resources.

At an extreme example, if an upper limit large population is living at a barely subsistence level, any crop failure will result in famine. In that scenario, who can afford to experiment on the hope of a better crop, while risking a failure?

Fourth Law. There is no "away" where we can throw things, or move to.

The Earth is a finite area sphere. Absent a scientific miracle, space travel, if we can maintain it, will only be available for a minute portion of the population. It is often tossed out that we should just send all of our radioactive waste to the sun. Sending untold tons of mass, on an ongoing basis, on a trip to the sun greatly exceeds our present capabilities.

We are, for all practical intents and purposes, "stuck" on Earth with whatever is here, arrives here, or that we in our misguided efforts generate.

Earlier, limited geographic scope civilizations, even Rome, still only occupied a limited area of the globe. It was, if essential, possible to physically walk away from a collapsing society. We've created a high energy, intensely interdependent global society. When the collapse reaches some critical point, anyone and anything still dependent on the infrastructure at that time will most likely fall with the rest.


Fifth Law. An economic system becomes fragile when it comes to depend on external exchange over which it has little control. - Ekholm

Similar to the above "away" discussion, but limited to the financial aspect. Even if you have a reliable local food system, and can obtain your other essential life support locally, what happens to you if you have a need for a continued flow of funds, customers for your goods or services, who are not local? If you're in debt, and cut off from cash flow, is someone going to foreclose on your homestead?

Even when local food, water, housing, etc. have remained viable, with labor needed to keep life support processes properly going, history has shown that there have at the same time been vast amounts of idle labor. Examples would be when a national currency fails, whether from hyper-inflation, or extreme devaluation, such that it is no longer trusted as a medium of exchange. Those who do not personally know and trust each other, find themselves reluctant to enter into financial arrangements with a cloudy future, and local activity fails for want of a questionable larger scale economy.

Informal local barter programs are a start, but a local stable and accepted means of exchange can be a significant tool in reducing the local effect of a large sector economic downturn.

Sixth Law. "If an ethical foundation is lacking, a civilization collapses. Civilization exists in the effort to perfect humanity, and originates when a population is inspired to attain progress and to serve." Albert Schweitzer.

I need to trust you, and you to trust me, if we are going to co-exist without some third party that we both either trust, or that is imposing control, monitoring and ensuring our interactions.

Seventh Law. "In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations" - From the Great Law of the Iroquois Nation

Eighth Law. Isolate Human Activity. An ecology optimized for human habitation and life support is incompatible with a natural state

ecosystem. We need nature, nature does not need us.

Ninth Law. Protection of personal property rights is essential. People are more readily willing to present their surpluses for trade, if they are assured they are free to negotiate the trade, or not, without fear that the "authorities" will take their property.

If ownership is not protected, envision the lazy who decide they have the right to move in and take from the innovator and builder. Such a threat destroys incentive, and stagnates civilization at the least common denominator. Scientific and other discoveries and breakthroughs in history are, for the most part, individual achievements, with the "assistance" of a stable surrounding and supporting community. Protection of property rights is a primary purpose, if not THE purpose for governments to exist.

Tenth Law. Survival of the fittest, but not perhaps what you would first think. Early tools, stones and knives required physical strength, and hand to hand combat ability was essential to survival. The bow, a more refined tool, allowed for lesser strength but a distinct skills to provide distant neutralization of an adversary or animal. Our continued progression has made mind and precision more important than strength, in a feedback loop. The drive to overpopulate was early on another survival trait, as many died as children, or before they had their own children. Like other early "cave" aspects, given the now global coverage of humanity, the drive to populate is obsolete. The "gene" for prolific procreation is now a threat to the entire race.

Eleventh Law. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime” In an optimized society, essentially the input of everyone is necessary, with no "waste". Those who sit, and wait for others to provide for them, are a net drain on the resources of any community. Those who are shown how to provide for themselves free the time and resources of others to greater accomplishments.

Twelth Law. There is no quick fix. Deep-seated problems require more than a positive


mental attitude and collection of short-term success formulas.

Thirteenth Law. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Fourteenth Law. Law of the minimum. There are critical factors the limit living and non-living processes, regardless of the quantity of other factors present. As exampled in the earlier protein discussions, the protein balance of an egg is essentially ideal and able to be fully used by a

human body. Reduce or eliminate any one of the complimentary proteins, and in the case of eggs the rest of the egg is processed by the body as fuel, rather than tissue building proteins. On a macro scale, being in a remote warehouse full of dry food is of little value to you, if there is no water.

