There seem to be 2 complementary solutions to the tendency for the cheapest option to make all others non-viable.
1) A venture capital system that finances experiments in transition approaches. For example, it could finance an experimental farming of a new crop, and take a percentage of the profits. This could operate along the lines of micro-loan schemes already used in developing countries, and could be financed by micro investments by transition scheme organisations and participants. This would encourage innovation.
2) An insurance system that builds up a reserve of things a community needs. This would manage risk.

These would overcome the tendency for the cheapest option to make all others non-viable because venture capital and insurance are existing successful models that are already used in the current economic system, where competition is mainly on price. But how to raise the initial capital?

“1. Encourage innovation through a rich variety of experiments and transformative approaches that probe possible directions. It is important to encourage experiments that have a low cost of failure to individuals, the environment, and careers, because many of these experiments will fail.

1. Reduce inhibitions to change, which are common when systems get so locked up.

2. Protect and communicate the accumulated knowledge and experience needed for change.

3. Promote discourse among all parties involved to try to understand where we are going and how to achieve it.

4. Encourage new foundations for renewal that build and sustain the ability of people, economies, and nature to deal with change, and ensure that these new foundations consolidate and expand our understanding of change.

5. Allow sufficient time. This pulse is a global phenomenon, and it could potentially affect all levels of the hierarchy, all the way up the chain, from the individual/family to national and global systems. “

No that’s not it. It’s blue with a little bit of white text at the top – the BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death).

That aside, “will this oncoming spell of potential fuel shortages, disruptions to deliveries and to industry and of record prices hasten the rebuilding of resilience in this country?” – I think not. I was recently in South Africa, and they’re often having electricity off for 2 hours at a time; but they will still leave 100W light bulbs on at midday.

The only thing that appears to make a difference to people is visible metering.

Rob could consider backing up his data in a few places online, and avoid worrying about the OS altogether. The Net was designed to be a resilient system.

The other thing about Linux is that my 8-year old Pentium-II network machine is fully compatible with my latest 1.7GHz Pentium 4 — with Linux/free software obsolescence isn’t an issue, so everything is usually backwardly compatible (and in fact, Linux works better on older/recycled computers).

Linux also uses around a half to 2/3rds of the energy of a Winoze system because it’s not throttling the processor at full power for most of the time. Make a big difference when running it on PV panels in the office.

If you store things on your hard drive, and try to remember to back it up to something else, bad things like this will keep happening.

That said, congratulations on getting your data back!

Sadly, here in the states, I think many people still view current spikes in fuel and food prices as the anomoly and that “someone will fix it.” Others, however, are seeing the bigger picture.

This is why the transition movement shouldn’t advocate doing everything locally, as bad weather, plant and animal disease or floods can destroy our local food supply. We need a balance among multiple systems, local, national and international, to get effective resilience. The problem with this is that one system will always be cheaper than the others, so it is always profitable in the short term to use the cheapest and abandon more expensive parts of the system. Does anyone know an existing effective solution to this?

Yesterday on the BBC ‘Have your say’ site many people were saying “How can we allow these strikers to hold the country to ransom with their pay claims …” or something like that. I made a post asking them to think about this differently – what if this had been an explosion, fire or mechanical failure at Grangemouth? Ask yourself how we’ve created such a fragile system that a group of people can ‘hold the country to ransom’ by stopping work in a single place?

As you’ve said Rob, maybe it will give at least some people pause to ask how we’ve managed to live in this house of cards so long that it hasn’t all come down around our ears so far …