In The Shadow of the Founding Fathers

I live in Central Virginia - a land rich with history going back to the very beginnings of America as a nation and back nearly to the beginnings of English colonialism in America.

This idyllic area used to be the Frontier, nestled against the Blue Ridge Mountains beyond which was Terra Incognita. Two of this nation's greatest explorers came from within spitting distance of where I am typing now - Lewis & Clark.

We also had our own Paul Revere type character - his name was Jack Jouett. He rode ahead of Colonel Tarelton and his English cavalry to warn Jefferson (Governor of Virginia at the time) and the Legislature that the Brits were coming for them. You should really read the wiki on him... an interesting fellow.

Also, three of the Founding Fathers came from this immediate area - Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe. They were the 3rd, 4th, and 5th Presidents respectively. Jefferson was arguably one of the most notable intellectuals of his age with a list of amazing achievements far too long to detail here.

No, this isn't intended to be a history lesson. All of the people listed above come from within 20 miles of where I am right now. Without many of these people America may not exist. It certainly would be a very different place and it's unlikely that the difference would be good. In many ways, America and the promise of America were born here.

It is in the shadow of this greatness that an anger in me wells. I feel treasonous and small when I see what is happening to this country. I feel this way because with all of the shameful outrages being committed against our liberties and the promise of America, I do relatively little about it.

People from around here risked being hung to secure the liberties we are too lazy to defend these days. After 9/11 the authoritarians in this country saw an opportunity to consolidate power and they took it. Like sheep the Congress passed the USA Patriot Act despite the fact that only a handful of legislators even read the act.

We are being spied on, lied to, and arrested with no charges, no trial, and no counsel in some cases. What are we doing? Ha. We're blogging. I obviously consider myself among these less-than-revolutionary revolutionaries.

I hold myself in nearly as much contempt as I hold most of the sheep out there. The one difference is that I am a sheep who has opened his eyes. I inform myself, at least. I don't know - maybe it's worse to know what's going on and to do nothing than it is to be willfully ignorant. No, I have to believe that informing myself and at least voting from an informed standpoint makes me just a bit better than those who vote against their own self-interest out of sheer ignorance.

I do a little more than nothing. I volunteer for candidates in whom I believe. I am somewhat active in local politics. I teach my children to think and not to follow. I teach them to hold ignorance in contempt.

And yes - the book I am reading is fanning these flames in me. If you knew me, however, you'd know that I have long had these issues on my mind. I'm the conspiracy nut in my group of friends. The saying, "Just because you're paranoid don't mean they're not after you" has never been more true to Americans at large.

What do I mean by that? They know who you've been calling. Oh, yes, friend. The Administration has been pushing for a retroactive law to immunize the phone companies for assisting the NSA in their warrantless wiretapping program. Can you say data-mining? I knew you could.

They also know what your spending habits are. That means the government knows whether or not you like to visit websites about bondage and sado-masochism. They know if you visited a gay dating site. They know if you rented a hotel room last week in Richmond and not Alexandria like you told your spouse. Think of everything that goes on any plastic you own... debit or credit.

Not only do they know what you charged on your plastic, they know where you go on the internet regardless of whether or not you bought anything there. ISPs have been issued orders under the USA Patriot Act to turn over their records. Gag orders come as part of these requests for data. Not only can they not refuse the request from the government, but they cannot appeal to judicial review. Been to WebMD, lately? Got a condition you don't want anyone to know about for whatever reason? The fact that you looked up information on Erectile Dysfunction is now no longer a secret, no longer anonymous.

The one thing that protects us in the mountains and mountains of data they have to sift through. But if your name pops up on some list somewhere, blowing your "cover", they can immediately look up all sorts of information on you. Big Brother sees all. In today's world of technology it is actually possible, unlike in Orwell's time when it was merely a dark fantasy.

In today's world of multi-terabyte databases it only takes a handful of people feeling pressure from the government to cave in and turn over gobs and gobs of data to the feds. It would take entire forests' worth of paper to print the data that could be rapidly and quietly turned over to the government without a single sheet of paper. An innocuous flow of ones and zeroes streaming over a secured pipeline through the internet.

The Information SuperHighway runs through your living room, beyotch.