A challenge to you, what factor requires that global human civilization exceeds one educated and high-tech city of a million?


Sustainable Civilization: From the Grass Roots UpChapter IX - Global Civilization

An organized economy of free individuals can allow specialization, and allow the best utilization of local skills and resources, improving the overall quality of life, providing for research, education, and exploration. We may yet reach for the stars, but it may take the collective will and efforts of all of humanity.

History, and ancient architecture, show there have been many ancient civilizations, some of which may have explored the globe. They were however in relative isolation to the rest of the world.

When Egypt fell, it meant nothing to society in South America. We face a threat, and an opportunity not seen before, a global collapse, that may leave the Earth permanently scarred, or may leave the survivors with a world full of already processed materials ready to use.

Ancient China had oceangoing vessels, and could have explored (with their "advanced" science, potentially conquering) the world. The leadership decided instead to deter exploration, first outside the nation, then apparently internally, as China lost it's lead.

"The Earth is just too small and fragile a basket for the human race to keep all its eggs in."- Robert A. Heinlein

We must, eventually, leave this planet, or be capable of dealing with asteroids, and an aging sun. We must continue to develop, mature, and learn.

SUSTAINABLE CIVILIZATION

Our minimum goal must be a civilization capable of continued health and life support on Earth for the projected viable span of the planet, potentially billions of years. A single eco-city may be able to preserve a great deal of the benefits of our present technological society, and continue advancement. But without reasonable distribution and balance globally, one such

community would be faced with a myriad of levels of alternative gatherings, who would not necessarily have the global ecology in mind.

The characteristics of the whole cannot (even in theory) be deduced from the most complete knowledge of the components, taken separately or in partial combinations - Ernst Mayer, evolutionary biologist

We must preserve biodiversity. At the present, some estimates are that humanity, in one way or another appropriates for human use 50% of the productive biological life of the planet. We also continue to interfere with, and therefore significantly alter the natural environment globally.

Say the Earth has around 43 million square mile of ice free land area, which probably includes areas too cold for a community that does not have readily available fuel for heating.

In more temperate areas, there is probably around 37 million square mile.

THERE IS A STORM COMING

Factors beyond the control of any local or national government, or global society, place every person on Earth on the front-line of a global battlefield.Criminals… terrorists… anyone who feels justified to use force to subjugate others, prefer cowering weak victims.A question, does an individual have a “right” to self defense, or not? If no, then there are no individuals, just chattel of whomever is the current warlord. If yes, the individual must have the right to possess whatever their personal situation and mindset allows and requires to exercise self defense. A decision of no right to private arms sends a clear message to criminals and terrorists alike, the door is flung wide-open to them. Worse, it flings open the door for untold numbers of incidents of government officials cracking-down


on firearm owners, when the officials and citizens should be standing side-by-side in a united line of personal and national defense.ORA decision to uphold a clear right to private arms places the entire nation on the same foundation as those locations where state and local governments do not infringe an armed citizenry. Where are the hotbeds of criminal oppression of decent citizens? Where the same citizens are subjugated by their government. Government cannot protect citizens from crime, nor can it protect against terrorist acts. The government can though through oppression of citizens create an atmosphere conducive to criminal and terrorist activity of an increasing spiral.There is a storm coming… . Belief in or dedication to a particular ideology may alter individual perceptions, but not physical facts. The government is just a collection of citizens, with no more capability than the skills of the citizens serving. Every one of us is on the front-line. Along with the need to wake up and take personal responsibility for ourselves, we need our brothers and sisters within our government standing along side us, not enslaving us.

POPULATION EXTREMES

The potential human population, and technical level of civilization, depends in a great extent on the type of agriculture in primary use.

Humans at the extreme of hunter-gatherer level, while relatively low-impact, may have only an average of 1 person subsisted per square mile, for a total human population of 37 million. (5/100 % of the 2006 population.) 99.95% of the present population must die and never be replaced.

At the other extreme, where humans occupy the entire globe to the exclusion of all other species, and do so in the most compact "eco cities", then consider, if each city is 3025 sq. mile, the maximum sustainable human population is around 12 billion, to the extinction of essentially every other animal and non-human food species on the face of the planet.

