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It often happens before a big forecast storm, that people get upset about a canal that’s clogged with vegetation. “It needs to be cleaned out! The water will have no place to go!” Is what people tend to say.

I want our local governments to get more aware of the fact that water flow starts far uphill of where the canals are, and our General Shermanesque “moonscape landscaping” policy does affect that.

We need to be catching water far higher up on the landscape. Every square centimeter of tree canopy & other vegetation that we remove unnecessarily, causes that much more water to end up down at the canals and other low points, where there will almost inevitably be a bottleneck.

One of the first things we learned in Permaculture class: Start collecting/retaining water as high uphill as we can, because once we are stuck trying to address it at the lower level it becomes a civil engineering project.

Also: I didn’t know this until fairly recently, but a key component of stormwater absorption is healthy soil. Healthy soil absorbs stormwater many times better than soil that has been sickened by poisons, ripping out topsoil, etc.

I learned that there are more microorganisms in a teaspoon of healthy soil than the number of humans on earth. It’s a whole tiny kingdom in there.

My heart goes out to the people who are dealing with long-term power outages from Hurricane Helene. Multi-days which are likely to extend into weeks and months. Unfortunately we as a society have become very dependent on electricity.

In my book and on this blog, I share various tips for dealing without electricity and other modern conveniences that have come to be considered necessities. Reducing our vulnerability is good for our wallets and our communities.

But, that doesn’t mean it’s easy when people are just hit suddenly by loss of customary amenities. And extended outages. People have meds that need refrigerating; people have essential work equipment they can’t be charged up with a little bitty solar charger etc.

I am very fortunate. The only thing I really need electricity for is charging my phone, which is my main work device.

But, like probably most people in the USA, I have gotten used to being able to have the convenience of electricity.

In one storm a couple years back, we lost power for five days. Overall it was not a big deal for me, I could have gone on indefinitely,but it was a huge big deal for others and I felt bad about that.

For me, I think one of the main challenges of losing power was that I had gotten very used to the convenience of an electric kettle, and needed to relearn how to get good at heating water in the twig stove. Even though it was only for coffee, it was a big deal for me lol I am spoiled.

Also refrigeration. I once did without a refrigerator for three years but that was a voluntary experiment. (Which I have written about here on this blog.) I have done fridgeless experiments of shorter duration as well.

Somehow, though, having a lack of refrigeration imposed, as opposed to being something voluntarily undertaken, made it more of a challenge.

A big part of it was that when I was doing my fridgeless living experiments I didn’t have any housemates who were relying on the fridge and freezer. (I had housemates back then too, always have. But the people sharing my house back then never cooked, always ate takeout etc.)

Photo of my little bag where I keep electric chargers (for Bluetooth headphones, micro projector, mini speaker etc. And for a couple of little battery-powered lamps that hold a charge for a really long time. A friend who did irrigation tech at golf courses gave them to me some year back from their surplus stock).

This past week I embroidered a little lightning bolt on the bag for fun, and to make that unobtrusive little black nylon sack easier to see.

Conveniences are nice; I’m just sad that we have become so vulnerable. It’s just one example, many people in the USA have become dependent on hot showers even in the summer. Probably largely because of the existence of air conditioning, which artificially cools the air inside buildings. Shoot, I’ve even sometimes found myself wanting a hot shower when work or something else has occasioned me to spend extended time in an artificially cooled building!

It also occurs to me that some of the difficulty people have with power outages is simply a kind of emotional overwhelm that sets in. Never underestimate the influence of emotions. Loss of what we have come to consider necessities can just be demoralizing even if we know how to do without. The main antidote that I know for that is community. As with emotional despair in general.

Eating dinner from a cold can of beans alone in the dark is a world apart from sitting together with neighbors. You might still be eating that same cold can of beans but you’ll have company and maybe find it worth lighting a candle. (On that note, I think we all deserve the treat of a candle even if we are eating alone. Thrift stores sell old candles for super cheap. Oil lamps are nice as well.)

If you listen to people’s old-time hurricane stories, a lot of the good ones involve hanging out with neighbors; sharing food and other resources and helping each other deal with the emotional aspects.

One thing I noticed about our 5-day power outage a couple years back is it didn’t necessarily bring those kinds of shared hangouts. Instead it mainly seemed to bring a lot of people individually getting in their cars to drive to Starstrucks to get a coffee. I had visions of my housemates being able to take their melted frozen meat down the block to where someone had a barbecue fired up and might want to share heat in exchange for meat, but that didn’t seem to be going on.