This spying, this mining of dirty little secrets, is made even easier if a warrantless wiretap or two are placed on a key set of influential people. Maybe they have a dirty secret or two. Add to that the notion that these federal agents are "fighting terrorism" with this information and these executives may turn over the information without requiring a warrant and with no need for blackmail.

If the FBI or the NSA needs this information, it must be important. Right?

With the War on Terror being called the Long War, we are stepping onto an Orwellian stage from which no good can come. A stage that Orwell could only dream of but which is now lit with the harsh glare of technology. A war with no end in sight is a tyrant's wet dream.

• Crisis is the rallying cry of the tyrant.
• If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.
• It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.
• No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

- James Madison

From Technical to PoliScientific

I just finished the Renewable Energy Handbook by William Kemp. Great book, by the way. Lots of techie-talk and equations while at the same time written in an accessible voice. I loves me some equations.

The next book? Well, I'm glad you asked...

It's The End of America - Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot by Naomi Wolf. Basically the book outlines the ten basic steps dictators or would-be dictators take when they are trying to close down an open society. According to Ms.Wolf, each of these ten steps is underway today.

We'll see. I saw her on The Colbert Report and she sounded very convincing.

The Cohousing Road Trip

The wife and I went to the mentor cohousing community this weekend to see what we might expect out of the cohousing development we're looking into. We got to see the model community in action and in practice.

The place was two and a half hours away in Blacksburg, Virginia (home of Virginia Tech). Blacksburg is much less liberal than Charlottesville (home of the University of Virginia), so I'm kind of surprised that they had a cohousing community before we did. Oh well, that's not really relevant.

Our hosts were a couple with 2 daughters (ages 5 and 3). We brought our 3 year old daughter and 6 month old son with us. Our daughter had a blast playing with the other girls.

The tour was good. We got to talk to people who were living in the community and ask all sorts of questions. Better than that, we got the answers face-to-face with the reading of expressions and follow-up questions that are just not possible over email.

Besides that, to me at least, you can look at as many pictures on a webpage as you like. It will never add up to even a short amount of time actually being there and observing something first hand. There's nothing like walking through the pedestrian oriented neighborhood and standing in the common house.

All in all it took me a step closer to being able to commit to the idea. The wifey is totally sold. She'd sell the townhouse tomorrow and move in ASAP if she could.

My main hang up at this point is the financial feasibility of it all. That and the alteration of our long term financial plans. Mainly - we had planned to never sell the townhouse we are currently in. The plan was to pay off the credit cards (thus freeing up a bunch of money in credit card payments) and then rent the townhouse. Have someone else pay the mortgage, you know?

If we rented the townhouse and shook our credit card payments we'd be able to swing another mortgage payment, even if rent didn't cover all of the townhouse payment. That way when we retired we'd either be able to sell the townhouse for a quick cash injection or continue to rent it for long-term income.

Right now it looks like the community we're looking at will break ground in April, with move-ins around September. It depends on when we would have to kick in our down payment and how long it would take to sell the townhouse.

In this market we'd have to put the townhouse up for sale soon. If it did happen to sell in short order, we may have to move in with my Mom for as many as 8 months while our house was being built. That's assuming my Mom would let us move in. I think she would, but you never want to assume with something like that.

I am also fairly certain we'd get enough out of a sale to pay off the mortgage, but you never know in this market. In the original plan we didn't have to worry about the current downturn in the housing market. We weren't going to sell the townhouse in the short term or maybe ever. Housing proces would recover eventually and even if they didn't it wouldn't hurt as bad since people had been paying our mortgage (or a large potion of it) in the form of rent.

I just don't want to get all excited about this and make a bad decision. Our current long term plan is a good one, I think. And maybe in two years we'd be ready to buy a new house without selling the townhouse - but not right now. We need to pay off the credit cards first.

Oh, well. This wasn't what I wanted to babble about. Here's the place we toured:

http://www.shadowlakevillage.org/

A Road Trip, Then?

The mentor community for the cohousing development we are looking into is located about two and a half hours away. We've arranged to visit the place Sunday afternoon for a few hours. This should give us a pretty good idea of what the community life will be like in a cohousing development (since the place we may move is patterned after this community).

That's it for now.

