Claire

Putting It All Together: Systems Thinking (Part 4)

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 13:38:42 GMT

We live in a time of rapid change and uncertainty. The 50 year failure of the environmental movement has left us with a tangle of interconnected problems. Ecosystem destruction; freakishly high levels of pollution of the land the water and the atmosphere; and resource depletion combine to create a looming crisis of epic proportions. We are faced with increasing political and economic instability and it’s clear that there will be no large scale co-ordinated efforts to address any of it.

Systems thinking is a powerful way of looking at the world. Understanding how the different components of systems move allows us to identify relationships and discover connections. It allows us to see patterns and identify flows; to pinpoint blockages and notice stagnation within the system. It allows us to work within the limits of the system and flourish.

Natural systems are not static. They maintain an active balance as energy, materials, and information all flow through in their different patterns. Energy dissipates. Information can evaporate. Materials can be transformed, concentrated, or dispersed, but they cannot be eliminated.

None of these can be used without the others. You need materials, information, and energy to produce energy. You need energy, information, and matter (tools) to do anything with matter. You need energy and matter and information store and retrieve information*. (Even if it’s just the food and memory triggers that support the grey matter in your head.)

A shortage of any of the key resources in a system is a Limiting Factor that will reduce the productivity of the entire system. Waste, unused resources that accumulate within the system, will also limit productivity. Biological systems take advantage of the circular movement of matter. Waste produced by one element is a resource for another.

Natural systems are complex not just complicated. This is an important distinction.**

A complicated system, like a car, may be intricate and confusing but it is understandable. There are a limited number of factors that contribute to making it work and direct chains of cause and effect if is it isn’t working. Someone with enough expertise can probably fix it.

In complex systems, there are too many variables, too many unknowns, too many links and connections. Even people with years of training and experience don’t fully understand them. Cause and effect are difficult to see and interventions can have surprising unintended impacts that reverberate throughout the system.

Natural systems are complex dynamic webs of interconnected relationships. Each element relies on the operations of the whole system to meet its needs. Each contributes to the function of the system in many ways. The system is resilient because every important function is supported by many elements.***

Industrial production is a complicated system embedded in the complex system of our political economy. It can be described in simple linear terms “Take - Make - Waste” but it’s a tangled web. Energy and materials are extracted and shipped around the world many times as they are processed, made into components, and eventual arrive at factories for final assembly into consumer goods.

Global systems of production and distribution have the complexity but lack the redundancy of natural systems. Complexity without redundancy makes a system fragile.

Weak understanding of whole systems, over reliance on linear thinking, and ignoring the crucial difference between “complicated” and “complex” has created many vulnerabilities in the system. It is also responsible for the extreme dysfunctions like the massive accumulations of waste and contamination.

We tend to use mechanical analogies to describe ecological, biological, and social systems. Mechanical metaphors are helpful for conveying information about complex systems but it’s mistake to think they are accurate picture of what’s really going on. Mechanical systems are simple and relatively easily understood but they are also inert, linear, and predictable. Natural systems are not.

Fully understanding everything going in a complex system is impossible. Our brains evolved to solve the simple problems of making yourself attractive to the opposite sex and getting lunch without becoming lunch not to understand the workings of the whole ecosystem. But recognizing patterns is one of our superpowers.

Practicing systems thinking and developing our natural abilities to recognize patterns is a necessity if we are going to have a positive impact on the larger world or even manage our own lives as unsustainable systems of production unravel around us.

Train yourself. Hone your observation skills. Look for patterns. Identify the flows energy matter, and information in your life. Look for blockages and stagnation.

The slow the flows as much as you can. Catch and store energy. Value information. Use everything as many times as possible before it leaves your system. See if you can turn wastes into resources.

If we take becoming a keystone species seriously training ourselves should be our highest priority. Our brains may be limited but for most of us in the west they are also completely untrained. Like flabby muscles they need exercise.

Lynne Kelly’s work on memory came about because she realized that not only did the elders of the community where she was studying birds have a wealth of detailed information about the birds in their heads, they had similarly encyclopedic knowledge about all the other animals and plants in their territory and about every other thing that touched their lives!!****

Clearly our brains are capable of much more.

Next: Get Outside

*Once again, those of you familiar with John Michael Greer will recognize the huge influence of his work on my understanding of these things.

**Thanks to Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying for driving this point home. The Darkhorse podcasts are a master class in systems thinking from two highly skilled evolutionary biologists who are also experienced teachers.

***These concepts as well as the definitions of “waste” and “limiting factors” come from permaculture and were first introduced to me in the the works of Bill Mollison: “Introduction to Permaculture” and “Permaculture: a designers manual.”

**** Australian kinship systems are infamous among anthropologists for being fiendishly complex. Yet everyone in the community knows who’s related to whom and to exactly what degree.

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The fragility of Information: Systems Thinking (Part 3)

Thu, 28 May 2026 16:45:47 GMT

It is almost impossible to write about information without making reference to the internet and the information age. Ironically we may have already passed peak information. The rise of LLM’s (AI) and the era of Deep Fakes means that much of the “information” available to us must be viewed with skepticism. The info-sphere is filled with drama and click bait. Mis-, dis-, and mal-information. (aka inaccuracies; lies and propaganda; and truth inconvenient to the authorities) has made sorting out what’s real and worth our attention difficult.

While the internet remains a useful tool (the sheer volume of people making content on various internet platforms make it possible to learn skill or find out anything about anything), what concerns us here is how information can be understood in the context of systems and systems thinking. More specifically, how we can use an understanding of the movement of information to maximize our ability to navigate an uncertain future.

This is the third post on Practicing Systems Thinking. Whole systems are made up of Energy, Matter, and Information. Each of these has a different pattern of movement and depletion. Tracing the flows of each is essential to developing an understanding what is happening in the system. Understanding how they move makes it possible to catch and store resources and make the best possible use of them.

Information is a key limiting factor in all systems. It is also the most perishable. Information moves erratically and is easily lost or corrupted. Good accurate information is essential to the success of any project. Lack of information or misinformation can have severe negative consequences in decision making or system design.

First a distinction must be made between “data” and “information.” The difference is meaning and intention. Data can provide information if you can interpret it. It’s meaningless without context and significance. Intention is what gives it both.

If you are walking through an unfamiliar neighbourhood the street signs and landmarks are information. As you look around your brain will scan the trees and shrubs on the boulevards, the houses, and the landscapes around them searching for anything unusual to mark the territory. Most of what you see will not register. The plants themselves, as well as birds, the clouds in the sky, and other animals roaming the area are irrelevant “noise.”

If you are walking through the same neighbourhood with a bag in your hand and an urban foraging guide in your pocket, the plants in the landscape will have your full attention. The houses, streets signs, and random creatures all recede into the background. Your brain automatically filters out and ignores irrelevant data so you can focus on what matters.

The difference between information and data is intention.

The second point is that information is fragile. It is easily lost if not used and easily corrupted if not preserved and carefully passed on.

There was a time when anyone over the age of 11 could read a clock face and count out change. Now counting out change is unheard of and many young adults have never learn to tell time other than digitally. These skills are not important but the same story can be told about many once common skills. Try finding your way around without GPS or Google Maps. Or predicting the weather without checking your phone.*

Preserving information has always been an essential aspect of the development of human societies. Written languages have been developed many times and in many places around the world and non-literate cultures take passing on information very seriously. In “The Memory Code” Lynne Kelly documents the many traditional practices and memory aid technologies used by Australian cultures and shows how widespread these thing were throughout the ancient world.

As modern people we have a wealth of information at our fingertips.** The problem is our information storage system is the most fragile ever created. “The Cloud,” is a fantastically inaccurate description of an enormous network of very solid and massive data centres.

The system is incredibly complicated; relies on multiple redundancies at every stage of the process to maintain data; and has an insatiable appetite. Data centres in the US alone consume energy(168 billion kWh annually), materials (228 kt/year to produce components ), and water(100–200 billion gallons per year) at an phenomenal rate.

The tech bros and political elites will probably do their best to keep the it running as long as possible but it’s very likely that the easy access we enjoy today will be an early casualty of the long descent.***

Right now because we are still in the process of discarding the most recent ways of storing information the thrift stores and charity shops are full of books on any kind of hobby or practical skill you can imagine. Collecting books strategically is well worth considering. Books on practical skills like cooking, gardening, and doing repairs as well as books on ecology, weather guides and field guides to your local ecosystem, etc should top your list.

More importantly you may want to consider training your brain to store and retain information. According to Kelly’s most recent book The Knowledge Gene, one of our most unique human traits is our ability to encode information. For over 70,000 years**** people all over the world have used our uniquely human skills in music, art, spatial abilities, story and performance to store and convey knowledge.

Electronic data is effervescent; books and paper burn and decompose; clay tablets crumble; stone cracks, breaks, and is eroded by wind and water. Yet the Kalamath people in Oregon tell a story about the clash of the gods that created Crater Lake that contains accurate descriptions of geological events nearly 8,000 years old. Oral stories kept by Australian cultures describe the ocean level rise that goes back to the end of the last ice age.

Ironically, art, music, and story telling, our most ancient art forms, are the most durable way to store information.

*These are vital survival skills for non-industrial people. Before computers street and road maps were readily available in gas stations and convenience stores and asking strangers for directions was commonplace.

**Finding information has never been easier. Sorting it, understanding it, determining its accuracy is another story.

***If you doubt this you may want to think deeply about the meaning of “sustainable.”

**** The actual genetic mutation that makes this possible may go back as far as 600,000 years.

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The Movement of Matter: Systems Thinking (part 2)

Thu, 21 May 2026 16:21:31 GMT

This is part 2 of an in-depth look at the elements that compose all whole systems. This series of post connects to and builds on the posts on managing our personal resources here and here. If you haven’t read part 1 you can find it here. Start reading from the beginning here.

Each of the three types of resources Energy, Matter, Information has a distinctive pattern of movement within the system. Understanding the movement of matter is essential for understanding the twin predicaments that shape our lives and the lives of our children and grandchildren: pollution and resource depletion.

Matter is messy and hard to control. It moves in circular patterns. The thing you tossed over your shoulder yesterday is likely to turn up on your path (or your dinner plate) tomorrow.

Matter is solid, visible and touchable, in a way that energy and information are not. You can pick it up and examine it. You can see the wear and tear or dirt and grime. You can wash and repair and reuse but at a certain point you have to decide whether it’s useful life is over.

Good care and moderate use can keep material possessions functional for a long time but most things have an end point when they are no longer useful in their current form.

The circular movement of matter continues long after it’s thrown away.

