Sustainable Community Living

Most folks who have formed communities are great humanitarians and have the utmost love and trust for humanity. Many head organizations that they hope will help bring about the consciousness of the human race.  These things are admirable and will be a skill greatly needed in the times to come.  However, you may encounter a hungry bear in the woods and smile at it sending it your heart energy hoping that it will go along it’s path.  However, if you know the bear then you must also be willing to sacrifice yourself to it. If you are not willing to defend yourself this bear will eat you for his existence.  My point is there will be thousands of people who will pour out of urban areas in search of basic survival needs.  These people will be desperate and hungry in a way most of our friends in this group have never encountered.  Since, most of these “communities” were built in spare time or vacations spots they will lack not only the necessary infrastructure to support small groups of people, but will not have any defense against such hungry hordes.  These hordes in the beginning will not be faceless folks.  No these will be friends they have taken to their retreats when times were good.  These friends will have arrived with all their friends and family expecting to be taken in.   It is a community after all and you did stockpile food right?  Surely you wouldn’t turn away your friends?   Would you?

 The next wave of folks to come out of the city will be far more aggressive for they are the ones who have survived the horrors that mankind can reek upon himself when he is desperate.  Most will be gangs of young men, who by their shear strength have dominated and taken what they need to survive.  As true in nature their bodies being the ultimate resource at this point in time.  Hunger will drive them out of the urban areas and they will come to farms and “communities” to take what they need to survive.  Our friendly group of humanitarians will not be prepared for such an event.  They would be inclined to offer what they have so that these men may be taken into the fold.  For truth be told, now with the extra friends and family they didn’t anticipate showing up, they could use their carnal strength to build the structures and gardens they need to survive.  They didn’t count on some many having so few skills or physical strength.  However, most of these men will have no such desire.  For the last few months they have lived a nomadic life where they take what they need by force.  There is no need to work for such resources when it can clearly be taken from the weak.  The group never planned for such a thing.  There are no fortifications to keep such marauders out.  The number of weapons and bullets were limited for hunting if they even thought of that for most detest weapons.  Now, our group is at the cross roads with the hungry bear of a new humanity.  Do they allow themselves to be eaten or do they eat the bear.  Can they even physical defend themselves from such desperate people?

 It has been brought to my attention that this is a rather bleak view of humanity.  That humanity would never stoop this low and surely not in America.  However may I remind you that humanity is quite cable of this level of carnage and for reasons less than the need to survive.  Daily gangs in major American cities slaughter each other and innocent bystanders over control of “turf”.  What about one of the greatest atrocities anchored in most of our parents minds?  Hitler killed thousands for an idea of perfection.  However some would say that was long ago and just one man.  The world has risen above that.  Then let me remind you what happened in Africa between April and June 1994, an estimated 800,000 Rwandans were killed in the space of 100 days.  Why?  Were people fighting over food and a hunger in their bellies?  No, self defined labels…Tutsis or Hutu.  This is nothing new in the course of humanity.  Humans have been and are still slaughtering each other in the name of their perspective religions.  This type of behavior is not new.  In fact there is an entire web that tracks such human atrocities throughout our history http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat0.htm

A quick scan of the site will reveal that humans have been killing each other over far smaller things than basic survival needs such as food.  So when I suggest that such things are possible in a future depleted of cheap oil maybe you will see that it is not as fantastic as you once thought.  Humanity is capable of such things.  Americans are capable of such things.  This is especially true when resources become scarce.  Do you honestly believe the American government is fighting for the freedom and democracy of the people of Iraq?  No, America wants its share of world oil and will get it any way possible.  Our economy depends on cheap oil.  Americans are killing people in Iraq and now Iran so that you can drive your SUV to McDonalds for a Big Mac.  Now you tell me how bleak that picture of humanity is?

Previously, I talked about how some people in theworld are coming to the realization that our way of life isn’t sustainable and that I’m not the only one who realizes this. There are people who are building communities just as Noah built the ark to save his people.