Cohousing Meeting, etcetera

Wow, it was sooo easy to install the new showerhead... and so cheap, too. If you haven't done this already - you have to get this one done. It took about 10 minutes. Unscrew old showerhead (with help of adjustable wrench), clean the threads (just knock off the chunks), apply teflon tape, screw on new showerhead. Done.

That's 50% less water used in the shower and therefore 50% less energy used to heat it. I think this showerhead will pay for itself in about a month since it only cost about $16 ($12 for the showerhead, $3 shipping, and $1 teflon tape).

Cohousing

Me, the wife, and the kids went to a meeting of a local cohousing group this weekend. The people there were all very nice and very normal. The wife came away all excited about it.

For my part, I went with an open but skeptical mind. I must say that personality-wise the people won me over. No worries there.

My main reservation about doing this cohousing thing is that it would be a good deal less off-grid than I want to be in our next place. Like - it would be totally on-grid, Buffy. My personal goal was to have our next place be completely off-grid. To my knowledge, there are no off-grid cohousing developments. I can say with great certainty that there are no off-grid cohousing developments in our area.

But, on the positive side of this, they are building these units to be solar-ready. I assume this means that they would have the inverter grid-tie in place with a line running to the roof. All units are also to be built facing south. Both good points.

I also brought up the notion of building a bio-diesel refinery in either the barn or the large shed on the property. They seemed to be okay with this idea. Another bonus. It seems like this bunch isn't into the sort of anal retentive controls for which many HOAs are known. Ironic, I thought, since this is a very planned community with a very deep social aspect to it.

The wife suggested this may be a good stepping stone for us into something off-grid. She even tickled my pickle a bit by suggesting that we may be able to start an off-grid cohousing development after learning a bit about cohousing from living in this development.

The community we're currently looking at is in the planning stage. We're supposed to go visit another cohousing community in the near future. Scheduling is the only thing we need to iron out at this point. This community is actually the community that ours will be based on (called a mentor community).

I'm pretty undecided at this point, to be honest. I feel like I would be "selling out" my dream of being off-grid. I know we could afford to build a new place in about three to four years from now.

Another draw-back about this cohousing thing is that the community we are looking into will probably start breaking ground in February. The original plan involved paying off the credit cards and then renting out our townhouse before building.

Now, there's no way I can see us doing this without selling the townhouse. This is an alteration of the long-term plan. This aspect of our family planning predates our getting serious about the whole environmental thing (well, beyond recycling at least). I'm not sure the timing is right even if I can get over temporarily giving up the off-grid goal (which is by no means certain).

It is an interesting idea, though. I must admit that a part of me is very excited about the whole notion.

Efficiency - the Name of the Game

Our low-flow showerhead just arrived yesterday. I need to get some teflon tape so I can install it this weekend. This will reduce water use in the shower from 2.5 gallons per minute down to between 1.2 and 1.4 gallons per minute. That's a 50% reduction in water used and a 50% reduction in energy to heat shower water.

I also just ordered an external 160 GB hard drive.

"How does this save energy?", you ask.

By buying this external hard drive and attaching it to my PC at home I will be able to turn off another computer. It's a massive old server with dual power supplies. It sounds like a jet taking off when you hit the power button. This old tank draws 500W of power and it's on 24/7. It serves as the file server for our house holding our music, pictures, videos, and other files.

By turning this machine off we save a lot of energy:

(500W/ 1000 W/kW) x 24 hours/day x 30.417* days/month = 365.004 kWh/month

365.004 kWh/month x 7.09 cents/kWh = $25.88/month in savings

* 365 days/yr divided by 12 months/yr = 30.417 days/month

In other words, this external hard drive completely pays for itself in 3 months. After it pays for itself, it's like an extra $25 a month in the bank compared to what I would have spent on the electric bill.

Cohousing - A Possible Alternative?

I am on the mailing list of a local "Peace and Justice" type group. I know, I know - I don't seem like the type. One might think I'm more of the militia type.

Well I'm a bit more complicated than that, okay?

In any event, there was a link in their latest mailing to a local cohousing community. The idea was pretty intriguing. I like the community aspect invloved with sharing of meal cooking duties, a common house, and the pedestrian nature of the developments.

The one problem with the Cohousing development that we're looking into is that they may not have the commitment to renewable energy that I'm looking for. They mention that all homes will be "energy efficient" and that they'll have features like rainbarrels but I'm not sure that allowances could be made for "going the extra mile", so to speak.

