[Pops]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lulubel', 'R')egarding medications, I suppose it's really impossible to know what will happen. If it's a hard crash and all hell breaks loose, the chances of surviving would probably be pretty slim anyway, but if some distribution lines stay open, asthma drugs are pretty common. Maybe I'll start stockpiling inhalers anyway.

[yeahbut]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lulubel', 'T')hanks for all the permaculture recommendations. I suggested to my partner today that I was thinking of planting some young fruit trees, and that went down quite well, on the basis that trees don't require the same level of involvement as growing your own veg. It was the work involved this year for very little reward that caused the problems, although I think a lot of our problem was caused by not realising this part of Spain has 2 growing seasons, and very little can survive through July and August. I'd still like to grow more of our own food, so hopefully we can re-introduce it gradually.

[lulubel]

Tomatoes grow well here. Our tomatoes were one of our most successful crops (along with squash, which grow like weeds!), although we grew far too many of them because my partner wanted 6 different varieties, and the soil quality where we lived was too poor even for tomatoes to produce a heavy crop. With hindsight, we probably needed to either spend a few years improving the soil or buy a few loads of topsoil. Our beans and peas were very stunted, and withered in the heat before they produced much of a crop.

We need to plant much earlier here to take advantage of spring, then probably start more seeds in a relatively cool, shaded area during July and August to plant out again in September and take advantage of the second growing season. We only realised this when strawberries disappeared from the shops in late June (when the local ones start appearing in the UK) and then reappeared towards the end of September. Temperatures here exceed 100F in the height of summer, and the sun's so intense you can see plants withering regardless of how much water you give them.

I think we can grow pretty much any fruit trees here. Winters are fine for citrus, and we've also seen peach, mango and avocado. This part of Spain is known for growing organic mangoes commercially, but they're all exported to the UK, and the ones in the shops here are imported from Brazil. Madness.

Getting some trees in will also be good for providing shade when we move on to growing more fragile crops. Water and shade are the 2 most important things we need to figure out here.

Added: I've been looking on Amazon, and have found all the books recommended in this thread. I also found The Permaculture Way by Graham Bell, which reviewers have described as a good introduction to the principles. Does anyone know anything about Graham Bell or this book?

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cloud9', '
')
Don't short today on the prospects of what might happen tomorrow.

[davep]

Ibon, I think it's difficult not to over-examine the topic initially. To get through the quasi-kubler-ross stages takes time and a lot of reflection and research.

But, you have to reach a point of internal equilibrium at some point. Maybe you're just in need of a hobby/pastime when back home?

[Madpaddy]

Grow your own vegetables by joy larkham and square foot gardening are other musts in any library as well as the encyclopaedia of country living

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davep', 'I')bon, I think it's difficult not to over-examine the topic initially. To get through the quasi-kubler-ross stages takes time and a lot of reflection and research.

But, you have to reach a point of internal equilibrium at some point. Maybe you're just in need of a hobby/pastime when back home?

[davep]

Wonderful rant, ibon

But unless we can unwind we are just going to tear ourselves apart with the enormity of the task confronting us.

For the moment the fossil fuels are there, so you can consider your flights as part of the transition.

But, as you say, we are all dependent on this resource. We each do what we can, but I don't think any of us are truly independent of our fossil fuel resources.

However, this doesn't mean we shoudln't continue in our endeavours. If we don't, who will? Yes, it's a psychological coping mechanism, but it is also a means of giving others hope.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')e are all culturally living fossils, like the last of the mammoths in the Pleistocene. No mitigation will change this truth.

[Pops]

That sucks Ibon, seems a really depressing attitude, sorry you feel that way.

I don't subscribe to fate - or rapture either for that matter. I'd not hang here at all if I thought it was beyond my ability to change anything.

I'm not sure we'll figure a smooth path down from the peak but I am sure we won't drop off the face of the earth, not all of us anyway.

