Over the last month or so, mariner has seen a notable increase in efforts to save water. What is even better, water projects frequently are implemented at the ‘grass roots’ level. These efforts are documented in newspapers, gardening magazines, clips on YouTube and even on the search engine advertising strips. Even local public libraries have garden books that show how to build everything from a downspout system to self sustaining ponds. A local fire company has taken steps to catch roof water into a huge beer barrel like one would see at a brewery, which it uses as the primary water to put out fires.
The good news is this: If you want to change or improve a societal circumstance, the best and fastest way is from the bottom up. Saving water, it turns out, is easy and effective if only in your own back yard.
Another rapidly growing change at the neighborhood level is solar-based electricity.
The same is true in politics, The situation is a broken government with little insight how to prepare it for the 21st century. Perhaps if you were to visit campaign activities and elect a sound, local mayor or state representative, this may be the fastest and best procedure to pull our government together again – start at the bottom.
Economics is a tough one to change from the bottom. When mariner had a contract in Taiwan, the culture there, while not running the national economy, was still run by family businesses. The local citizens ran a plethora of businesses at street locations and night market setups. Even light manufacturing was family run. While there was no motive by the Taiwanese to change the Nation’s economic policies, it occurs to mariner that family run retail using local resources, would be a good method for pushing back on the economy – a fact that may become real as AI changes the concept of workforce.
The current fear in the US that prices are rising generally for the common citizen has led to a resurgence of farmer’s markets in many suburban and rural areas – meaning that corporately processed vegetables are being augmented by home grown gardens.
Mariner’s grandmother was an excellent example of bottom up modification; this time because WWII demanded it. She was a full time seamstress for a large department store and further augmented her income by making clothes, draperies, rugs and any other sewing requests she could find. Plus she made most of the clothes for the family who at the time had very low income.
It will be difficult to tame electricity, computer, oil versus solar and manufacturing (although his neighbor rebuilt an early farm tractor to create a marketable item displayed in parades and his wife started a house cleaning service).
Bottom up is the best way to go to fix societal issues. Here’s the hard part: You must, with your own gumption, disrupt your staid lifestyle, get out of the house and use your smart brain and physical body to get things started.
Ancient Mariner
Alas, my state has “prior appropriation” water rights and capturing rainwater is explicitly illegal! (That water “belongs” to senior water rights holders in the watershed the rain falls upon.)
I definitely agree that household autarky will be increasingly important in the mid-term future, as any products or services we rely on become points of late-stage capitalist exploitation. Most will have difficulty decoupling from the economy when it comes to housing, food, energy, education, transportation, water, and networking.
Your insight into the immediate future is quite accurate, Ben. Thank you for contributing. Do I understand that water rights are a first-come privilege?