They mention that all houses must be 1,800 sq feet or less and that the floorplans cannot be altered. I don't know if installing PV arrays or evacuated solar tubes for water heating would be considered a deviation from the floorplan or not.

Here's a cohousing community in Ithaca, NY if you'd like an example.

Ha! As I was typing this entry I got an email back from the cohousing community I emailed stating that solar would be allowed. Hmmm.... this is worth looking into.

I think the wife and I will have to look into this - maybe attend a meeting or two.

You Think Your Hippy Food is so Great? Think Again.

My wife often makes the argument that one of the single best things you can do for the environment is to become a vegetarian. This is because of the massive amount of energy and food needed to raise a single pound of beef, for example.

The runoff from most factory farms is also a significant source of pollution to the environment surrounding the farm. Pig farms are notoriously horrible on this count. In many developing countries in South America the rainforest is clearcut in order to make grazing land for cattle.

The conditions for the animals in these factory farms is also pretty terrible. I'm not a particularly large advocate of animal rights, but some of the conditions are just horrible. I don't believe that you should abuse animals, but I also don't think a rational person can make a moral case against eating animals except as it relates to the conditions of these factory farms.

Sounds like a pretty airtight case for vegetarianism, right? Not so fast. My wife likes to eat MorningStar brand "hippy-food" as I like to call it. They make many products like veggie burgers, chicken (not really) nuggets, and a whole host of meat-imitation products.

Why, if you're a vegetarian, do you have to eat a bunch of stuff designed to look and taste so similar to the meat you have forsaken is beyond me... but I am straying here.

All of these products share one thing: where they come from. That's right. All of these products are derived from the soy bean. Now how much processing (and thereby energy) do you think it takes to make something that looks like this...

... look like this...

Hmmm? Those beans have to be processed six ways to Sunday to make them look like a hamburger! I can't think of any way I could determine how much energy and pollution is behind one pound of this MorningStar stuff. It's a shame, too, because I bet it would still show that one pound of beef is responsible for more pollution than one pound of "hippy-beef."

I would be interested in knowing simply for comparison's sake.

Let's just make a safe assumption, since the hard data escapes me for now. The assumption would be that a pound of veggie burger is responsible for a good deal more pollution than, say, a pound of the soy bean it is derived from.

So if you're really serious about vegetarianism as an environmental concern, then you should probably give up the fake meats as well. All of those veggie burgers and chikkin nuggets that imitate the meat you scorn are doing slightly less damage than the factory farmed meats. But why go half way?

As you might have been able to guess, I am not a vegetarian. I am an omnivore, as Nature intended us. All of the strictly vegetarian branches of our evolutionary tree have died off. Since evolution makes no mistakes, we have to believe this was for a reason.

The route I have chosen goes like this:

• Consume less meat - Honestly, Americans eat too much meat anyway. Too much of anything is unhealthy. That's doubly true for red meat.
• Eat local and organic - When I do eat meat, I try to get local and organic whenever possible. It costs a bit more, true, but the taste is fantastic. The added cost will help reduce consumption and the better taste will make it hard to go back to the other stuff. Locally produced food is fresher and wasn't transported long distances to land on your plate.
• Buy from Mom and Pop - wherever possible I buy from a non-chain, locally owned company. Money spent in a locally owned establishment turns over an average of three times within the local economy. Buying from Wal-Mart often sends your money directly to their corporate headquarters with little to no turnover in the local economy.

I think of this as a holistic approach to my diet. By moderating the amount of meat I eat I am practicing healthier habits and contributing less to the environmental impact of meat. I reduce this impact even more by buying local and organic. If I buy this meat from a local butcher who sources his meat locally I am not only reducing environmental impact, but providing a boost to the local economy and taking money out of the hands of the worst environmental offenders.

Mode of Transport

Since October 23rd, 2006 I have been riding my bike to work. I started a new job at a location that was much closer to home (2.1 miles) and I had the opportunity to stop driving my car to work. I took it.

So by changing jobs to a place that was closer (and getting a nice raise in the process), I stopped burning about 4 gallons of gas a week. That's 17.4 gallons a month or somewhere in the neighborhood of $50.

There's an environmental bonus in addition to saving money. By not burning the 17.4 gallons a month I was using going back and forth to work, I am putting out less greenhouse gases (17.4 gallons of gas equals approximately 314 pounds of CO₂).

