The Crash Course: The Unsustainable Future of Our Economy, Energy, and Environment (37 page)

Eventually we will do so, but with every passing day, our energy surplus shrinks, our other resources deplete, debts continue to climb, our environmental predicaments grow larger, world population continues to swell, and our range of potential reactions become fewer and ever more expensive. Our choice is to decide whether we wish to continue ahead with our foot on the gas pedal and risk hitting the wall at top speed, or give ourselves a sporting chance by applying the brakes now.

What we need is for our leadership to make profound, course-altering decisions, and we should put some effort into ensuring that this happens. But at the same time, it’s realistic to recognize that significant changes may not be made in time to prevent some serious disruptions. So call this “good news with an asterisk.” Yes, we have everything we need to begin making the right choices, but as a collective whole, it seems quite likely that we won’t choose enough of them in time to prevent disruptions from occurring. Read on for more about personal preparation and what you can personally do to make a difference.

CHAPTER 27

What Should I Do?

By now your head may be spinning as you think through the implications of the information contained in this book. The good news is that we can make different and better choices to buy ourselves more time and secure a better future. The bad news is that we probably won’t do everything or even most of what is needed at the national or global levels in time to prevent at least a few serious disruptions from occurring.

This possibility leaves you and your community in the position of having to undertake whatever sorts of modifications and preparations you deem appropriate. I’ve personally undertaken preparations that some might consider extensive and others would feel are wholly insufficient. We each must assess for ourselves what seems prudent and feels right, but we all should be doing
something
, no matter how trivial or insufficient it may seem.

Time to Get a Little Insurance

The purpose of this chapter is to nudge you toward gaining greater control of your future by becoming more resilient and better prepared. If it helps, think of these steps as insurance that you hope you never have to collect on. As a prudent adult, you probably have fire insurance on your house, maybe you have collision insurance on your car, and perhaps you have life insurance on yourself and your spouse because you know life is risky and you want to mitigate what risks you can. The same process applies here.

My philosophy on preparing is simple:
Get started
. Begin by doing whatever is easiest and fastest as a means of taking that first step. It doesn’t so much matter what your initial actions are, as long as they demonstrate an alignment between your life and the idea that major changes are on the way. Getting started is the key. Relief from worry is the immediate goal. I should note here that everything I recommend next represents things that I have personally done. I do what I say and I say what I do.

To me, becoming prepared is the act of a selfless, prudent adult seeking to control risk in his or her life, not the act of an antisocial loner or anxious doomer. There are no right or wrong answers or actions, since none of us know precisely what will unfold or when. Instead, we must prepare as if for a trip across open water—right now it seems calm enough, but you never know. Once the waters turn rough, you’ll only be able to make use of whatever preparations and training you happen to have brought along—no more and no less.

Becoming Resilient

The point of personal (and community) preparedness can be summed up in a single word:
Resilience
.

We’re more resilient when we have multiple sources and systems to supply a needed item, rather than being dependent on a single source. We’re more resilient when we have a strong local community with deep connections. We’re more resilient when we are in control of how our needs are met and when we can do things for ourselves.

We’re more resilient if we can source water from three locations—perhaps from an existing well, a shallow well, and rainwater basins—instead of just one. If we throw in a quality water filter (essential for the rainwater anyway), then just about any source of water becomes potentially drinkable.

We’re more resilient if we can grow a little bit more of our own food, rather than rely on a single grocery store. Our community gains food resilience when we demand local food, perhaps by shopping at a farmers market or purchasing a farm produce subscription (also known as “community supported agriculture” or CSA), thereby increasing the number of local farms and food sources.

We’re more resilient when our home can be heated by multiple sources and systems, perhaps wood and solar to complement oil or gas.

For me and my family, resilience now stretches well beyond the four walls of our physical home and deep into our local networks and community. But it began with focusing our initial efforts within our household.

Resilience has become the lens through which we filter all of our decisions. It’s a great simplifying tool.
Should we buy this, or that, or nothing?
Well, which action will make us more resilient?
Should we invest in developing this new skill?
Well, how will that help us, or our community, become more resilient?
Should we plant these trees or those?
Well, which ones will add the most to the natural diversity and abundance around us so that our environment will be more resilient?

It’s really that simple. Instead of finding ourselves overwhelmed by all the things we could or should be doing, we find our lives to be simpler and easier when we increase our resilience.

Insufficient, but Necessary

We must become the change we wish to see. If we just sit back and wait for a world where people are living with a reduced footprint and in balance with our economic and natural budgets, we will wait forever, and that world will never come. It’s up to each of us to inspire others by first inspiring ourselves. The good news is that you are not and never will be alone on this journey.

But let’s be perfectly honest: No matter how grand the steps we might take to prepare for a potential environmental, social, or economic disruption, they are almost certain to be insufficient. Yet at the same time, they’re still necessary.

