WHEN TECHNOLOGY FAILS BY MATTHEW STEIN
The "Bible" for Emergency Prep & Survival, Plus Green & Healthy Living
Is it not already too late if one waits until one is thirsty to begin digging a well?
-Chinese Proverb
The devastation of New Orleans, combined with the current rash of wild fires in the West and severe weather in the East, brings home the fact that climate change and ecological collapse are bad for business (and people's lives). Ready or not, life as we know it is going to change radically over the next decade. I doubt that we will see technology fail completely, but I am certain that we will see increasing environmental and political instabilities that will create disruptions in the flow of electricity, goods, and central services to huge numbers of people, and that America will not be spared from societal disruptions on a global scale.
When Technology Fails, a book by Matthew Stein, provides something for everyone, from folks who just want to help their families when disaster strikes, to the go-it-alone survivalist, to the eco-minded person who wishes to tread more lightly on the earth, whatever the future may hold. Hurricane Katrina, the Tsunami in Asia, and 9/11 really bring it home. How many of us are prepared for disruptions of this magnitude? How will you cope if the water stops flowing out of your tap, or if gasoline and electricity are unavailable? If the doctors and hospitals are overloaded, can you deal with common medical emergencies? How can we do our part to minimize our impact on this planet, and to live more sustainably?
What is this book about?
Information / Preparedness / Networking:
Climate Change / Hurricanes / Superstorms
“Peak Oil” and Gasoline Shortages
Sustainable Living / Self-Reliant Communities
Disruptions in Supplies and Services
Biological Terrorism / Pandemics
Skyrocketing Energy Bills
Earthquakes / Floods / Wildfires
This web site, and my book When Technology Fails: A Manual for Self-Reliance and Planetary Survival, are dedicated to helping people proactively plan for, and deal with, the coming challenges that we will all face in the first part of this century. Between global warming, terrorism, Peak Oil, eco-system collapse, and the threat of emerging viruses and anti-biotic resistant bacteria, there are plenty of reasons to be concerned about our future. I am not suggesting that we all become survivalists, but I also don't suggest that you stick your head in the sand and pretend that these threats will simply disappear.
If we are to avoid global catastrophe, we must accept that we are occupants of a fragile planetary ecosystem that is showing severe signs of strain, and that to continue “business-as-usual”, where the bottom line of profit has supreme precedence over all other considerations, is a recipe for world wide disaster. It is my desire that the resources in my book and web site will help people to live more sustainably, encouraging them to do business in more sustainable ways, and actively pursue policy changes in local and national government to make a sustainable future our top priority.
This web site, and my book (When Technology Fails), are dedicated to helping people to:
Understand the threats to our future.
Help our friends and family to be prepared for disasters and emergencies.
Seek positive solutions to these current and future threats at personal, communal, national and global levels.
Promote sustainable business practices from the personal to the global level, and the establishment of self-reliant sustainable communities.
Personally, I am very excited about the potential for positive transformation through dealing with the challenges that we will face in the coming decades. When faced with a potentially fatal disease, such as cancer, many people initially fall apart but eventually rise to the occasion, making personal changes and growing in ways that never would have happened without facing the challenges presented by their predicament. It is my hope that mankind will collectively rise to this occasion, working together to create a viable, sustainable future which respects the spirit of the individual, and the biological systems of the planet.
We are all in this together! Let us create a future that we can all live with.
Do The Right Thing!
Most of us just want to “do the right thing” for our selves, friends and families, but what is this “right thing”?
First, we must educate ourselves (knowledge is power!) about where our world is headed so we may have a realistic view of the challenges facing the world in the next few years and the following decades.
Second, we can do our best to be proactively prepared for life on a changing planet as the business, social and ecological climates of our world becomes increasingly unstable. The rapidly escalating prices of gas and oil, which we saw in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, are simply a preview of future price escalations that will occur once the world's oil production passes its peak (“Peak Oil”) and begins its natural and inevitable decline. Unless our scientists are able to develop a new “miracle” as-yet-undiscovered technology to bail us out (as an MIT engineer, I would not bet on it!), our society will soon grapple with significant escalations in global climate change combined with an energy crisis that won't go away. According to many oil industry experts, this peak in global oil production will probably occur sometime between now and 2010. As this occurs, the world's economy will become more volatile and unstable as the rock upon which it is built (cheap oil to fuel global industrial expansion and modern methods of food production) begins to crumble.