Also, by biking to work I am improving my cardiovascular health and general fitness level. I arrive at work energized and focused; ready to work. When I bike in the evening, I burn off the stress of the day and arrive home in a better mood.

As an added bonus my daughter goes to a school right on my path to work. It's about a third of a mile from home. We bike together to her school and then I head into work. On the way home I pick her up and we pedal home. It's some good father-daughter time.

It probably doesn't work out so neatly for everyone - a job that involves a raise and is close to home. But maybe the next time you look for a house or apartment you could take proximity to work and the availability of bike trails into account.

Even if the rent for this apartment is a bit more, it's probably worth it. Maybe paying $50 a month makes financial sense since you'll save that much in gas anyways. It may even be worth paying $100 a month more if you take into account that you could cancel that gym membership now that you're riding a bike every day. You weren't really using the gym anyways...

Now, to be honest, I don't ride my bike everyday. If it's going to rain on my way in to work I drive instead. I do have to maintain a professional appearance and showing up soaked doesn't count as 'professional' in most circles. On the other hand if it isn't going to rain until the evening I'll ride my bike. If I arrive home wet it doesn't reflect in my annual raise.

I ride through the winter, too. Admittedly the winters around here aren't that harsh, but going fast down a hill can get chilly.

Torn - or - Attack of the Wiki Links

I'm very torn between two tacks, if you will. The first tack I could take is:

Get the hell out!!

The ship is going down. Society is irretrievably broken and there's nothing one person can do about it. Humanity is blindly charging headlong towards a cliff it made by strip-mining. You keep screaming that there's a cliff ahead, but no one listens. Worse still, they act like you're a bit cooky.

You become part of the office rounds that managers take the newbies on... "And on your left is the office survival nut. Shhh! Don't disturb him! He may engage you in a talk about green energy or universal healthcare!"

In the Get the hell out!! scenario, you pity the blinded fools but you don't lose any sleep over their fate. The best you can do is try not to share their fate.

The second tack?

Hey man! Hope springs eternal, brah!!

Like some hackey-sack kicking, dreadlock-sporting, hippykin child of the suburbs you try to get involved and help fix the problem. Get involved with local politics, support candidates that will promote a green agenda. Ride a bike to work or organize a carpool or - gasp! - take public transportation.

Work on making your house as green as possible - CF bulbs, low-flow showerheads, low-flow toilets, insulate the hot water heater, the whole nine yards. Use canvas shopping bags, buy local and organic food whenever possible. Farmer's Market? Yes, please. Community Supported Agriculture? Sign me up. Buy a hybrid car if you must have a car at all.

The Good News?

The good news is that no matter what tack we take the actions needed are much the same. The only difference really is that with the Get the hell out!! tack you are moving to the country and getting off the grid. With the Hey man! Hope springs eternal, brah!! tack you aren't going anywhere.

We could always strike a tack somewhere in between - Get the hell out of the eternal spring of hope, brah!!! - or something like that. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. Get off the grid but stay involved.

I think that's the way I'd like to go.

It's Not All Gloom and Doom Around Here...

Some interesting reading on the BBC's website:

1. GM betting on a greener future
2. Test riding first hydrogen bike
3. Fuel cell cars to get test drive

It looks like the lumbering giant, GM, is starting to wake up to reality.

Unfortunately, Ford's new ad campaign, Bold Moves, is nothing more than that - an ad campaign. They continue to focus on trucks and muscle cars without making any real bold moves. Unless you count laying off workers as a bold move.

Why is Ford laying off yet more workers? The following exerpts from the link above pretty much sums it up:

GWEN IFILL

[...]Also, like General Motors, Ford has been losing market share to foreign automakers, Japan's Toyota in particular. This is the company's second wave of job cuts and plant closings in four years.

HARLEY SHAIKEN

The fact that Ford really did misjudge the market. But it isn't simply responding to the market. It's anticipating and creating a market, much the way that Apple did with the iPod or that Toyota did with the Prius, and then the Ford Motor Co. and GM and Chrysler are saddled with the legacy costs. That's a failure of government policy, not really a failure of Ford or the union. [...]

