The Right to Pursue Powerdown: Seeking alternative lifestyles post-peak

Throughout history most societies have spawned groups within them that chose not to follow the norms and dictates of the mainstream society of which they were a part. Very often it is religious differences of some type that set these groups apart, e.g. Quakers, Shakers, Mennonites, Amish, Doukhobors, Acadians, Huguenots, Mormons, Christians in the Roman Empire and more. Mainstream cultures have never been very tolerant of such so-called “dissidents”. Such groups have been subjected to harassment, persecution, legal persecution and prosecution, even attacks and mass murder such as was the case with the Huguenots in France and the Doukhabors in Russia. Rules and laws are often ignored in the zeal to persecute such groups. Very often rules and laws are specifically altered to target such groups, to make it illegal for them to adhere to their own non-mainstream beliefs. In most cases large segments of those religious groups saw no option open to them other than leaving those societies and countries in which they were being persecuted.

Such harassment and persecution, of course, have not been limited to large groups of dissenters. Very often an individual who pursues a belief or practice contrary to the established mainstream will be similarly hounded, harassed and persecuted. Some of these in recent news in Canada include; Michael Schmidt for supplying raw unprocessed milk at the request of his several hundred customers; Percy Schmeiser for his seed saving practices that ran afoul of Monsanto when his crops became contaminated from nearby Monsanto crops; Ghislaine Lanctot for her constant campaigns against the medical establishment and her book The Medical Mafia; Doctor Krop of Toronto who had the audacity to practice environmental medicine and identify household chemicals as the source of patient illnesses and counsel his patients to get the chemical products out of their homes; and many more.

Those unwilling to adhere to the practices and tenets of mainstream society seem invariably to be considered a threat to that society, a threat that must be dealt with harshly. The presumed threat, however, generally exists only in the collective mindset of the mainstream society. Most often the splinter group seeks only to follow their own beliefs and practices in freedom. And almost invariably the mainstream society around them will not accept their right to do so. If existing laws are insufficient to stop such groups from pursuing their beliefs then very often the laws will be changed as required to stop them.

As we approach the global peak in oil production, and most certainly when we have gone beyond that point and start our slide down the depletion downslope, there is a rapidly growing group of people who want to begin the process of preparing themselves, their homes, their neighbourhoods and communities for the self-sufficient and self-reliant lifestyle that will be necessary when energy decline has torn asunder our heavilly energy-dependent global society. They recognize that achieving the required level of post-peak self-sufficiency may take decades and that waiting until we are already past peak and on the downslope means having waited too long. They recognition that such preparation needs to be started now while there is still the resources and energy to do the job.

Energy Bulletin