“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
– R. Buckminster Fuller
Start here to view a different way of thinking and living.
Organizing simple procedures for administration and enforcement of law may (or may not) be considered a priority solution. But whether a country or community has established independence and true Law and true Rules of Law, or chooses to leave that to a future date in order to address more immediate needs, what comes next?
STEP ONE
Assess what is needed and what is already available to fulfill those needs.
STEP TWO
Assess what is NOT needed or useful, what is not available and must be obtained elsewhere or simply done without. Also determine what could be put to better use, and what practices are actually harmful.
STEP THREE
What can be provided locally for the benefit of all the members of the community?
Essential needs
For communities and individuals to survive and thrive, the basic necessities must be available to all: healthful food, clean water, shelter, adequate clothing, and energy in useful forms. Beyond that, health care, means of learning, communication, and necessary travel need facilitation. These, and defence, may be the most important priorities in a broken society.
To deal with immediate needs, the quickest route is to reuse and redistribute housing and clothing, to use up the existing supplies of foodstuffs, to keep water flowing to households, and to maintain access to whatever forms of energy are still available for heating and cooking ― without depleting local wood supplies to the point of deforestation.
In the long haul, individuals and communities must supply the labour and materials to obtain and maintain the essentials for themselves and each other in order to regain control over our lives and livelihood. Self-sufficiency is not an optional pipe dream but a necessity in our current world situation.
We were conned into believing globalism would provide everything for us. It was always a lie, a path to a cage, a trap. That we fell for it is our shame. But rather than wallow, we must stand up and forge ahead on our own path, not “theirs.”
Yes, it will be inconvenient and difficult at first. That is the price we will have to pay for the gullibility and lazy focus on convenience that brought us to this position.
So, the question stands: Where do we go from here?
Each individual, each family, and each community will have to find and create answers suitable to their circumstances. We offer here some options. And thenewblueprintforhumity.org and its sister sites have many suggestions that can apply on large and small scales.
The NEW WAYS and OLD section of this website also offers possible sources of information and lists a variety of topics related to sustainable living.
FOOD
It is absurd to allow food corporations to dictate policy, regulations, packaging, labelling, prices or any other matters.
There is a need to encourage local farmers to provide food for neighbouring communities instead of exporting it.
Yards, balconies, windowsills, and rooftops that can support the weight should be turned to immediate food production.
Parks, empty lots, and other open spaces could become community gardens, planted as orchards, and or used to graze domestic animals.
Any former prohibitions against composting and raising of livestock in backyard husbandry needs to be encouraged and facilitated.
Any livestock quotas and prohibitions against raw milk products should be removed in favour of sensible rules to ensure livestock health as well as cleanliness and safety of products.
Local grain milling, dairy, and butcher operations can be encouraged and facilitated.
Local companies making gardening and husbandry tools must be encouraged and facilitated.
Teaching of gardening and husbandry and other food-production skills can help to bring the community together.
CLEAN WATER
Fluoride and other chemicals need to be banned immediately and community water works run without any automated poisoning of the water supplies, and with local access to safety equipment including and not limited to water-flow cut-off valves.
Sewage systems can be replaced by constructed wetlands as a natural means of actually cleaning the water.
Where vehicle traffic is light, asphalt could be removed and replaced with grasses that can be grazed and that soak up precipitation.
Instead of diverting water to “storm sewers,” create swales to channel water to plantings in yards, parks, and other spaces. Design emergency overflow channels and or use existing ravines to accommodate high-rainfall events and or excess snowmelt.
Turn boggy areas to water purification by planting cattails and other marsh plants.
Encourage and facilitate precipitation catchment, purification, and containment from roofs, and greywater and blackwater reclamation.
Encourage and facilitate water features such as small ponds in yards where appropriate.
Encourage and facilitate manure and humanure harvesting and composting, including and not limited to community toilet facilities built at appropriate locations such as on the edge of community gardens.
Use humanure and other means to break down and purify poisoned soils and landfills. See The Humanure Handbook by Joseph Jenkins here.
SHELTER
Building Codes should be viewed as guides, not laws, as some of the rules may have been intended to bolster industry profits rather than safety and efficiency of building.
Do-it-yourself and neighbour-helping-neighbour building, renovating, and repair are ways to encourage community interaction as well as to improve housing.
Use of readily available local materials should be encouraged and facilitated.
Local companies making building tools can be encouraged and facilitated.
ADEQUATE CLOTHING
Exchange of used clothing through local markets and shops reduces waste while ensuring all have clothing appropriate to each season.
