Veganwolf.com
Survive by turning back the hands of time?
If this
plan is to work, it will have to be implemented very
carefully,
indeed...very few localities these days are currently
capable of sustaining
themselves in isolation.
The Intelligencer (Belleville, ON) February 18,
2009
http://www.intelligencer.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1439208
Survive
by turning back hands of time
By BERT HIELEMA
Leave it to Gordon
Brown, the British prime minister. This severe
Scot, son of a Presbyterian
minister, the closest you can get to
being a dour Dutchman like me, is also
not afraid to face reality.
Brown's most loyal ally in his cabinet, Ed
Balls, said last week --
with the express approval of his patron -- that we
face "The worst
recession in over a 100 years."
Before that, the
longest depression was from 1873-96. Then my
great-grandparents lost their
money, forcing my maternal grandfather
to quit university and become a small
farmer. All because of an
energy crisis: 90 per cent of the world's horses
died from equine flu.
If you want to survive the next long slump, become
a small farmer --
go back to horses, because the 21st century version of the
downturn
will also involve an energy crisis, a double one: peak oil and
climate change.
My grandfather farmed on 15 hectares, some lush
grassland for his
dozen milk cows and some beautiful sandy loam for the
cereal crops, a
horse of course, a flock of chickens, a pig, little money
but enough
to eat and to share, a pillar in the church and community. I am
named
after him.
Then -- 1873 -- the world had about a quarter of the
people it has
now. The first billion of us arrived sometime in 1803 during
Napoleonic time. It took 125 years to see the second billion arrive,
in
the very year I was born. Since then, with carbon-based energy
replacing
horse power, the world population more than tripled.
Brace yourself:
disappearing are endless credit, plentiful jobs and
life-time occupations.
Nothing will be forever, except freakish
weather and the unwanted such fuel
scarcity. The sooner we confront
reality, the better. When Brown admits the
truth -- and U. S.
President Barack Obama also warns us that we face the
worst -- that
really means the problem is beyond the capacity of our rulers
to
cure: we are on our own.
How long will this malaise last? Balls
says 15 years for Great
Britain. The LEAP think-tank, publishing the Global
European
Anticipation Bulletin, in its latest report rates the severity by
regions. It says that the U. S. and UK -- the world's most indebted
nations -- will suffer a combined economic and social crisis for up
to
10 years; Canada and Mexico will undergo a severe recession for
three-five
years. Europe will escape the worst, contracting from
two-three years.
Africa will not be affected: having nothing anyway,
it can lose
nothing.
Frankly, citing a time frame is futile. Here is my take for what
it
is worth: with the inevitable onset of peak oil, the inevitable
coming of climate change, the inevitable growth of the middle class
in
China and India, the inevitable surge in the world's population,
both taxing
resources even more, with all these factors exerting
pressure on an ever
more fragile planet, I can only conclude that a
return to the good old times
of the 20th century will never occur
again.
In the Great Depression
of 1873-1896, it was the rural side that
suffered the most. This time it
will be the cities that will bear the
brunt due to the energy
die-off.
Two things call for action: first, we have to abandon
petro-agriculture and embrace locally grown and self-generated food,
meaning physically working the land: second, to be most effective,
the
bailout billions should go the European way of electrifying and
expanding
the railway system. To expand the paved highway network
even more is a
wanton waste of ever scarcer resources. We have
squandered too much
already.
In a word: we have to reactivate our small towns and cities and
prepare for manufacturing at a much smaller and local scale.
Yes,
that means tariffs... going against all current economic wisdom
-- the sort
of thinking has brought us where we are. Yes, that means
"buy Canadian," or
"buy American." The wasteful ways of having toys
shipped in from Brazil and
China and India is no longer feasible.
We still have time. Talk to your
friends, your family. Do things
together. Pull funds. Plan wisely. Read the
signs of the times. Brown
did us a service by stating the obvious, a
refreshing gesture. It'll
probably cost him his job, because voters like to
be deceived.
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