RESTORING NATURE

If we as rational, thinking creatures limit ourselves to 10% of the productive area of the Earth, then the population range is 3.7 million to 1.2 billion, which at the UPPER limit would be 1,200 cities, averaged at 200 cities per continent. But this potential population is all capable of living at a similar advanced level.

SIX + BILLION IN PERSPECTIVE

Could the present six+ billion population be provided for in organized civilization, given known science? Using for reference earlier discussions on physical needs at the individual, neighborhood, town, and city level, even if we have an energy miracle, such as cold fusion, or IEC fusion, is six+ billion an optimum population, or even practical?

Assume we want to place a mega city to provide for the current population, what does it look like?

Alternative 1: The mega city averages 12" annual rainfall which is collected for use and has 1/4 acre of cropland per person. It covers around 18,150,000 square miles. This is about one half of the temperate area of the landmass of the Earth. It is an area 4,260 miles on a side of continuous moderate density city with farm bands and water collection between each gathering of one million. There is no continent on Earth that meets the criteria.

Alternative 2: The mega city gets it's fresh water for farming from somewhere other than collecting it within it's own "borders" (example piped in de-salted ocean water) and has 1/4 acre of cropland per person. It covers 3,750,000 square miles or almost 20% of the temperate landmass of the Earth. It is an area 1,936 miles on a side of continuous moderate density city with just farm bands between each gathering of one million. Given significant engineering, we might be able to fit such on the Earth, with modification of overall layout, in the process though killing virtually all natural life on a continent.

Alternative 3: The mega city averages 12" annual rainfall which is collected for use and


relies on biointensive crop production within each homestead or Homestead association gathering, and therefore does not need the farm beltway or crop water collection. It covers 1,350,000 square miles or around 4% of the temperate landmass of the Earth. It is an area 1,162 miles on a side of continuous moderate density city. This relies on continuous good crop production from a gardening system that requires constant attention, and perhaps, no “surprises”. Consider the effort to cover a continent with a single such city.

Alternative 4: The mega city gets it's fresh water from plentiful rainfall. It relies on biointensive crop production on the roof of structures. The entire city is effectively one structure, multi story. Only 10% of the total roof exposed to the sun is not in biointensive crops at mid-range biointensive. It covers 384,000 square miles or around 1% of the temperate landmass of the Earth. It is an area 620 miles on a side of continuous multi-level built structure. This “fits” in many places, but is really a high-tech, expensive, engineering intensive approach.

What we actually have is worse.

POPULATION AND LIVING CONDITIONS OPTIMIZED

Some continents could sustain more than 200 cities, some less. Restating, Earth has around 37 million square miles of land with temperate climate.

What percent of this do you believe should be dedicated to exclusive human use? 10%?

Dedicate 3.7 million square miles to human space.

Each city of a million has a footprint of 3,025 square miles.

This would represent a global human population of a little over 1 Billion. But every citizen would have the opportunity to grow adequate food, shelter, have access to the benefits of technology, etc.

But it requires personal responsibility.

VOLUNTARY GLOBAL INTERACTION

The personal computer and internet provides ordinary people knowledge and ability to communicate impossible to even a world leader only decades ago. The internet is a form of global anarchy (lack of government intervention) - inhabited by individuals. It has created its own rules and is self-policing, in example the various “wiki” projects, where anyone can register to make entries, with almost constant oversight, virtually none of which is paid or governmental.

The concepts presented in this treatise leads to a voluntary gathering in a human-scale city which meets the long term physical needs of the relevant local population, including the opportunity for education, investment and research for the future. If we can also maintain the infrastructure of the internet or something like it, the residents of such cities as maintain technology could continue to interact worldwide.

It is not uncommon for cities, even on opposite sides of the Earth, to adopt each other as "sister cities". Our technology, in particular the internet, allows such like minded and cooperating communities exchange of ideas “at the speed of light”.

WHAT IS THE GLOBAL NEED?

Once the day to day, as well as lifetime physical needs can once again be met by human scale interactions within a functioning human ecology (long-term sustainable self-reliant physical city), what, if any, is the need for any larger political unit?