Mending of damaged clothing can easily by taught.
Fabric-arts skills not only allow for creative expression, but supply needed materials for clothing, household goods, and other purposes.
Local companies making fibres, fabrics, dyes, tools, and clothing and household items increase local supplies of essential items as well as providing jobs and income.
Growing fibre plants for sustainable harvesting is another means to provide jobs and essential products, and also uses space wisely in the community.
ENERGY
Coppicing can be taught as a means to maintain wood supplies while also providing wood for various purposes.
Sustainable harvesting of wood and other fuels can be taught and facilitated.
Local production of other fuels including and not limited to alcohol and charcoal expands energy options.
Building and maintaining of alternative-fuel cookstoves and heating stoves is a means to lessen reliance on energy sources that may be disrupted.
Local companies making tools and energy-production and energy-distribution items, including manufacture of electrical wire and insulating material for electrical wire, encourages community self-sufficiency. In particular, free-energy devices and technologies and small-scale energy production and storage devices that can be made, maintained, and safely disposed of at end of use are ideal local initiatives that could be community-owned.
HEALTH CARE
Communities need to encourage people to recognize, grow, and use medicinal herbs and other locally available health-enhancing substances rather than rely on products that may become scarce or prohibitively expensive.
Teaching of first-aid skills can take place in schools and other community facilities.
Exploration of self-healing techniques and spiritual development must be encouraged.
Local manufacture of bandaging materials and other emergency-care items ensures an adequate supply in time of need.
LEARNING
Keep in mind that from 12 (twelve) to 16 (sixteen) years of age, children are developing as adults without the programming (yet) that older youths and adults have succumbed to. And parents are guardians, not controllers or owners of their natural or adopted children.
Homeschooling is a valid and useful means of teaching children not only the standard school subjects of reading, writing, and arithmetic but life lessons as well.
Online courses must be evaluated by potential users in order to discover whether their content is accurate, valid, and beneficial.
Teaching of survival and wildcrafting skills to children and adults imparts a sense of self-confidence as well as essential skills.
Whether in school facilities, neighbourhood groups, or at home, learning gardening, cooking, mending of clothing, and other useful skills by both children and adults is needed to regain individual and community self-reliance.
Encouraging adults and children to explore their talents and expand their knowledge leads to a happy and successful populace. To that end, expansion beyond basic skills must be encouraged and facilitated to the extent possible, and library services maintained and prioritized.
Teaching of true history is essential to be able to correct the mistakes of the past.
See information about learning styles and books pertaining to consent and true history.
COMMUNICATION
If communications disruptions become a hazard, coordination of a local postal service with other communities may become essential.
A return to letter writing for business and personal communications would require the teaching of a skill now uncommon.
If possible, enable use of local telephone exchanges in the event that large-scale telecommunications becomes unreliable or unavailable.
Encouraging and facilitating ham-radio and citizen’s band communications and teaching skills in Morse code and use of radio technologies as well as repair of such devices ensures essential communications can be maintained in any emergency.
Turn local radio and television services to public use and control, if practicable.
Repair old typewriters and enable use of older technologies for official purposes, including by teaching the use of such older technologies.
Local making of paper and inks can become another new business opportunity.
TRAVEL
Walking, snowshoeing, and skiing are healthful as well as free of reliance on conveyances that require fuels that may become scarce.
Use of HUman-powered vehicles includes bicycles and tricycles.
Animal-powered travel and haulage may be considered. Local manufacture and repair of buggies, buckboards, saddles, and tack as well as bicycles and tricycles would enable communities to expand available methods of travel. Should animal power be needed or desired, breeding and training of draught animals would be required.
Use of canoes and other water craft powered by wind or oars for transport of people and goods is another option, where appropriate.
Local manufacture of alternative fuels for combustion engines would allow cars and trucks to continue in use. Means of repairing and extending the life of combustion-engine vehicles is also beneficial.
Design of alternative technologies such as magnetic levitation vehicles is open to those with the imagination and knowledge to take that path.
DEFENCE
Use of personal weapons of all types could become a necessity, should the social order break down. Training in safe use, maintenance, and storage of personal weapons is therefore appropriate in every community, as is training in organized defence of the community as a whole.
A local Sheriff Department, Militia, and volunteer Fire Department can be organized, trained, and equipped. Members of the community can be trained in self-defence techniques and community defence techniques by competent Militia and or Sheriff Department personnel.
Manufacture and repair of personal weapons for defence and for hunting (in a sustainable manner, not wiping out species in the area) can be encouraged and facilitated.