[lulubel]

Actually, I understand exactly where Ibon's coming from, and it was part of the reason for this post in the first place. I know deep down that there's probably nothing a very small number us can do to change what's going to happen (whatever that is, exactly). This might be the end for the human race. Even if we can survive, we might actually not bother trying when we can't have the easy life we're so used to now - although there are enough tribes living very basic lives to continue humanity's existence, if we in the developed world don't kill them off in our own attempts to survive.

I'm not a fatalist because no-one KNOWS exactly what's going to happen, but even those of us who have prepared to live a low energy lifestyle will probably not be left in peace to get on with it, hence the many discussions about ideal location. A few of us may, if we're lucky, which is why so many of us try, but the odds are stacked against us.

So that really does raise the question: Why do we bother? Why not just spend, consume and enjoy it while it lasts? The end result will probably be the same.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davep', '
')I don't agree. We can modify the future for the better ecologically and for our species. It will entail a lot of hardship, but that hardship will be magnified if we take your attitude. How do you expect others to do their best when you, who knows so much, is so desperate. You have to be hopeful, even if it is in vain.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lulubel', '
')So that really does raise the question: Why do we bother? Why not just spend, consume and enjoy it while it lasts? The end result will probably be the same.

[lulubel]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', 'I')n all seriousness Lulubel, here is why you need to bother. For the same reason the Chinese are going to embrace peak oil and green technology. It is to maximize the efficiency of how you use resources. Look at energy and resources as currency. In your personal life whatever you can do to lower consumption will make you more resilient, financially, economically and will put you slightly ahead of the curve of your fellow humans.

[Pops]

This is from my first post here almost 7 years ago - I quote this post so often I wonder if I've said anything these last 9,000 posts!
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')moving to the country]...has been our plan for years for early/semi retirement, its just earlier than expected. We don’t look at it as a “bunker” so much as a “school” to teach our kids and grandkids (and ourselves) how our parents and grandparents got by without cheap oil.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davep', ' ')To get through the quasi-kubler-ross stages takes time and a lot of reflection and research.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', 'T')his is from my first post here almost 7 years ago - I quote this post so often I wonder if I've said anything these last 9,000 posts!
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')moving to the country]...has been our plan for years for early/semi retirement, its just earlier than expected. We don’t look at it as a “bunker” so much as a “school” to teach our kids and grandkids (and ourselves) how our parents and grandparents got by without cheap oil.

[Pops]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', 'F')or every Ludi or Pops or Ibon reconnecting with their agrarian or animistic or pagan roots or celebrating biodiversity there are hundreds of thousands being raised with totally abstract relationships toward their place in the natural world.

Who here really thinks resource constraints will change this trend?

[Pops]

Oops, wrong button...

My point is that most of us reading here have a simple decision to make and at the core it has nothing to do with city or country, Pagan or Presbyterian; Ecologist or Singularitist and certainly not right wing or righter wing...

It's the choice between adapting at the personal level or not.

No big quasi religious theories required, just whether or not you think things will simply flow along at the status quo - and if not, whether you want to have a paddle in the water or just be carried along with the current.

[Ibon]

Oddly enough my optimism returned when first I accepted the futility of trying to bring about change and second when I actually bought that property in Panama and immersed myself in being there and working on that land. I have no time or even interest any more in contemplating global human overshoot. There is simply too much beauty around me and too much work to be done.

But I don't pretend to represent a model toward transition. I am more an elitist who has the money to indulge myself in this project and the visitors who come are also representing a privileged slice of the human population with the wealth to have the disposable income to make it up there to go birdwatching and hike the trails.

In fact to some extent we all are elitists who have the luxury to play in the sandbox of permaculture, eco tourism or making maple syrup.

The incoming tide of human overshoot makes us all in a sense living fossils. We are not in any sense pioneers toward some transition.

Our paradigm is dying. I face this truth with humility and grace and I don't try to window dress this in any way.

It also just feels a lot more honest to accept this truth and find optimism within this truth than trying to justify and frame what I am doing as some transition toward a more sustainable future.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', '
')No big quasi religious theories required, just whether or not you think things will simply flow along at the status quo - and if not, whether you want to have a paddle in the water or just be carried along with the current.