Third, once we have a realistic understanding of where our world is headed, we stand a chance of pushing our governments to make the difficult decisions and policy changes that may help us to avoid global collapse.
A Perspective on Relative Threats
In spite of the very real threat of terrorism, I believe that our greatest threats are from other sources. To gain some perspective, let's compare the impact of several major events:
Hurricane Katrina: The official death toll now stands at 1,163 and the damage higher than $200 billion, topping Hurricane Andrew as the most expensive natural disaster in U.S. history. Over a million people were displaced - a humanitarian crisis on a scale unseen in the U.S. since the Great Depression.
Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918: 675,000 American fatalities and estimates of 21 to 50 million fatalities worldwide, in a single year. By comparison, WWI killed 9 million men over a 4-year period. Recent analysis of 80-year-old specimens preserved in wax indicates that this flu virus originated as a bird virus that mutated into a swine virus that mutated into a human virus.
Destruction of the World Trade Center (9/11/2001): Estimated fatalities of 2,936. Insured property damage to the World Trade Center and the Pentagon is estimated at a combined total of $19 billion dollars.
Indian Ocean Tsunami (12/26/2004, Sumatra-Andaman earthquake): One of the most deadly natural disasters in modern history, the United Nations estimated 229,866 dead or missing people. The earthquake that caused the tsunami has been estimated at 9.1-9.3 on the Richter scale, making it the fourth largest quake since 1900. Over 1.7 million people were displaced and property damage has been estimated at rebuild costs of over $15 billion (relatively low due to damage in mostly 3rd world locations).
Hurricane Andrew (8/24/1992, Florida): 65 fatalities, 600,000 homes and businesses destroyed or badly damaged. Property damage estimated at $26 billion.
Hurricane Mitch (Oct./ Nov. 1998, Central America): Over 22,000 fatalities, leaving 3,000,000 homeless, Mitch was the 4th most intense Atlantic hurricane of this century. There is speculation that global warming contributed to Mitch's severity and unusually long duration (it stalled over Central America for almost one week). Property damage was estimated at $8.5 billion (relatively low figure due to third world location, but higher than the GDP of Honduras and Nicaragua).
Bubonic Plague (China and Europe, 6th, 14th, and 17th centuries): An outbreak in China was spread to Italy in 1347. Over the next 5 years, it spread throughout Europe, killing about 25 million people, roughly one third of Europe's population at the time. The cities became death traps and were deserted until the plague subsided.
Kobe Japan Earthquake (6.9 magnitude, 1/17/1995): 5,470 fatalities, 33,000 injured, 300,000 people left homeless, and an estimated $200 billion in damages (4% of Japan's GDP). Nearly tied with Hurricane Katrina as the most costly natural disasters on record.
China's Yangtze River Flood (summer 1998): 3656 fatalities, 33,000 injured, 14 million people left homeless (an astounding figure!!), 223 million affected, and over $20 billion in damages. Severe deforestation (85%) of the Yangtze River watershed has been blamed for significantly contributing to the flood's severity, by reducing the land's capacity to absorb excessive rainfall.
Bangladesh Cyclone (1991): Killing at least 138,000 people and leaving as many as 10 million homeless, the 1991 Bangladesh Cyclone ranks as one of the deadliest tropical cyclones on record.
Shansi China Earthquake (unknown magnitude, 1/23/1956): Fatalities estimated at 830,000 people.
Except for possibly biological or nuclear terrorism, from a review the above statistics one may conclude that natural disasters, such as storms (growing more severe due to global warming), earthquakes, and plagues, far out rank terrorism in scope.
The Main Threats to Our Future
As I see it, the main threats to a stable American and world future are:
ECO THREAT: Super storms, earthquakes, tsunami, and solar flares etc.) coupled with major ecosystem collapse are the basis for the Eco-Threat. Hurricanes (such as Katrina) and earth quakes (such as Fukushima) are a powerful example of the effects of natures capacity for destruction. The severity and number of hurricanes, and super storms have increased exponentially in the last 5 years, and the frequency of 5+ magnitude earth quakes has reached the highest level in this century, it is now obvious that there are potentially dire consequences for the stability and quality of human life on our planet.