As far as I know, they have only one Hybrid offering - the Escape. 34 mpg hybrid and 20 mpg gas in the city. I guess 34 mpg is good for an SUV (even a small one), but this isn't exactly a bold move. Ford continues to pin it's hopes on large trucks (the F-Series) and muscle cars (like the Mustang).

A bold move would be to move away from these antiquated technologies and make a hybrid full sized truck. Why not make an electric car whose roof was solar panels in order to help with charging the batteries? If your car sits in a parking lot all day getting beaten by the sun, why not have it charge the battery completely off-grid?

You could even sell charging units to keep at home. Have a solar panel hooked to a battery that charges all day while you're at work. When you get home at night, hook your car to the charger - this draws all of the juice from the solar-charged (i.e. free) battery before pulling juice off the grid.

I'd stand in line to buy such a product.

Instead of paying some ad company to come up with a catch-phrase like "Bold Moves", why don't you actually make some? Ford, are you listening? Well, no - of course you aren't.

Survival of the Bloggiest

Hey there, kids! Another Mad Max post today.

I am of the opinion that things are going to change pretty drastically here in America pretty soon. How or why this change will occur is anyone's guess. There are so many Swords of Damocles hanging over our collective head that you can pretty much take your pick.

When it all stops working, what will you do?

It's all right there in the title, right? There are two ways that this shift could possibly take place:

• the Apocalypse - This is when it all stops working overnight. Something drastic happens to break the machinery of society. Maybe a stock market crash, maybe a series of devastating storms or a prolonged drought effecting crops over large areas of the country. Maybe the oil wells dry up and the highways grind to a halt. Maybe a major terrorist attack coupled with one or more of the above causes an irreparable tear in the fabric of this nation. In the Apocalypse, there is an immediate moment of emergency to which you must react. This is followed by a long period of chaos, failure of civic services (police, fire and rescue), and failure of utilities (power, water).
• the Slow Spiraling Decline - This is when society gradually breaks down. The standard of living doesn't drop all at once but slowly declines. Energy prices slowly rise, the value of the dollar declines to peso-like levels, the frequency of natural disasters rises slowly (Katrina II, III, & IV), food prices rise as droughts effect crops and expensive gas makes it more expensive to put on the shelves. There is no knock-out punch in this scenario. Civil unrest increases and harsher laws are enacted. Maybe there's another 9/11 and martial law is declared. Things get may reach a tipping point where the final bit of decline happens rapidly. This is the scenario that I think is most likely to occur.

Either scenario will require what I call the Egress. Survival in cities or suburbs will be brutal at best. The lack of access to food or means of food production coupled with the failure of the sanitation system and denser populations will mean rampant starvation and disease. You will want to get out. Only in a rural setting will you have access to the means to produce food.

Ironically enough, it will also be in a rural setting that you will most likely be able to maintain something similar to what we would associate with a modern urban lifestyle. In the country you will have access to not only solar power, but possibly hydro and/or wind power. It would be difficult to harness the wind in the city and hydro power would also be problematic assuming there even is a river that flows through your city. Others may vandalize your power station or attempt to tap into it to rob you of some juice.

In the Apocalypse scenario...

... the Egress will be a rapid, emergency evolution. You may need to gather family from all over the city - the wife at work, one kid at one school, the other at another school. You will certainly want to grab some supplies. How long will you have to live out of your car? Are the roads clear!? OMFG!! What do I do!?!

Calm down - take a deep breath. Here are some rules:

1. Panic is your number one enemy. Calm down. Take a deep breath. Think as dispassionately as possible. Having an emergency plan is a good antidote for panic.
2. Take nothing for granted. Don't assume that the roads will be clear or that you can stop for gas or food or anything. Don't assume the lights will be on when you get home, etc. At least mentally prepare for these possibilities.
3. Get thee to the country! Do you have a relative that lives out in the country? Do you have a summer cabin? Maybe even a favorite camping spot will do for a while. Try to at least ride out the initial chaos in a place that will better guarantee your family and loved ones' safety. Fresh water will also be more available in the country in all likelihood, especially if power has failed.
4. Initial Supplies. A tender balance has to be struck here. You may get caught with your pants down, so to speak, and be forced to gather necessities from all over the house. This is less than ideal. Here's a quick list that may help - it'll be a good starting point, at least:
1. Camping Supplies - tent(s), canteens, shovels, compass, matches, camp cook kits, knives, hatchets, fishing gear, etc.
2. Dried foods - rice, beans, oatmeal, etc.
3. Canned goods - any fruits and veggies will be welcomed (if you have a can opener!)
4. Water - bottled, in canteens, whatever is clever. Hopefully you have a source wherever you are going, but carrying some with you can never hurt.
5. Weapons - guns, knives, baseball bats, whatever. Not that you will be looking for trouble (quite the opposite!) but you will want to be equipped to deal with any trouble that finds you. Besides, it may become necessary to hunt for food at some point. A nice rifle will make this much easier.
6. Radio - assuming there isn't a complete collapse a radio may come in handy to gain important information ("The bridge over New River is blocked with wreckage."). Hand cranked or solar powered is preferable.
5. Water before food. The average human will die of thirst in 3-4 days, depending on a number of factors. Five days is about the outside limit of how long you can possibly go, but at this point you will be in no condition to help yourself. A person can last many weeks without food, depending on the person's metabolism and how much fat stores they have. Secure a source of water before worrying about food.
6. Shelter! Is also keenly impoortant. Depending on the season and your location shelter may be even more important than water. One night in freezing temperatures may kill you before thirst or starvation even enter the picture. Tom Brown has an excellent section in his book about temporary and even semi-permanent shelter construction techniques using no tools other than your own two hands. You can get it here.
7. Think Long Term. Once your immediate needs are taken care of think long term. Make goals that will take a while to achieve. These goals should focus on not only survival but comfort. After a week in a tent, you'll be surprised how motivated the notion of setting up a shower could make people. After a week of eating canned beans the idea of fresh tomatoes (even fresh tomatoes a month from now) will get people moving. Getting people in motion and setting goals for them means they aren't as focused on the nagging inconveniences of today. Attitiude can work wonders.
8. Longer Term Supplies - depending on your situation and opportunities it may be necessary to loot some items for the survival of your family. I only advocate this in life or death situations where civil order has collapsed. There could be an entire entry on just this topic. In fact at some point there will be.

Thats' enough for now. This should give you some food for thought, at least.

In the Slow Spiral Decline scenario...

... we have some better options, actually. In this scenario, if enough people take the actions I will advocate we may even reverse the decline if not soften the landing.

Here are some of the high level points to consider in this scenario:

1. Foresight is power. If you see this coming and you are sitting on a nice slice of land with a house that is completely off-grid with crops, a greenhouse, a biodiesel refinery, a solar array or two, a wind turbine, and a hydro plant you will be sitting very pretty. You can watch energy prices skyrocket and not care. You can watch the prices in supermarkets rise and pity those who are dependant on stores to give them everything they need.
2. Off-Grid is the Ultimate Goal. In an ideal situation you want to ween yourself from fossil fuels as much as possible. This will be good for the environment, reducing energy dependence on unstable regions, and your pocketbook. No matter what you think of anything I say here on this blog, you have to be a fool or blind to deny the fact that energy prices are going to do nothing but rise in the very near future. We are already seeing this. Crude oil prices seem to hit new highs every month. There's no reason to think this trend will reverse itself.
3. Farming is Pretty Darned Cool. Hey! Where do I get food now that the grocery store is closed? I have to grow it? I can do that? Yeah - you sure can. Crops and growing seasons will vary widely depending on your area. My ultimate goal is to get my family situated on about 10 acres of land with a greenhouse to extend our growing season. Throw into this mix some variety of animals. I'd like to have chickens for certain, maybe some goats, and even a pony or mule; maybe a horse. Regardless of the situation, apocalypse or no, it is always good to grow food. If you grow the food, you know exactly what pesticides, chemicals, and contaminants you are being exposed to. Hopefully none! In many situations, farming can even provide a source of income.
4. Knowledge is Power, Too. Read as much about your goals as possible in advance. Do this with books. Yes, books. Those funny things with pages... that's right! In the event of declining services and power outages the Internet may no longer be a reliable source of information (good or bad). Having manuals and instructive books on hand will be of incalculable value. Need to repair your PV (photovoltaic - i.e. solar power) array yourself? Well, unless you're an electrician you may need a reference source to even have a hope of doing this work yourself.
5. Have Extras. If a tool is worth having, it's worth having two of them. Also keep extra light bulbs (CF, of course!), PV panels, and other parts on hand. Keep a few boxes of nails, screws, etc in reserve. Imagine what a pain it would be to build a barn with no nails! Obviously it can be done, but it will be much easier to do if you have the supplies right there. Try to keep a reserve supply of biodiesel handy if your home uses a generator or if you have vehicles that run on it. This will not only serve well in crisis situations but in less dire straights (like helping a neighbor out of a jam).
6. Arm thyself. Think of a rifle not so much as a weapon but more like a tool. In all likelihood, this rifle will shoot nothing more sentient than a fox raiding your henhouse or a deer to put food on your table. In the unfortunate event that you find yourself in a situation where you have to defend yourself or your loved ones it will be good not to be caught empty handed.

