This month there were 4 1/2 of us - though one was a teenager and in my opinion teenagers count for 1 1/2, but okay. In any case, these here are the calculations for one month of (not very conscious) rioting for two adults, one four-year-old and one teenager (my nephew from Belgium) for the whole month and one adult (Amie’s grandmother from Singapore) for half of that month. Last year’s averages (calculated here) are mentioned as a baseline. I use this calculator. Don’t ask me how it works, all I know is it keeps me honest.
Gasoline. Two round trips to NYC (from Boston area) to pick up and drop off my nephew from and at JFK, and more trips for DH to his office in Cambridge than usual because his shuttle doesn’t operate in summer. I also had to drive the kids to their summer farm camp for a week. This adds up to an unusually high gasoline bill. I’ve been eying the listings for light diesel pickup trucks and instructions for making one’s own biodiesel, not just because of the gasoline, but also because it’s been one thing after another with our cars – the dashboards are lit up like Christmas trees with all the warning lights.
17.84 gallons per person (pp) in cars
43 % of the US National Average
(Last year’s yearly average: 24.8%)
Electricity. Our electricity bills is up a bit. We’ve had fans going (we don’t have AC) on the hottest days and nights. And what can I say, teenagers are not very good at turning off unused light and computers.
489 KWH (all wind).
14 % of the US National Average
(Last year’s early average: 18.2%)
Heating Oil and Warm Water. It’s just our warm water. As there were more of us – more showers – it is up a bit, because this is calculated for the entire household, not per person.
11.05 gallons of oil.
18 % of the US National Average
(Last year’s yearly average: 77%)
Trash. This one I’ve got down really well, and since I’m still the one buying things, I’m still the one controlling the amount of trash, which after recycling and composting usually comes down to mainly food wrappers. 10 lbs pp.
7% of the US National Average
(Last year’s yearly average: 7.3%)
Water. Our rain barrels are have been mostly sufficient. I’ve had to water the garden with tap water once or twice.
Gasoline. 14.528 gallons per person (pp) in cars + 10 miles pp on public transport.
35 % of the US National Average
(Last year’s yearly average: 24.8%)
Electricity. Our electricity bills is back to normal: 352 KWH (all wind).
10 % of the US National Average
(Last year’s early average: 18.2%)
Heating Oil and Warm Water. It’s just our warm water that was heated now with 9.35 gallons of oil.
15 % of the US National Average
(Last year’s yearly average: 77%)
Trash. The usual: 10 lbs pp.
7% of the US National Average
(Last year’s yearly average: 7.3%)
Water. Our rain barrels are paying off but there were still many periods when I had to water the garden with tap water. Hence the still unusually high number: 1134.5 gallons of water pp.
Last year’s averages (calculated here) are mentioned as a baseline. I use this calculator.
Gasoline. I can’t wait for the temperatures to go up and the rains to stop so I can bike Amie to school.
9.96 gallons per person (pp) in cars + 10 miles pp on public transport
= 24 % of the US National Average
(Last year’s yearly average: 24.8%)
Electricity. This went up a lot because of the growing lights and heat mat. I’ll measure how much is consumed by the full setup of eight lights, heat mat and fan.
539 KWH (all wind) = 15 % of the US National Average
(Last year’s early average: 18.2% – we only switched to wind in the middle of the year)
Heating Oil and Warm Water. I’m relieved to say this number is finally going down. It’s warming up and we had some good thaw days. We still heat to 58F at night and most of the day. The wood stove goes on around 6 pm and goes till when we go to bed, heating the house to around 64F. I’ll count the second cord of wood we started once it’s finished. Also our warm water is heated with this oil.
50.15 gallons = 81 % of the US National Average
(Last year’s yearly average: 77%)
Trash. We did even better here. I reuse most unrecyclable containers for the seedlings. 90% of our trash is plastic food wrapping, so I watch the packaging of the food we buy, and try to buy mostly in bulk anyway.
3 lbs pp = 2 % of the US National Average
(Last year’s yearly average: 7.3%)
Water. This again crept up. We had four guests over for the holiday week and I also did a lot of washing and rinsing of last year’s plant and seedlings pots. Those seeds and seedlings also need a lot of water… The lower one’s water consumption, the more these little bits count and jump into the eye. I’ll be happy to see the rain barrels back in use.