BIO THREAT: We face a potential for massive plagues due to: 1) The ability of viruses to mutate into new forms that make the jump from animal to human species. 2) The widespread use of antibiotics in animal feeds makes a perfect breeding ground for growing bacteria that are resistant to modern antibiotics. 3)The unknown side effects of GMO's (Genetically Modified Foods) that are in 90 percent of our food supply could lead to unexpected viral and bacterial mutation in generations to come. 4) The potential for a bio attack that could infect the population with deadly bacteria or viruses and the convenience of (Air Travel) causing the infection to spread globally before it is detected.
TERROR THREAT: The threat of terrorism is obvious. What is not quite as obvious is the connection between our dependence upon foreign oil and how it funds terrorism while putting our soldiers, workforce and citizens in harms way, and draws the attacks of fanatical Muslim minorities in their attempt to drive American influences from the entire Middle East.
Peak Oil
Our entire way of life is built upon cheap oil. From the cars we drive, to the jets we fly, to the buildings we live in, to the food we eat, to the clothes we wear-- everything that composes the fabric of our modern life is built from machines powered by oil. Oil is a key part in our pesticides and fertilizers, so we are literally “eating oil”. Over the past century, a nearly continuous exponential growth in the consumption of oil is what has powered the amazing economic growth of our global economy, and has supported the quadrupling of the world's population. All of this is about to radically change as we slip into the decline of “The Age of Oil”.
In 1950, the United States produced half of the world's oil and was the largest exporter of oil in the world. Now we can't even produce half of our own oil, and we have become the world's largest importer of oil. Even though today's technology is miles beyond where it was 40 years ago, oil discoveries peaked back in the 1960's. In recent years, we have been consuming 23 billion barrels of oil each year while discovering only around 6 billion barrels annually. In fact, last year for the first time in history, the oil industry spent more money looking for oil than the oil that it discovered was worth! Very dismal results for an oil thirsty planet looking for more oil to fuel economic growth, especially when you consider the huge populations of China and India coupled with their rapidly expanding economies and desires to emulate the consumption patterns of the west.
According to many oil industry experts, just as America's domestic oil production peaked back in the late 1960's then started to decline, global oil production will soon peak and start a downward decline (See Figure 1). This will result in skyrocketing oil prices, much like the Arab Oil Embargo did back in the late 1970's, only this time the crisis won't be easily resolved by a few countries deciding to pump more oil. Reliance on Mid-East oil places the stability of American business at the mercy of one of the worst political hot beds in the world.
The Eco-Threat
Our world shows severe signs of ecological imbalance. Eleven out of fifteen of the world's major fisheries are in decline or collapse. Fifty percent of the world's trees are gone and a large part of what is left is in trouble. It is estimated that the world has 50-100 years of farmable soil left, if we continue with the use of modern farming methods that cause soil depletion. Coral reefs, the “rain forests of the ocean” are dying all over the planet. An estimated 10-27% of the reefs are damaged beyond recovery with 58% endangered. And the weather appears to be getting less predictable every year. Ever notice that The Weather Channel no longer advertises itself as “accurate and dependable”?
Though some experts (a small minority) claim that there is no proof that mankind's meddling is resulting in a global warming trend, there are almost daily reports of scientific evidence that global warming is a real threat and that the world appears to be warming at a more rapid rate than previously predicted. Twenty years ago, how many of us would have believed that you could swim in open water at the North Pole, like you could during the summer of 2000? Or that the “rain forests” of Indonesia could burn out of control as they did in 1998? There is considerable data to support the finding that weather patterns truly are getting more erratic. It is not your imagination, but an observable, verifiable phenomenon. Since 1983, Planet Earth has experienced its ten hottest years in recorded history. Seven of the ten hottest years on record were in the 1990s.
Since mankind has inhabited the earth for hundreds of thousands of years, you might wonder how things could get so bad so quickly? This appears to be the result of growing population and industrialization that has doubled world population in the last 40 years and has more than doubled man's impact on the planet over the same period. After some great cataclysmic event occurred about 10,000 years ago, referred to in the Bible as the “Great Flood” and on ancient Sumerian clay tablets as “The Epic of Gilgamesh”, it took mankind about 8,000 years to grow the first ½ billion people. It took another 1,800 years to double this to produce the world's first billion people. The next doubling took a mere 130 years. When I was a child, in the early 1960's, the world's population was 3 billion people, but since then it has taken only 40 years to double to the current world population of a little more than 6 billion people (see Figure 2).
The Bio-Threat
"Certain bacterial infections now defy all antibiotics."
