I attended the Plan C Conference on Peak Oil and Community Solutions () this weekend and my life has changed forever. No longer can i worry about papers, money, exams, or even elections. We are in a situation far more beyond these things, for more dire and severe. We are in a situation in which I don't know if i will even be able to have children, i don't know if i can morally bring more people into a planet that has no future at the current rate of progression.
This weekend was filled with scientists, engineers and other academic folk, who nailed the situation that we are finding ourselves in today. But even these people I found using styrofoam or eating reese's. What will it take to change our behavior? Not fear, and not information.
With me I see so many solutions. But I also see so many blind people attached to their labeled clothes. Do those that are educated work our butts off to bring awareness to these people? Or do we simply escape to an ecovillage utopia of community building and nature connections? How much personal responsibility lies in me now that I know what will happen if we don't do anything.
There's so many simple solutions. Tear up your old blue jeans and when you retrofit your home (like we all will have to) use them as insulation. Salvage old newspapers and mix them with cement to create more sustainable cement. Use glass bottles or old tires as spaceholders in a cement wall, thus having to use less materials. Let your creativity unleash itself, and so many things will unravel in beauty and happiness.
Overall, act now. We don't have money (how many trillion are we in debt?), nor do we have oil to produce 'renewable' energy contraptions. If we are in the know of how to live without cheap oil; If we know how to design passive solar, grow food through all seasons, preserve harvests, or even mend clothes, we are doing alright. But please, pray God, don't leave it there and smile satisfyingly. Tell someone, reach out to someone, teach someone. Our humanity depends on it.