494 gallons of water pp = 16 % of the US National Average
(Last year’s yearly average: 16.5%)
Consumer Goods. Most of our purchases were towards the garden this month, so I won’t count them. For the rest we did well again, only splurged a bit at the MFA ($20 for a book and some small toys) and bought two magazine subscriptions.
Do you think about the future? Do you wonder what it will be like? Or do you live like it’s always going to be the way it has been?
~
I found at least 5 entries like this one, all in drafts, abandoned. As I prepare for the growing season with more resolve and urgency than ever before now that my apprenticeship is over (ha!), I need to line up my motivations like a general does her troops. This is just a declaration, not a proof or demonstration: others are supplying the data much more clearly and comprehensively than I ever could.
~
1. We’ve got problems
I believe that sometime in my lifetime, and certainly in the lifetime of my daughter, life will be changed, drastically. This is because three changes are already happening.
Peak Oil
(I believe that) there will be a chronic shortage in oil production and thus cheap oil. This year, in 20 years, I don’t know, but in my lifetime. This will not just affect the heating of our houses and our trips to the grocery store, but also the delivery trucks’ trips to the grocery store, and the farm equipment that “grows” our produce, and the factory equipment that put together all those plastic containers for our shampoos, and the pharmaceuticals producing our medicine, etc. (cf. The Oil Drum)
Economic Depression
(I believe that) increasing debt, decreasing value of money, hyperinflation, the precariousness of globalization and the lie of never-ending growth will soon mean the end of any value to our national currency, the end of imports, the closing of businesses and banks, rampant unemployment, the end of the middle class as we know it, and the cessation of public services. (cf. The Crash Course)
Climate Change and Overpopulation
(I believe that) the Earth is changing and that it’s too late to do anything about it (if we ever could), that several tipping points have been already been (b)reached. The effect is the disturbance of the climate pattern upon which our agriculture and settlements developed and rely, and thus a growing difficulty for growing food and maintaining our towns and cities. This means a growing number of climate refugees and massive immigrations of our immense world population.
All three are interrelated. I suspect Economic Depression will be the first step, soon exacerbated by Peak Oil, then, more gradually but much more insistently, Climate Change. (Read also, John Michael Greer’s “Endgame” and Richard Heinberg’s Museletter).
~
2. Collapse
I believe that even just one and certainly all of these events together will lead to collapse. I don’t believe it will be as bad as zombies or The Road, but I foresee some hard times and, at the very least, the end of the way we live our lives today.
I can’t say that it is my hope that this won’t happen. Don’t get me wrong, it would be great if it didn’t. If, for instance, we found some renewable, clean and omnipresent source of energy, freely and democratically available, capable of powering our fleet of vehicles and our agricultural and factory equipment. Oh, and if it could also reverse the climate change tipping points… Sounds like heaven on earth to me, but I’ll just go ahead and prepare for if that doesn’t happen.
And it’s not like we have a lot of time. Collapse is already happening. Maybe not to me, or you, but to many in this country, in the world, and to whole countries even, to some degree or another. But for reasons that will become clear, here I just want to talk about myself, my family, and my neighborhood.
~
3. Hope
Still, I have hope. I hope that (for myself and my community, at least), collapse will be gradual enough. I hope it’s not a precipice, but a staircase, and that at each step enough people will (have to) take sufficient action to “catch up” on the decline. I hope that we can descend gracefully: without famine, violence, the destruction of culture and civilization…
A funny thing, though, this hope. I hope it’s reasonable (unlike “aw, come on, nothing’s going to happen!”). It will require hard work and sacrifices, but we could pull it off. And to those who say “forget it, it’s too late, TS is really going to HTF,” I say “I hear you, but you know what? I have no choice but to hope. My child leaves me no choice.” I must do my best to make my hope, her hope come true.
~
4. Starting descent
How do I do this? We, myself and my immediate family, have already started to power down. For instance, this month, February 2010, is our 16th month of the Riot for Austerity. In the Riot we try to decrease our consumption of oil, water, electricity, and consumer goods, and our production of waste, all to10% of the US national average. It’s tough! We’re almost there with certain things, but not anywhere near 10% with others.