I know I’m always harping on the importance of knowing at least a few neighbors, but I hope many of you will take that simple advice to heart before the next disaster hits your place.

PS. I may be alone in this, but I’m not gonna lie, I loved having the streetlights out for a few days. Those things are oppressive and aggressive, with a merciless white glare. Sometimes mockingbirds stay up all night singing, poor things don’t get any rest. And I can sit on my bench and read a book outside at night, that’s just wrong. I have been talking to my city about introducing more gentle but still effective types of street lighting. There’s a whole movement for environmentally responsible lighting; I’ve talked about it on this blog. Very inspiring examples out there. There are some “Dark Sky communities” where light pollution has been reduced so much that you can look up at night and see the Milky Way.

“Unlike Hubbert, the Peak Oil movement of the early 2000s was concerned about declining oil production volumes. That’s where Peak Oil went wrong. What it got right was its emphasis on the economic consequences of peak oil. …

“For those who think that peak oil was a failed idea, a dead concept, think again. It happened decades ago and that explains why it has been so difficult to regain the robust economic growth of the past.

“The real cause of widespread discontent in the world — whether from the MAGA Republicans in the U.S. or the Gilets Jaunes in France — is the deterioration of economic prosperity for all but the very richest in society. People know that their circumstances are worse than they were a few decades ago.

“Some blame their leaders. Other’s blame the ‘elites.’ Many blame immigrants. The real reason is peak oil. …”

— From “Peak Oil is Dead — Long Live Peak Oil” (Art Berman; March 13, 2024). https://www.artberman.com/blog/peak-oil-is-dead-long-live-peak-oil/

“I stopped traveling for like 15 years. But my colleagues were constantly flying, and I got tired of being the only one abstaining.”

(I have slightly abridged this comment for privacy and space.) My response to this comment:

Kudos to you for stopping traveling for 15 years. Hopefully you were later able to find ways to travel in moderation — such as train, bus, etc. I don’t think we have to stop travel entirely.

in the Riot for Austerity group/movement, where we aim to achieve a footprint 10% of the average USA resident’s (inspired by figures in George Monbiot’s pioneering book HEAT), we give ourselves a gasoline allowance of 50 gallons a year. And trains and buses are assumed to offer 100 gallons per mile because we are sharing them with so many other passengers.

The metrics aren’t perfect but a lot of very smart people put them together and they are pretty darn good.

Re flying — unfortunately, from what I’ve read from multiple sources, carbon offsets are not a fix.

I did retroactively carbon offset every flight I could remember taking in my adult life, and actually padded my estimate considerably, but I have additionally chosen to continue to refrain from flying.

I just can’t use other people’s robber-baron lifestyle habits as my standard. There would be no end to it. There are so many so-called “climate-concerned” people who incessantly jump on airplanes.

I think that if more of us share about our choice to abstain from flying, and minimize long-distance travel to an occasional treat or emergency, we can inspire and comfort each other. Watching the social media posts of irresponsible consumption is an endless rabbit-hole of wistful envy and resentment.

One area where the lure is particularly pernicious is academia, I think. And of course government. At the very least, we need to not be flying to climate conferences or peace conferences etc.

Veterans for Peace is one example of an organization that sets the bar high. There are F2F meetups in local areas, but everything else pretty much is by teleconferencing. They are a wonderful organization that is raising awareness of the deep-seated connection between fuel consumption, climate crisis, and endless wars; fascism.

Also regarding flying – Here is a great FAQ-type article that I found very helpful. It answers all those little emotional tugs that tend to want to lure us into thinking it’s OK to fly. Because we can always find a way to justify why our flight is OK or even necessary.

Q&A from an organization called We Stay On the Ground: https://westayontheground.org/questions-and-answers/

Also: The “Flight-Free” movement websites, both USA and UK, have some really good sections of people’s real-life stories of how they are savoring the joys of life without flying.

Hmmmm, I thought I had already shared the following comment here on this blog, but maybe I didn’t. Well, if it ends up being a duplicate, please pardon the repetition!

It was a comment I posted in the Deep Adaptation group. In the original post, I had shared the new paper by Degrowth leader Jason Hickel. Title, “How much growth is required to achieve good lives for all?”

Several of the more academically oriented members began critiquing various aspects of the paper, and of other relevant works. And citing hard numbers regarding temperature and emissions and so on.

One of the more active members, who I feel very in tune with, observed sadly that despite all the brilliant academic critique, no-one is actually doing degrowth, simple living, just transition, deep adaptation, or whatever we call it — perfectly. But that that is OK with her, and she thinks we just each need to do what makes sense for us, and keep reading, and connecting, and amplifying positive helpful ideas and people.