In the last 50 years massive amounts of biological and geological resources have been extracted and turned into consumer goods. Waste is produced at every phase of the process: extraction, transportation to production facilities, processing, packaging, transporting to market or consumers. The packaging is thrown in the garbage immediately and the product it contained may follow in as little as 6 months.

Waste plastic collects in giant gyres in the ocean where it is slowly beaten into tiny fragments by the waves. Or it degrades on land into microscopic particles. In either case these micro-plastics are taken up by plants and animals. They contaminate the food web and bio-accumulate in the larger creatures, including our food crops and animals, and inevitably in our bodies.

The secondary economy, the economy of human production, has always relied on the capacity of the primary economy, the larger ecosystem, to accept and neutralize the waste products of human manufacturing. As long as human production remained small scale; widely distributed; and relied on natural materials; waste management was rarely a problem.

Natural materials from biological sources degrade relatively quickly and easily into the soil or the water and the biosphere has evolved over millions of years into a complex interactive system where any form of waste is a resource for another part of the system.

As large scale industrial processes began to take over the secondary economy in the early 20th C, using chemicals previously unknown, or uncommon, to process petrochemicals into synthetics materials, the costs of dumping waste products in to the environment began to rise. By the mid-century they started to come to public attention in the form of ecological disasters with devastating human health consequences.

Between 1962 and 1970 Dryden Chemicals Limited dumped more than 9 tonnes of mercury waste from their paper mill into the English-Wabigoon River in Northwestern Ontario. In 1974 Japanese researchers confirmed the devastating effects of mercury poisoning on the communities of Grassy Narrows* and Whitedog. “Minimata Disease” was named after the Japanese village where the neurological damage caused by mercury poisoning was first discovered in 1956!

The Love Cannel, a neighbourhood in upstate New York infamously built on land saturated with 19,800 metric tonnes of chemical waste from the dyes, perfumes, and solvents used in the production rubber and plastics by the Hooker Chemical Company between 1940 and the mid 1950’s clearly demonstrated the devastating and deadly effects of “Better Living Through Chemistry”**

Despite this and other tragedies, the clear connection between industrial toxins, cancer, genetic abnormalities, and autism, which should have led to dramatic changes, has been largely ignored. Fundraising for “cancer research” continues while cancer rates rise and the highly paid researchers blithely ignore the obvious.

Plastic production has increased dramatically since Dupont coined it’s slogan and the main effect of the limited environmental regulation enacted in North America was that manufacturing and manufacturing jobs were exported to poor countries without environmental and safety regulations. (The social cost of throwing the working class here into abject poverty in an attempt to move the toxic mess over there is another story.***)

The environmental movement has also ignored the obvious. Over the last 50 years it has consistently let industry off the hook. The main focus of action has been on personal responsibility and consumer focused recycling programs. Essentially, trying to mop up the flood while steadfastly ignoring the running tap in the bathtub.

The problem of plastics has continued unabated and pollution levels have risen to the point of very nearly overwhelming the capacity of the environment to contain it.

Unfortunately, the feed stock for plastic production, ethylene, is a waste product; a by-product in the production of valuable fuels: diesel for industrial use; gasoline for cars and trucks; and jet fuel for air travel.

Ethylene cannot be used as fuel and getting rid of it is a problem. In many areas there are regulations restricting the amount that can be flared off, that is, burning it and dumping it into the atmosphere.

New plastic is cheaper than recycled plastic because the raw material is virtually free. The recycled product simply can’t compete. Collecting, transporting, cleaning, sorting, and reprocessing existing plastic of many different types and colours costs more than producing perfectly clean new plastic pure enough to be considered “food grade” in any colour you want.

Meanwhile the circular movement of matter continues, as it does.

The reckless extraction of raw materials has ravaged enormous areas of land. Mine tailings leaking into river ecosystems have contaminated drinking water and annihilated fish stocks. Our “recyclable” plastic waste is dumped offshore onto poor countries. Industrial waste from manufacturing goods for the North American market in China, India, and elsewhere, contaminates the atmosphere we all share and poisons the water used to grow crops we all eat.

Matter moves in circles. Carefully guiding the cycles and transformations makes it useful and keeps it useful for longer. Reusing, repurposing and recycling materials is ideal but there is a limit to how many times most things can be reused or recycled.

Everything eventually degrades into the land, the water, or the air and the cycle continues.

*More than 50 years later the fish in the river are still unsafe to eat; the people of Grassy Narrows are still suffering the effects of the persistent toxicity; corporate liability laws are unchanged; and the government has still not stepped up to do what is needed to clean it up.

**The slogan used by Dupont Chemicals from 1935 to 1982

*** Arguably a very important one since our current political instability can be traced directly back to the widespread immiseration that resulted.

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Understanding Energy: Systems Thinking (Part 1)

Thu, 14 May 2026 15:20:15 GMT

This blog is about what we can do, as ordinary people in families and small groups, to create lives worth living; to build a future worth having; and to be a force for renewal and regeneration in our much depleted world.

(The next 2 essays rely heavily on the work of John Michael Greer particularly his book *Green Wizardry* which I highly recommend.)

Your life is a system just at your body is a biological system. Both are embedded in the larger social system. Applying systems thinking to your life is a good way to hone your skills and learn to manage the flows of resources and influences.

All whole systems are made up of three types of resources: Energy, Matter, Information.* Each of these has a distinctive pattern of movement within the system. Understanding how they move, how they pool, and flow, allows you to guide their movement.

The goal is to get them moving slowly through the system without letting the pools stagnate or the flow become a torrent.

A “pool” is a reserve; a “flow” is income. Any stockpile is a pool: A savings account; a pantry; a library. If the books are collecting dust that’s stagnation. Likewise those few cans in the back of the cupboard that have been there forever.

If the money is disappearing from your account so fast that you are scrambling at the end of the month, you have two choices increase the volume, or slow down the flow.

Generating more income is difficult in a shrinking economy. Cutting your expenses and reducing your overhead may also be a challenge but it is a more reliable long term strategy as the economic realities continue to bite. Living well means living within your means.

Money is a poor example since it is not actually a resource. As discussed last week, it’s a placeholder for resources. It can be exchanged for resources like gasoline or electricity (energy), food or water (matter), or media, books, education (information) if the resources are available.

Understanding how the actual resources move, how they pool and flow, will show you how to get the most value from your hard earned cash.

1. Energy and How it Moves

Energy is defined as “the capacity to do work.”

The Laws of Thermodynamics tell us that energy cannot be created or destroyed.

Pop metaphysics tells us that energy is every where and everything is energy.

Both are true. Neither is useful.

Energy moves from high concentration to low concentration until it reaches the level of background heat. Its concentration is what determines how much “work” it can do. Specifically, the capacity to do work depends on difference between the concentration of the energy source and the background level in the environment.

Once energy reaches the background level it’s lost. It still exists but it cannot be used to do any more work.

This, unfortunately, is the rock against which the fantasy of the electric powered green future founders, and where the conundrum of our fossil fuel dependance becomes apparent. A single gallon of gasoline contains as much energy as one ton of fully charged lead-acid auto batteries.

The difference between the energy concentration of petroleum (and other fossil fuels) and the ambient heat of the lower atmosphere is enormous. The concentration of energy from renewable resources from sun, wind, earth, and tide doesn’t even get close.

This doesn’t mean that renewable energy is useless. Just that our approach to using energy must change.

There are two keys to getting the most from a renewable energy source. The first is using it as close to the source as possible. Massive wind farms and solar projects intended feed into complex energy grids and travel long distances are never going to work. The energy losses are simply too great for the low concentrations of renewable energy sources.

The second key is using it as directly as possible. Direct use means using a source of heat (like the sun) for heat and using something that produces mechanical power like a bicycle, windmill, or water wheel to power something that uses mechanical power like a washing machine or a grindstone.**

Energy is ‘lost’ as heat every time it changes form. When a bicycle is used to generate electricity, most of the energy generated is lost as heat as the cyclist works up a sweat.***

If the electricity is then converted back to mechanical rotary power, used to operate a blender or a coffee grinder for example, more heat is generated. The heat is wasted energy

Avoiding the losses involved in converting from one type of energy to another is essential to making the most of a renewable energy source. Using solar energy directly as heat to heat water or some other thermal mass is much more efficient than turning it into electricity.

Solar thermal (hot water) is just one of many ways to use solar energy that bypass complicated and inefficient photovoltaic conversion technology. Heat from the sun can heat houses, cook food, dry laundry, preserve food.

The final thought on the topic of energy is about conservation and the sheer volume of energy we use. We consider grid power essential for most of our routine activities but the electrical grid is less than 100 years old**** and many of the things we “need” electricity for were being done without it as late as the 1970’s.

The most effective adaption to rising energy prices and chaotic supply problems is simply to use less. The sooner and the more drastically you reduce your energy dependance the easier it will be to ride the waves of crises and contraction.

Next: Practicing Systems Thinking Part 2: The movement of Matter and of Information in Whole Systems.

*The smallest biological whole system, a seed, contains DNA (information), fat (energy) and the embryonic seed leaf and rootlet (material) that will eventually push out to become the seedling.

**http://www.mayapedal.org/machines.en

*** https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2011/05/bike-powered-electricity-generators-are-not-sustainable/

**** Rural electrification went in the 1930’s. Unsurprisingly this was the peak of well designed human powered and mechanical tools and appliances in N. America.

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Getting Ahead of the Curve: investing your time, energy and resources (and maybe even your money)

Thu, 07 May 2026 15:11:58 GMT

This blog is about what we can do, as ordinary people in families and small groups, to create lives worth living; to build a future worth having; and to be a force for renewal and regeneration in our much depleted world. I hope to provide some possibilities based on our universal human strengths and the strategies that have allowed us to thrive in the past.

If you care about this planet; the future; and your own ability to make your way in these crazy times this blog is for you.

The economic instability of the last 20 years is not going away. Most of us are already experiencing some degree of downward mobility and this trend is likely to continue. When it comes to managing our personal economic situation the permaculture principles “Observe and Reflect” and “Make the Least Change for the Greatest Impact” are of critical importance. Observe and reflect; make small changes; observe the outcome of your intervention and reflect on it; and repeat.

The change I’m advocating here is adjusting how we think about wealth. This is another area fraught with misconceptions and misunderstanding . Some time spent re-examining our ideas about money, economics, and the system that determines wealth and value is needed in order to get to a place of sound observations.

The first and most common misunderstandings are around money. Money is not wealth. It is a token system that measures value: the value of your labour and time; the value of the available goods and services. It’s not completely accurate to say that money has no intrinsic value. Its “value” is making transactions and exchanges of time and labour for goods and services more convenient.

Money is not a resource. It can be exchanged for resources and that is the source of its perceived power. However if the resource you want or need doesn’t exist no amount of money can make it magically appear. At the very most high demand and high prices can provide the incentive to someone to try to produce or procure the resource in question.

