Post-Carbon Living

One of the reasons we are here in Portugal is that we want to step back from the regular economy. We hope to be less reliant on the exchange of money and on the products of the industrial world. But neither of us particularly want to cut ourselves off completely from modernity. Rather, we hope to live at a sustainable level of consumption, whatever that may be.

I don't know of a good, simple measure of sustainability. It may not be possible to come up with one, aside from a pure permaculture with zero inputs and outputs crossing ones boundaries. So, for the moment, I expect to simply adopt the three Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle) as a basis for judgement. Most important, of course, is the first R: reduce.

This is a choice we are making. But a friend's blog points out that our hand may, in fact, be forced as we go beyond 'peak oil' into the unknown world of scarce energy. How quickly will dwindling oil production affect our lives? What should be do to prepare? Check out The Post-Carbon First Aid Kit as a forum for ideas.