http://www.bohemian.com/bohemian/06.17.09/feature-0924.html

This is his email address DGFridley@lbl.gov

sincerely,

Nick Palmer
“Sustainability and stuff according to Nick Palmer”
http://nickpalmer.blogspot.com

I would like more information about David Fridley and his 2 acre plot. I too have begun “planting for the future”. I am also very concerned about our food and energy supply. A group of us have organized and are currently in the process of opening a local food coop in our town, Wooster, OH. Please see “localrootswooster.com” . We are looking for support and ideas for our endeavor.
More importantly, I am coming to California and would like to contact / visit David Fridley and his plot so that I can compare notes with him.

Please help me get in contact with him.

Thank You VERY much,

Bill Boyer

boyer784@aol.com
cell – 330-466-4993

The SAS started off and went straight towards their target, up to their armpits in mud. One of the soldiers got heat stroke and for his safety had to be airlifted out. They did not get much food and arrived a day late.

The Aboriginal group took off at right angles to the target. They had a ball, caught a huge turtle, had lots of food, not much stress. Everyone was healthy, but they never showed up at point B!

Interesting comment on Henry the bear!

For the Earth

John

We do have to remember that most work is not enjoyable per se unfortunately – it is just the lucky few who are doing/will do something they enjoy and would choose anyway – and therefore life would be pointless to the majority of people if they lost their leisuretime – and it wouldnt take much thinking on from that to see most people would never come “on board” to any idea of even TRYING to adapt to a society that told them “leisure is now for the history books”.

Henry and his friend both intend to be in Fitchburg, and decide to race there. His friend (determined to take the train) works all day doing various chores to earn his train fare. Henry sets off on foot, collects flowers to press, finds a beehive to plunder, and picks blackberries en route.

In the end, the working bear makes it there slightly sooner, rattled and exhausted, while Henry shows up shortly thereafter, late, but bright-eyed with a day full of adventures and a hat full of blackberries to share.

OK, it’s only a kids’ book, but it seemed relevant tonight…
andrew

Gardening is actually quite satisfying. Farming is a ball buster tho!

my prediction is that between gardening, farming, labor and cooperation-socializing with neighbors their will be little need for leisure as we know it today.

on the other hand, i expect alternative fuel sources to partially come to the rescue & soften the landing somewhat.

Sorry – I wasn’t calling you a yuppie! There were two parts to my rant separated by a line. The whole point about the problems to come is that unless we take very strong action to avoid them, they will happen regardless of what people want or desire or “expect”.

It is clear that since the dawning of the yuppie “me” generation, a societal attitude of entitlement to fulfilment of personal ambition and desires without concern or responsibility for consequences has spread throughout society.

Too many people seem to believe they should get what they want and the harsh realities of the planet we live on intruding into their ambition and greeds SHOULD make them change their beliefs pronto. Sadly, mostly, they do not – they cling, sometimes aggressively, to their plans and do not welcome people pointing out the impossibility of these life plans being acceptable, if we care about everyone’s future.

I think it is this increased societal selfishness that is both a root cause of a lot of the environmental problems we face but, more significantly, it is a major cause of the opposition to bringing in sustainable lifestyles because these people just don’t want to make the effort – they are used to getting their own way and they don’t want anyone to rain on their parade.

However, you did say “the couple of comments implying that there will be no such thing as “leisure time” – one quick way to turn the vast majority of people (including me) straight off.”

I took that to mean that you and the “vast majority” will reflexively choose not to listen to the calls for sustainability, because they don’t square with your life’s game plan, without considering whether they are essential to our actual future survival.

In essence it appeared to be you sticking your head in the sand, along with the “vast majority” and saying you refuse to listen because you won’t get any leisure time. I was just pointing out, in my initial sentence, that if dragging ourselves kicking and screaming towards a sustainable lifestyle means that we get no leisure time (at least until things have settled down a bit) then that is what we will HAVE to put up with regardless of what we would like!

I maintain the right to be very rude about people whose modus operandi is to live by “don’t bother me with the hard facts if they conflict with my choice of lifestyle”.