--Stuart Levy, M.D.
Most of us believe that widespread plagues are a thing of the past, that diseases can never again devastate huge numbers of people and ravage the planet as they did for countless centuries. Unfortunately, quite the opposite is true. Due to the potential for viruses to mutate into deadly virulent strains, the increasing number of antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria, the increasing probability that bio-weapons will fall into terrorist hands, and the almost instantaneous worldwide transport of humans and animals via modern air travel, the risk of worldwide plagues is probably worse now than ever before!
Viruses do not respond to antibiotics and it often takes many years to develop vaccines for specific viruses. For example, after spending billions of dollars on research, scientists have yet to produce viable vaccines for the AIDS, Ebola and Hemorrhagic Dengue Fever viruses. Just like the flu virus of 1918, that killed an estimated 21-50 million victims worldwide, a new strain of deadly virulent virus could emerge at any time and quickly spread throughout the world. Or a plague could spread from an existing bio weapons virus, like the dreaded Marburg virus, first introduced into the Soviet arsenal in 1990.
The media has been focused on Anthrax, which is popular with terrorists because it is deadly when untreated, yet relatively safe to handle and easy to grow with only a modest level of technology and bio-protection. Since anthrax responds to antibiotics, I am far more frightened by the threats posed by a number of deadly viruses and antibiotic resistant bacteria, for which western science has no successful treatment.
Not all biological threats come from terrorists and the third world. A significant, and growing threat, is cultivated right here, in America, on our modern factory farms. Some bright researchers figured out that farm animals fed sub-clinical doses of antibiotics grow faster than animals eating regular feed. This has been a boon to the pharmaceutical industry (40% of American made antibiotics are fed to animals), but it is also leading to the end of “The Age of Wonder Drugs”. Since bacteria reproduce at 500,000 times the rate of humans, natural genetic selection has made antibiotic fed farm animals into a perfect breeding ground for growing super-microbes that are resistant to modern medicines. When Jim Hensen, the beloved inventor of The Muppets, succumbed to a pneumonia-like infection from an antibiotic resistant form of Strep (Group A Beta Hemolytic Streptococci), the best doctors and antibiotics that money could buy were not able to save his life.
When it comes to antibiotic resistant bacteria and deadly viruses, so-called “alternative medicine”, including herbs and a variety of other treatments, could be your most effective form of treatment and prevention. A few years ago, my wife suffered from an antibiotic resistant urinary infection that was probably caused by the same strain of antibiotic resistant E. coli that reportedly plagued women across the country (San Francisco Chronicle 10/14/2001). We spent over a thousand dollars on doctors and courses of three different antibiotics, including the infamous Cipro.
After months of unsuccessful medical treatment, she was finally able to kick the infection when she resorted to an alternative medicine combination of grapefruit seed extract (from the health food store) and large quantities of homemade antibiotic colloidal silver solution. My book, When Technology Fails, has an excellent chapter devoted to herbs for boosting your immune system, and alternative medicines that could work when western style allopathic medicines fail, or are simply unavailable. This chapter also includes instructions on how to make your own colloidal silver generator using three nine volt batteries, silver wire, and other simple components readily available at Radio Shack. Colloidal silver has been shown to be effective against over 600 strains of bacteria, and these bacteria have not shown the ability to develop resistance to it.
Want to learn more about the BIO THREAT and its impending impact on your life? For a list of handy alternative medicines and herbs that could work when western style allopathic medicines fail, or are simply unavailable, check out the article Handy Alternative Medicines and Herbs posted on this web site. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has a fact sheet on The Problem of Antibiotic Resistance at : www.niaid.nih.gov/factsheets/antimicro.htm
The Terrorism Threat
The destruction of the World Trade Center, and the continuing terrorist threats in today's world, have plunged a lot of people into a downward spiral of fear. For some, this fear has been paralyzing. For others, it simply brings restless nights and anxiety. In spite of the fact that our chances of being caught directly in the midst of some terrorist act are probably smaller than being caught in a bad traffic accident, most of us find it hard to shake the fear that terrorism could strike our selves or our loved ones.