Second money is a measure of value but not everything of value can be measured and not everything that can be measured by money has value. The value of a thing is a matter of need or desire. Goods and services are “valuable” only so far as they serve you and further your goals.

Which brings us to the primary importance of reflecting on and distinguishing between wants and needs. This isn’t to suggest that you need to strip away any convenience or comfort from your life, but accurate observation means knowing your indulgences and thinking about their value in your system.

The second great misunderstanding is about the economy, which we commonly talk about as if it was one great amorphous thing that only the experts can understand. (This is a fallacy because they clearly either don’t really understand it or they are massively incompetent*.)

In his book The Wealth of Nature; economics as if survival mattered John Michael Greer distinguishes 3 distinct economic spheres. The primary economy is the economy of nature. It is made up of all the “goods and services” provided by a healthy intact ecosystem. All our natural resources, renewable and non-renewable, mineral and biological, including air, water, and soil. All the natural processes like purifying water, absorbing pollutants, neutralizing toxins, controlling pests and reducing contamination** are part of the primary economy.

The secondary economy is the economy of productive human activity. This is the area of real goods and essential services created using human time, labour, and skill. The food in the grocery store; the water from your tap; the tangible material goods that provide necessities, comforts, and conveniences.

And finally we come to the tertiary economy. The economic sector referred to as F.I.R.E. Finance, Insurance, Real Estate. This is where people buy and sell currency and flip condos and generally use money to make money. It includes the stock markets and the precious metals markets.*** This is the place where most of the economic manipulations take place.

Growth of this sector over the last several decades has stood in for “economic recovery” and masked the steady contraction of the secondary economy. The economic manipulations of “the experts” and the metastatic expansion of the F.I.R.E. sector has created a widening gap between the very rich and most ordinary people.

The good news is that this third economic sector has become so divorced from the economy of real goods and services that it could probably disappear completely with no discernible negative impact.

The point is that most of what going on doesn’t help us and insulating ourselves from the boom and bust cycle of the official economy as best we can is essential to our well being.

Working with the resources we have, and investing our time and attention judiciously is the key to maximizing true value in our lives and communities. To do this we need to shake ourselves loose from our ideas about money and look at the other forms of capital available to us.

We’ve already discussed Natural Capital: the capital of intact environments and the natural processes that provide the foundation for productive human economic activity. The second type of capital is Human Capital, the skills, knowledge, ingenuity, and abilities of individuals. Human capital is fragile. Knowledge and skill are both easily lost if not used and passed on.

The final type of capital, Social Capital, is the social relationships of trust, reciprocity, and solidarity built up in a community over time. It is the shared knowledge, understandings, and patterns of interaction that a group of people bring to any productive activity. Social capital is extremely fragile. It takes time to develop. It’s non-transferable and easily eroded.

I want to say that social capital is the one we have most ignored, disregarded, and diminished but in truth, all three types of capital have been badly eroded over many decades and all three are in desperate need of being restored and rebuilt.

Which brings us back to the question of how best to invest our time energy and attention when so much needs to be done, and the scramble of day to day existence leaves us so little of any of these things to invest.

The permaculture guidelines “Get A Yield” and “Catch and store energy” tell us to prioritize investment in activities that produce or conserve tangible resources, energy, or useful skills. Yield is alway the total production and accumulation within the system. The build up of any of the three forms of capital within the system is part of the yield.

The primary principles “Observe and reflect” and “Make the least change for the greatest possible benefit” direct us to find and start with small easily accomplished projects and build incrementally. This may mean employing some kind of personal S.W.O.T. analysis**** and developing a strategic plan to improve your existing skills.

Building up your personal “human capital,” your practical skills, knowledge, ingenuity, is the best possible investment because a skill once acquired is yours for life. Investing in skills and tools is an expansion of your personal resources and your potential for future investment.

The permaculture principle “Get a yield” reminds us to engage in both short term and long term planning. Your personal planning should encompass your long term goals and aspirations but start with building up your repertoire of immediately useful skills. Small projects that provide a short term yield allow energy and resources to accumulate in the system for larger future investment. Small experiments allow you to evaluate and reflect on the results so you can determine whether more investment is worthwhile or if you would be better off turning your attention to some other aspect of the project.

Observe — reflect — act — repeat.

This is the end of the introductory sections outlining the overall focus of this project (start here,) and reviewing your situation (start here) and setting yourself up to ride out the waves of change as gracefully as possible (here). In the next several sections we will revisit many of these ideas in more depth and with a mind to the ultimate goals of this blog: creating lives worth living; building a future worth having; and becoming a force for renewal and regeneration.

*To be fair economics is a complex system and interventions in complex systems can have unintended consequences. This is why the permaculture principles emphasis observation and reflection and making and observing the effects of minimal incremental changes.

** Brett Weinstein and Heather Heying’s recent Darkhorse podcast provided a fascinating look at the role of vultures in reducing and removing the biological hazards of carrion. (link)

*** With some exceptions gold and silver are only resources if you are a jeweller or metal worker. Otherwise they are not much different from any other medium of exchange. They are only valuable if the resource you need or want is available.

****There are several other useful analytical tools to guide your observations and reflections. Try a few and see what insights they provide. https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/alternatives-to-swot-analysis/

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Getting Ahead of the Curve: Managing Your Resources

Thu, 30 Apr 2026 14:03:35 GMT

This blog is about what we can do, as ordinary people in families and small groups, to create lives worth living; to build a future worth having; and to be a force for renewal and regeneration in our much depleted world. I hope to provide some possibilities based on our universal human strengths and the strategies that have allowed us to thrive in the past.

If you care about this planet; the future; and your own ability to make your way in these crazy times this blog is for you.

We are in the midst of an economic shift from the abundance industrialism of the latter half of the 20th C into the scarcity industrialism of the 21st C. Most of us are already feeling the pinch of poor quality manufactured goods and inflated prices encapsulated in the colourful term “enshitification.” In the poor world scarcity industrialism has already given way to the salvage economy.* As the saying goes, “The future is here. It’s just not evenly distributed.”

Given that our most pressing ecological issues are resource depletion and monumental levels of pollution, it is essential that we change our attitudes and practices around the resources that flow through our lives. We’ll take a deeper look at the distinct types of resources that make up whole systems and examine how they move through the system in a future post. For now understanding the use patterns is what is important for learning to use your resources strategically.

Resources fall into 5 different use patterns:

1) Those that disappear or degrade if not used.

2) Those that increase with modest use.

3) Those that are unaffected by use.

4) Those that are reduced or consumed by use.

5) Those that pollute or destroy others if used.

The first type, those that disappear or degrade if not used, are easily identified. Ice melts; boiling water cools to ambient temperature. Fresh produce wilts; ripe fruit degrades and rots. These are the “use it or lose it” resources and using them before they’re wasted is obviously the first priority.

The second type is a little trickier. There are several systems of production like selective logging and coppice forestry that fall into this category but the most obvious in your life is probably the goodwill of neighbours and colleagues. Everyone gets a good feeling from helping someone out and as long as you are modest in your requests and willing to reciprocate, good will flourishes and social capital is built up. The priority for resources in this category is to make sure your use of them remains moderate.

The third type is also fairly easy. The sun shines whether you hang out your laundry to dry or not. Gravity is completely unaffected by the downhill flow of water, soil, or anything else. Animals in biological systems of production are unaffected by use. The resources in this category are mostly underused and it’s worthwhile to consider whether there are ways you could make better use of them. There are many ways to use solar energy for example that don’t require huge investment or complicated technology.

Number 4, those that are reduced by use, clearly need to be treated with more respect and used more carefully. Fresh potable water is the most obvious category 4 resource, although, many other things fall into this category because of how they are used. Wood is, potentially, a renewable resource, but clearcutting destroys forests and the current approach to replanting has not resulted in successful remediation. Clay is a finite resource. It can be shaped and air dried, soaked and reshaped almost infinitely** but once it’s been fired in a kiln it can’t be used again.***

Number 5, the final category, is the most problematic. Unfortunately these resources are the foundation of industrialism. The extraction, production, and use, of fossil fuels contaminates and destroys our atmosphere, our land, and our water, the very resources we are most dependant on for survival. Our modern society, in its current form, cannot exist without them. Bunker fuel powers international shipping. Jet fuel (kerosene) is essential for air travel. Fully 60% of the world’s electricity is produced by burning coal, oil, and natural gas.

Industrial agriculture is massively fossil fuel dependant. Fuel to power agro-industrial machinery, food processing facilities, and transportation is just the start. Fossil fuels are also used for the production of chemical pesticides and herbicides, and as a feed stock for synthetic fertilizers. Reducing our dependance on these resources is both our the highest priority and our biggest challenge.

The permaculture guidelines for resource management are natural extensions of the permaculture ethics: Earth Care; People Care; Fair Share. The principles for resource management are:

1) Catch and Store Energy and Materials: collect and slow the flow of resources through your system;

2) Use Biological and Renewable Resources: identify use patterns and prioritize resources in categories 1-3;

3) Waste is a Resource: minimize waste and practice highest order use, repair, re-use, re-purpose.

Reducing your energy dependance and valuing the material resources that come into your life is both ethical and pragmatic. In the words of Mahatma Gandhi: “The world has enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed.”

*This, like many of the ideas that underpin this blog, is lifted directly from the writings of John Michael Greer. I highly recommend his blog ecoshphia.net and his books. The Ecotechnic Future; and Green Wizardry are particularly relevant to this blog.

** India has (or had) a whole industry making and re-making “disposable” dishes using sun dried clay.

***The Japan practice of Kintsugi has developed ceramic repair into an art form using lacquer mixed with gold or other precious metals to transform broken pottery into items more beautiful and more precious than the unbroken originals.

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Your Niche: Collaboration and Community

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 15:42:27 GMT

This blog is about what we can do, as ordinary people in families and small groups, to create lives worth living; to build a future worth having; and to be a force for renewal and regeneration in our much depleted world. I hope to provide some possibilities based on our universal human strengths and the strategies that have allowed us to thrive in the past.

If you care about this planet; the future; and your own ability to make your way in these crazy times this blog is for you.

This is the third and final part of the section “Your Niche.” (Part one is here; part two, here.)

The fragmentation and deterioration of “community” and the resulting social ills have been a recurring topic among writers seeking to address the predicaments of modern society for decades. It’s a conundrum. We are a social species. The unit of human survival has always been the group. Yet somehow we have reached the point where for many people social interactions are fraught with conflicted emotions, discomfort and confusion. This state of affairs is completely at odds with our natural tendencies and abilities.