What essential purpose does a political unit larger than a human-scale city serve? Prevention, mediation, or intervention in conflicts between / among cities is one, but is a state or nation as we have today required, or perhaps an agreed to arbitration panel of other cities?

In the early human civilization, we had city-states, perhaps the time has come to return to an organization system where the individual is important, has first-hand information and influence, and the ability to challenge officials directly.


Where individuals of like mind, indeed entire communities who are of like mind can meet online, why submit to potential or actual larger political oppression?

This author presents for consideration the question, what is the physical factor which mandates global civilization be more structured than an “anarchy” of autonomous and voluntarily cooperating cities?

We are past the paradigm where we can pretend to justify any community growing and reaching out to forcefully take under its control greater assets, or force the needs of its population on others. We are figuratively, if not quite yet physically, elbowing each other and treading on each other's toes.

There are of course challenges that could not be addressed by any one present day city. To present a hopefully extreme example, consider an approaching asteroid. No single city could financially or physically launch an intercept mission. While communication and cooperation network that can address such larger scale issues is still required, does it necessarily means someone must be constantly "in charge?"

A network is by definition nonhierachical. It is a web of connections among equals. What holds it together is not force, obligation, material incentive, or social contract, but rather shared values and the understanding that some tasks can be accomplished together that could never be accomplished separately- Beyond the Limits

BEWARE OPPRESSON

Regardless of what you want, or what the bulk of the other people want; regardless of what is best for you, or best for the bulk of the people, there are those who want to control what you do, what you know, what you think, for their own gain.

Beware government censorship in any manner, of any material. Beware government mandated education and educational content. Beware government influence on any aspect of broadcasting.

There are those in government and elsewhere who want to monopolize what you see, hear, and whom you can communicate with. The only

entity of course that can impose such a monopoly is a government, which stands with a gun to your head to enforce its monopoly. Politicians want to regulate such not only to limit you, but to tax your actions.

Yes, there are those who publish trash, or hateful propaganda. This is nothing new in history. But overall the trash is drowned-out by the growing “voices” of simple truth and use of freedom for personal and practical accomplishments.

As the social-progressives stack greater burdens on you, to bribe the support of their minions. What if Ayn Rand in her book Atlas Shrugged was right, not just for the ultra-wealthy and powerful, but for the common self-reliant person. Where and when the politicians act outside the appropriate scope of government (justified use of the threat of deadly force), what happens when you actually comply with their mandates, and the clear goal of their mandates.

What if you do what you are told to do, and nothing more? What if you do what you are rewarded to do, and nothing more? What if you STOP doing everything you are penalized for doing?

If they penalize you for earning money, then stop. Shift your efforts to self-sufficiency. High property taxes for an outwardly nice home? Look as simple as possible.

Perform such actions as are essential to you, but nothing else. The political and bureaucratic systems ARE DEPENDENT ON YOU. They want to penalize you for thinking, and achieving success, so don’t.

WHY DISENFRANCHISE NATIONS

As of the beginning of the new millennium, the USA is generally seen as the world’s last super power, and the world’s national policeman. There are nations arguably with greater industrial output (and pollution) such as China. There are nations functioning under belief systems that only “they” are right, and everyone, internal to their nation and external, must submit of be slaughtered. But in an analysis the capabilities of all are utterly dependent on fossil fuels. What sustainability aspect do nations and gatherings of such (i.e. the United Nations) provide which


enhances the long-term sustainability of humanity?

Not everyone wants to live in the identical conditions. In nation-states we see the will of the political favorites imposed on all, with the costs in the end bore by those out of favor with the politicians. Are there any overriding reasons why the current arbitrary political divisions should continue to be granted validity?

Consider a goal of a human civilization which minimizes our impact on the “natural” aspects remaining on the globe. A civilization where the population is long-term stable based on the resources available in the “human” area of the ecology. A civilization that is limited to a population just large enough to maintain a fully functioning and developing community within each human enclave, while MAXIMIZING the resources available per person at each location and overall.

Loyalty to a nation is essentially loyalty to the “tribe” into which you were born. Now though outside your day to day physical needs, others with the same philosophical interests may be on the opposite side of the planet. INDIVIDUALS can use the internet to create or join a specific community of interest rather than be restricted by physical proximity. They are though for now still “stuck” with larger scale government edict controlling or prohibiting physical communities of like interest.