We are all well aware of the potential for horrendous accidents on our freeways, yet we drive on our freeways with only passing concerns about traffic accidents. Victims of both terrorism and car accidents are usually innocent people who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, so what makes the image of a fatal accident on the freeway so much less intimidating than those jets flying into the Twin Towers? The most obvious answer is the magnitude of the situation, but another key factor is insurance. Most of us have automotive and medical insurance but who has insurance against terrorism? Emergency preparedness is one form of terrorism insurance that can help you put your mind at ease, knowing that you have done your best to protect yourself and family.
Before September 11, if you mentioned emergency preparedness, it tended to conjure up images of survivalists crawling around in the woods, shooting at each other with paint ball guns and preparing to fight off the starving hordes in some grim apocalyptic fantasy. Not so anymore. In today's world of terrorist acts, global warming, and super-storms, we recognize that most of us will probably experience significant disruptions in the flow of electricity and goods at some point in our lives. Stocking up on a few extra supplies, learning some new skills, and making a few emergency contingency plans doesn't take a lot of time or money, and it's cheap insurance that can foster peace of mind in turbulent times.
The four basic areas for emergency preparations are:
Portable short term supplies (72 hour Grab-And-Run kits)
Supplies for longer term disruptions
Mental preparations and planning
Medical supplies and healing skills
Preparedness Planning
I suggest that you develop a personal preparedness plan, and have prepared the following checklist which may be printed from this web site's “Articles” section:
Place 72 hour Grab-And-Run emergency survival kits in your car or home.
Determine a local meeting place with a large open area, such as a park or school, where your household can gather if you are separated and do not have access to your home during emergencies.
Make sure that all capable members of your family know how and where to shut off the water, gas, and electricity for your home in the event of an emergency.
Stash spare keys to your vehicles somewhere on the vehicle and an additional supply of keys somewhere outside of your home (securely hidden).
Store at least one week's supply of food for your household.
Store a combination of water, water treatment chemicals, and water-purifying filters to provide for your household for at least a week (see Chapter 5, “Water,” for more information on filters and purification).
Keep a survival manual in each car with your 72-hour kit.
Get proper first aid and CPR training for all capable members of your family. See the American Red Cross for first aid training and assistance with local emergency planning.
Arrange for an out-of-state emergency contact to reach for coordination and communication. After an emergency, it may be easier to call long distance than locally, or your family may be separated and need an outside contact to communicate through.
Locate your nearest emergency shelter (call your local Red Cross for this information). Practice the route to the shelter, if it's not conveniently located.
Make sure that you have smoke detectors in your home. Change their batteries at least once each year.
Store your important papers in one easily accessible location, preferably in a waterproof and flameproof box.
Discuss your emergency preparedness plans with all members of your household. Keep the discussion light and positive.
You may also use my book, When Technology Fails, as a guide for further preparedness planning:
1. Prepare a 72-hour emergency survival kit, including a hand crank or battery-operated radio, first aid kit, clean water and water purification chemicals or filter, matches, wool blankets, flashlight with spare batteries, candles, toiletries, multi-tool knife, map, compass, whistle, sewing kit, towel, cooking utensils and can opener, tent or plastic sheeting, extra outdoor wear, garbage bags, and rope. (See pages 31-34).
2. Stock up on dried and other nonperishable food. You can store enough food to feed a family of four for a whole year in a relatively small space without refrigeration. (See pages 35-40).
3. Have on hand methods of purifying water. You can boil water to kill bacteria and viruses. Various types of filters and distillers can be used to remove other types of contamination, such as chemical poisons and radiation (see pages 70-89, includes very specific recommendations).
4. Learn basic first aid and have handy a first aid kit (see pages 33-34 for items to include). See pages (176-199) for instructions with clear diagrams illustrating first aid for various types of injuries, from stabilizing a broken arm to giving CPR.
5. Learn how to prepare your home to use renewable energy for heat and power. There are simple things you can do to be prepared in the case of a total power failure. See pages (277-307). For emergencies, you can use a tent, tipi, or yurt. If you are planning to build a new home, consider one using alternative energy, such as solar power. (See pages 137-166)
6. In case of extreme emergency survival in the wild, know emergency measures such as how to tell if a wild plant is edible, how to safely eat things like worms, insects, and grubs, and how to make simple tools (see pages 46-65).
7. In the case of long-term disruption, learn how to live off the land through proper growing, hunting, foraging, and storing, without electricity or other modern technological advances. (See pages 97-127).
For several easily printed handy lists and information about preparedness, check out some of the articles listed on this web site, such as Preparedness Checklist, First Aid Kit, Grab-And-Run Kit, Earthquake Precautions, etc.
