Is self sufficiency sustainability?

[bibliophile birds]

However, I lived almost 10 years in the INNER-city from 99-08. I did what I could to lessen my footprint, save money and try to live as self sufficient as possible.

yeah, there have been several studies done that show how much more energy efficient one can be living in the city than on a farm. it's all about walkability, shared carbon load, and amenities. imagine what could be accomplished by ONE NYC neighborhood going all green and low-impact?!?!?! it would be seriously mind-blowing. my biggest complaint about living out in the boonies is needing to drive everywhere...

i HIGHLY suggest No Impact Man:The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and Our Way of Life In the Process (the book) by Colin Beavan. It's seriously impressive. the is a documentary too, but i haven't seen it yet.

 

[redux]

I wouldn't eat a $0.36 can of beans if you paid me. Just eat some styrofoam and get it over with.

I would. I have. I do.

Fact is, if our goals are to become self-sufficient, then letting someone else do something cheaper, faster, and easier than we can do it and saving ourselves the money, time, and frustration can help us get to our goals -- if we do it right!

For many -- scratch that...for most -- living cheaply is a HUGE part of self sufficiency. Whatever helps us do that is beneficial. It's one thing to become reliant on $.36 cans of beans so we can afford x-boxes and new cars, but if you put the savings toward existing debt or the purchase of land or...well, you see where I'm going.

I guess the question, then, is whether or not that can of beans is grown in a sustainable manner. Cheap is not the goal, I don't think. The goal is to produce food in such a way that it can be done ad infinitum.. not the scorch and burn mentality of modern agricultural techniques. If that can of beans is produced in such a way that it depletes and does not enrich, then it is not so efficient in the long run.

 

[big brown horse]

However, I lived almost 10 years in the INNER-city from 99-08. I did what I could to lessen my footprint, save money and try to live as self sufficient as possible.

yeah, there have been several studies done that show how much more energy efficient one can be living in the city than on a farm. it's all about walkability, shared carbon load, and amenities. imagine what could be accomplished by ONE NYC neighborhood going all green and low-impact?!?!?! it would be seriously mind-blowing. my biggest complaint about living out in the boonies is needing to drive everywhere...

i HIGHLY suggest No Impact Man:The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and Our Way of Life In the Process (the book) by Colin Beavan. It's seriously impressive. the is a documentary too, but i haven't seen it yet.

Right on!

Thanks for book suggestions.

I do drive more out here. I keep it to once a week shopping as much as possible. I also have a very energy efficient car.

 

[cmjust0]

Somehow, calling our time put into living this way, wasted, is very sad.

Not only did I not say that, I specifically addressed that and said quite the opposite.

Look...golf is a waste of time. Fishing for sport is a waste of time. Protected sex is a waste of time. Lots of enjoyable things are wastes of time -- but we enjoy them, so we do them, because enjoyment is important to us.

That has nothing to do with a discussion of economics, though, and when you're talking sustainability....well, you're talking economics because you have to consider waste and productivity and all that other stuff because it determines whether or not a particular endeavor is going to be sustainable.

 

[bibliophile birds]

Our industrialized system is unsustainable because it is run almost entirely on fossil fuels, which are eventually going to run out. When they do, our only hope is to revert to a more agrarian society based on a network of strong local economies.

i think that's where we differ. reverting to mass scale agrarianism is not the solution i would suggest. i want the people in the cities to stay there- they just have to make big adjustments. renewable energy is a big part of that. i mean, urban areas are PRIME solar centers. throw in community gardens, green roofs, farmer's markets, public transit or walking... huge changes start happening.

i think it's the suburbs that need to die. you should have to pick: city living or farming. think of all the food we could grow for city dwellers if we could demolish all the suburbs! no more shopping malls, no more houses on acre lots with yards that never get used but ALWAYS get fertilizer and weed killer. no more soccer moms driving their one child around in a Hummer. ahh, that would be a beautiful world.

 

[patandchickens]

You're missing the point... If all the industrial ag and petroleum and shipping went into producing food just for you, then yeah, your way is much more efficient.. That's not how it works, though; all that stuff produces food for MILLIONS.

What I'm saying is that if all those MILLIONS for whom industrial ag is currently producing food started producing it for themselves, the process would be far less efficient than it is today.. With inefficiency comes a whole lot of waste. With waste comes unsustainability.

I think the major premise here (that giant factory production of an item uses less total energy and creates less total waste and pollution than each person doing it individually) is true for some items, but not true for others.

First, there are some kinds of items that, realistically, CAN only be produced in giant industrial settings. The mining of ores and converting them into workable metals (steel, etc), for instance. This is never going to be a feasible backyard, or even "town", industry. Thus if we are going to use those things, there really isn't even much of a *choice*, they just have to be produced industrially, so they are i a way sort of exempt from the current discussion. (Although they should be minimized and reused as much as possible).

