America Unsustainable...

[Makalakumu]

This thread has convinced me that the American Way of Life is unsustainable. I am curious as to what people on Martial Talk would be willing to give up in there lives in order to better live in a future of constrained resource and energy supply.

For example, would you...

1. Buy a smaller house?
2. Share a home with another family?
3. Plant a garden to supplement your diet?
4. Drive one small car?
5. Move out of the suburbs and back into the city?
6. Live less then a mile from work?
7. Walk, ride, or ski to do errands?
8. Would you change careers?
9. Would you use more public transit?
10. Would you reuse anything that could be reused?
11. Join an organic commune?
12. Start a farmer's coop?
13. Vacation closer to home?
14. Communally share tools...like a snowblower for multiple families?
15. Communally share vehicles...like a truck for multiple families?
16. Etc...

I think I could do everything on this list. What would you add or subtract? Why?

The goal here is to cut your energy usage and your waste by 50% to 75%. What would you be willing sacrifice in order to accomplish this goal? What sacrifices couldn't you make? Do you think that you would have the same "quality" of life when you have accomplished this goal?

upnorthkyosa

 

[Bammx2]

1) yes

2) no
3)yes
4) does a motorcycle count? yes anyway
5)no,gardens tend to suck in the city.
6)Depends
7)yes
8)Depends
9)yes
10)yes
11)no
12)yes
13)vacation?
14)yes
15)maybe

 

[ginshun]

1. Buy a smaller house?
Its not very big as is, so no.

2. Share a home with another family?
No

3. Plant a garden to supplement your diet?
Already do

4. Drive one small car?
I drive a Jeep Wrangler, I could switch, but I will always drive a 4WD

5. Move out of the suburbs and back into the city?
I live right in the middle of town

6. Live less then a mile from work?
Hopefully, sometime within the next 10 years, that is the plan

7. Walk, ride, or ski to do errands?
Already do

8. Would you change careers?
That will go along with the living less than a mile from work

9. Would you use more public transit?
No

10. Would you reuse anything that could be reused?
I try

11. Join an organic commune?
No

12. Start a farmer's coop?
No, but I will shop at the farmers market

13. Vacation closer to home?
No

14. Communally share tools...like a snowblower for multiple families?
Sounds good, that is kind of what me, my family and a couple friends do with the roto-tiller.

15. Communally share vehicles...like a truck for multiple families?
No.

16. Etc...
I do what I can. Could I do more? Probably.

 

[Makalakumu]

My list is just a template. Feel free to create your own. Think critically, do you think that you could cut your energy usage and your waste by 50-75%? Is this possible? If so, how would you do it?

BTW - if you take a look at the average total calories one uses in a day and assign/assume values for the stuff on my list, I'm coming up with only a 30% reduction.

When I have more time, I post some numbers...

 

[OUMoose]

1. Buy a smaller house?
2. Share a home with another family?
3. Plant a garden to supplement your diet?
4. Drive one small car?
5. Move out of the suburbs and back into the city?
6. Live less then a mile from work?
7. Walk, ride, or ski to do errands?
8. Would you change careers?
9. Would you use more public transit?
10. Would you reuse anything that could be reused?
11. Join an organic commune?
12. Start a farmer's coop?
13. Vacation closer to home?
14. Communally share tools...like a snowblower for multiple families?
15. Communally share vehicles...like a truck for multiple families?
16. Etc...

1) I don't own a house, but I also don't believe in living in some huge extravagant domicile.
2) No. I can barely stand having a roomate, let alone a whole family.
3) Sure, if there's sufficient room.
4) If I could fit in a small car, sure! 6'6" 380 != fitting in 99% of foreign cars.
5) Yes.
6) Yes.
7) Depending on time constraints, yes.
8) If there was something decent available, yes.
9) Yes.
10) Yes.
11) An Organic Commune? Care to elaborate a little further?
12) Is that like a chicken coop? Please see #3
13) Vacation closer to home. Doesn't that defeat the purpose of the vacation? I have to say no to this one.
14) Was this a communally-purchased item, or one you're lending out to people? If the former, yes. The latter? maybe.
15) Again, if it was communally-purchased, yes. However, I have trouble lending my vehicle to anyone, and I don't like to drive others cars, so No if not.
16) I would look into technology for lighting using fiber optics and natural light reflection as opposed to incandescents.