Positive Action
Many people ask, “What can I do?” Individually we can educate ourselves and prepare ourselves to cope with future instabilities in the climate and the supply of gasoline and central services. Remember, preparedness is disaster & terrorism insurance.
Katrina gave us a glimpse of what we might expect when society reels under the load of a huge disaster, or simply degrades due to (in the words of James Howard Kunstler) the “long slow emergency” of life after Peak Oil. In these events, there will be safety in numbers, living among people you can trust, in localized sustainable communities built upon the principles of Permaculture. While the world is still functioning reasonably well, is the best time to start developing your skills and links with other like-minded people. Location will be important if/when the world situation takes a turn for the worse. You may use this web site as a good starting point. My goal is to make it a useful tool for networking, education, and activism.
Reducing consumption, recycling and the use of renewable energy sources are all positive steps toward reaching a sustainable future. Individually, none of us will save the world, but collectively we can decide that we (the people) wish to make a sustainable future the number one priority of business and government. There is a huge momentum that tends to keep the world on the same track of “Business as Usual”. Currently, it would be political suicide for an American leader in today's world to make the difficult decisions to halt our momentum sliding towards global collapse, but this doesn't mean we can't change this course. We can change the world, but it takes massive numbers of people to make changes on the scale of the end of slavery or the institution of women's rights. Hitler could never have been stopped if it was number ten on the priority list. Stopping Hitler was a matter of survival. Changing the way we do business in our world is also a matter of survival.
Here are a few avenues to explore—individually and collectively—to promote change:
• Conservation. Conscientiously conserving, recycling, and reusing resources and products will help to slow the process of planetary degradation. There is a sort of consumption “food chain,” in which some savings have far more positive impact than others. Consuming fewer goods and improving up-front process efficiencies have the most impact. Reusing goods has a middle impact. Recycling is a relatively easy and painless thing to do, requiring minimal changes in our consumer-oriented lifestyle, and it is usually better than throwing away. However, recycling has the least positive impact of the three options, since it is at the tail end of the consumption “food chain,” and it takes additional energy and resources to recycle.
• Collective action. Individually, none of us will save the world, but collectively we can decide that we (the people) wish to make a sustainable future the number one priority of business and government. We can change the world, but it takes massive numbers of people to make changes on the scale of the end of slavery or the institution of women’s rights. Hitler would have conquered the world if stopping him had been number ten on the priority list. Stopping Hitler was a matter of survival. Changing the way we do business is also a matter of survival.
• Buy local. In the United States, the average item of food traveled 1,518 miles in 1998, and this number has been increasing about 10 percent per decade. Buying local produce and goods keeps your dollars in your local communities, and saves the energy wasted by shipping goods around the world.
• Planet-friendly diet. Health and environmental impacts from the agribusiness production of meat range from massive destruction of rainforests for cattle grazing to methane pollution and the consumption of huge amounts of pesticides, oil, fertilizer, water, vegetable protein, and topsoil. Fisheries are collapsing across the planet due to annual catches that far exceed the sustainabile rate, combined with destructive practices, such as the use of huge driftnets. Eating less meat and wild fish helps the planet.
"Raising the livestock needed to produce the 276 million tons of meat consumed in 2006 was responsible for almost a fifth of total greenhouse gas emissions."—The Worldwatch Institute, Vital Signs 2007–2008
• Political action. We can join forces with others to promote recycling, clean air, and water and the preservation of woodlands, wetlands, and forests. We can push for tax reforms and regulations that support planet-friendly practices and eliminate subsidies for businesses that “spend” our natural resources or otherwise hurt the environment. Individually we make a statement by doing business only with planet-friendly companies and voting for candidates with a good environmental record.
• Restructure business. Implementing analysis tools, such as The Natural Step, and evaluating products and manufacturing systems from the point of view of cradle to cradle (as opposed to our current cradle-to-grave throw-away products) is critical for changing the way we do business and starting down the road to sustainability.