In her book Mothers and Others: the evolutionary origins of mutual understanding Sarah Blaffer Hrdy makes the case that the long period of helplessness and dependance of human babies made group co-operation, or “collective breeding,” essential to raising children. For early humans “It takes a village to raise a child” was a literal truth. The need for other care givers and the communal support of the family, clan, and tribe for successfully bringing children in to adulthood has been universal for most of human history.

This, according to Hrdy, has led to an amazingly high capacity for empathy and collaboration. We are intensely social, incredibly empathetic,* and working together to achieve common goals is one of our superpowers. She asserts that collaboration is a stronger human trait than competition and it is now generally accepted that mutualism and co-operation are much more common (i.e. successful) in the natural world than we once believed.

Hrdy points out that the population of early humans was very low and there was a great deal of space available for expansion. Spreading out into new territory was much more likely than engaging in conflict where there was competition for resources. Certainly the spread of early human groups across Eurasia and into the Americas seems to support that idea.

Historically and cross-culturally mutual aid and interdependence has been the norm. This began to shift in the west when we broke into the geological cookie jar that was the concentrated energy of fossil fuels. The era of colonial expansion rewarded competition over collaboration. Breaking away from the families and households, previously a life threatening punishment, became not just possible but potentially lucrative. The cult of individualism captured our imaginations and freedom of movement overtook community ties in our cultural values.

In the last several generations it has been possible to rely on institutional social services provided by governments and corporations for the essential supports of the various stages of life. In the period of economic growth following WWII this worked fairly well. However, in last couple of generations, as the unravelling of our social networks has accelerated, economic contraction has resulted in the slow but perceptible deterioration of institutional supports.

The costs of social fragmentation have increased dramatically while the benefits have very nearly evaporated. Undoubtably many of our social problems including the massive rise in mental health issues and addictions can be directly correlated to the unnatural ways we live and interact with others**. Worse, as the economic pie continues to shrink extreme competitiveness has reached a fever pitch.

It may seem counterintuitive but the adaptive response is actually to seek collaboration. Periods of vulnerability remain an inevitable part of every human life. Building a future worth having means restoring the patterns of mutual aid and interdependence that have been the foundation of what it means to be human since the dawn of time.

Your life is embedded in a specific social milieu with distinctive patterns of acceptable behaviour that facilitate either closer interactions or maintaining distance. More accurately, your life is embedded in a number of different social circles that may overlap but likely don’t form a coherent whole.

Some of these circles will be stronger than others. Some may be vestigial connections from long ago that have atrophied because of distance and infrequent contact. Some may exist only in potential. How well do you know your neighbours? How much contact do you have with coworkers outside the prescribed work hours?

Consider your role in these disparate communities. Are there ways you could up your game or contributions to these circles? Finding ways to be helpful to neighbours and coworkers or joining in to a collective project that takes your interest is the best way to strengthen tenuous community connections. Just as each species in an ecosystem has role within the community that impacts the whole, your participation or lack of it has an impact in the communities you inhabit.

Most people will naturally respond to helpful gestures by trying to reciprocate. No one wants to feel indebted. Keep the permaculture mantra “plant seeds where they will grow” in mind. Mutual aid is the goal after all. If people don’t respond or if they take advantage*** it’s not worth continuing along that path.

Wrapping up this section: Your niche consist of the balance you find between being a generalist and a specialist; the main focus of your attention and your response to the outside influences that shape your possibilities, and finally your role in, and contributions to, the community around you.

Strengthening your community ties and finding ways to collaborate will be recurring themes in these posts. But the next few posts will be about applying the tools of systems thinking to your life and using permaculture guidelines for managing resources and energy investment to shape a viable response to our shifting political economy.

Next: Getting Ahead of the Curve: Managing Your Resources

*This may seem like an outrageous statement in our current divisive political milieu but our tendency to demonize people we disagree with may a reaction against excessive empathy. As a thought experiment try spending 5 minutes imagining the difficult life history and daily challenges of someone you dislike.

**A lecturer in a first year physical anthropology class decades ago pointed out that no zookeeper would ever create a habitat for humans like the one we have created for ourselves and expect us to thrive. They would in fact expect the very social dysfunction that we experience. I’ll get back to this is a future post.

***Reading up on game theory may be worthwhile. People don’t always respond rationally and their notions about win-lose or win-win will have an impact on your success.

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Your Niche: Self responsibility and Spheres of Influence

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 14:53:27 GMT

This blog is about what we can do, as ordinary people in families and small groups, to create lives worth living; to build a future worth having; and to be a force for renewal and regeneration in our much depleted world. I hope to provide some possibilities based on our universal human strengths and the strategies that have allowed us to thrive in the past.

If you care about this planet; the future; and your own ability to make your way in these crazy times this blog is for you.

This blog is largely informed by my training and experience as a permaculture designer and teacher. Permaculture is a systematic approach to the design of human habitats. It is the most sophisticated practical approach to human ecology currently available. The guidelines it provides can be used for personal decision making just as effectively as they are for making design decisions.

The Prime Directive of Permaculture is self responsibility. Permaculture typically emphasizes food production partly because industrial agriculture is so enormously destructive and partly because food is the easiest of the top three human needs to provide for ourselves. This doesn’t mean we all have to be farmers or even gardeners. If your skills and inclinations lay elsewhere you can still use the following ideas and suggestions to find a place for your talents within the large scope of this project. It is much more important to internalize the idea of Self Responsibility than it is to manifest any particular aspect of it.

Thinking about ways to provide for ourselves and our families and reducing our reliance on unstable global supply systems may seem overwhelming but in a world fraught with chaotic international conflict the alternatives may be worse. Systems thinking and the tools that inform permaculture design can show you where to focus your attention; illuminate the outside influences that affect you; and inform your response to the challenges we all face.

The first tool I want to introduce is “zone mapping.” In systems design this is used to plan the placement of various elements within the system depending on how much care and attention they need or how much use they get. Anything that needs daily attention goes in zone 1. Herb gardens are placed near the kitchen door to give daily access to fresh herbs. Things that need less frequent attention go into zone 2. Zone 3 is for things that need only occasional attention or maintenance. Zone 4 are the areas you may only visit once or twice a year and require almost no maintenance. Wild-ish areas that contain hiking trails, foraging spots, and restoration projects fit here. Zone 5 is the wilderness. Real wilderness. Places people don’t go.

Using the same map and applying zone planning to your time and attention and identifying your spheres of influence, it’s easy to see that what you do and how you live will have the most impact on your home and your daily workplace. Think of your daily routine as an infinite looped path. Anyone you interact with and any place you visit or spend time is your zone 1. It makes sense to focus most of your attention here where you have the most influence.

Zone 5 is probably international politics. The area where your personal influence drops to near zero. In between, zones 2, 3, and 4 your influence progressively diminishes and it makes sense to divide your energy, time, and attention proportionally. Zone 2 is your neighbourhood and your friends and family. Zone 3 is the larger community and Zone 4 may be the national political economic sphere. There will be times when any one of these zones needs more concentrated attention. However, spending all your time in Zone 4 and ignoring what’s going on in Zones 1 and 2 is not a good strategy for maintaining personal equilibrium.

The second tool is the sector map. In permaculture design this is used to determine the source of the outside influences flowing through the site. Seasonal wind directions and sun angles; slope and water flow (fire and flood sectors); and views to preserve or to block. These are things beyond your control that have an impact on your life and your choices. This includes material resources like income and food. It may include family influences or social pressure. Even ideas and social trends. Anything that is beyond your control and has an impact on how you live and your available options.

Using this tool in your life is more personal. Just as the outside influences are site specific in a permaculture design, the outside influences flowing through your life will be specific to you. There will be commonalities. Some of these things will affect the people around you in similar ways. Some of them will be unique.

Giving careful thought to the things that flow into your “system” from the outside allows you to assess them individually and make decisions about your response. Is the flow intermittent or consistent? Is the impact dramatic or persistent? Are there features of your situation that limit or distract you? Are there influences you can make use of to make yourself stronger and more resilient? Are there things that weaken you or your position that can be remedied or amended? Are there better ways to respond to the various “flows” so you are not buffeted around or taken unawares?

The answers of course depend entirely on your situation and how much flexibility you have. The point is that even if there is nothing you can do about any of it right now, these tools give you a foundation for thinking about how to devote your time and attention to weathering the storms when they come through and enjoying the sun when it shines.

Next: Your Niche: Collaboration and Community

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Your Niche: Staying flexible

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 15:52:03 GMT

This blog is about what we can do, as ordinary people in families and small groups, to create lives worth living; to build a future worth having; and to be a force for renewal and regeneration in our much depleted world. I hope to provide some possibilities based on our universal human strengths and the strategies that have allowed us to thrive in the past.

If you care about this planet; the future; and your own ability to make your way in these crazy times this blog is for you.

Most of what I have written and will write is about the general pattens of behaviour we can adopt to help us weather the storm of changes coming at us. However I’d like to take a moment (or two or three) to discuss how these strategies can be used by you the specific individual reading this.

The term “niche” is used culturally as well as biologically. It has a similar meaning but rather than referring to a whole species’ habitat and subsistence strategy, it refers to the individual and his or her spot in the human economic system. Humans as a species are generalist. There are many possible subsistence strategies for human groups just as there are a range of possibilities for individuals within the group.

The concept of an individual niche within the human social-economic system speaks to the value of specialization. Specialization and the division of labour within the group is an adaptation that has been so successful it is universal in human cultures and societies. The division of labour is often but not necessarily sex based.* The more important consideration, in small groups, is who has the skill or talent for the task.

In biological systems specialization works best in stable ecosystems. In periods of rapid change when the system is more chaotic being a generalists seems to be an advantage. This doesn’t mean rejecting specialization or the advantages of the division of labour. It does mean that being a specialist with a single income stream may not be the best strategy in these crazy times. Finding your niche may be about striking a balance.

At the very least you may want to think about how to diversify. This is an especially important consideration for those whose work is outside the economy of real goods and services. Those are the jobs that are most at risk of disappearing right now. Finding ways to branch out and expand your possibilities is a way of building personal resilience.

The world we in habit, the world that is coming, is very different from the world we were raised to expect. Being resilient means letting go of your expectations and accepting what is. Being resilient means having backup systems that can take at least some of the load if there is an abrupt shift. Staying flexible, staying alert to other options, and paying attention to what is working for other people is vital.

Since the 1980’s economic “growth” has been largely an illusion based on the expansion of the F.I.R.E. sector, that is Finance, Insurance and Real Estate. Ultimately what counts as “growth” has been rich people playing with money to enrich themselves at our expense. The economy of real goods and services has been contracting fairly steadily.