To which I responded:

For your benefit I am copying pasting a comment that I posted somewhere else that you may or may not have seen because there are multiple threads right now in multiple groups.

This comment was meant to address people who are upset about the lack of hard data, etc.

And also meant to assure those of us who are feeling a bit overwhelmed because we don’t know anyone who is doing this perfectly.

Hope this helps:

In the meantime, there are some people who are very quietly, voluntarily living at 10% of the average USA citizen’s footprint.

We may not be achieving that 10% perfectly all the time, but sometimes we are, and we never stop aiming. We do daily experiments on a household and community level and we share them. When we achieve a reduction, we keep aiming for further reductions.

(That is totally separate from the huge majority of the planet’s population who are already living INvoluntarily at that 10% or less footprint.)

If you want to be a part of the voluntary movement (which will also help create a good standard of living to be accessible to people worldwide), please check out the Riot for Austerity group.

Nobody is doing it perfectly. In fact, the notion of doing it perfectly is a pernicious artifact of capitalist colonizer culture. And it just keeps us stuck. It’s sort of like this myth of the “perfect ideal ecovillage.” We need to stop, and just be right here where we are and do it.

I saw a meme once, to the effect of, the planet doesn’t need one or a few people doing it perfectly; it needs millions of us doing it imperfectly.

Think of it as a huge laboratory. All of us have valuable input. Don’t get hung up on this idea that nobody is doing it perfectly. There is no such thing.

(If you want to read the whole thread, join the Deep Adaptation group on Facebook, and then do a search on “New paper by Jason Hickel. (Author of the books Less Is More; and The Divide.)” )

I always mark the end of hot-hot summer as being the first night I don’t need to sleep on bare tile to sleep through the night. That happened last week. It’s nice to sleep on a mattress again! I can even have a sheet over me!

PS. It never sucks to live in my adopted home state of Florida, what sucks is modern-day buildings that are designed to rely on climate control 24-seven year-round. We need to get the building codes expanded to allow various kinds of regenerative retrofits to existing buildings. And we need to stop the super extreme cutting of trees and other vegetation in urban areas.

Those of us who do without air-conditioning are sort of like experimental lab-rats for the kinds of retrofit we might need. #BackToTheFuture

So what are your personal indicators for your end of hot-hot summer? (Do you have hot-hot summer where you live?)

(This post was prompted by a fellow Floridian, who posted: “And there it is … The moment when it no longer sucks to live in Florida.” I totally get what she means BTW! We can love our chosen bioregion and still recognize that the weather gets extreme sometimes! Also, this person who posted this is a farmer, so she is extra exposed to the heat — and all other weather.)

PS. On my blog I post various RIOT-y stuff, and Degrowth and Deep Adaptation stuff (the three often intersect) on an ongoing basis. Not just the physical aspects but the social dimensions as well, of voluntarily low-footprint living.

Wow, I just realized my blog has been around for six years. How time flies! I owe a very deep thanks and so much love to my dear friend and “Florida sister” Roseanna. For encouraging me to start a blog those years ago. I would not have done it, I didn’t want to do all that work. As it turns out, it has become a major light of my work-day (and super-handy “word tank” that helps me organize my thoughts), and I hope also a helpful resource to the people who I want to support.

#Media #Politics #Analogy

If landscaping people get paid only to cut grass and cut trees, and not plant native shrubs and care for trees, we will have a bunch of attention & resources dedicated to constant, extreme mowing and cutting. It’s inevitable. People’s livelihoods depend on it.

If the media get paid to post extreme sensational stories, then we’re going to be having lots of extreme sensational stories. Even if the media are supposed to be helping the public stay informed, tall tales are going to be an inevitable consequence if the journalists and companies make more money by posting the wild stories than by setting about the more dull business of posting plain facts.

(This post was prompted by overhearing some young men yesterday talking about how every single illegal immigrant to this country is being handed $3000 for food and $150,000 to buy a house.)

Unfortunately we can’t stop the media from posting outrageous stories. But we can and must decide how to process what we see in the media. I personally favor a “probiotic” approach. Reading as much as possible from many many sources.

And also, weighing the stories against my own experience. My experience of observing government grapple with finances, my experience of hearing everyday people’s experiences recounted in the first person, and my experience in my own life.

Photo of my eco landscaped driveway for your visual enjoyment. https://www.facebook.com/share/p/kiPHgFXTZDhgu1Ki/?mibextid=WC7FNe

(One of the perks of not needing to own a car is that I got to convert my driveway into a sweet outdoor room and hangout space.)