• Replace your light bulbs. By replacing a single 75-watt incandescent light bulb with an 18-watt compact fluorescent bulb, you will save about $37.06 in combined utility and bulb costs over the lifetime of one fluorescent bulb. These energy-efficient bulbs produce the same quantity and quality of light as a regular 75-watt bulb and last about 13 times as long. Over the life of one compact fluorescent, you will save yourself the hassle of buying and replacing 13 incandescent bulbs. The energy savings from a single bulb will accomplish one of the following: (A) Spare the Earth more than 1,500 pounds of carbon dioxide and about 20 pounds of sulfur dioxide spewing from the stack of a coal-fired power plant. (B) Avoid the production in a nuclear plant of half a curie of high-level radioactive waste (which is a lot) and two-fifths of a ton of TNT-equivalent of plutonium. (C) Keep an oil-fired power plant from burning 1.25 barrels of oil—enough to run a family car for a thousand miles or to run Honda’s new hybrid car from Los Angeles to New York and on to Miami before it needed more gas.
• Choose a fuel-efficient car. For most people, the type of car they drive will have the single greatest impact on their contribution to global greenhouse gases. Hybrids, biodiesel-capable diesels, and super-efficient gasoline-burning cars make a huge difference in your carbon footprint. Simply adopting European mileage standards would eliminate all of America’s current need to import oil from OPEC countries. In just a few short years, most Brazilians have switched to flex-fuel vehicles that are capable of running on ethanol, gasoline, or a combination of both, and gasoline-only vehicles have dropped dramatically in resale value.
• Ride a bicycle, take a bus/train, or carpool. Each gallon of gasoline burned releases 19.6 pounds of carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. Reducing your consumption of gasoline significantly reduces your impact on the planet.
• Reduce heating and air conditioning. About 25 percent of greenhouse gases come from energy used to heat and cool buildings. Energy-conserving design typically reduces building loads by 90 percent or more. Insulating your house, upgrading appliances to energy-efficient models, and installing energy-efficient windows can make a huge reduction on your monthly energy bill. Wearing sweaters in the winter and light clothing in the summer will make a big difference too.
• Install renewable energy systems in your home or business. Modern solar and wind energy systems have come down in cost and are much easier to operate and maintain than they used to be. In windy locations, a small wind turbine could provide most or all of the energy that your home needs. New roof-integrated solar panels provide cost-effective long-term reliable energy with no moving parts to wear out. Solar hot water systems will usually pay for themselves in a year or two through the energy savings on your monthly utility bill.
• Personal independence and self-sufficiency. Developing self-sufficient living skills helps us prepare for the uncertainties of the future.
• Self-sufficient communities. There is a growing movement to build communities based on principles of self-sufficiency, ecological design, sustainability, and cooperation.
For a list of suggested "Big Picture" actions for changing the way we do business in our world in order to avoid ecological and economic collapse, see my article, "Making the Shift to Sustainability".
With all my being, I know that humankind cannot continue behaving as if the world was an infinite reservoir of natural resources that we may do with as we wish, consumed in ever-increasing amounts by an ever-increasing population. One of the things that defines humanity is the dual powers of creativity and free will. We have the power to choose wisely or foolishly, but choose we must. To choose to do nothing is still making a choice.
We may choose a planetary future from two paths traveling in opposite directions. We may choose to accept our responsibility in the co-creation of ourselves along with planet Earth—the source of everything around us and everything that we have come to be over the millennia. This type of responsibility requires a fully conscious and compassionate awareness of the consequences of our actions for the long-term health of both the Earth and humankind.
On the other hand, like lemmings rushing to the ocean, we can proceed toward famines, collapsing ecosystems, wars, and plagues. This is the path of business as usual, waiting for science and technology to come up with solutions, and ultimately suffering the consequences of the collapse of natural systems that took countless millennia to evolve.
Throughout human history, great changes have followed actions that began at a grassroots level before blossoming into large-scale movements. Individuals, households, and communities changed their attitudes and behaviors and made sacrifices. The choice is ours. For our own sakes and those of our children to the seventh generation and beyond, we must choose a path with a future that we can all look forward to. In the words of Robert Muller, a high-ranking official with the United Nations:
"Nothing but happiness is good enough for the genial and proud human race on planet Earth. Maximum peace, beauty, and happiness and not maximum economic welfare must be the objectives of the coming World Renaissance. The beauty of flowers is due to the care of the gardener. The beauty of the world will depend on the care of its gardeners. Let us therefore all become living gardeners of the world."
—Robert Mueller, Assistant to the Secretary General of the United Nations
Source: http://www.whentechfails.com/
Free PDF Book Download: http://projectavalon.net/WHEN_TECHNOLOGY_FAILS.pdf
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