We were told that the global financial crisis of 2008 happened because irresponsible borrowers couldn’t afford to pay back their loans. This is true, but it was also part of a much deeper problem. The issue is that our economic system is based on the need for continuous, perpetual growth. Its highly likely that were already in the beginnings of something much worse than a depression, even if bankers and governments wont admit it yet. Fortunately, we dont need to hear it from them. We can tell that something is going on, we have the internet and we can share information amongst ourselves. And thankfully, if we try hard enough, we could just end up with something much much better than what we have now. There are other alternatives beyond capitalism, and Im not talking about communism either. Both presume an industrial system, which is no longer feasible or desirable. In a world with less resources and less money, year after year, if we do nothing well end up with terrible living conditions, constant conflict and potentially a new wave of fascism and no one wants that. The positive option is that we just learn to get along with each other and look after the earth again. We can work together to build new infrastructures that can support meaningful work and dignified lives. We can choose to work much shorter hours, eat much healthier food, growing most of it ourselves and spend a lot more of our time with our families and friends. I’m not talking about going back to the stone age. People have been working on cool new ways to live without an industrial economy for well over 40 years now. For example, permaculture is a system of doing much more with much less energy, and in particular intensively and organically growing food. Appropriate technologies have been developed to meet human needs like heating and cooling in highly energy efficient ways. Local currencies that are more equitable and stable are being designed and tested around the world. Transition Town groups are building community and leading preparatory efforts to relocalise. Distributed manufacturing is about producing what we need, close to home with nifty technologies like 3d printers. There are even groups working on peer to peer versions of the internet that we can get up quickly if the internet happens to go down. I just wanted to point out this small set of examples because every time I worry about some particular challenge, I look it up and theres a group of people who’ve set themselves to figuring out a positive and feasible way through it. Working together/ we can create a better world, here and now. Consider using the Raam currency as a global support currency if other fiat currencies fail. More info at - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAAM youtu.be/HnKn7rgTlQI
Posted on: Sat, 09 Nov 2013 08:00:23 +0000
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