As Peak Oil hits, that is, when extraction no longer meets demand and the price goes even higher, transport costs will rise. Everything we currently buy that is transported to the shop will cost outrageous amounts of money. The energy we use today is largely oil and gas based.
Producing our own energy is already easy - solar heating and wind generation technology are readily available. It is possible to be self sufficient in energy and save on those horrendous power and gas bills.
As climate change increasingly affects soils, crops and livestock, we will need to adapt what we eat to suit the changing situation.
Growing our own fruit and vegetables is one simple solution. Some trial and error will be required to learn what grows best in your area. Knowing how to preserve food to eat out of season will mean we will not be reliant on expensive-to-run freezers or constant trips to the supermarket.
Locally produced food will make life cheaper, simpler, better. Locally produced energy will mean less wastage down transmission lines
4 comments:
It strikes me that we will want easy-to-grow edible plants. Many of us have no room for a full orchard though so container grown dwarf root stock fruit trees are an ideal solution.
Yes, and most of us will not be able to grow much of a range. Are we ready yet to tailor our diet and cuisine to what is available locally or in our back garden? I think we have been too spoilt in our generation and will probably continue to drive our cars and do mainly supermarket shopping until the situation gets so bad we have to change our ways.
My experience of growing our own is that we grow too much of one thing at only a certain time of year and we can't eat it all, so we all get very sick of said vegetable and give it away to others, while still going to supermarkets for other food and loo paper bleach etc.
There will need to be some education of how to grow a range of crops, that a) people want to eat and b) grow readily wherever we live.
The problems of a surplus of one crop and then nothing to carry through will be addresed when I publish my new book! - watch this space. I'm up to Chapter 3.
Street plantings need to be upgraded from a few thirsty, labour-intensive hanging baskets to shade-giving, edible trees.
Birds and all manner of invertebrates can lives in trees, but hanging baskets do nothing for them.
By planting flowering trees we humans get the benefit of the beauty of the flowers, as well as the fruit, as well as enhancing local habitats, sucking up carbon from the atmosphere (something hanging baskets are not renown for), adding valuable humidity to the local area and of course, providing that oft-forgotten life-force, oxygen!
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