EnviroLink Forum

I recently heard the term "Sustainable Survivability" (today specifically) and love the term. It is true that it sounds rather negative and will not catch on with the general public. The concept presented is that we cannot mitigate all the effects of global warming even if everybody took it seriously so we must be ready for our culture and lives to survive the negative results of global warming. Two nights ago I spent the night in a house built in 1910 in the worst thunderstorm I have ever witnessed. The wind blew full-sized hardwood pallets around the yard and the 4 hours of lightning knocked out the power 3 times for about an hour each time. This post is about the way we must design houses... not just to use less carbon-based fuels but to survive tornadoes and lightning strikes and flying debris. Power systems will fail on hot summers due to the hot wires sagging too close to the ground. Communities need to be ready for such power outages or high fuel prices or majorly devalued money. we need to be ready for long term crop failures due to flooding (half the fields where I live are uncultivated this year and still partially flooded at the end of june) insects, drought, vandalism (some farmers in my area actually had some crops harvested by unknown thieves), or genetic failures (some engineered seed varieties fail to be fertile after a certain number of generations but not always an intended thing). All these and many more I could list make many of the technologies often used in energy self-sufficient homes to be unsustainable in a tougher environment (both nature and human culture). I will be back to add solutions I have found to achieve a higher "sustainable survivability"

I used to have a blog about Earthship Villages and sustainable survivability through them having a small variety of manufacturing ability and talent, cooperative interior year around gardens and seasonal fields for grains and other food, pastures for some animals, and forest for backup wood stoves and materials. Well defended and use of golf cart type electric vehicles. Enough couples of the right age to prevent genetic erosion, and remote enough to be away from gangs of thieves and cannibals. Enough food storage capability to last through several bad seasons from AGW effects. I realized that not all Earthship Villages would make it as climate worsened, or if they were attacked by a more well armed and larger gang.
With the idea of going past the tipping point for first tundra methane self-release, then oceanic methane hydrates self-release, to the point of worse conditions than the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, 10 times as fast, and an Extinction Level Event by 2300 to 2500, the Earthship Village concept doesn't work as well.
I thought of the Bushes and "Rev." Moon's vast acreage over the last untapped large aquifer in extreme northern Paraguay on the Bolivian and Brazil borders. How Bush had an airfield built nearby with 500 special forces type guards. An underground nuclear powered bunker complex with centuries of supplies, grow lights, strict population control, and air filtration. Then I realized that eventually they would have to surface during this period. Equatorial jungle type areas faired better during PETM, so perhaps they could survive with the proper testing equipment for toxins, and living in hot conditions on a diet that is a lot different. A "Brave New World"?
There are additional problems. If the population does not have a die off event mid century and humans continue to burn fossil fuels until they are totally gone, then a runaway greenhouse effect could destroy the biosphere forever. If resource/overpopulation/religion driven warfare goes to large scale nuclear war, that could also sterilize most of the planet. The beginnings of lower strength magnetosphere and pole reversal have started, with the ozone layer still weaker. This is another thing that could be a problem for much of life on Earth. Low strength magnetosphere shield with low strength ozone shield and coronal mass discharge hit. Maybe the biosphere will be lucky.......

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"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”
― Chief Seattle

Hiya, Ann Vole!
Haven't heard from you in a while....

"Prepare for the worst but hope for the best" puts me in a more optimistic frame of mind. When great empires fall, they fall with a slow and painfull whimper and I expect our current world of "democracy" and energy dependence will fall the same way, decades of slowly worsening after-effects and lots of people hoping for a better world to arive. It is in such a future that opportunities for people to create a better way of doing everything. Yes, we may have ruined the globe permanently but we still have billions of lives to live for a few generations and I would think most will find a way to survive. I only hope to contribute to the betterment of lots of those people showing them how to be peaceful anarchists who make their own food. Note that this post was made with my cel phone so is an experiment in sustainable survivability in a world where all long wires become electrically charged due to a wave of solar particals when our magnetosphere is weak (and fry old-style electronics).

A slightly dated but interesting read on the subject (>25 years old now):

http://www.amazon.com/World-Ends-Hickor ... ap_title_0

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