Curious Dreamer

I'd like to meet:

Like-minded people who share my ideals and concerns in some way and perhaps also who share my tastes in music to some extent.

Watch this little film - The Story of Stuff .

In the wake of fossil fuel depletion, the concept of "less" is very much on my mind. Consuming less, using less - and using "less" as something to be creative with - perhaps becoming also a producer and not only being a consumer.

Less is a Four Letter Word
In Spring 2007 Paul Mobbs - author of Energy beyond Oil - went on tour to inform people about aspects of Peak Energy and climate change that do not usually make it into the corporate media. There are some highly informative publications on this subject on the Free Range Activism Website .

transitionculture.org
This website is appropriately subtitled "An Evolving Exploration into the Head, Heart and Hands of Energy Descent" and offers much practical information on preparations for energy descent in the town of Totnes in south west England. Amazing what can be done once we begin to wrap our minds around it…

Watching the film " The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil " was an eye-opener for me.
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990 Cuba's economy went into freefall and Cubans nearly starved. The film is a documentary of the "special phase" that Cubans went through, showing how they not only survived - among others through highly effective smallscale urban food growing - but set an example in creating a sustainable, largely organic agriculture. I don't know how Cubans have been running their agriculture since they palled up with Venezuela and thus have access to oil again but seeing this film woke me up to impending energy depletion. I also found it inspiring because it shows that so much can be done with "less".
Peak Moment aired an insightful interview with Megan Quinn , the producer of this film.

Permaculture was mentioned more than once in the Cuba film. It's a design system that was developed by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in the 1970s in the wake of the oil crisis at the time. The design system is mainly used for food growing but has also found much wider applications. Here is, for example, what the Permaculture Magazine No. 46 recommended as 10 Things to do to prepare for a post-carbon future .

Local Currencies - Replacing Scarcity with Trust
This is an interview with Francis Ayley who established over a dozen local currencies in the UK before moving to the USA. He contrasts our standard scarcity and debt-based money system with local currencies in which "there's always as much as you need". Local currencies like his Fourth Corner Exchange issue money when members trade goods and services. Communities with local currencies will be less affected when recession or depression hits the mainstream economy.
I joined my local LETS group after seeing this video. For more information about joining a local currency in the UK - www.letslinkuk.net

Money as Debt
I found this to be an eye-opening film about the confidence trick that our money system is. Once energy depletion is more strongly felt our economy is likely to suffer knock-on effects.

Food is one of my greatest concerns in the wake of energy descent. Much of our food seems to be driven or flown three times around the planet before it finally ends up on our plates – a process that uses up many many more calories than the food contains.

Sprouting is a "powerdown technique" that I've adopted into my life, especially during summertime. (In the cold season I find root veg and cabbages more warming.) Primal Seeds give a well ordered, concise account on how to do it. I've also written a rather more rambling account on sprouting on My Food Adventures website and am using sprouted mung beans, lentils and chickpeas regularly as a salad base, mixing them up with chopped fruits and veg. Also, sprouting is relatively independent from the seasons and thus provides a good filler of any "gaping holes" in the amateur food grower's seasonal calendar. Cut-and-come-again salads grown in a window box would probably fill such holes very nicely too, but so far I haven't been very successful with this.

I eat a lot of raw food. The energy saving is at least twofold: firstly in terms of gas or electricity because I don't cook it, and secondly in terms of preserving the nutrients in the food that would otherwise be degraded or destroyed by heating the food.

I'm quite lazy when it comes to food-growing. I have had good successes with growing tomatoes in my southfacing front garden, probably because I was passing them all the time on my ways in and out of the house and probably giving them at least some loving vibes on the way. But my back garden only gets the occasional fast and furious spurt of attention and often even reverts to a veritable jungle state. That's one of the reasons why I'm planning to have most of my little plot there turned into a forest garden which - once established - allegedly only requires a minimum of work, and that work mainly tends to consist of one of the greatest pleasures to be had from food growing - harvesting! I planted my first two apple trees for a start - a Pitmaston Pineapple and a Tydeman's Late Orange.

I'm also trying to learn about the kind of harvesting that can be had without me putting any work in - discerning and sustainably harvesting and eating wild foods . I'm a novice on this ground and, for now at least, prefer to rely on the guidance from an experienced gardener or a well versed botanist when it comes to identifying a plant. But I have already enjoyed many a satisfying bramble raid, many a delicious raw salad including chickweed and dandelion leaves. And fat hen cooked with a bit of garlic and oil or butter on my wholemeal pasta is truly yummy! :-)

To round the picture off,
* I haven't had a car since I arrived in London in 1987 and am travelling mainly on foot and on public transport,
* I haven't travelled by plane since 2001 and except perhaps for a very occasional trip to a transatlantic opera house can see myself quite happily continuing to do largely without,
* I've insulated my house to the extent that I can afford so far,
* I want to have my solid walls insulated once funds allow,
* I'm considering having my fire place replaced with a wood burner (and a backboiler if funds allow), and -
a dimension of impending energy descent that I hadn't counted on -
I find that I am becoming somewhat more reflective and accepting of many facets of life and myself in it which is often appears to be a blessing in itself. My main focus often has to be on attempting to make my inner life run more efficiently too (doing "Zone 00" work, according to permaculturist Graham Burnett). And in my own time I seem to learn to go out of myself a little more to relate to the people around me.
Actually I'm wondering whether on a "higher plane" this is part of a "deeper purpose" of energy descent: whether we like it or not, in the wake of being challenged to live with less, we are most persuasively encouraged to get back in touch in a meaningful way with that which, and those who, genuinely sustains us: with nature, and consequently also with ourselves and our fellow human beings. Thank God for Peak Oil?? Hm, food for thought certainly...