We changed our eating habits: less meat, less food, more bulk, dry goods, and very little eating out. We are establishing a large food garden, with a hoop house for a winter harvest, and hopefully a beehive soon, and chickens. We work on our food storage and emergency supplies. The immediate goal is to grow and store enough and a healthy variety of food to feed two families, and to plant an extra row for the hungry. You can find more details of our lifestyle changes on the “What We Do” page.
Why are we doing this, making these sacrifices in the time and the land that is still plenty? Do I think it’s going to make a difference to climate change? I’m not that naive.
But I do it out of principle: to take more than what one needs is to be greedy and bad for the soul.
I do it because, when I make something myself, with my own time and genius and effort, I take responsibility for it and I take care of it as a thing that I love. When I buy it, I just get the responsibility, like an extra price tag, easily snipped off. I “take care” of it only because it cost me so much – or, more frequently, I don’t take care of it at all, because it cost me so very little. I want to take control, responsibility, and care.
I want to be prepared – practically and psychologically – for a future with less cheap oil, less income, less security, more manual labor, the need for different kinds of skills, etc.
I do it to set up a model for others, for when circumstances will force them, too, to adopt such a lifestyle. That’s my next point.
~
5. A model
We take these and many other actions as an average (middle class) family, with an average income and debt. We can’t bring in the big machines to flatten the land and mow down all the trees that shade our vegetable garden. We can’t tear down our 1950’s ranch and put a zero energy house in its place. We can’t buy the $1000 compost toilet, the photovoltaics, the hybrid car. And that’s good, because that makes our place an attainable model for anyone in our quite average situation around here.
As people start realizing they can no longer afford the $300 electricity bill, the $4000 oil bill, or the cable subscription, we can show them that it’s possible both practically and psychologically, for them to descend without hurting and actually even gaining something. For we don’t need television and video games to entertain ourselves, and digging in the garden is better exercise than the gym, and eating from that garden is healthier than take-out. I hope to demonstrate by example that living with a little less at a time does not need to hurt.
~
6. Will that be all?
Do I think that what we are doing and working on – this 90% reduction in consumption of this and that, this 50% (?) self-reliance in food, this reskilling, etc. – will be all that is required of us?
Not by a long shot! But as a first step it’s the perfect preparation for the second step.
Which is? I don’t know. Ask me on a good day, then ask me again on a bad day. All I know is that what my family and I are doing right now is not what will be required, at some point, of all of us, and that after that, there will be even more.
Think of it. When oil hits $5, or $10, or $50 a gallon? When the shelves in the grocery store stay empty? When we are freezing in our houses? When half the people on the street are unemployed, and one third is homeless to boot? When a shift in climate wipes out a major crop? When the majority of us can no longer ignore or evade the situation, because our money can’t buy anything? Now we’re talking collapse.
There are times when I think the worst and that head-for-the-hills feeling flares up. When, in essence, I lose hope. But I squash it. Many reasons make it impossible for my family to pack up and dig in. It wouldn’t work for me to want to live as if collapse has already happened. It would wreck my family and isolate me. That’s not what I’m aiming for.
So if in the eyes of some I take it too fast, and in the eyes of others I take it too slow, so be it. I hope I’m hitting that golden mean, but I also know that mean is sliding down as we speak, until at some point “too much” and “too little” collapse into one.
In the meantime I hope the forerunners can be helpful, by their example, to the masses descending behind them. But if there’s suddenly going to be a whole lot of people barreling down that ever steeper and narrower staircase, it would be good for those who are ahead to install a railing as they go. Or else we’re all going to end up in a big, crushed heap at the bottom.
~
That railing is relocalization, but about that, next time. It takes a lot out of me to write this, and it takes a long time to write, because I know that most of you don’t agree, and I feel I have to be argumentative, on the defensive, and watch my words. While I just want to say it like it is for me, so we know where I stand.
Last year’s averages (calculated here) are mentioned as a baseline. I use this calculator.
Gasoline. This is the usual: still too high. When the temperatures go up I’m really going to work on biking Amie to school and back.
9.52 gallons per person (pp) in cars + 10 miles pp on public transport
= 23 % of the US National Average
(Last year’s yearly average: 24.8%)
Electricity. This went up a little because of the confluence of four things: we’re using the space heater in the bathroom more often, our new fish tank requires heating and filtering, we’re using the humidifier in our bedroom at night, and we’re internet-backing up our humongous desktop computer, which we use only for data storage (it’ll take 2 weeks this first time around!).