Second, there are some items that probably ARE more efficiently made at a huge industrial scale, even when you figure in all the overhead and transportation costs. Fabric comes to mind. Good quality fabric is near impossible to make on the homestead, and ok-to-crappy quality fabric is time- and probably also energy-consuming beyond all reason. (Prolly there are much better examples of this, I am just feeling post-lunch braindead at the moment and daydreaming about tomorrow's sheep )

Finally, though, there are a bunch of things that really ARE, I am CONVINCED of it, more efficiently produced at home. Any kind of vegetables or food eaten fresh and in season. Much meat, if grown sensibly. Even, in many cases, dried or canned or frozen foods.

Yes, the kilowatt-hrs used to heat my stove to put up 6 quarts of tomatoes is undoubtedly higher, per quart of tomatoes, than used in the Heinz tomato factory. HOWEVER remember their extra costs. Building that factory. Equipping and maintaining it. Fuel and fertilizers and probably pesticides too, to grow those tomatoes on an industrial scale. Fuel to truck tomatoes to plant. Fuel to truck cans o' tomato sauce to supermarket. Heated and lighted and snazzily appointed supermarket floorspace to display said cans. And energy to recycle those cans, unless they are dumped in a landfill as usually happens.

Whereas when I can my tomatoes, I use existing materials on the property to fertilize the garden, I have zero transportation costs or emissions, I use no pesticides, I do not have to erect or maintain extra facilities for canning, and I use the same jars over and over and over and over. (Although lids should get replaced more or less every time, *jars* last basically forever if handled gently). As far as I can tell, the overall impact of my quart of tomatoes is one-bazillionth of the cost of the initial seed (sorry, I am a big fan of Early Girl, which is a hybrid ), plus the cost of electricity to boil the kettle and canner for the batch of jars, plus the cost of the jar lid (which I sometimes reuse for other things afterwards). You can;t tell me that a similar-sized can of Heinz tomatoes is lower-impact...

And really, practically EVERYONE can raise SOME of their food. Self sufficiency, IMHO, is raising what you can. Reusing what you can scrounge (which is a big compensation for urbanites btw -- they may not be able to farm, but the ability to scrounge and reuse is SO much higher than out in the sticks!). Using a minimum of stuff, and using it for its whole lifespan, not getting all stuck on trends and conspicuous consumption and all that.

THAT, to me, really IS more sustainable.

JMHO,

Pat

 

[patandchickens]

i think it's the suburbs that need to die. you should have to pick: city living or farming.

Enh, not necessarily die, what if they just CHANGED. Into, say, half-acre farmlets

The problem is mainly just that people WASTE what land they have, turning it into a liability (from a sustainability stnadpoint) rather than an asset.

And people do that in cities AND in the burbs AND in the country too. (You do not even want to KNOW, here in the greater Toronto area, how many huge semi-rural estate homes have literally 100-acre lawns with some poor schmoe paid to mow alllll that useless turf twice a week...)

Pat

 

[cmjust0]

I guess the question, then, is whether or not that can of beans is grown in a sustainable manner. Cheap is not the goal, I don't think. The goal is to produce food in such a way that it can be done ad infinitum.. not the scorch and burn mentality of modern agricultural techniques. If that can of beans is produced in such a way that it depletes and does not enrich, then it is not so efficient in the long run.

That's not the question.. The question is whether or not it's more sustainable to have fewer numbers of more efficient, highly specialized producers producing food for millions of people than for millions of people of various skill and efficiency levels individually producing food for themselves?

Again...I come back to comparing the image of a gigantic, highly specialized and efficient assembly line cranking out can after can of beans versus tens of millions of consumer-grade cook tops cranked to high for hours on end to accomplish the same task.

To me, it's a no-brainer. The factory wins, hands down.

 

[bibliophile birds]

i think it's the suburbs that need to die. you should have to pick: city living or farming.

Enh, not necessarily die, what if they just CHANGED. Into, say, half-acre farmlets

that, i can live with. but it should be mandatory. and me and Wifezilla (cause she seems to be the queen of the microfarm) are gonna do surprise inspections. if you don't meet your chicken/sq yard quota, we ship you back to the city!

 

[cmjust0]

I get the gist of your post, I really do...but...

Yes, the kilowatt-hrs used to heat my stove to put up 6 quarts of tomatoes is undoubtedly higher, per quart of tomatoes, than used in the Heinz tomato factory. HOWEVER remember their extra costs. Building that factory. Equipping and maintaining it.

Did you build your own stove? I didn't.. Mine came from a factory which had to be built, equipped, maintained, etc...

Point being, all of these things have to be taken into consideration.