 

[Makalakumu]

An organic commune and a farmer's co-op kind of go hand in hand. The short of it is this...

1. Multiple families build a group home and work a plot of land to produce food organically.

2. A farmer's co-op is a place where families that grow a lot of food can go to trade the excess for stuff they don't grow.

 

[Tgace]

I think you will find the "communal" theme easier to apply in theory rather than practice. I would like to see the scene when everybody has to get to work and theres only one snowblower....it's hard enough for my family to "share" one bathroom.

As to moving back into the City..many people moved out for a reason. Namely lead flying through the air at high velocity.

 

[ginshun]

Something else I would really like to look into when I get a little more money for home improvements saved up is solar panels. I need to work out how long they would take to pay for themselves and see if they are really worth it to me. I know if you get enough of them that you can produce more electricity than you use, the power company will actually drain the excess power from you and actually pay you for the extra every month. That would be sweet.

 

[Tgace]

How about starting with insulating your home and buying energy efficient appliances for a start...little more realistic in the short run.

 

[OUMoose]

An organic commune and a farmer's co-op kind of go hand in hand. The short of it is this...

1. Multiple families build a group home and work a plot of land to produce food organically.

2. A farmer's co-op is a place where families that grow a lot of food can go to trade the excess for stuff they don't grow.

Ahhh. I understand now, and thanks for the clarification.

However, I don't that an anachronistic view is what we should be striving toward, but a more efficient and technologically advanced one. I do agree that our current level of consumption is unsustainable, but to think that all the years I've put into getting these quirky little boxes with the funny buttons to do my bidding without question will be totally useless is a little discouraging.

Lets just hope the controlling corps realize this and start releasing some of the technology they've been supressing over time, so we don't have to trade our PC's for Ploughshares.

 

[Tgace]

Yeah..if there is money to be made, someone will think up a solution. As long as there is more money to be made with the current method...less likely.

 

[Eldritch Knight]

This would be my ideal way of life, actually. No wasted resources, everyone taking exactly what they need. Aside from all the resource-saving benefits, our society would grow in that everyone would have to start looking out for everyone else. A pure socialism, so to speak.

 

[ginshun]

How about starting with insulating your home and buying energy efficient appliances for a start...little more realistic in the short run.

Obviously, minimizing your power intake as much as possible would be the first step. No incandecent bulbs, Energy Star rated appliances only, no electric heat, stuff like that. It would be nice to be self sufficient as far as power goes though.

Someday maybe.

 

[Tgace]

There will ALWAYS be people "taking more than what they need".....no matter the political structure. Call me a cynic, but I believe history has shown what "human nature" really is over and over again.

 

[ginshun]

Damn dude, based on last months energy bill, where I live and the first website I looked on, it would cost me about 60 grand to set myself up with a solar panel system to match my current comsumption.

Scratch that plan.

 

[Gemini]

The only ones I wouldn't (as apposed to couldn't) do is 2 & 5.

1. Buy a smaller house? No problem. Never much cared about such things anyway.
2. Share a home with another family? It's hard enough putting up with the people there already. (and I love them).
3. Plant a garden to supplement your diet? Yuck. No green thumb here, but okay.
4. Drive one small car? I have a supercharged Mustang. That's pretty small in a relative sorta way, right?
5. Move out of the suburbs and back into the city? I shared a cubicle with the cockroaches once already. I'd live in a tent before I moved back into the city.
6. Live less then a mile from work? I wish. That's an easy one.
7. Walk, ride, or ski to do errands? Sure. I love exercise. Hell, I used to walk 20 miles to school everyday...In my barefeet.
8. Would you change careers? In a heart beat. I still don't know what I wanna do when I grow up.
9. Would you use more public transit? Public transit never bothered me. I just sleep.
10. Would you reuse anything that could be reused? I do that now.
11. Join an organic commune? Oh...alright. If I haveta. But I won't like it. Such a '70's thing...
12. Start a farmer's coop? Now that sounds like fun.
13. Vacation closer to home? Any vacation is good if you can get 'em.
14. Communally share tools...like a snowblower for multiple families? I share everything now.
15. Communally share vehicles...like a truck for multiple families? see 14.