445 KWH (all wind) = 12 % of the US National Average
(Last year’s early average: 18.2% – we only switched to wind in the middle of the year)
Heating Oil and Warm Water. It’s been cold. Again. We heat to 58F at night and most of the day. The wood stove goes on around 4 in the afternoon and goes till when we go to bed – seems like, as soon as the sun goes down, our tolerance for 58F comes to an end. With the stove I try to keep it around 64F. Our first cord is finished now, so I’m adding that (it was used over the last three months or so). Our warm water too is heated with oil.
71.4 gallons = 116 % of the US National Average
add 1 cord of wood: 140 % of the US National Average
(Last year’s yearly average: 77%)
Trash. We’re holding steady on this one.
5 lbs pp = 4 % of the US National Average
(Last year’s yearly average: 7.3%)
Water. This went up by a bit from the usual (14 %). Don’t know why.
443.8 gallons of water pp = 15 % of the US National Average
(Last year’s yearly average: 16.5%)
Consumer Goods. We purchased next to nothing this month. All I can think of are four little fish ($1.25 each) and fish food. (I’m, as always, excluding seeds and growing supplies.)
$15 = 8 % of the US National Average
(Last year’s yearly average: 27.2%)
~
It’s interesting to compare these last three months to the same months last year, to see what a difference our wood stove and the lowering of the thermostat are making in our consumption of heating oil (so I’m not reckoning in that finished cord):
Nov 2008- Jan 2009 (63F): 131.6 % vs. Nov 2009 – Jan 2010 (58F): 82.6 %
We had, of course, that crazy warm November in 2009… Still:
Dec 2008 – Jan 2009 (63F): 155 % vs. Dec 2009 – Jan 2010 (58F): 112.5%
It’ll make a noticable difference in the yearly average. If only we could eliminate the part of the oil that goes to heating our water, if only on warm days.
Back in October I peeled about 50 garlic cloves, which I put in apple cider vinegar in a ball jar, and then plain forgot. You’re supposed to wait for only 6 weeks for the next part, but so we waited a bit longer. Tansy’s recipe is here.
I finally got around to the second part of the recipe yesterday evening: straining off half the vinegar – which I kept for a salad dressing – and replacing it with raw honey. Oh, the aroma was to die for! When some of it overflowed, it proved to be fingerlickin’ good already!
But okay, we’ll wait another 6 weeks. Then thanks to my forgetfulness it might be a bit late in the season for a flu remedy, but it will not be too late for a treat.
Next year I’m making more of this, with homegrown garlic and, who knows, homegrown honey.
…
Tomorrow I am going to hit the neighborhood thrift stores for old quilts that I can make into heavy curtains for the two large bay windows in our living room. I’m also going swimming with Amie!
We’re back and Rioting again. I’ll again keep last year’s averages (calculated here) visible as a baseline. I use this calculator.
Gasoline. Well, there’s no way around it: Amie and I flew to Belgium – our first visit in 3 years – and I’m counting it as driving there, and back. I’m using our own cars’ consumption as a guide to how many gallons that is.
8.83 gallons per person (pp) in cars + 115.5 gallons pp on airplanes + 20 miles pp on public transport
= 302 % of the US National Average
(Last year’s yearly average: 24.8%)
Electricity. We’re still holding steady on this one.
354 KWH (all wind) = 10 % of the US National Average
(Last year’s early average: 18.2%)
Heating Oil and Warm Water. It’s finally winter and it shows in the numbers. The oil burner warms our place to 58F at night, and during the day we use the woodstove to keep it around 60F (I’m still not counting because we still haven’t used up that cord). On some days this month, however, it went down to 10 F and it took the stove and the oil burner to keep the house warm. We keep the Annex, which is not in use, at 45F with the oil burner. Our warm water too is heated with oil.
67.15 gallons = 109 % of the US National Average
(Last year’s yearly average: 77%)
Trash. We’re doing well on this one too.
