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Politics : Rat's Nest - Chronicles of Collapse -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bill on the Hill who wrote (1583)	8/10/2005 2:30:27 AM
From: Bill on the Hill	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 24213

And here is her follow up post. And she is only one of many on that thread contributing. I especially like the last line of her post. The one before her name. groups.yahoo.com ************************************************************* I had no sooner sent this than I remembered a few more I'd meant to add. So here they are, hopefully not ad nauseum. 1. School starting is a great time to reconsider transportation in light of peak oil. Can your children walk? Bike? If they cannot do either for reasons of safety (rather than distance) could an adult do so with them? Could you hire a local teenager to take them to school on foot or by wheel? Can you find ways to carpool, if you must drive? Grownups can do this too. 2. Consider the environmental impact of scheduling and activities - are there ways to minimize driving/eating out/equipment costs/fuel consumption? Could your family do less in formal "activities" and more in family work? 3. Most schools would be delighted to have volunteers come in and talk about conservation, gardening, small livestock, home-scale mechanics, ham radio, etc..., and most homeschooling families would be similarly thrilled. Consider offering to teach something you know that will be helpful post-peak (although I wouldn't recommend discussing peak oil with any but the oldest teenagers, and not even that without their parents permission). 4. Now is the time to convince your business, synagogue, church, school, community center to put a garden on that lawn. If you start the campaign now, you can be ready to plant in the spring. Produce can be shared among participants or offered to the needy. 5. The one-two punch of rising heating oil and gas prices may well be what is needed to make your family and friends more receptive to the peak oil message. Try again. At the very least, emphasize the options for mitigating increased economic strain with sustainable practices. 6. Get together with neighbors and check in on your area's elderly and disabled people. Make a plan that ensures they will be checked on during bad weather, power outages, etc... 7. Consider car sharing. Many two-car families don't really need two cars full time - could you barter with a neighbor's family or buy a car together? 8. Elders and the disabled in your family and among your friends may be worried about facing another winter/holiday season. Make sure they have good community support, enough food in the pantry to face bad weather, and regular contact with a family member who will watch for signs that they are concealing illness or experiencing emotional difficulties. Check in on them regularly, or hire a professional to do so if you can't. Or consider bringing them to spend the worst of the winter with you. 9. Plant spinach and other cold loving greens for overwintering, and begin adapting herbs and other potted plants to indoor culture. Consider adding small tropicals - figs, lemons, oranges, even bananas can often be grown in cold climate homes. Obviously, if you live in a warm climate well, be prepared for some jealousy from the rest of us come February ;-). 10. Go leaf rustling - once those bags of leaves start showing up on the curb of your local suburban neighborhood, claim as many as you can to mulch your garden and for your compost pile. 11. Now is the time to prepare for fall and winter illness - keep a stock of remedies, including useful antibiotics (although know what you are doing, don't just buy them and take them), vitamin C supplements (I like elderberry syrup), painkillers, herbs, and tools for handling even serious illness by yourself. In the event of a truly severe epidemic of flu or other illness, avoiding illness and treating sick family members at home whenever possible may be safer than taking them to over-worked and over-crowded hospitals (or, it may not - but planning for the former won't prevent you from using the hospital if you need it). 12. Find space for drying racks or indoor clotheslines, and save both energy and the cost of using your dryer through the winter. 13. Work towards encouraging funding at the state, federal and local level for programs that provide heating subsidies - there will be a rising number of cold families this year and every year to come. 14. Pumpkins are available cheaply and in very large quantities the day after Halloween. Consider taking some off your local pumpkin seller's hands, and using them for food for humans and livestock. 15. Consider creating a fall or winter cottage industry to supplement your income. Use those long hours indoors in the cold weather to make or build something that will be useful in the future, perhaps after your present job is no more. Sharon, in upstate NY, who promises she'll stop now.