Living in Our New World Part 9: To do Right

We're stuck. And let's face it, right now, stuck is not a good place to be. It's not good for us, not good for our family and community, for those who are poorer and less powerful, or for the other species who are trying to live on this planet with us. There's nothing above us on our ladder of technological progress, so we can't go any higher. And so far, most of us don't consider going down an option. So we're stuck, unable to go up and refusing to go down.

But we are about to become unstuck. Even as we tighten our grasp on our ladder rung, the force of what is happening is rattling that ladder and eating away the rungs that we are so desperately clinging to. We're already seeing some people fall off as their homes are lost to foreclosure or hurricanes or tsunamis, or because we want others' food to run our cars. As increasing numbers of people fall off, they take still others with them. At some point, large numbers are gone. Unstuck.

Fortunately, there is still time to unstick ourselves if we act quickly enough. We don't have to wait for the forces of change to push us. Only time will tell exactly what each of us will give up. But let's face it, a lot of what we have right now isn't making us happy anyhow. We've consumed our way through so much of our finite resources that we're at the peak of oil and natural gas, and approaching peak coal and other resources. We're exploiting our planet more than ever before in history and hitting historic highs in resource depletion, soil degradation, air and water pollution, and pushing the boundaries of climate change.

We've used up much of the world's natural resources. Fortunately, we still have our inner resources. As Richard Heinberg, a peak oil writer, has said there are "some good things that are not at or near their historic highs...":

• Community
• Personal autonomy
• Satisfaction for honest work well done
• Intergenerational solidarity
• Cooperation
• Leisure time
• Happiness
• Integrity (Peak Everything, pg.14)

Adding spirituality and personal growth to this list, we'll see that among the losses, often of things that aren't making us happy anyhow, there will be much to gain.  Somehow, we became distracted by all of our technological helpers. Most of us didn't realize they were actually lowering our quality of life and anesthetizing our spiritual selves.

When times are extremely difficult, we have to struggle just to survive. When things are going well, we become lulled into complacency. It’s the conditions in between that seem to bring out the best in us. We seem to need a challenge, an urgent challenge, to get our attention and wake us up. We have that challenge today. And opportunity. For life as we know it is about to change dramatically.

We are poised to descend the technological ladder, but integrity, satisfaction for meaningful work well done, community building, family solidarity—and spiritual growth—can still be ours. They do not depend on oil or other natural resources. They are a product not of what we dig out of the earth but of how we choose to live our lives.

It is time to realize that we have conducted a massive experiment in complicating our lives, not improving their quality. And the experiment is failing. It produced some wonderful things, like medical care, public schooling, museums, and worldwide access to information. But the cost is proving too high as even these accomplishments are now in peril.

How much we can carry down the ladder with us we do not know. So we need to choose wisely what we try to retain. As a wise woman I know has said, if we live as though there is no tomorrow, there will be no tomorrow.

Hopefully, we will be able to descend our ladder with grace and honor. It will not be easy. But it is the right thing to do.

Living in Our New World Part 8: Making Preparations

Okay, I know I promised this series would only be a week long. I had every intention of writing six entries and then being off for one day. I’ve been trying to write this series for several months, but couldn’t get started. Now that I’m started, I can’t stop! My apologies to those readers who I assured it would be safe to return in a week if they chose not to read the series. It’s not safe yet, but will be the day after tomorrow. 

Six days increased to seven, seven to eight, eight to nine. In the process, we lost our modem (as in RIP) in Nanango and then Word crashed and ate my blog entry. Just like our dog when I was in school. Word Recovery came up and said, sorry, it didn’t work. I admit I got so frustrated, I threw my washcloth at the wall. It barely reached the wall, and I carefully chose one that had no one on the other side so I wouldn’t bother anyone so I guess I wasn’t really all that upset. A small example of how practicing Buddhism helps us improve in our conduct.;-))

In yesterdays entry, I wrote about how we can prepare mentally for our new normal. Today, I’d like to write about preparing physically. Physical preparation helps us progress through the process of adjusting to the changes in our future. Even changes that are chosen are very often unsettling or frightening. And I don't know anyone who voluntarily signed up for peak oil, climate change, and financial crises. But we can choose how to react to this situation. And doing something positive is a powerful antidote. An angry person going out to chop firewood is an excellent example. Doing something positive will give us a feeling of some degree of control as it dissipates the negative emotions.