5 lbs pp = 4 % of the US National Average
(Last year’s yearly average: 7.3%)
Water. This went down but of course two of the inhabitants we missing for half of the month. We’re keen on bringing this down to 10% and it should be possible. Toilet flushing, however “selective”, and showers, however short, are the weak points to address in the Spring (rain water holds the answer).
406 gallons of water pp = 14 % of the US National Average
(Last year’s yearly average: 16.5%)
Consumer Goods. Our main purchases in December were a camera and an aquarium (with accouterments)for Amie – I’m curious to see how much electricity the water heater and the filter consume.
We finished our 12th month, we made it around the year! I’ll list this month’s consumption first and then I’ll discuss the yearly average.
Gasoline.
7.4 gallons pp =18 % of the US National Average
Yearly average: 24.8%
I just saw that I never calculated DH’s miles on public transportation (shuttle). I’ll start adding those in the next year.
Electricity. The only change we made this month was the firing up of the small chest freezer, and it doesn’t seem to have made much of a dent in our electricity consumption.
313 KWH (all wind) = 9% of the US National Average
Yearly average: 18.2%
Our present consumption is so much lower from the yearly average because we switched from conventional to wind in the fourth month of our Riot, which practically cut our percentage in half.
Heating Oil and Warm Water.
13.6 gallons = 22% of the US National Average
Most of this was for hot water this month, but it did fire up several times to heat the house, either at night or when I wasn’t on top of the thermostat (which is set at 59 F during the day and 55 F at night). This is good news, because it’s the same as our usage in September. That means the extra insulation and the wrapping of the hot water tank helped.
As for our wood usage, we haven’t used the kind of amount that would allow us to calculate how many cords we’re going through, yet. Once we reach one cord I’ll enter it all in that month.
But wow, the weather has been taking us for a ride this month! Today for instance started off coldish, around 57 F inside the house, so I was preparing to light the fire when I noticed on the outside thermometer that it was 60. I opened all the windows instead and within an hour it was over 70 outside and a nice 62 inside (our house seems to be well insulated, then). The same thing happened over a week ago, when all the windows of the house started steaming up, on the outside. We’ll have an almost tropical Halloween (with rain, though), then the temperatures will plummet again.
Yearly average: 77%
What can I say: it gets cold here in the winter months. We’re Freezing Our Buns as it is and the house is as insulated as it can get. We did make several improvements to that insulation, and we got a wood stove installed (renewable energy used responsibly), so let’s see what next winter brings.
Trash. Our weigh-in of our trash for the 3 of us for 1 month:
6lbs = 1% of the US National Average
Yearly average: 7.3% OR 31.5%
The second percentage refers to our construction/capital improvement waste, which according to the powers that be at the Riot count for half their weight. So with that we still didn’t do too bad, and we’ll do better because I don’t see any major waste producing capital improvements coming up in the next year. Without that we did even better than the 7.3% suggests, because I usually eyeball the trash and this month’s actual weigh-in suggests that I’ve been overestimating. Our trash is mostly soft plastic and foil food wrappers and the occasional hard plastic casing of some electronic device, toy or pencil. Everything else goes in the compost or the recycling.
Water. The new grass is established, and there’s not so much canning anymore, so we’re back to normal at:
429 gallons of water pp = 14% of the US National Average
This will probably go up a bit as we put the rain barrels out of commission (they’ll burst if we let the water in them freeze) and need to start flushing tap water again.
Yearly average: 16.5%
I’m at a loss here as to how to get it down more. We already take less and short showers, don’t run the taps when brushing or washing, and use rain water to flush our toilets. Honestly I don’t understand how we’re still at 16.5% of the US national average…
Consumer Goods. Yesterday Amie and I went to Pearl, the huge arts and crafts store in Cambridge, and we went wild: we got new pencils, new drawing pads, a watercoloring set, sharpeners (one in the shape of a globe: Amie’s favorite) and an ellipse template, which keeps her happy for an hour. I also bought two books of poem by Jim Harrison and The Peterson Guide to Animal Tracks for Amie. And DH bought a battery charger. All that makes for
$112 = 14% of the US National Average
Yearly average: 27.2%
Food. Our food consumption is slowly shifting from local to bulk, but I’m succeeding more and more in keeping the “wet” foods, like dairy and meats, in the local category.