Throughout history, people have been asked, or forced to sacrifice their personal goals, interests or lives for the greater good of a larger community not of their choosing. The internet allows voluntary communities of interest, while maintaining physical life-support wherever one may be. Why can we not have cities where those of like mind can gather and prosper, or fail as their beliefs allow?

The single largest justification for the nation-state, and its taxation, is defense against other nation-states. Unfortunately THIS requirement remains valid for so long as any one “other” nation-state, or something essentially equal exists, or there is anyone in the world who would use such accumulated power and resources to impose their will on others.

Politicians (secular and religious) want broken families, complex easily broken laws, taxpayers as employees vs small business owners, etc. to help keep dependency on the state, and hide the true nature and level of taxes (imposed by law or guilt).

This author presents that the need for a concept of a nation-state, imposing the will of others on such minorities are who cannot sufficiently gain the attention of politicians, could be over.

POWERING DOWN NATIONS

The first level working down from globalization, and up from the individual where long-term sustainability of not only the individual, but civilization “intersects”, is at the level of the city. Absent an energy miracle, or someone squandering a great deal of resources, and lives, to impose for some time THEIR view, a productive anarchy of city-states appears to be humanities “best” future.

T.A.N.S.T.A.A.F.L – There aint’ no such thing as a free lunch.- Robert Heinlein

Minimize Taxes. A population that is primarily “employed” (as opposed to self-employed) can have a variety of taxes hidden “below the radar screen” by having the funds taken by the employer before the worker ever sees them. A person in business earns and receives the money, and must write a check to pay the taxes. Despite the financial effects being exactly the same, there is a large psychological difference in having to look at money already in your pocket, and send it as taxes, and money you never saw.

Programs which benefit selected individuals, or even large portions of the population, when imposed and funded by the nation-state can due to the hidden nature of taxes have the appearance being “free”, while in fact the local community is funding some program that is could, if it wished, provide locally WITHOUT the loss of some percentage of the money for the program being siphoned away for bureaucrats in the national system.

Communities must demand and enforce elimination of costs of government imposed from “senior” functions, and of course waive funding for such from “on high”. The carrot


dangling in front of your nose is not “free”, it is there to entice you to haul a load for your master, and worse yet, you grew the carrot in the first place.

"Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy” - Ayn Rand, from The Fountainhead.

Privacy. The internet, our phone system, etc. is essentially as much an “open book” as writing your personal thoughts on a postcard, or transmitting them over radio waves. Even your movements within your home can be watched from outside via devices that watch you in non-visual frequencies of “light”.

Currency. Although humans have come to accept money being issued by the “sovereign” - whether the king or the modern state, as has been shown earlier ANYONE can create money. Money is either a physical good of value that substitutes for direct barter, or a receipt for such barter material promised to be delivered on demand (think even airmiles). The worst

represented as money is the “fiat” (ordered) currency of virtually every nation today, where the money represents NOTHING except a number. (If you will endulge, a joke, printing money is a way of turning useful paper into an uncertain ….

Nations give us created fiat money – a mandatory medium of exchange with no inherent value – and a mountain of debt created by spendthrift politicians who have bought votes with money either created, inflated or stolen from the hapless productive citizens.

Although governments have created the currency used as cash, they hate “cash” as it does not leave an accounting trail that can readily be taxed. Politicians are eager for the arrival of the cashless society, in order to wipe out private cash transactions, and tax everything.

There are those just as enthusiastic about eliminating our excess and oppressive government.


Sustainable Civilization: From the Grass Roots UpChapter X - The Future

The first person to achieve a heat of 1,750 degrees Celsius was the 18th century French scientist Antoine Lavoisier, who achieved it with sunlight focused thru hollow glass lenses filled with wine (hiccup!) Not much later, the French socialist revolutionaries lopped off his head, having in their opinion no need for scientists.

TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT

No man is an island, genius of today stands on the shoulders of those who have gone before. Genius functions best when relieved of encumbrances of normal day-to-day life that can be handled by the ordinary man. But the ordinary man cannot fill-in for genius.

Professor Seth Lloyd, of MIT, presents in his book Programming the Universe the premise that the entire universe is a quantum computer, that the atoms that comprise the stars, and our bodies, are not so much physical objects as they are bits of interactive information. If we learn how to "hack" the programming, we may be able to create, or do... Anything?

