We in the first world need to radically reduce our consumption and reassess our relationship with this planet, and we need to do it now.
The key is your community. If shit really does hit the fan, I'd imagine that your chance of survival is much higher if you have a community around you where there is mutual support, rather than being entirely alone in a 200 acre woodlot.
(Not saying that your goal is to be 100% self-sufficient -- just pointing this out because I've idealized this before. It's an understandable reaction to the craziness of the modern world.)
I'm not sure why you think that should be the goal.
If they're mostly self sufficient they'll be off to a much better start then others. Even if it's not perfect, its definitely better
And if it actually does get really bad... They'll probably have people join them so self sufficiency won't be necessary anymore.
To be clear, I think becoming more self-sufficient is definitely a good thing, and I strive toward that myself.
Why? I live in Paris, and get my food (vegetable, fruits, bread, eggs, peas...) from an AMAP. It's like a coop for about 100 families where we pay the farmer one year in advamce for their whole annual production. It's cheaper than most supermarkets, it's local and organic, it's self sufficient (no competition, we pay the farmer well, according to their actual costs). We only have to organize the distribution weekly (take a few hours per year for every member). I bet the farmer will do better for our organization than any "self sufficient" family.
there have been several documentaries about related topics, this is a recent one: https://www.arte.tv/en/videos/095178-000-A/supermarkets-the-...
(the farmers are addressed later on in the video)
"What will you do when public servants leave their posts and infrastructure fails" is a fair question considering our ecological predicament.
If a professional farmer (with the best knowledge and equipment but also the full support of the coop members) can't feed us, how do you expect to better resist to floods and heatwaves on your own? As far as I know, small groups with good ties have always better fared than single families.
Thanks for your kind words, and best of luck.
Also; many have argued cities are more efficient than the alternative: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/environmental-advantages-citi...
Not that I disagree with your sentiment, but 8 billion people going back to a primitive way of life doesn't seem like a sustainable option either. Nice that you have the privilege to do it, though. Ironically, we are in need affordable housing where the city jobs are. That way we aren't forcing low paid workers to commute 1+ hours each way each day to put food on their families table. Here's the ironic part: depending on where you live, selling your city house in the current market only makes that problem worse!
This is such a common attitude in the US, but it's also a very US attitude. I mean, when I lived in Italy, there were just always other people around. High mountains, small towns, walk in the countryside... you're quite likely to see someone anywhere you go. So you just deal with it.
These things are personal preferences, so difficult to reason about, but I feel that a lot of people in the US would be happier if they didn't have this hangup about "other people", while participating in a society that is entirely and completely dependent on other people.
I feel like it's not tenable to maintain this attitude of "it's only good if there's no one else", which you see here a lot.
But this was a pre-existing condition - the last half decade really unleashed and enabled the full scope of our national insanity with the pandemic and 2020 election the coup de grace IMO.
I’d love to learn more about these places.
Living in a remote environment limits your income. (Or used to, anyway. I guess we'll see in five or ten years.) Nearly everyone's spending closely follows their income.
The pendulum might swing back in five or ten years -- companies might start requiring their staff to be on site. I'm suspending judgement for a while.
Living rural can work if you reduce your consumption and travel. If you're getting your water from a well in your land with electricity from natural renewables, and you also grow your own vegetables and raise your own chicken, you're self-sufficient.
If you shared the farm and solar panels with a few friends you trust, is this close enough? Because you can have that in a city (search for Enercoop in France for the energy, and AMAP for _Association Pour une Agriculture Paysanne_).
Local, clean, self sufficient, etc. but with a minimum of solidarity. Also, you have a much smaller footprint by living in a city so it's a scalable model (i.e not one man for himself and après moi le déluge).
It might be possible to create a less densely populated city-like structure which works like this, the question is whether it is worth the effort. For those who see this as a fulfilment of some ideological drive it might, just like living off-grid in the middle of nowhere does for others. For the general population this is unlikely to be true though.
We won't be lacking space if we eat less meat (like our ancestor). We've only started eating so (too!) much meat quite recently and that's what taking all the space. Switching to mostly plant-based diet would resolve most issues.
>It might be possible to create a less densely populated city-like structure which works like this, the question is whether it is worth the effort.
No need to reduce density. Even big cities (like Paris) can procure most of its food from local farms. We just need to focus on local types of food (less exotic but not necessarily less diverse: for instance I get far more diverse vegetable from my farm than most Parisians).
Going vertical is unneeded and would require far more efforts than making farming more reasonable.
It does not make sense to waste time doing penance by "reassessing out relationship with this planet" - the planet couldn't care less whether we live or die - when the capabilities of "the first world" are much better suited for developing and implementing technologies to improve the quality of life for anyone who cares to implement them. This does not mean churn out more useless commercial crap to be produced by the lowest bidder. What it means is developing and producing effective desalination systems to ensure the availability of fresh water, effective energy storage systems which actually work, can be affordably produced now in enough quantity, design and series-build nuclear (fission) power generation systems which can be delivered and installed on locations without needing to type-approve each and every installation as if it is a from-the-ground-up design, etc. Whatever impact a changing climate - whether that change means a warmer or cooler climate - has it will be worldwide but the mitigations will need to be implemented on a local/regional/national level.
So, no penance is wanted nor needed nor would that be of any help. It is good old human ingenuity which we should turn to. A species which looks towards colonising other planets should be - and is - capable of facing this much smaller challenge and emerge victoriously.
What do you mean by saying "it's not that simple"?
Good luck - hope you find a good community.