Economic contraction is an ecological necessity. Our current consumption of energy and material resources is cannot be sustained. Earth Overshoot Day in Canada is calculated to be March 8. (You can find the EOD for your country here: Earth Overshoot Day https://overshoot.footprintnetwork.org/newsroom/country-overshoot-days/)

March 8!! That means that achieving a truly sustainable steady state ecologically sound human society will involve reducing our use of material resources (which includes water and land**) to about 20% of what we are currently using. This sounds horrific but we aren’t talking about a sudden apocalyptic collapse. This is a long, slow, bumpy process and population is likely to decline as well.

Being supremely adaptable is a superpower that gives us lots of flexibility in how we approach work and livelihood. Using forethought and intention can make the difference between a constant bitter struggle and finding ways to thrive. It’s important to remember we are making a transition that will take several generations.

We cannot know what specific strategies or practices will be successful in the long term. Only the broad outlines of the near future are visible. This means there is no single right way to live or make a living. It also means, it is crucial that everyone finds and follows their own path. The dissensus model put forth by John Michael Greer (https://archdruidmirror.blogspot.com/2017/06/why-dissensus-matters.html) is critically important here.

Finding and following your own path is an ongoing process. Your talents and abilities will make your story unique. Your situation, skills, available resources, and the creative use you make of them will determine how it unfolds. Knowing yourself includes recognizing your limits too. You can’t do everything.

In the essays that follow the broad outlines of how we can use our inherent human strengths to build lives for ourselves while rebuilding our world will include many suggestions for your consideration. Not everything will be possible for you. Pick the low hanging fruit but think deeply about each suggestion. What would your life would be like if you could do more of these things?

Next: Your Niche: Spheres of Influence

* In the first of Heather Heying’s excellent two part essay on competition (https://naturalselections.substack.com/p/competition1of2?r=83qgf) she reproduces a chart from Murdock & Provost’s 1973 paper “Factors in the division of labor by sex: A cross-cultural analysis.” It shows both the universal division of labour by sex across a wide range of human groups and the highly variable way specific tasks are assigned to either men or women.

**Currently industrial agriculture accounts for about 50% of habitable land use and 70% of water use globally. The efficient use of these critical resources one of the key features of biological systems of production.

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Becoming a Keystone Species

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 15:41:15 GMT

We live in a time of rapid change and uncertainty. The 50 year failure of the environmental movement has left us with a tangle of interconnected problems. Ecosystem destruction; freakishly high levels of pollution of the land, the water, and the atmosphere; and resource depletion combine to create a looming crisis of epic proportions. We are faced with increasing political and economic instability and it’s clear that there will be no large scale co-ordinated efforts to address any of it.

This blog is about what we can do, as ordinary people in families and small groups, to create lives worth living; to build a future worth having; and to be a force for renewal and regeneration in our much depleted world. I hope to provide some possibilities based on our universal human strengths and the strategies that have allowed us to thrive in the past.

If you care about this planet; the future; and your own ability to make your way in these crazy times this blog is for you.

This blog is the outline of an ambitious project. We have the skills, tools, and most importantly the natural abilities that will allow us to transform our relationship to the ecosystems we inhabit. We have the potential to become a beneficial presence in our much damaged world. We can become a keystone species.

Becoming a keystone species, that is, becoming a stabilizing and regenerative influence, means working with succession and allowing ourselves to become part of the process of change over time until we achieve a level of ecological stability. This is not something we can do immediately or even quickly. Just as there is a clear series of transitional stages of growth and renewal before a clearcut can become a climax forest, there is inevitably a transitional period between the way we live now and a fully sustainable future.

If we just slide down the long rocky slope of decline it will probably take 8 -10 generations to hit rock bottom. Leaning into our strengths, practicing systems thinking, and taking strategic steps to shift our patterns, we can, with awareness and intention, create lives that will allow us to glide a little more smoothly over the rough patches, survive the periods of crisis, and possibly even land gracefully as part of a vibrant thriving ecosystem.

Keystone species don’t necessarily do anything other than just live their lives. Wild salmon are a keystone species in the mountainous coastal regions of the Pacific North West (PNW). Torrential winter rain and steep mountainsides make soil erosion a constant issue. Wild salmon spend several years feeding in the ocean before fighting their way back up the river to its source to find their home stream where they were spawned, to spawn and die in their turn.

According to the US Geological Survey Chinook salmon, the largest species can weigh up to 126 lb. (over 57 kg). That’s a big chunk of biomass. Bears and eagles feeding on the salmon complete the cycle and the nutrient is returned to the forest in the high mountains. It’s safe to say that without wild salmon, bears, and eagles, that is without wilderness, the coastline of the PNW would be bare rock without forests or fertile valleys.

Another example is the north American Beaver. Unlike wolves whose presence changes the behaviour of the large herbivores they prey on; or salmon whose relentless pursuit of their natal waters for breeding sets off a whole trophic cascade that benefits the entire ecosystem; beavers actively modify the land to create habitat for themselves.

Beavers are “ecosystem engineers”. Building wetlands is their superpower. Their dams slow the flow of water to create pools where aquatic life can thrive. The rich life in beaver ponds feeds the bio-diversity of the land around it too. This eco-system service is so important to the regeneration of the land that in Australian, where there are no beavers, permaculturists have developed sophisticated earthworks strategies to create wetlands and to control and manage the flow of water.

Humans are not only the ultimate generalists, we are niche hoppers too. When there is a gap, an ecosystem function that is not being served, we are able to step in to fill the gap. Niche hopping is another trait that makes us uniquely well equipped to do ecosystem repair and restoration.

The point here is that it is not enough for us to just live our lives. Like beavers we actively modify the land to create habitat for ourselves. Learning to think differently about ourselves and our place in the ecology of the land we inhabit is key. Accepting that we are part of the ecosystem, we can provide abundantly for ourselves and, with careful, thoughtful interventions speed up the regeneration of our land, water and atmosphere too.

Next: Your Niche

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Ecology: The basics

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 15:26:48 GMT

This blog is about what we can do, as ordinary people in families and small groups, to create lives worth living; to build a future worth having; and to be a force for renewal and regeneration in our much depleted world. I hope to provide some possibilities based on our universal human strengths and the strategies that have allowed us to thrive in the past.

If you care about this planet; the future; and your own ability to make your way in these crazy times this blog is for you.

One of the premises of this blog is that upping our game as ecologically savvy systems thinkers is essential if we are to find ways to live that promote the renewal of the ecosystems we inhabit. This post is a very abbreviated rundown of some of the key concepts in ecology. If you are already familiar with basic ecological concepts this will be a review. If you are an expert please feel free to comment for added clarity or accuracy.

An ecosystem is the interrelationships of living and non-living factors that create identifiable systems.

A system is a set of connected things or parts forming a complex whole.

a set of things working together as an interconnecting network.

Ecology is the study of the relationships between organisms and to their physical surroundings.

Systems Thinking is developing an understanding of a system by examining the linkages and interactions between the components that comprise the entirety of the system and looking for the functions or roles of the components of the system.

A component could be a plant or animal species; it could be a land mass, a waterway, or a microorganism. Any of the “living or non living factors” that make up the system are components or elements in the system.

In an ecosystem everything is connected to everything else. Each component or element exists in a relationship with all the other elements in the system. Every biological element uses resources and produces “waste”. Every biological element is a food source for another element. Animal wastes feed plants; plants feed animals; both feed micro-organisms. Microorganisms feed the soil; the soil feeds the plants. There is no discernible waste. The waste products of one species are resources for another.

The system as a whole functions to build soil, generate food resources, produce air, and purify water. All of these functions are supported by all of the elements in the system. Animals, plants, and fungi all contribute to building soil. The web of life in the soil and the plants that grow in it all contribute to purifying water. All contribute to the quality of the air.

Every species has a niche. A niche is not just where the species lives, its habitat, it’s also the role it has in the community. A species’ niche includes its physical surroundings, its behaviours, and the resources it needs to survive and reproduce. All species have behaviours or characteristics that impact the whole system.

Some species are specialists. They have a very specific niche and a defined way of making a living. Specialists are the most vulnerable to habitat degradation and increased competition. Others are more flexible and can either tolerate a wide range of conditions or have more than one strategy for making a living or reproducing. Plants in this category are usually called “weeds” but the technical term is generalists.

Some species, like fireweed, are opportunistic. Fireweed is a pioneer species. It thrives for a short period of time in the disturbed ground where there has been fire or clearcutting. It proliferates rapidly; fills all the available space; quickly uses up the available resources; then dies out leaving its seeds in the soil seed-bank to await the next disturbance.

Fireweed is the first stage in the succession of changes that take place as the damaged area slowly regenerates. Its role is to protect the soil and create conditions suitable for the next group of species, usually grasses and annual herbs, that take over the space. Succession is the pattern of changes that take place in response to disturbances culminating with the mature or climax ecosystem. At that point the rate of grown and change slow down as a new state of balance is achieved. The mature system that develops after a disturbance may not look the same as the one that preceded it.

Succession is an important concept to keep in mind. Even when undisturbed by human incursions ecosystems are dynamic. Forests that have survived as stable systems for 100’s of years still go through cycles of destruction and renewal. Nothing is static and all systems change in response to external factors.

The final concept I want to introduce is keystone species. A keystone species modifies or stabilizes the environment so that biodiversity can thrive. Salmon are a keystone species and so are beavers. Sometimes a keystone species is a predator. The story of the wolves being reintroduced in Yellowstone National Park is a great example of the powerful effects of a keystone species [https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/role-keystone-species-ecosystem/]

Humans have been keystone species many times and in many places in the past. We have many different way of making a living available to us. There are many proven ecologically sound methods of production that can support fulfilling lives us and a diversity of other species in healthy dynamic balanced ecosystems. Becoming valuable members of our ecological communities; supporting the stabilization of our ecosystems; and contributing to the regeneration of our air, water, and land is an ambitious multigenerational project but it is entirely doable.

Next: Becoming a Keystone Species

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Making Connections

Thu, 19 Mar 2026 22:52:23 GMT

This blog is about what we can do, as ordinary people in families and small groups, to create lives worth living; to build a future worth having; and to be a force for renewal and regeneration in our much depleted world. I hope to provide some possibilities based on our universal human strengths and the strategies that have allowed us to thrive in the past.

If you care about this planet; the future; and your own ability to make your way in these crazy times this blog is for you.

Building a worthwhile future for ourselves is well within our capabilities. However, As Albert Einstein famously said “We can't solve today's problems with the mentality that created them.” Unfortunately, our culture and training… well, let’s just say that western science and western culture tends to rely on linear thinking and values the “objective.” Understanding ecosystems and learning to work with ecological processes requires a different approach.