The idea that the universe we perceive, is NOT made of the solid objects we perceive, is not a new, or far fetched concept. There are teachings in ancient philosophy and religion that things are not really solid, a belief “verified” by scientific determinations that atoms are mostly empty space. Delving deeper, we find that the “particles” dividing that empty space are themselves potentially just standing waves of energy. Quantum physics appears to tell us that at the well below the atom level, “things” appear and disappear all the time.

In 1900, Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck calculated a minimum amount of energy, and laid the groundwork for quantum mechanics. There are calculated minimums units for energy, distance, even time, which fit with experiments

and observations to date. The minimum energy level is very tiny:

6.62565 x 10-34 watt

If every photon of electromagnetic energy (light) has the same energy (infrared to xray), why the difference? The physical difference is the length of the photon, which determines what other wavelengths it readily interacts (resonates) with, and the wavelength also determines how many “hits” an ongoing “beam” of energy imparts every second (or shorter time period). For wavelength, think a quick punch, vs a drawn out slow push, each with the same energy, and add to it if the energy is in an ongoing beam, the quick punches follow each other in rapid succession, while the slow pushes follow each other over the longer time of the push. The same energy per photon is imparted, but in the short wavelength the area impacted does not have time to cycle and re-emit the energy before it is hit again.

Traditional science tells us that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. It was astronomy which provided the first clues that light had some limited speed, as planets did not appear to be in the right positions, or moving as expected, based on known "laws" of gravity, physics, etc. When a reasonably accurate speed for light to reach us from such objects is accounted for, the motions come out right. But doesn't that mean that the planets orbits are calculated as though the forces acting on them are instantaneous? In our solar system, everything is in motion relative to something else. Even the sun is in motion. But while the light from the sun may take around 8 minutes to reach the Earth, our orbit around the sun is NOT centered on where the sun was 8 minutes ago. We orbit where the sun IS at the moment the calculation is made.


What's the significance? I've read that any delay in the propagation speed of gravity, in a moving system would cause unstable orbits. Somehow the masses of the Earth and the sun, objects millions of miles apart, are interacting as though there was either no distance, or that gravity effects travel far faster than anything we can measure.

Physics continues to be a contradictory subject. How can electrons "do" what we use them for, if they are what we believe them to be? If atoms and the electrons in "orbit" are as small and fast moving as we are told, how is it that light is reflected or absorbed?

How do mirrors, or other reflections, work? Light is an electromagnetic wave. When the energy strikes an electron, IT DOES NOT REFLECT as we think of such. The energy of the electron is increased, and re-radiated. If the "reflecting" object is rough, the "reflected" light is scattered. If smooth, the light is re-emitted in a particular direction. How?

A wave of visible light is something like 5,000 times as "long", as an atom is "wide", and moving at, well, the speed of light. Why doesn't it "miss" all atoms?

How does a tiny, thin wire antenna pick up a radio signal? There are theories, and factual methods, to electronically (what really IS electronics?) make an antenna appear to incoming signals to be MUCH larger that it physically is.

Within a chunk of copper at room temperature there are extensive loose electrons, moving randomly over short distances, but at an average velocity of 106 meters per sec. In one cubic centimeter38 of such copper in electrical terms the power driving this motion is 4 billion billion watts.

What about claims from Tesla, Morray, etc, of the ability of their small devices to receive a great deal of power?

TIME

Science, including reports of high-tech particle accelerators, tell us that the faster something

goes, time slows down, and the object gains mass. Supposedly, at the speed of light, time stops, and an object becomes of infinite mass.

The time slowing has been shown by experiments. As particles go zipping around, it also seems to take more energy to push them faster, or make them change direction, which we are told is because they are heavier. But, since we've already pushed tiny things up to nearly the speed of light, if the theory of gaining mass was right, they should have weighed enough to strain the mountings of the devices. Could it be that the pushing / turning problem is one of time?

If time is moving slower on the fast particle, then when we push hard for "X" seconds, to the particle, it was only pushed for some brief instant, not enough to have any effect. The energy went into changing the particle's time rate even further?

If atomic and smaller particles right next to each other can experience time at a different rate, than what we experience as the passage of time must be an average of the input to our body.