Once you reach this point, there is another interesting dilemma. How do you design an ark? I mean Noah knew that it would only be days he would have to survive afloat and so built a ship to those specifications. However, as the degree of awareness varies from person to person, so does the information. Some believe that this time will simply be a short period of time. Something they stock up for like a hurricane and then the world governments will come sweeping in to rescues folks.

However we saw how effective that was with hurricane Katrina and how the “most advanced country” on this planet allowed hundreds to die. No, the next group higher up on the level of awareness is not counting on the government to save it. This group simply believes they can build little collections of people/supplies in rural areas and they will be fine. The storm they need to weather is longer than the first group, but they figure they are gardeners, builders, good with animals, etc… They will be fine, they have built a few self sufficient buildings and they have a bit of an infrastructure laid out. They after all have been conscious of this and have been planning these “communities” for a while now.

However, their collection of folks is usually very small, say less than 15. These people have been chosen on the basis of friendship, lovers and compatibility. Sounds smart right, but who are the doctors, herbalist, peace keepers, farmers, engineers, etc.. Did these types of people make it into the fold, for they will surely be needed? Did you plan a working community based on interdependence?

Despite these groups best laid intentions like rural property, team work or solar designs they have not really realistically considered the impact of what is to come. For instance, most have built these retreats more as a second home or a vacation spot. Are there root cellars, year round gardens in place or good roads in the winter rains? Rarely have any of them experienced the realities of living there year round. Just how good of a community does this land actually make? I have seen communities built in mountainous regions that are truly stunning as they drive their vehicle up full of groceries for their stay, but how would they actually raise enough food on such slopes? Most are great gardeners and believe that they can grow enough in the small flat areas around the houses or they consider the ½ acre meadow a great place to have a community garden. I have seen others built on what I would consider wetlands that would surely drown most fruit trees and be totally useless in the raining season. Then there are the communities that believe they will meet all their needs through square foot gardening and these are the ones who have considered feeding themselves. What these folks do not realize is they have always been able to fall back on a grocery store should their gardens fail them. Farming on slopes is very hard work and very dangerous for you and your farm animal. I know this personally since we built our chicken coop on the slope above us. I can’t tell you how many times we tripped going up and down the stairs carrying bales of hay or 50# bags. Everything has to be brought up to the chickens and every bit of waste/fertilizer has to be brought back down to the gardens. A simple job of collecting eggs involves quite a gluteus maximus work out!

That brings us to the next point. How will this group be able to do the necessary work without farm animals? Most would tell you they would have them. OK, great, but that ½ acre of usable land you have is not enough to grow food for even 2 horses, 1 cow, 8 goats, 4 pigs and 20 chickens. You will need a great deal more farmable land than that. On what land will you build the necessary barns for these animals and their food storage. This is where these folks have all sorts of grand ideas of how their technology will help them. However most have never farmed on this scale with primitive back breaking equipment, let alone without petroleum to run tractors or using modern petroleum based fertilizer and pesticides. They say, “we have always been organic” using manure for our fertilizer and pesticides. Yes, well have you ever tried fertilizing an acre of wheat with manure? That doesn’t count any other crops, but do you think you will get enough manure from 20 people and your farm animals listed above. Maybe you would have enough for ¼ acre, that is if you could raise the food to feed them in the first place. However, then you have the sect that would say they could free-range chickens and goats. Great, if it is not the 6 month dry spell of summer like there is here in California. All the grass dies back and the bugs go with it. Then what are you going to do? Then there is the other issue of security. Who is going to watch these animals as your precious livestock is picked off for food by the local wildlife while they “free-range”? How will your little group deal with the loss of it’s milk cow to a cougar? You could say that you will have a livestock dog. Ok, but the average weight of a livestock guarding dog is about 100 pounds and that is great when you have to defend against mountain lions. However, you are talking about an animal that can eat several pounds of food a day. How will you feed yourself and this animal? How did our great-great-grandparents do it?