Linear thinking is concerned with content. It breaks things up into components. It looks for simple causal relations and tries to address the superficial presenting symptoms. Systems thinking in contrast is concerned with the whole. It look for processes and underlying dynamics. It tries to identify patterns.

Linear thinking can be powerful. Western scientists and engineers have created many amazingly useful technologies. Unfortunately our attempts to use linear thinking and linear models to “control” and manipulate biological systems have been stunningly disastrous.

If we hope to shift from destructive systems of production to regenerative systems, we need to let go of any idea about control and learn to interact as thoughtful respectful members of our ecological communities. That means focussing on patterns, connections, and relationships rather than objects and control. Fortunately pattern recognition, and building and maintaining relationships based on those patterns is one of our superpowers.

In Catching Fire: how cooking made us human Richard Wrangham tells a compelling story about how learning to cook and eating cooked food allowed us to develop larger brains specifically to keep track of our social connections. According to Wrangham, keeping track of relationships was so important that the extra calories provided by easily digested hot food were used, not to make us faster to better escape predators; not to make us stronger to be better hunters, but to expand our pattern recognition abilities and increase our capacity to remember faces and the interactions we had with the people around us.

Facial recognition is pattern recognition. It is this same capacity that makes literacy possible. It not only makes learning to read something almost anyone can do but also allows us to read text in numerous different fonts. Identifying patterns is a key skill in thinking ecologically. The other important skills are identifying connections and forming relationships. All these things are a good match for our natural abilities.

We are so good at making connections that we’ve extend our relationship building skills to include making alliances with other species. In The Invaders: How Humans and Their Dogs Drove Neanderthals to Extinction Pat Shipman shows how the alliance between early humans and the wolf-dogs ancestors of modern dogs created an unstoppable dynamic duo that allowed us to become an apex predators. (The idea that we drove Neanderthals to extinction is largely speculative and simplistic. Critics have pointed out that many factors contributed to their decline.)

Shipman makes a convincing case that this early relationship was an alliance based on mutual benefits. That 40,000+ year old connection started a long history of coevolution that is best described as mutual domestication. Over the centuries both humans and dogs have developed traits that facilitate bonding, communication, and collaboration.

Moreover, our with success with dogs expanded our range of adaptive possibilities. Over the centuries we have persuaded many, many other kinds of creatures from horses and elephants to microorganisms to work for or with us. Sadly, most of these relationships have been more exploitative than collaborative. However, a new story about how we can lean in to collaboration with our animal friends has been quietly developing for several decades.

Contrast using “animal power” (draft horses or oxen), to pull a plow with using a “pig tractor” to prepare the land. A pig tractor is a biological system in which the pigs being raised are enclosed in the area to be “plowed” and provided with food, water, and shelter. They are then left to do what pigs do: root around with their strong snouts and churn up the land with their sharp hoofs.

Contrast this again with the lives pigs lead in the horrendous conditions of industrial animal husbandry. Pork production is brutal for the animals and the concentrated waste is an ecological disaster for the surrounding area. Pigs raised in a “pig tractor” not only “plow” the land but also fertilize it and churn the “fertilizer” into the soil. They will do this happily all day everyday and will be ecstatic when you move them to a fresh spot.

Biological systems can be used to produce food; purify water; and process waste. They can be small scale systems or they can be scaled up meet the needs of larger communities

Using regenerative systems to meet our needs requires developing our abilities to observe and imitate natural systems. It requires practicing systems thinking and honing our eco-literacy. Ecosystems are about connections and relationships. Keeping track of relationships is one of our superpowers.

Next: Ecology: the basics

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Adaptation Is Our Superpower

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 18:26:19 GMT

The theme of this blog is that despite the 30-50 years of spinning our wheels waiting in vain for somebody big and powerful to do something about the multi-system crises, environmental, economic, and social, that are staring down at us, there are still things we can do as individuals, families and small groups to thrive while learning to live in ways that increase available resources and improve habitat for other species. There is an alternative to whatever flavour of dystopian future currently haunts your dreams. There are ways to become a regenerative presence in our own tiny spot on the earth and begin to co-create a future worth having.

In my previous post I have suggested that misunderstandings about who we are as a species and our place in the world have led to confused thinking and frustrations especially but not only around the ecological crises that plague us. This series will outline our strengths as a biological species and the survival traits that have stood us well throughout history. These have let us become a beneficial presence in our shared ecosystem in many time and places throughout history and around the world. They can serve us well here and now too.

The foundations of our crises are ecological not technological. Our technological pursuits have been very successful especially in the last 2 or 3 hundred years since we tapped into the planetary reserves of hydrocarbon fuels. They been fun and useful and I am in not in any way suggesting we should reject technology. But, unfortunately, advances in technology have too often come at the expense of both the environment and our communities. Both are suffering now. The true costs have been externalized for far too long. Our economic system is also teetering because there is one thing guaranteed about an unsustainable system: It Will Collapse.

So here we are.

We cannot stop the slow moving disaster the is the combined ecological crises of resource depletion and rising pollution levels. The challenge we face is not simply a problem, or even many problems, to be solved, but and complex emergent situation, an ongoing predicament that cannot be avoided or made to go away. Even if we were successful in resolving one or two or of the specific “problems” (choose your favourite) we still have a badly damaged planet with plenty of unsolvable “problems.”

We have survived 200,000 years as humans not because we had technology that gave us god-like powers to control or manage an entire planet but because we were able to adapt. We’ve been through numerous changes in climate; dramatic changes. It probably wasn’t pretty, but we survived because we adapted to what was. Spoiler: We still don’t have the technology to manage a planet. That’s pure hubris.

All we can do is adapt. And we will. There is no question about that because adaptation is our superpower. A superpower is something a species does effortlessly, unthinkingly, and invariably. A superpower is something that would be difficult to prevent a creature from doing. Beavers build dams and restore wetlands. Pigs root around with their strong snouts digging up deep roots and opening the ground so that new seeds can take root. Humans adapt to changing circumstances. We have an innate knack for “gaming the system;” turning things to our advantage; seizing the main chance.

We can use this power consciously to deliberately to create lives that allow us to thrive. We can use the traits that have allowed us to successfully inhabit every bioregion of the planet to become a force for good in the world. There are many proven biological “solutions” that benefit the whole ecosystem. Many ecologically sound restorative systems of production that could be pursued. Many ways to make a living while making a life.

We need a better story, a more accurate and more useful way of understanding our place in the world. A better understanding of ourselves as a species; better information about of our powers and superpowers and of the strategies (also superpowers) we have used to successfully connect ourselves to our local ecosystems in past. These superpowers can be used now, in the present, wherever you find yourself, as a foundation for building a tailor made life for yourself using your own talents skills and resources.

Next: Making the Connection

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Fallacies, Fantasy, and Fiction or What’s Wrong with this Picture?

Thu, 05 Mar 2026 15:47:03 GMT

Those of you who are familiar with the work of John Michael Greer will immediately recognize the huge influence he has had on my thinking. For those of you who are not familiar with him, I highly recommend his blog on ecosophia.net and his forums on escosophia.dreamwidth.org

According to the late great humorist Terry Pratchett (author of the popular “Discworld” fantasy series) the most fundamental element in the universe is “narrativium”. “Narrativium” is what stories are made of and stories make the world. This isn’t just an amusing fancy. As humans we invariably tell ourselves stories about our experiences to give them meaning and value.

The world is made of stories. The stories both reflect and create our experience. Good stories are useful and empowering; they help us to respond appropriately to our circumstances. Unfortunately, our current stories about climate change and many other big world issues are not good stories.

We are told we can solve massive global problems caused by industrial systems of production by personal action. Vote with your money; buy “green” products; shop your way to sustainability! Climate change? Car pool; take public transit. Giant gyres of plastic waste in the ocean? Reject plastic straws; reusable your shopping bags. The mismatch between the scale of the problems and the solutions on offer would be laughable if it wasn’t so tragic.

Even without these deliberate manipulations and distortions there are several flaws in our current understanding. Many unstated assumptions cloud our thinking and keep us mired in helplessness and despair. If we want to do anything other than give in to paralysis and denial we need a better understanding of who we are, our place in the world, and what we are up against.

The most insidious error is thinking that we are somehow separate from or unconnected to the natural world. We think we are special, different, powerful. We talk about “Nature” as if it was an aging relative that we should be more dutiful about visiting. We have created the illusion of separation but we are really just one species among many.

We idea that we are god-like beings who can control or manage a planet is pure fantasy. We figured out how to tap into a concentrated energy source that allowed us to rise to spectacular heights. We’ve also squandered it recklessly. We will be dealing with the massive unintended consequences of this for generations to come.

Pollution of the atmosphere, the land, and the oceans isn’t going to evaporate. Resource depletion and rising energy costs are here to stay. Political turmoil and economic uncertainty are likely to remain an ongoing challenge. These are the issues that shape our lives and will continue to shape our lives for the foreseeable future.

These are not problems that can be solved. This the second flaw in our thinking. Solutions may have been possible 50 years ago. Today, unfortunately, even if our debauched political class was willing to take action, there is no way to make these issues go away. We’re in a bind created by decades of inaction. Our only option is to find more or less useful ways to respond.

Too many of our stories encourage the least useful response: remaining passive. The twin fantasies of apocalypse and salvation dominate our mythos. Apocalypse, it’s all going to come crashing down around us, appeals to people who have lives they hate and feel helpless to change. Salvation, some dramatic intervention in the form of aliens, gods, or mass enlightenment is preferred by those who are more comfortable. Both give us the excuse to carry on without the personal inconvenience of making changes to how we live.

The third story is even more pernicious. It is that we, the human species, are inherently destructive and the world would be better off without us. This is another excuse to sit on our hands. We are so bad, so innately harmful that we can’t possibly ever find ways of living that are beneficial to the rest of the biosphere and we might as well not bother trying.

This is a fiction that ignores hundreds of thousands of years of human history and countless cultures around the world. People have found ways to live sustainably many times in many places. Humans have been and can be keystone species. A keystone species is a species that exerts a stabilizing influence throughout an ecological community. A keystone species can expand the diversity of the bioregion by generating or regenerating habit and increasing available resources.

We love to think of ourselves as special even if it’s especially destructive but we could also be especially valuable members of our ecological communities. We could be a regenerative force. We’ve done it many times in many places throughout history. How we choose to response to the current crisis depends on which stories we choose to tell ourselves about ourselves and our place in the world.

Next: Adaptation is our Superpower

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Is This Blog for You?

Mon, 02 Mar 2026 19:56:34 GMT

I'm cross posting this current series on SubStack. This is what I wrote about it:

This blog is about what we can do, as ordinary people in families and small groups, to create lives worth living; to build a future worth having; and to be a force for renewal and regeneration in our much depleted world. I hope to provide some possibilities based on our universal human strengths and the strategies that have allowed us to thrive in the past.