So even though we cannot change the reality of what has happened with climate change, peak oil, water pollution, resource depletion, soil degradation, and so on, we can—and must—move past the overwhelming feeling of being a helpless victim and learn from our guilt over having done so much harm. Each skill we learn, every article we carefully consider and choose, every pound or litre of natural resources we learn to conserve, every piece of knowledge we share with others will add to our sense of confidence and of accomplishment.

And the wonderful benefit will be that we begin to do less harm. We will stop taking from others because they are poor and we are powerful. As citizens of countries that talk about the principles of justice and equality, we will act individually with integrity and justly. We will begin to use our fair share and no more.

Where to start? By being mindful. By being honest with yourself. By looking around and seeing how dependent you are on imported food, easy credit, petroleum, natural gas, and coal. And figuring out how you’ll live without them if you can no longer afford or obtain them.

Then look down our timeline to the past. How did people live a hundred or so years ago?  What did they do without all the conveniences we have? Well for one thing, they grew and stored their own food. So you can start a garden and begin buying extra food and supplies. In World War II, victory gardens provided the food that kept many families alive. Start replacing your lawns with vegetables and fruit and nut trees. Check out Path to Freedom to see what can be accomplished on a city lot that is just one-fifth of an acre.  

Also start buying food from local farmers. The food you get at local co-ops and farmers markets is real food, not the artificial stuff you get in the supermarket. You can look the farmer in the eye and ask if she uses chemicals and pesticides. Locally grown food is grown for taste and nutrition not for packing convenience and good looks. It isn’t picked weeks before it’s ripe and shipped a few thousand miles to get to your supermarket. And it tastes so much better! And in the new normal, when the supermarket doesn’t have food because diesel fuel is too expensive or a storm knocked out their electricity or the main bridge into town collapsed because it wasn’t maintained, you’ll know where to get healthy, delicious food for your family and your elderly neighbor.

You’ll be eating foods in season, just like nature intended. I realize this means you won’t be eating whatever you like whenever you want. But that’s the good part! Really. You’ll appreciate those spring asparagus a lot more when you anticipate their arrival at your farmers market and then, one day, there they are! Just picked the day before and delicious. Do I need to mention that they’re much healthier so your medical costs will eventually be lower eating real food and no chemicals?  

Also, learn to cook. And no, putting a pizza in the microwave is not cooking. ;-) Learn to cook from scratch because in the new normal, people will be relying on their own gardens and local markets for much of their food. Learn to use a solar oven or a rocket stove or an outdoor oven because electricity will cost much more in the future and there will be more frequent brownouts.

Learn to dry and can what you grow and buy at the farmers market. Learn to make yogurt and cheese, and to bake bread. Without a yogurt maker or a bread maker. Use your solar oven or a haybox cooker instead. Start collecting manual kitchen tools, like a grain grinder, so you can store wheat berries, not flour, and still have bread when the electricity goes out or the supermarket doesn't have any more bread. Or flour. Also start getting manual tools for your garden and around the house.And a solar battery charger.

What else did our prepared, self-reliant grandparent and great-grandparents do? They stored food. They built houses with large walk-in pantries, root cellars, and basements. They understood that there would be floods, droughts, ice storms, and hurricanes, and that people could be unemployed, and they prepared for them.

I mentioned earlier in the series that FEMA and the American Red Cross suggest we have two weeks worth of food and water on hand for emergencies. The two agencies are thinking flood, hurricane, and so on. But there are other emergencies when a good supply of food, water, and basic necessities would be very helpful: loss of one’s job, loss of a relative’s home due to foreclosure, an illness.

What should you store? For one week, list everything you eat. Also listing other things you always use is a good idea as well. Then start stocking up by buying extra when you go to the store and even more when you see the items on sale. If you can, buy in bulk as it's cheaper. Food prices are increasing far more than inflation or the interest your bank is paying. Try to buy locally, but if that’s not an option, order from a bulk food supplier and ask others if they want to join in on your order.

For an excellent guide to food storage see Prudent Food Storage. As you begin to store longer shelf items like wheat, rice, beans, and so on, start eating out of your storage. This way you'll adapt to the new foods gradually while you keep rotating what you have. Also, as you try to learn how to cook with less familiar foods, you will make mistakes. It's far less stressful to make them when you can say "Oops" and order a pizza.