Honestly, I would live like the Amish if I could bring my family, Dojang and Instructor with me. Everything else is gravy....

 

[Tgace]

Kind of hard to live in a city and farm.....

 

[evenflow1121]

1. Buy a smaller house? Yes

2. Share a home with another family? No, privacy is too important for me

3. Plant a garden to supplement your diet? Yes

4. Drive one small car? Yes

5. Move out of the suburbs and back into the city? Maybe

6. Live less then a mile from work? Maybe

7. Walk, ride, or ski to do errands? Yes

8. Would you change careers? No

9. Would you use more public transit? Maybe

10. Would you reuse anything that could be reused? Yes

11. Join an organic commune? No

12. Start a farmer's coop? No

13. Vacation closer to home? Yes

14. Communally share tools...like a snowblower for multiple families? No

15. Communally share vehicles...like a truck for multiple families? No
16. Etc...

Waste a lot less food and products, just the buy what you need.

 

[TonyM.]

Gee.... my cadillac escalade seems a little small. Should I get a humvee? Sure wish we still had tetra etyl. Oops, sorry I got some sarcasm on myself.

 

[Andrew Green]

Some are not really practical for everyone. Public Transport is really only useable for certain people. It could be improved greatly and get more accepted.

But making changes costs money.. which is the issue here. Right now oil is the cheapest option, once that stops others will take over.

But no car is almost impossible right now for some people. If you have kids that play sports and need to go all over the city that can't be done by public transport as it exists. Now if teams where to all get there own bus and transport the team from there home field as a whole that might help.

Innovation follows need, not the other way around. So until it is needed, it isn't going to happen. My guess is that you are right, our current energy usage can't be sustained much longer. BUT, new technologies will replace the existing ones and things will hit a bump while everyone converts, then end up better. That's just how we progress

It's not just our resources that are being burnt out, so are us people. We work longer hours, everyone works, and yet still we never have everything we "need".

I do think we will hit a turning point... but perhaps a slightly different take on where it will hit. Media and image are too powerful. What does a person need a SUV to drive in to work everyday in? Not much beyond the image that comes from it...

But that is what the media tell us we "should" be trying to get. Why would a couple person need a 3000 sq ft house in the suburbs? Wow, thats a lot of cleaning....

A big screen plasma tv is great... but overkill for sitting around watching MASH reruns by yourself... in other words 95% of peoples viewing. Thats one expensive toy for the odd PPV party or Superbowl. Would almost be cheaper just to do to the events then buy some of the tv's available...

Anyone remember doing word processing, spreadsheets, e-mail, web browsing, etc on a Pentium 1? It worked fine, so why do so many people that only do this need Pentium 4's with 160gb hard drives and 1gb of ram?

And I do think the media is a big part of it. It projects the image that these things are "needed", or else you've "fallen behind".

Will our lifestyle be different in 50 years? of course, its quite different now then it was 50 years ago. Change is nothing new, and nothing to be afraid of. We may hit a big bump, but we'll get through it and everyone will be happy, possibly even more so

But the projecting fear about the demise of our world is sure not going to help, that is the problem. It is fear and uncertainty that feeds this problem. People fear being looked down upon so they by a big SUV, they fear being thought fat so they turn into a anerexic, They work so hard to "keep up appearences" that they don't excercise and eat poorly... so much for appearances But then this causes more fear so they buy stupid excercise equipment that does nothing but costs a lot....

Just look at a ab machine commercial, basically they tell you that doing crunches is bad and will do more damage then good. Plus it is too hard so why bother. Excercise is made out to be a expensive luxury that requires specific scheduling and financial commitment. So you got to work more to afford to be able to excercise which makes you to burnt out to actually excercise so instead you grab a whopper combo and call it a day...

ok... end rant... I was bored...