If you care about this planet; the future; and your own ability to make your way in these crazy times this blog is for you.

Even though these essays are my own ideas those of you here on DreamWidth will easily see the influence JMG has had on my thinking and writing. I'm sure you understand that I am solely responsible for any errors or fuzzy thinking. Also, I am, once again, taking a strictly materialist POV. I'm not qualified to address any of the spiritual aspects of the situation.

I appreciate your comments and any feedback you can give me.

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Moving Beyond the Spectacle: finding our own stories

Thu, 26 Feb 2026 17:31:34 GMT

We are surrounded by a multi ring circus of fear-porn and bad news. According to the media the larger world is a maelstrom that threatens to draw us and obliterate us. In one ring we have the evil Russians threatening the Ukraine. In another we have the Mid-East. There’s one for “Economic Collapse” featuring the stock markets; currency deflation, bitcoin, and the real estate bubble. There’s one being set up for the “Next Pandemic” and another for “War with China.” Outside the Big Tent there is an entire midway offering sideshows, entertainment, and distraction of every type and flavour.

Our so-called leaders have abandoned any attempt to make any effective response to the real challenges that most of us face. They have consistently chosen to enrich themselves at our expense and have just as consistently stirred up international conflict to distract us from the resulting in poverty and immiseration. It is clear that they are unwilling or incapable of doing anything useful. Instead, they have offered us the equally destructive choice between paralyzing fear and mindless distraction. They cannot save us. The only help available is what we can provide for ourselves and share with the people around us.

The good news is that outside all the noise and confusion something else is happening. It is quiet and hard to see. Even if you do see it you may not realize how important it is. Outside the circus there are individuals, families, and small groups of people who are doing something different. They are living their lives. They are rejecting both fear and distraction and they are finding ways to make the best of their situation. They are doing what people have always done: they are adapting to the unalterable circumstances that shape their lives.

Adaption is our superpower. We are the most adaptable species on earth. We have adapted to and survived dramatic changes in climate many times in the last 200,000 years. We have developed new ways of living for every new climate and every bioregion we’ve encountered. We were creating sustainable cultures with stable populations in some of the most extreme regions on earth, including the Australian outback and the high Arctic long before the discovery and widespread use of fossil fuels.

Most of us have forgotten our strength. The stories we commonly hear or tell or “know” about who we are, how we fit into the world, and the challenges we face, are stories of shame and blame. They focus on our “innate” flaws. They are stories that lead to guilt and paralysis. But they are not the whole story or the only story. The stories shaping our ideas about ourselves and our world are by nature only partial truths. They reflect some aspects of reality and they ignore and distort others.

There is a better way to understand ourselves and what we’re up against. There are better stories, empowering stories. Stories that can help us shake off helplessness, grief, and despair. Some of these are stories as old as humanity itself. They are stories about our inherent human strengths and abilities; about how we’ve used those traits in the past; and about the time tested strategies that have helped us thrive. They are stories about what we can do as individuals, families, and small groups to help ourselves. Stories that can help each of us formulate our own best response to the soul crushing weight that is the future currently on offer.

We have the potential to be a positive force for regeneration and renewal in our sadly damaged world but before we can go on to finding our own stories we must take a deeper look as some of the false assumptions holding us back. The stories we have right now are not empowering. Recognizing the flaws in our current understanding is the first step to co-creating a future worth having.

Next: Fallacies, Fantasy, and Fiction or What’s Wrong with this Picture?

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The Next Great Con

Thu, 19 Feb 2026 19:05:56 GMT

The on going multi-ring circus that portrays the world events and fills our lives with fear, passion, and distraction, is sometimes so all pervasive that we take it as reality. The stories are usually based on something real but they are manipulated to promote specific ideas and beliefs. Various lenses are on offer to shape those belief in ways that serve a variety of ends that are not explicit. The numerous rings are filled with spectacles like the war in Ukraine or the Mid east or variously flavoured crises political, social, or environmental. Whatever we may choose to believe about what is being portrayed, we take this ongoing spectacle as real and rarely think about the circus masters who arrange it for us.

On some occasions there are events and spectacles where the masks slip, or the scenery of the circle is shoddy, or the story that is told is such an outrageous mismatch of what we are actually experiencing that it’s shocking. But there are lots of rings and even if we see the scam and point to it we find that the rest of the audience is still mesmerized by some other spectacle in some other ring and can spare very little attention to the slippage.

Sometimes if we are watching we can see the whole show in a circle being shut down and another show being hastily erected to take its place. We get a rare glimpse behind the scenes and we see that the circus masters are not monolithic. The conflicting views of world events are stories that are stirred up and supported by different factions. Now is one of those times.

Look carefully and you can see the show called “Climate Change” being dismantled and moved out to be replaced by the one called “The AI Future.”

Climate Change, specifically anthropogenic climate change, has been consistently portrayed as an imminent danger that requires sacrifice by the masses and increased power and social control for the political classes. Climate change theatre has involved massive international conferences that accomplished nothing. The action has been largely performative and is typically aimed at amping up the fear factor, forcing restrictions on ordinary people, and leaving the wealthy to enjoy their private jets and luxury yachts.

The climate change story passed its pull date as the hypocrisy of the ruling class became more and more apparent. Competing voices have questioned and reexamined everything from the foundational science to the proposed responses. Many people lost interest but more importantly there's another faction of the ruling classes taking over.

Watch closely and you can see the globalists and the Professional Management Class (PMC) who used climate change as an opportunity to gallivant around the world and show off at international events for the last 30 years losing their grip on power. Between climate change hypocrisy and Covid19 the globalists fumbled their pitch for totalitarian control. They are on the defensive. The multi-billion dollar gaslighting campaign about mass migration, gender-bending, and yes, climate change, are all being rejected by the mass of ordinary people.

A competing class of tech billionaires are using the rising tide of populism to gain control. The tech bros want AI and space travel and all the science fantasy things they were promised as geeky kids immersed in the space fiction worlds that have been the main themes of futurism for a few generations now. The idea that we should reduce fuel consumption in order to reduce atmospheric pollution is not compatible with their goals. The AI future, mining the astroid belt, and going to the Mars, requires massive amounts of power. Climate Change is out.

The left has been played. Some of the “true believers” will cling to their ideological articles of faith until their dying days. But great mass of ordinary people are done, done, done. How badly the unholy manipulation of empathy will rebound on gays, black and brown people, and environmentalists remains to be seen. How many people are able to actually see what happened and what is happening is another open question.

The spectre of global totalitarianism seems to have faded but has it? There’s a new show on. A new reason to take control. Are you ready for the next great con?

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Finding An Audience

Fri, 16 Jan 2026 19:47:47 GMT

A few years ago I began the process of writing a book proposal. When I got to the part about marketing and developing an audience I found myself stymied and I abandoned the project. Recently I have been re-visiting the project and re-evaluating it's potential.

This is what I wrote about it 3 years ago:

If you’ve every wondered if humans are a hopelessly destructive force that the planet would be better off without this book is a resounding ‘NO’.

This book looks at our unique human traits and abilities, reexamines our place in the world, and turns everything we "know" about how to save the world on it’s head. It's about using our strengths as a species to create lives for ourselves that contribute to healing our ecosystems. It’s about meeting our needs in ways that support biodiversity, reduce toxic waste, sequester carbon, and create stable economic systems. It's about learning to thrive in a world of change and confusion.

The project has come up in my meditation once again. It seems like The Powers think I have something to say that might be worthwhile to those that are more likely to inhabit this changing world than oldies like me. The challenge is 1) I have no externally recognized expertise. 2) I have deliberately withdrawn from most social media and avoided adding my voice to the cacophony of competing noise that is the blogosphere. 3) It seems like listening to anything anyone from the older generation has to say is just not a thing anymore. I maybe judging too harshly but it seems like it is rare for anyone from the millennials on down to think that oldies have anything relevant to contribute.

Since I'm still reluctant to join the battle for time and attention and equally reluctant to just send it all off into the void with my fingers crossed I have a dilemma. Is there a third option I can't see? Any suggestions are gratefully appreciated.

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Book Review: Hunt, Gather, Parent

Tue, 25 Nov 2025 19:21:12 GMT

Hunt, Gather, Parent: what ancient cultures can teach us about the lost art of raising happy, helpful little humans by Michaeleen Doucleff PhD

Book Review

Hunt, Gather, Parent is a parenting manual that is actually well worth the time it takes to read. Doucleff and her 3year old daughter take us on a intimate tour to places and people whose parenting strategies are very different than those of the West. She shares the personal challenges and parental failings that spurred her to travel, research, and learn. More importantly she has broken out the specific strategies and techniques and demonstrated how to use them in the context of modern parenting.

The stories generated by her quest are engaging. The peoples she visits, Mayan, Inuit, and Hadzabe, are not untouched by the modern world but, crucially, they have managed to retain parenting techniques that have stood the test of time. The real treasure of the book is a very specific set of skills that can have an immediate positive impact on family life.

The book is divided into 5 sections. Section one is an introduction which examines the challenges of parenting in the W.E.I.R.D. world. The main bulk of the book contains one section for each of the cultures she visits including the important skills each has to offer. The final section is a summary of the paradigm shift involved in changing the way we interact with our children.

The skills Doucleff describes are specific, practical, easy to use techniques. “Try It” exercises that include “dip your toe in,” and “jump in,” are sprinkled liberally throughout the book. A handy list of “Practical Sections” is attached to the Table of Contents for quick reference.

Doucleff emphasizes that these techniques can be used with children of any age and includes age specific approaches where applicable. She has used them successfully with her own daughter and with other children who have visited in her home. She has even used them when dealing with co-workers and other unrelated adults.

The techniques in this book can’t solve the larger W.E.I.R.D. world problems of parent-child isolation or the lack of community support and shared assumptions about how to parent. No single book can. But they can help all of us discover or rediscover the joy of parenting and the ease of harmonious relationships with the tiny humans entrusted to our care.

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Gin-ya's Spaceship - De-industrial Fiction

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 17:54:49 GMT

My name is Gin-ya and I live with my brother in a spaceship at the edge of a star-field . . .

Zak and I found the spaceship when we ran away from the Dumpers into the desert. Boss had gone on the Mother-of-All benders after coming back flush from Trader’s Day. Zak had taken a beating that morning for no good reason other than Boss being in a extra foul Morning-After temper. All of us were whisper-quiet in our work on Morning-After days but almost anything could set Boss off.

Zak was still bruised and sore the next day and he got angry when he discovered that Boss had come back with a box of bottles for himself and not much in the way of food. We were always hungry and didn’t expect much different but Zak said we should at least be able to eat well on days after Trader’s Day since we were the ones doing the work. He got into the food while Boss was sleeping off another stint and he shared it around so we all had full bellies for a change.

