Something I thought about last night was the communties that Jd envisioned in one of the issues just before Y2K. What if people lived mainly in little communties and towns like this instead of cities? I don't see any way for a city to be ecologically positive. I also don't see how it would help if even half the US population stopped having children, if the other half still lived mainly in cities. The ones that there were, would just live more decadently, and waste even more. I have been to Camphill villages, and seen for myself how nice a small self sufficient community can be. They have small workshops that make books, cheese, baked goods, candles, wooden toys and utensils, and many other high quality, practical things. The village has it's own gardens, milk cows, chickens, maple trees for syrup, and doesn't buy very much stuff outside the village. What if we were an entire country full of villages like that?

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), December 17, 2000

Answers

When we run low on oil and have not developed an effective alternative energy source, I don't see how we will have a choice. Most will have to live near the source of their food as was done before the advent of the large scale oil economy. Then we may have a population problem similar to what China has today. Society in general will be in great turmoil, but the American dictator will restore order and population balance.

-- JLS in NW AZ (stalkingbull007@AOL.com), December 17, 2000.

Rebekah, Iremember the article you are talking about, when I read it I thought that would be the best way to live and it seems to make such good sense, I dont know why it doesnt happen. Where are these Camphill villages you are talking about? I have never heard of them. Like someone said in an earlier post , the money thing is hard to get away from. Roxanne

-- Roxanne (hmstdlady@webtv.net), December 17, 2000.

It sounds like a dream to me. I would love it! I'm interested to hear what people think would be the long term ramifications. It seems things I think are good ideas are targeted right away as to why they wouldn't work long term or how it would be bad for the economy. I think it would be a good thing in the long run. I also think the people that don't agree aren't into doing physical work. They would prefer to go to the store.

-- Denise (jphammock@msn.com), December 18, 2000.

A Camphill village is a community based on the biodynamic way of thought, and the majority of the villagers are handicapped in some way. Many of them are retarded. There are co-workers, who manage and help out the villagers. The village I went to is outside of Copake, NY. There are not a lot of Camphills in the US, they are more popular in Europe. The first Camphill village was started in 1939. Anyway, you would think that the co-workers would end up taking care of the villagers and doing all the work, right? Well, I was amazed at how able the villagers really were, and how every one of them had responsibilities which they took very seriously! They cleaned the houses, milked the cows, made things in the workshops to sell, and they were all every happy and friendly people. They were includeed in everything, and nobody was seen as superior to another. it was hard for me to tell who was a villager or a co-worker, because in that setting, the villagers were so open and outgoing that they seemed just like the rest of us. It was such a contrast to the way handicapped folks are treated in everyday society.

These people are very concious of environmental issues, and eat only organic, grow most of what they consume, and live what seems to me to be as ideal a life as possible on earth! Why can't more of us live this way? If a village like this can be sustainable and practical when the majority of it's population are handicapped, why not for the rest of us?

I don't know how much land they have there, maybe a hundred acres or less, and at least 50-80 people. They all cooperate and help each other out on chores that would have a homesteading family worn out. Their numbers make it possible for them to take on large projects, such as a small cheese factory, complete with a temp and humidity controlled room to store and age the cheese in! It seems to me an ideal solution to many of the problems and frustrations that we encounter as homesteaders.

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), December 18, 2000.

Rebekah- Sounds like the way most of our grandparents lived. I truly think they had the best life. Better than we have today in many ways. If we all patronize our local food growers, merchants, etc. and stay away from K-Mart, Walmart and Price Chopper perhaps we could see some of this village (community) spirit return. We know it can be done, the Amish do it everyday.

-- debra in ks (solid-dkn@msn.com), December 18, 2000.

The era of the 1910's was considered a very prosperous time for the farmers in this country. Their standard of living was the highest of any generation yet and farm income was at an all time high. I don't recall the split between rural and city folk, something like 60 to 40% maybe 70-30%. Anyway, I wonder how many people would give up just two of the "basic" things we have today that they did not have then?

Electricity and the gasoline engine.

-- JLS in NW AZ (stalkingbull007@AOL.com), December 18, 2000.

It sounds great, but we have created such a needy and greedy society that most people wouldn't go for it until or unless some catastrophic thing occurred. It seems to be the perfect offset to view the "homesteading" (or VS or Deliberate living or whatever) goals versus our crazy "more is better" consumeristic society.