They’ll be insufficient because being perfectly and completely prepared is infinitely expensive. Even trying to maintain a specific standard of living may become too costly to bear. But actions are still necessary, even if they’re inherently insufficient, because they help us align what we do with what we know.

In my experience, when gaps exist between what you know to be true and your actions, anxiety (if not fear) is the result. So while the state of the world may contribute to your sense of anxiety, it’s a lack of action that lets it fester.

So we take actions because we must. If we don’t, who will? We change the world by changing ourselves. We reduce stress, fear, and anxiety in our lives by aligning our thoughts and our actions, being realistic about what we can preserve, and setting our goals and plans accordingly.

Set Targets

When considering preparation, the first question is usually,
How much?
Here I recommend setting a realistic goal, given the amount of money and time you have to devote.

My family’s goal has never been to be 100 percent self-sufficient in meeting
any
of our basic needs. Instead, our goal has been to increase our self-sufficiency to something—
anything
—greater than “none.” For example, until we got our solar photovoltaic panels, we were 100 percent dependent on the utility grid for our electricity. Now we’re just a tiny bit less dependent, perhaps 97 percent, but we can manufacture and deploy our own electricity if necessary, and that’s no small feat.

How big is the difference between being zero percent self-reliant and 3 percent? It’s huge. With our 3 percent, we can charge batteries, have light at night and, most important, prevent our fully stocked freezer from thawing during a power outage. We have some control over our electricity, the most critical energy source of them all to our daily lives.

Similarly, there’s an enormous difference between being zero percent and 10 percent self-sufficient for food production. At zero percent self-sufficiency, you rely entirely on the existing food distribution system. At something over zero percent, you may grow a garden, foster local relationships with farmers, plant fruit trees in the yard, keep a few chickens, and/or maintain a deep pantry, which means you can always meet some of your own food needs. Developing even a limited percentage of your own food sufficiency doesn’t take a lot of money, and it requires just a little bit of time. And it allows you and your family to develop skills and connections that will very likely make a huge difference at some point.

So why not set a realistic target that makes sense for you and your family, and then find a way to get there?

Being in Service

Reducing my own anxiety was reason enough to prepare, but an equally important objective was to be in a position to serve my community should that need arise in the future. Were a crisis to occur, I would fully expect to find many unprepared people scrambling around in a desperate bid to meet their needs, somewhat paralyzed by the situation and unable to react effectively. I feel it is my duty to reduce (not add to) the confusion and unmet needs and help out as many others as I can.

Some think of personal preparation as a selfish act, perhaps involving such things as guns and bunkers, but that’s not at all what this is about; in fact, it is the opposite. My experience in life tells me that being a good community member means putting your own house in order first. If you do, you’ll have a stable foundation to utilize, and you’ll be in a better position to add valuable resources and skills to community efforts. A strong community begins with strong households. It’s like a fractal pattern; the whole is reflected in the parts. A strong community cannot be fashioned from weak households.

My expectation is that communities will rally in the face of a disruption, an act that I have witnessed several times during hurricanes in North Carolina. But some communities will fare better than others, and the difference between them will be determined by the personal resilience of their respective citizen populations. Your challenge here is to first get your own house in order, and then work on ways that you can help to increase the resilience of your local community and personal networks.

You must be the change you wish to see. If it is your wish to live in a resilient community, you must become more resilient yourself. In order to best assist your seatmate, you must put on your oxygen mask first.

Step Zero

Many people, when daunted by the potential magnitude of the coming change, immediately jump to some very hard conclusions that prove to be incapacitating. For example, they may have thoughts such as,
I need to go back to school to get an entirely different degree so that I can have a different job!
or
I need to completely relocate to a new area and start over, leaving all of my friends behind!
or
I need to abandon my comfortable home and move to a remote off-grid cabin!
These anxious conclusions may feel so radical that they’re quickly abandoned as unfeasible. As a result, nothing gets accomplished. Further, nearly everyone has hidden barriers to action lurking within.

My advice here is crisp and clear:
Find the smallest and easiest thing you can do, and then do it
. It doesn’t matter what that first step is. If that thing for you is buying an extra jar of pimentos because you can’t imagine life without them, then buy an extra jar next time you’re out shopping and put them in the pantry. I’m only halfway joking. I call this “Step Zero” to symbolize something minor that might precede step one. The point is that small steps lead to bigger steps. If you’ve not yet taken Step One toward personal preparation and resilience, I invite you to consider taking Step Zero first.

Other Step Zero examples might be taking out a small bit of extra cash to store outside of the bank in case of a banking disruption, buying a bit more food each week to slowly deepen your pantry, or going online to learn something more about ways you can increase your resilience around water, food, energy, or anything else you deem important to your future. It doesn’t much matter what it is, as long as you take an action that has meaning to you.

The goal of Step Zero is to break the ice now and get things rolling. My motto is,
I’d rather be a year early than a day late
.

The Importance of Community