Also begin storing water. You can live longer without food than you can without water so be sure you’re storing water also. You can also put in a water catchment system. Here in Queensland, Australia, it’s now the law that any new home installs two large rainwater tanks. Away from cities, that’s all people have. It’s a wonderful system.

What else? Get out of debt if at all possible and don’t go back in! Also have some cash, small bills, on hand. In the past week, I heard of a woman in my food storage group who went to cash her paycheck and was refused. Most likely, her employer had been caught in the credit crunch. And if the electricity is out because of a storm, the checkout computers at the supermarket will also be out. Cash may be all that works. But you don’t want to be trying to buying some bread and milk with a hundred dollar bill. (Also remember the electricity is out so you don’t want to be buying things that need refrigeration. Like milk.)

So reduce your debt as much as you can. This is not just a US problem. Virtually every country holds US dollars and many hold debt instruments (like sub-prime mortgage packages) and investments. As the Buddha said, everything is interconnected. With globalization we're now interconnected financially as well. 

What else? If you can, add insulation to your house;  look at supplementary heating and cooking systems so if one goes out, you have a backup; learn how to darn, knit, or sew; think of what skills will become more important as things peak oil and resources hit our pocketbooks harder; put your vacation money, any other other money you can spare, into fixing up your house and then take your vacation at home; start growing medicinal herbs in your garden; if you have children start buying books for when they get older and clothing in larger sizes; get health care checkups and dental work done now, especially if you have insurance; start storing other items you know you'll always need (and don't forget the chocolate ;-)); and with everything "use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without." 

Talk to your children about what you're doing and how they can help. And help them to understand what happened and what the new normal might look like. Actually, your children may be more on top of this than you!

Some more excellent resources include Post Peak Living UnCrash Course and Abundance and Depletion by Sharon Astyk. You'll find Astyk's book along with some others here. For the television lovers among you, you can access a wealth of information at Peak Moments TV.  

We have lots to do to get ready. At times, we will be overwhelmed. Other times, we will feel a sense of accomplishment. But every time we conserve resources, move towards a more sustainable way of living, and help others prepare, we are doing what we know in our hearts to be right.

(Tomorrow: Living in Our New World Part 9: Conclusion)

Living in Our New World Part 7: Becoming a Fairy Godmother

How do we become that fairy godmother of Sleeping Beauty fame? How do we soften the curse from having left things undone? In other words, how do we transition to the new normal?

First, we need to understand how we brought this "curse" on ourselves. We did so by not asking the right questions and by ignoring the warnings. We have plundered our planet's bounty of finite gifts. We need to learn how we did that and how we can stop. Realizing the seriousness of our situation and getting over our shock and sense of loss, we can then choose to become a participant in creating our new normal, instead of feeling like a helpless victim.

We can ask ourselves how we can begin to climb down our dangerous ladder and how far down we need to go. And what will it look like down there? What positive changes can I make on my descent? How do I foresee my life in the new normal?

What is at the upper rings of the ladder? More than most people usually think about: driving to the supermarket whenever you wish, flying across the country to visit your grandchildren, receiving medical care, setting the thermostat to a nice warm temperature in the winter or to cooling air-conditioning in the summer, washing and drying clothes in machines, driving your own car to work or taking a bus or train, eating foods from around the world whenever you like, setting your house ablaze with electric light, turning on the tap and having cold or hot running water whenever desired, taking out the garbage for someone else to dispose of, stopping for take-out on the way home or going to a restaurant where you are waited on by a smiling wait-person. The internet, iPods, cell phones, plasma TVs, vacations, electronic games, movies delivered to your door, microwave ovens, well-stocked stores, prolific gas stations, Amazon.com and UPS. All of that is at the top.

Clearly, it will look very, very, very different on the lower rungs.

What happens as we begin our long descent down the ladder? We lose our privacy and perceived independence, our dreams and conveniences, our expectations that life will just keep getting better and that technology will solve all our problems. We encounter change, a great deal of change. And change is something we don’t like to have thrust upon us. Also, we will become fearful for we will have no idea exactly how far down we will have to go. Gradually, most of the things we took for granted will cease.