As for not using electricity, I have to admit that I am big fan of electricity. I like it. It doesn't have to be generated the way we are currently doing it, we could do it a lot more efficiently and cleanly if we could set our minds to it. I wish we would, but again...it seems it will take a catastrophe to make the importance of our lack of conservation felt.

Ahhh, the infernal combustion engine. So much of society's ills are directly related to this 'product'...I just wonder if Henry Ford ever thought about whether or not he should mass produce autos as opposed to whether or not he could. If you look around, God didn't make anything that polluted. Sure, monoculture causes disease and pollution, but again, it's the consumerist bent that feeds the industries that pollute the environment that takes parents out of the homes away from their children leaving the State to raise them creating a false reality that's held up by credit. It's a big ball of wax.I think I'm going to buy a mule next year and start commuting to work on him. It'll stink trying to haul cattle panel with him. Guess I will have to get a cart, too. (and so it goes)

Maybe spreading the idea that there are alternatives to the insanity is really all we can do?

-- Doreen (animalwaitresss@excite.com), December 18, 2000.

Kinda reminds me of Schumachers book, "Small is Beautiful: Economics as if people mattered."

-- john leake (natlivent@pcpros.net), December 18, 2000.

I never said we should to revert to the dark ages! There is always solar power which serves us very well. And we have a generaor, too.

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), December 19, 2000.

That reply confuses me, Rebekah. Generators burn fossil fuel and produce pollution. Solar panels: End product produces clean energy, but what about the process to produce them? Anyone know?

-- Joy Froelich (dragnfly@chorus.net), December 19, 2000.

Joy, I think it's inevitable that there is always going to be some pollution, regardless of how 'natural' we get. Even cattle pollute unwittingly every time they pass gas. But there are degrees of pollution, and I think that even if every family had a generator and a set of solar panels, there would still be considerably less pollution than what is caused by the power plants that we have now. with everybody getting most of their physical and social needs met from the villages, as well as their employment being based there, there would also be a lot less pollution by vehicles.

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), December 19, 2000.

Joy, solar panels are improving almost yearly. The old silicon wafer panels used a whole lot of energy to manufacture the silicon wafer. The new stuff is using thin film, but still very, very expensive. (The solar panels for the space station cost $600 million. Course delivery charges included. LOL) Still solar is currently very expensive. A man living a few miles away from me went completely solar and spent $25,000 for a 5KW (I think) system. The cleanest energy, excepting solar, is nuclear fission, but it has a big cleanup problem. The other unlimited source of power is fusion, here on earth, but after 40 years of trying the technology still does not work for more than a fraction of a second. Just as a sidelight, solar may cause problems when and if a hundred thousand (or more) square miles are used to generated electricity currently used in the USA.

-- JLS in NW AZ (stalkingbull007@AOL.com), December 19, 2000.

Curious! I suspect that if only 5 to 10 % of us lived in the cities, then only 5 to 10 % of us would be democRATS/Socialists/Communists! What a great idea!! GL!

-- Brad (homefixer@SacoRiver.net), December 20, 2000.

Being so late on this I'm just adding this for anybody that might be interested. Wind. although it is not as constant as the sun, it does provide a lot of potential in most places, you must store the energy though, and that is a disposal problem in the end, as there is no real battery recycling. What we have to create, if we want sustainable energy is offshore tidal swell generators. They could also be kelp farms, and shelfish farms. Another thing that we must develope if we want electricity is environmentally sound batteries, for the wind, and micro-hydro projects. Beyond that build efficient houses that are passive solar efficient, and very insulated, and may need the addition of a composting-toilet-methane-furnace heating a large hot water tank, or biomass decomposition pits creating heat through pipes and radiators. Enviromentally sound concrete, and glass would be nice, but do we really want these urban features? How about wood heat?-is it better to release the carbon to the atmosphere, or choose not to burn at all. It is easy to be the devils advocate about anything. I think it would be great to switch the population models. Turn the urban landscape into a learning place, a university of observation. As the Earth returns to the World, so shall the observers return from the other Worldliness of Civic life, to being human beings again.

-- roberto pokachinni (pokachinni@yahoo.com), February 08, 2002.

Electrical energy can be stored without resort to batteries. The easiest is to pump water up-hill then recover the energy latter from a hydro system.

-- john hill (john@cnd.co.nz), February 08, 2002.