Plant. Due to a miscalculation of the weather on my part – or the weatherman’s part? – I didn’t get to transplant the seedlings and sow more winter veggies today. Tomorrow, I hope. I did get to clean up the garden beds. Moved the pepper plants inside – but I will not call them houseplants, though, since houseplants invariably die on me.
Harvest. Swiss chard, kale, radishes (though maggots had already munched through most of them), green beans, carrots, peas, lima beans, last scallions, all the potatoes from the towers (Bintje) (made fries, not exactly the most ecological use of oil and electricity, I admit) and the last celery.
garlic for honey garlic pickles, Caribbean peach salsa and beloved canner in back
Preserve. Started honey garlic pickles: garlic cloves, apple cider vinegar, honey and 12 weeks of waiting (simplest of recipes here). Processed 1/2 bushel (25 lbs) of Farmers Market Cort apples into 9 quarts and 3 pints of unsweetened apple sauce (unsweetened because I want to use it as a replacement for oil and butter in cakes). Canned 12 half-pint jars of apple peel jelly. Froze 90 cubes of vegetable stock made from veg scraps. Made and froze more mirepoix with carrots and celery from the garden.
wood stash on porch
Waste Not. We pick up every stick that falls on our property for kindling, and we learned, with the help of Roz and www.woodheat.org (here and here – the acting is hilarious) how to most efficiently build and maintain a fire (our neighbor’s chimney constantly bellows thick, gray smoke, and we are determined not to do the same).
Want not. Bought 25 lbs of sugar and 20 lbs of all-purpose flour – time to fire up that little chest freezer – the over-the-fridge freezer was getting a bit too full anyway. Reorganized all my seed packets.
Build community food systems. Again not so much “built” as “supported”. I gave my last egg cartons to the egg guy at the Farmers Market and signed up for his raw milk and farm-fresh eggs club. It was the last Market in my town, but there is a bigger one in the next town over that will be going on for a couple more weeks: I might go check it out.
Eat the food. Minced meat out of the freezer with fresh mirepoix, fresh homemade veg stock, homegrown scallions and parsley and (store-bought) tomatoes that were going bad made a nice pasta sauce for a couple of days. Some of the frozen mirepoix went into our seafood stew feast for 10, and we opened the first jar of apple sauce and the first jar of blueberry jam, both of which Amie loved and we’re still alive.
We lit our wood stove for the first time yesterday. The temperature inside was 62 F, so quite bearable, but we wanted to cure the stove while we could still open the windows, and get the hang of lighting a fire before the cold really kicks in. Going by this evening’s attempts, we’ll have to do a better job of sorting our wood, and splitting it a little more. Even after a year out there, some logs are still not dry enough.
applesauce and apple peel jelly
I processed most of my half bushel of apples into unsweetened apple sauce. For some reason – because the canning book says “peel” and I am still such a novice that I feel I have to follow each instruction to the letter – I peeled the apples before boiling them. (Next time, no more, and that will save me a lot of time).
So that left me with a big mound of apple peels. Thinking of the vegetable stock I made earlier with peels and trimmings, I wondered if there was a “fruit stock” I could make with these peels.
I didn’t find anything like fruit stock, but I found an apple peel jelly recipe, over at the Backwoods Home Magazine – the irreverent jokes in which I enjoy a lot. I called up the orchard from which I bought the apples and they assured me their apples are pesticide free. So I stuck ‘em in a pot (two pots actually, there was so much of it), boiled them with water for 15 minutes, and set them aside for a night. Tomorrow I’ll finish and can them.
I was thinking I never used to be so frugal with food. I used to prepare and eat my food without thinking much about it. Even after starting the garden, I never thought of what I was doing as frugal. More like taking control of our food supply, shrinking our ecological footprint, re-learning skills that might be needed in the future, etc.
Making jelly out of apple peels, though, that counts as frugal. I’m very curious to try the result.
This month there were 4 1/2 of us - though one was a teenager and in my opinion teenagers count for 1 1/2, but okay. In any case, these here are the calculations for one month of (not very conscious) rioting for two adults, one four-year-old and one teenager (my nephew from Belgium) for the whole month and one adult (Amie’s grandmother from Singapore) for half of that month. Last year’s averages (calculated here) are mentioned as a baseline. I use this calculator. Don’t ask me how it works, all I know is it keeps me honest.