But with all our loss of conveniences and possessions and all that we are used to, we can also gain. What could we possibly gain? The chance to stop the harm we are doing, and to do what is right. The chance to end isolation and loneliness, and to, instead, create a stronger sense of family and community. The chance to learn how to work in a way that we make something of lasting value instead of producing toys to numb the mind or excite the senses.

How do we prepare for our descent? Mentally, physically, and spiritually.

Mental preparation is what I have been writing about. We have created the terrible problems we now face. With our craving for more possessions and experiences, with our inability to control our anger in all its forms, our ignorance of what is truly important, our arrogance in placing our own interests above those of others, and our pride in our accomplishments and technology, we have been living in a manner that cannot be sustained and has only been possible because we are more powerful than others and we got here first.

From a Buddhist perspective, our greed, anger, ignorance, arrogance, and pride of countless lifetimes lead us to being born at this point in time as a human on this planet. We’re here because of our past karmas: mental, verbal, and physical. Our craving, angry ignorant, arrogant, and proud thoughts, speech, and behavior are seeds. Now those seeds have matured and we’re here at the top of the ladder looking all the way down. Like children, we want to blame others for getting us here and for not rescuing us. But the reality is that there’s no one else to blame. We’re responsible for our actions and their consequences. No one else.

From a non-Buddhist (non-karma, non-rebirth) perspective, our greed, anger, ignorance, arrogance, and pride have resulted in our placing our own interests above those of others. When you get the most powerful countries in the world with a lion’s share of earth’s finite resources doing this, the consequences become apparent. First, natural resources become increasingly difficult and expensive to procure. And then, with alarming speed, they are either depleted or so contaminated they are as good as depleted.

So there’s no one to blame. We did it. You and I.

The question becomes what do we do now.

We take a deep, and quivering, breath and start our descent. We face our grief and deal with it. We can use Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’s grief cycle to help us recognize and work through what we'll be feeling:

• Shock stage: Initial paralysis at hearing the bad news.
  
• Denial stage: Trying to avoid the inevitable.
• Anger stage: Frustrated outpouring of bottled-up emotion.
• Bargaining stage: Seeking in vain for a way out.
• Depression stage: Final realization of the inevitable.
• Testing stage: Seeking realistic solutions.
• Acceptance stage: Finally finding the way forward.
  

Yes, Kübler-Ross was talking about the terminal illness of one person while I'm talking about a planet and every being, plant, and mineral on it. But the process is the same.

To move on from our precarious perch to the new normal, we need to understand how we got here and what we're facing, work through stages of loss, and find the way to move forward.

(Tomorrow: Living in Our New World Part 8: Making Preparations)

Living in Our New World Part 6: Back Down the Ladder

When my mother spoke to me about having lived through the Great Depression, she'd always say that her family had been okay. They didn't have a lot, but they had what they needed. Their not having a lot hadn't been a problem because everyone was in the same position. Many people who lived through the Depression said the same thing. Times were extraordinarily difficult, but the difficulty was experienced by almost everyone and thus became "normal."

In the developed countries, we have climbed up the ladder of prosperity over the past six decades. We've now reached the top of that ladder. Most people do not yet see there's no more rungs above us because they're so engrossed in planning their next upward move. But as a society, there's no more going up. We’re running out of cheap oil, readily-available natural gas, good soil, clean air and water, and so on, to build any more rungs or to even maintain the ones we have. The rungs are starting to fall apart. And as more and more people try to clamber up, the ladder is beginning to perilously shake and sway.

A possible scenario for reaction? We at the top can hold on to what we have while pushing those ascending back down, and those lower down can keep trying to clamber up. By doing so, the ladder will continue to sway more and more dangerously until it finally crashes to the ground, crushing millions, billions, of people in the process.

Alternatively, those at the top, realizing their precarious situation, can carefully—but as quickly as possible—start to climb down the ladder while injuring as few people as possible in the process. Our descent will be extraordinarily difficult. For one thing, people like their higher rungs on the ladder. Those rungs are comfortable and familiar. Second, while climbing down, we'll be moving in the opposite direction of all those surging up. They won't like being told that the rungs at the top are no longer safe, or even attainable. They won't like hearing that we used up their share, not just ours. Third, the higher we are on that ladder, the lower we will have to go until it becomes safe for everyone.

Perhaps it will help to remember that there are others we care about on the ladder: our children and grandchildren, spouses, family members, friends, and neighbors. Holding on and refusing to move down will doom possibly two-thirds of them. Maybe more. Yes. Holding on and refusing to move will result in the death of possibly 60-80% of humanity: all six and a half billion of us.