ELECTROSTATICS

Electrostatic force holds the electrons of atoms "in orbit". "Sharing" of electrons, via this force, allows atoms to gather into molecules, and the arrangement of atoms determines the properties of the molecule. Matter, everything from the stars to the DNA and other materials of our bodies are made up of molecules that use these electrostatic based properties to allow life. The atoms are themselves mostly empty space and moving electric charges, with the electrons and protons themselves perhaps being only


electrically38 charged waves. Iron, element 26, has the maximum electrostatic binding force.

Power Generation - Electrostatic force can drive particles to fusion. In late 2006, Dr. Robert W. Bussard, formerlly of the Atomic Energy Commission, announced online that his modest company had achieved controlled, sustained fusion, by the use of electrostatic fields, in a device that is simple, compared to the fusion experiments using magnetic "bottles".

Dr. Bussard points out that the concept is not only relatively simple, it is not new. He refers to a paper on the topic published in 1924.

- Could the hydrogen nucleus, stripped of electrons, be pressed together tight enough by a conventional explosive to fuse?

38 A conductor is a material that readily allows electricity to flow along it, typically the metals, gold, silver, copper, aluminum. That said general science and technology (2006) show we can utilize electricity, but we do not clearly know what it "is". Electricity is the flow of electrical force, NOT necessarily movement of electrons. Electrons do move, but an electron does not race along the powerline from the generator, to your home, and back to the generator 60 times per second. An insulator is a material that generally (but not absolutely) does not allow electricity to flow along it, such as glass, plastic, rubber. A circuit is a complete path for electricity to flow and return (except of course for broadcast power) to the generating source. Voltage is considered as a measure of the electromotive force, an analogy is water pressure in a hose. Current is a measure of the amount of electricity flowing in a circuit, an analogy is the water volume flowing in a hose.

He proposes an approach where the fusion process generates NO NEUTRONS or radiation, it does generate electrons and protons, that might be captured and converted in a shell to electricity at potential efficiency of 98%.

Levitation. Like charges repel. There are numerous claims that appropriately configured plates, charged to high enough electrostatic voltage, will lift from the earth and hover.

Atomic hydrogen torch. There are numerous claims that if hydrogen is passed thru a spark gap, then burned, it burns a great deal hotter than hydrogen so treated, well beyond any energy that could have been added by the electricity. Could this be tied to what Dr. Bussard presents, that stripped of their electron, and in the midst of chemically exploding hydrogen, the bare hydrogen nuclei are forced together to the point of fusion?

The formulas of James C Maxwell appear to indicate a relationship of electromagnetic and electrostatic force which seems ignored by current science.

NEW MATERIALS

New materials, such as further advances in carbon fiber, might allow us to construct a "space elevator". The ability to put people and materials in orbit, with the expense and waste of current rockets, could permit resource exploration of the solar system.

University of Maryland Professor Igor I. Smolyaninov and his colleagues are reported39 to have "altered" light from a three-dimensional wave, to a two-dimensional one that can essentially adhere to the surface of an object. A use for the discovery is the ability to see details that are smaller than the wavelength of the illuminating light. Several other facilities are experimenting with the concept, including Duke

38 THE FINAL SECRET OF FREE ENERGY, Tom Beardon. Mr. Beardon holds patent #6,362,718 on a “Motionless Electromagnetic Generator” he seems to indicate concentrates electrical energy much as a heat pump concentrates ambient environmental heat.

39 Scientific American, December 2006


University which in October 2006 demonstrated an "invisibility cloak".

The concept is reported as having the potential for an entire new "spectrum" of devices which use light instead of electricity to perform functions, perhaps new ones that have heretofore been "science fiction" (or perhaps Harry Potter's invisibility cloak).

MEDICAL ADVANCES

Stem cell research40 offers the promise of new treatments for disease, injury, and perhaps even old-age.

PERSPECTIVE

In the early trans-Atlantic cable, attempts to push high pulsed power thru the cable resulted in high induced currents, heating, and eventually melting of the insulation. Follow on signal attempts used a thimble of water, a single drop of sulfuric acid, and two different metals as the battery, and successfully sent trans-Atlantic morse signals.

37 See Lester Brown's book, Plan B 2.0. The entire book is available online, free to read, at: http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/PB2/Contents.htm

40 Scientific American, December 2006


sustainable civilization: from the grass roots up

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