Again - enough for now. Some food for thought. The key thing to remember about the Slow Spiral Decline is that if you can see it coming, you can get yourself set up well in advance of that tipping point.

Green Trek - The Next Generation

One thing is for certain - our habits, as a species, need to change. We need to change and we need to train our children to think differently than we were raised to think.

When I say that our children need to think differently than we were raised to think, I mean that most of us were raised in the halcyon days of America. Most parents at the time were just beginning to become aware of the dangers of smoking and really had little to no awareness on topics such as the environment or global warming. Despite the oil crisis of the late 70's, no one thought that was indicative of shortages to come. They mainly thought this was a geopolitical issue and to a large degree they were right.

My Dad was a bit ahead of the curve in terms of environmental awareness. As long as I can remember he has been a member of the Sierra Club and he always taught us that littering was a bad thing to do. Back then this was as environmentally conscious as most people got. I'm not saying there wasn't an environmental movement or that there wasn't progress made on cleaning up many rivers, bays, etc. I'm saying it wasn't an issue that loomed large in the conscious minds of most people.

This is what it needs to become - an issue looming large in the conscious mind of society as a whole. What will make this change of thought stick as an ongoing realignment of mankind's approach to how we treat Earth is the indoctrination of our youth. Raising our children with these concerns in mind will make them second nature to the next generation of humanity.

I'm no child psychologist, but I am a father of four so I believe I have some insight into kids and how they think. Some people have accused me of being nothing more than a big kid. Well, they have cooties and can kiss my hiney.

Anyway - what I've done in my house is I've involved my kids. If they ask me what I'm reading I tell them. I try to get them interested in what it is I'm reading (right now I'm reading The Renewable Energy Handbook by William H. Kemp).

When I am working on some spreadsheet to calculate this or that concerning our family's energy consumption I make a point of making my work visible. Again, if any questions are asked I enthusiatically answer them. If you tell a kid, "Oh, nothing. What I'm doing is boring" they'll run away and never pay it any mind again.

My kids both have their own PC. They also have an X-Box 360 and TV they share. I showed them my spreadsheet and how them leaving their PCs on all day long was costing our family $17.86 a month each or $35.72 all together every month.

Since they'd both had their PCs for over a year I asked them, "Hey, each of you go get your piggy banks and give me $214.32 please. That's $17.86 a month times 12 months. Thanks!"

Of course my daughter (9) and son (12) looked at me like I was crazy.

"It doesn't cost that much!" my daughter said.

"No, you're right," I said. "You actually owe me more than that since I wasn't even taking the X-Box or TV into account."

Needless to say I didn't actually drain my kids piggy banks. It did serve to illustrate the point. They both realized that all of the allowance they had accumulated over months didn't add up to the electric bill just for their PCs. It was very easy from there to convince them to turn them off while not in use.

I placed a little picture next to the light switch in their rooms that said "STOP! Is your computer off? Is your monitor off? Turn off your light!"

After spot-checks over the last week they are doing a much better job at conserving the power consumed by their personal electronics. I have only had to come behind them and power off their PC once so far.

Our low flow showerhead should be arriving soon. When it arrives I'll see if I can get one of the kids to help me install it. Once installed I'll have to gather the family around and explain to them how they can take advantage of the "pause" feature that this showerhead offers (they can stop the flow of water while they lather up).

By getting them involved and talking to them about conservation, efficiency, and green living I am hoping to raise a green batch of kids. A good sign that they are thinking green will be if they ask you questions about conservation or energy on their own.