Hearing all this we will grieve: for the loss of what we had, for the harm we have done, for future dreams that will never come into being, for all those who are yet to come.

We can get lost in the fear and grief. We can deny the reality. We can go out and spend like there’s no tomorrow or climb back into bed and never leave again or pretend that the world situation is just a blip in the timeline and that soon everything will return to normal.

Or we can ask the logical questions:

What do those lower rungs look like?

And what do I need to do to become a fairy godmother?

(Tomorrow: Living in Our New World Part 7: Becoming a Fairy Godmother)

Living in Our New World Part 5: Food

There's two kinds of food in the world today: real and artificial.

Real food is what our grandparents and great-grandparents ate. It was what I grew up on in New York in the 1950s and early 1960s. Just down the road from us was a farm owned by an elderly Polish couple. One day one of their cows died. My father heard about it and drove his tractor over, dug a deep hole, and buried the cow. It would have taken a long time to dig the hole with a shovel. After that, we would often open the front door to find a basket of fresh produce on our porch. (They also made dandelion wine--the only alcoholic drink my father ever drank. But that's another story.:-)) My mother canned every summer and we enjoyed the results of her work often in the winter. Mom cooked simple food. Real food.

But times changed. Women started working outside the home in larger numbers in the 1970s. There was more disposable income and less time to cook. Convenience foods became the response to "What's for dinner?" With the addition of chemical preservatives and the inclusion of whatever was left over from the production of other foods, we moved from real food to artificial food. Try to understand, or even pronounce, what's on the ingredients panel on that box of breakfast cereal or that microwave dinner and you'll see what I mean.  

In the US, Australia, and Canada, where about 70% of my readers come from, we see a lot of artificial food. Even the meat that people eat is largely artificial. Cows, designed to eat grass, are now fed corn because it's cheaper and easier. Factory-raised farm animals are injected with chemicals and antibiotics to increase corporate profits. Most people eating meat and fish have no idea what is in their food. Suffice it to say it's not "real."

Or read the headlines. We're seeing more and more foods banned from import or being recalled due to contamination scares. From spinach to beef to milk, there are serious problems with our monoculture farms, factory farms, and processing plants.

Then there are all the attendant problems of getting our food to us. Our fruit and vegetables are raised to look good rather than taste good, picked before they're ripe, shipped a few thousand miles, wrapped in plastic, and plunked down on the store shelves under artificial lighting designed to make them look good.

We're already seeing the risk of this corporate-based farm system as even in the U.S., there have been food shortages this year. Try googling "wheat rice shortage." Then add "Costco" and you'll see what I mean.

The answer?

Raise your own, buy local, swap with neighbors, shop at farmer's markets, join a CSA. Get to know the people who grow your food. And the closer to home your food is grown or raised, the better it will taste, the less it will harm the environment, and the healthier it will be for you and your family. The food scandals we've been hearing about are because everything was done behind closed doors. When you isolate yourself from the people who eat what you produce, it’s easy to think only of your own personal gain. Another indication of the sad state our food industry is in? When you visit a factory farm for chickens or cows and have to put on a hazmat suit (garment worn as protection from hazardous materials or substances) you know they're not producing healthy food.

As we transition into our new normal way of living, food will be one of our primary concerns. We have to change the way we think of it. Most homes in the U.S., Australia, and Canada have about three days worth of food on hand. The supermarkets also stock about three days worth of food. In the U.S., both FEMA and the Red Cross are urging people to have two weeks of food and water on hand. FEMA expects people to be self-sufficient in an emergency. So consider that for those first two weeks, you and your neighbors are on your own, and plan accordingly.

After Ike hit Galveston and Houston, there were reports of American Red Cross workers not eating all day. Food was so scarce that volunteers didn't want to eat in front of the people who were desperately in need of food. So the volunteers didn't eat. Many local families could only get one meal a day. In the few weeks after the hurricanes, in the southeastern U.S. there were long lines at gas stations as supplies were severely restricted.

We've gotten used to getting what we want, when we want it. In the "new normal," this will no longer be possible. We're going to need to do some planning. Like our grandparents and great-grandparents did.

(Tomorrow: Living in Our World Part 6: Back Down the Ladder)