What of the anthropological and socio-historic studies that showed hunter-gatherer societies and even European peasants had far more leisure time than the typical developed world wage slave currently enjoys? I know I’ve heard of these, though the details are not at my fingertips. Granted, we’re neither hunter-gatherers, nor peasants anymore, and a great deal of work may need to be done up front to get us to the next meta-stable economic/social arrangement. But after that? We may find that “leisure” becomes redefined. And we may find we don’t mind working exceptionally hard when we know what and who we’re working for. Meaningful work makes all the difference.

Thats precisely how I understand it – not a (much) worse lifestyle – instead a different lifestyle. Different can be coped with – (much) worse wouldnt be by many people (me included). I’ll go away and cool down now shall I? Anything that threatens leisuretime is one of the quickest ways to get me very “hot under the collar”…

I’ll get the ice out then..

“Yuppie” – I wish….how about typical poorly-paid “wage slave”…..? It really does have to be remembered that literally the only way many in my generation and over have “kept our nose firmly down to the grindstone” all these years was/is the knowledge we have retired/will soon retire at the end of it all. Anyone think of a good way to try and persuade us to keep on working after we know we are due to have given up – without huge social unrest?

I am very well aware that we have used machines as our “slaves” now for some decades – no blinkers on here about that fact or that oil is necessary to keep them running (as things stand at present). Human emotions and rights are also stark facts as well though – in any society.

So how do we maximise leisure given these new realities. Leisure is needed urgently as we need to maximise creativity for Transition, and creativity is the byproduct of idle hours. Theodore Sahlins discovered the answer nearly 40 years ago when he spoke of “Primitive Affluence”. It is by radical simplicity that we learn that we can have true leisure. It is by a radical limitation of your wants and needs that you learn just how simply you can live and your leisure time expands to fill the gap.

So how do we maximise simplicity? The answer is by substituting machine labour by communal labour. Everyone knows that working by yourself can be drudgery, but working as a community turns it into a party. Just look at Amish barn raising for instance! So we need to first of all build community as if our lives depended on it, they do! Then in community look at radical simplicity and the curtailment of wants and leisure will grow. Then we need to use this leisure in creative new ways – perhaps preserving knowledge or developing inclusive ecologically based spiritualities.

So don’t sugar coat the pill. Tell it like it is. But hey, we survived the fall of Rome. In Ireland monks discovered community, and lived at Skellig Michael in stone houses, living on birds eggs and seaweed. Irish Monks produced the Book of Kells, kept Greek alive in Western Europe, taught the English to read and led to the Carolignian renaissance after 800 CE. Come on we are living at the most exciting time in history. To paraphrase what Papua New Guinea’s delegation said to the Bush’s USA at the Bali Conference – either “Get with it or get out of the way of others who want to make the Transition”.

For the Earth

Clearly the Nearings were in a situation that most would find difficult to duplicate: sufficient income from sugaring, high land availability and low acquisition prices during the Depression, a communal if transient workforce. Nevertheless, I think there is hope.

It reminds me of what’s said in this article about wall street — essentially they are all on prozac and if they were told the truth the global system would melt… it seems there’s always a huge balancing act between getting the word out and alienating people.

I still say most people could take more of the truth than they are being given. It’s about putting the world on a kind of war footing. Alot of people know there is more going on than they’re being told. My mind keeps going back to Ed Milliband’s recent appearance in Transition, when he said, “I can’t sell ‘no growth’ to the electorate, no-one can.” But it will be compulsory purchase before long.

Richard Heinberg said in a recent blog:

It’s a tough balance. If you tell the truth to a fault, you don’t get invited to policy seminars, and politicians avoid you like swine flu. If you sugar coat the message, you have to live with the knowledge that the vast majority of people on our planet have almost no awareness of what is about to happen to them, and you aren’t telling them. Some of us in the world-saving business naturally gravitate to one side of the spectrum or the other, and I try to be respectful about why people make their choices in this regard. I like to think I’m more toward the “tell the truth regardless” end of the continuum, but in certain situations I find myself hedging in order to get along.