When Boss saw what he’d done he was furious and he hit Zak hard with his fists. Then he pulled off his belt and everybody scarpered. I’m usually pretty fast but Zak had gone down too easily and wasn’t moving. I hesitated and Boss came after me. As soon as he’d turned his back Zak rolled over, grabbed a length of pipe, jumped up and hit him as hard as he could. Boss went down with a thud and lay there like he was dead.

Zak wasn’t hurt bad and I’d only taken a couple of licks. Boss was out cold and his head was bleeding. He was usually okay after a bender once he’d recovered. If you could disappear or lay low for a while after a beating you could sometimes sneak back to work he might not pay much attention especially when he was flush and business was good.

Zak said he didn’t think that was going to happen this time. I could see the shock and fear of what he’d done in his eyes. He wanted to get away. So we filled up a couple of water bottles and took off. Zak wanted walk into to desert to the high rock that was just visible from where the sand started and the plants grew scruffy and weak. Zak said he’d rather die of thirst in the desert than spend one more day stripping parts from old tech for a Mother-Hating old drunk.

We didn’t plan to go all the way that day, Zak was still sore from the beating, but we wanted to be well away so we hustled and made it to the gully while there was still lots of light. We’d found the gully near the edge of the desert years ago. It had a tiny stream, barely a trickle in the dry season, but this time of year it gurgled and there was lush cool greenery growing up the sides. There weren’t many plants I recognized but the the blackberries here were always bigger and juicier here than the ones that grew in thorny tangles all over Dump. It was too early for berries yet. We’d tried eating some of the other stuff. Lots of it was too bitter and some of it would make you sick if you ate much of it but there were some pale green leafy things growing by the creek that were okay. Not much flavour but crunchy and fresh.

We'd been sitting by the creek and munching leaves for a while when the noise of something big moving through the bushes downstream sent us scrambling up the far side of the gully. We weren’t ready to be found by Boss or anyone else.

We ran flat out toward the rocky outcrop hoping whoever or whatever it was would stay by the creek. It wasn’t long before our feet were pounding on hot sand. We were almost out of breath and I was beginning to get a stitch in my side when our feet were suddenly making a hollow kind of booming sound and then we were whooshing down the smooth curved side of the spaceship. The shock of landing on the hard sand on the other side drove my breath away. We’d just missed a pile of jagged metal that would have set Boss’s eyes gleaming and put him in a good mood for days.

We scrambled to our feet gasping and turned to see a long metal tube as big as a ‘scraper lying on the ground almost completely buried in the sand. On this side the sand was nearly up to a long row of small windows and more sand spilled out a couple of bigger gaps like missing teeth just above a wrecked wing. A piece of old stairs stuck out of the sand near a big gaping hole that must have been the main door and the tube was sort of bent in on itself like an dented old tin can.

“What is it?” I whispered.

“It’s a spaceship,” said Zak. “Mother-of-All, a spaceship!”

His voice was low with awe and disbelief as he put his hand out to gently touch the metal. We stood and looked at the pile of wrecked metal and the enormous tube of the spaceship for a long time. We could see where our feet had started to skitter in the sand on top and the trail of our slide down the side. It had been completely invisible from the other side.

On this side the dark gaps and the corroded metal made it look scary but it looked sad too: like the old dumpers who gave up and just sat down waited for death to take ‘em. “It’s a ghost” said Zak. “Mother-of-All.” I repeated and made the warding sign.

We walked back and forth looking for long time before Zak climbed up on the broken wing to peer into the dark gaps above it. I don’t know how long we stood there as the sky darkened. Suddenly huge drops of rain were pelting down on us. “Come on!” said Zak and he boosted me up so I could scramble up the wing and into the spaceship. The inside was dry and sandy. There were rows and rows of seats in some places and jumbled piles of junk in others where the seats had been torn out. The floor was angled down slightly toward the buried back side and there was another long row of windows covered by the sand. There were piles of sand here and there where it had seeped in through the cracked windows and door gaps.

It was kind of spooky and the rain pounded on the roof like thunder but it was dry inside and we hunkered down well away from the places where the water was coming in to wait out the storm. I fell asleep and my dreams were filled with people in strange clothes moving in and out of the spaceship. There were more people than I’d ever seen in my whole life and they glittered with jewelry and gadgets. Lots of them had bags slung around their necks or tied to their waists. They filled the shelves above the seats with fancy boxes with special handles; then pulled them out and down again, murmuring to each other as they slowly crowded in and out.

It was strangely quiet when I woke up bleary eyed and thirsty. I stared at the curved ceiling above me for a long time before I remembered where we were. I’d just focused on Zak standing at the door of the spaceship with the morning light coming in all around when he shouted. “Oh Gin! Gin! Quick, come and look at this!” and jumped down. Shocked fully awake, I scrambled up quick and ran to the door where he had just disappeared. He sounded excited not frightened.

When I looked out I couldn’t believe my eyes. The bare dry sand around the spaceship was covered with fresh new plants. Tiny white flowers like little stars dotted the ground as far as I could see and the air shimmered in the light like it was alive with delight. It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

“Mother-of-All,” I breathed.

The star-flowers were gone in a few days but we're stayed. We’re going to live here forever and ever, and never, ever, ever go back to Dump. The desert has gone back to being a sea of sand but I know the stars are still there under the sand. Someday they’ll come back.

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Fentanyl Test kits

Sun, 09 Mar 2025 17:49:39 GMT

https://www.malone.news/p/a-test-to-stop-fentanyl-deaths?publication_id=583200&post_id=158675549&isFreemail=true&r=bbrad&triedRedirect=true

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The Perversity of Canadians

Fri, 07 Mar 2025 18:20:49 GMT

Americans know they are the greatest people of the greatest nation on earth. They may not know it innately but they are told from their very early years and they internalize this truth at a very early age. They tell themselves this constantly and they tell each other just as constantly. It is the air that they breathe and the water they drink.

It is so obviously undeniably true that it seems like the world must be made up of 2 kinds of people: Americans and people who wish they were Americans. I mean why wouldn’t everyone else want to be American? They are the greatest people in the world. Everybody agrees. Everybody says so. Except . . . Canadians.

Canada is a conundrum in this respect. Here are people who live close by. Who are more like Americans than any other people on earth. Who speak the same language and share many of the same cultural traits. People who should know how great America is and how great it is to be American and yet . . . and yet they don’t. Or maybe they just won’t admit it.

Canadians don’t want to be Americans. This is perplexing. Of all the people in the world they should be the most envious; the most desirous of all the blessings of being American and yet they are not. They are not Americans and they seem to be quite happy about it. They are happy to not be Americans. And they are all kinds of other things things just as improbable, and suspicious.

They are polite. They take pains to be polite and inoffensive. How weird is that? They are polite, helpful, and hospitable. In 2001 when the World Trade Center went down, Gander Newfoundland, a town with a population of just over 11,000, took in 6,600 stranded travellers from 38 American planes for 6 days and asked nothing in return.

They take care of each other too. They have free health care. They all pay so that even the poorest Canadians can go to a doctor any time they want. No one in Canada goes bankrupt because of medical expenses. No on has to start a Go Fund Me if they break a bone. Medical care for everyone comes out of their taxes and they are okay with it.

They believe in fair play. It was a Canadian, Brad Katsuyama, who figured out that high speed trading had effectively created a rigged Wall Street stock market. Rather than using the system to his own advantage, Katsuyama, an advocate for fair trading, set up a new Wall Street trading platform that simply eliminates the problem.

And yet for all of that they are deadly in war and fierce in defence of their sovereignty. The last time (first, last, and only time) the USA invaded Canada (The War of 1812) they came and burnt the Whitehouse down and then went home!

They are incomprehensible. They don’t want to be Americans. They’ve never wanted to be Americans. During the Revolutionary War Canada, a British colony, was the refuge of the United Empire Loyalists. Canada was made of people who left the newly independent states because they didn't want to be Americans.

They don’t want to be Americans at all.
They never have.
And they are happy about it.

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Where Do You Splurge?

Sun, 10 Nov 2024 18:04:59 GMT

The conversations on this week's Frugal Friday started some interesting reflections for me. Am I really as frugal as I think I am? Are there places where I will spend and will continue to spend until the product or service becomes unavailable to me? Where are the boundaries of what is "worth it" and what is just habit left-over from a lifetime of not thinking about those expenses? Do other values take precedence over thrift? Are there places where being extra-thrifty can make up for a few indulgences?

The two conversations were Deringolade's comment about using margarine for baking "Blackest of All Black Heresies" https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/303365.html?thread=52158469#cmt52158469 and the other was the conversation about dropping the smart phone or out of the cell phone system altogether. "Alternatives to Cell Phone Culture" from Dylan https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/303365.html?thread=52168197#cmt52168197

Both conversations caught my attention because neither are things I'm willing to consider in my own life. I chuckled at Deringolade's title because for me, as a life long granola-head, switching to margarine is indeed "heresy." In this case I value my health over my money. I'd rather skip the cookies altogether than use margarine in baking. There may still be debate about which is healthier but I made up my mind long ago. Butter is a natural product and margarine is high tech manufacturing process that damages the fat and leaves lots of chemical residues I don't want in my food.

I have adopted other thrifty strategies to reduce my need for butter. First, I don't bake very often, mainly because eating too much sugar is very bad for me and if I bake cookies I will eat them. I try to keep the baked goods for special occasions: Christmas, Thanksgiving, birthdays. Second, I'm extra-frugal about saving any animal fats from the meat we eat. I pour it off into jars and store it in the freezer until I need it. Almost all my cooking is done with animal fats that would otherwise be wasted. I do still use a bit of butter for sauces and veggies and even more rarely I use a bit of coconut oil. Deringolade's post has made me want to try "Maple Bacon Oatmeal" cookies with bacon fat but otherwise I will still be using butter when I'm baking.

The second conversation, about ditching your cell phone, also caught my attention, because it's another one I'm not willing to consider right now but have thought about many times in the last several years. Until recently I always got hand-me-down cell phones from relatives who were up grading. The last two were refurbished phones I bought from a company that specializes in repair and resale of personal electronics. Both were very affordable older models. I trashed the first one pretty quickly. I can't remember how but it was definitely phone abuse not faulty equipment. The second has lasted for a long time and I will probably buy another one from the same company when it dies if I can.

I don't use a phone as a hand held computer. I refuse to download apps most of the time it's just an expensive pocket watch. So I have to ask myself why I keep it. I could probably get along without it. I like the map function. I've never been very good about finding my way around. I know there are work arounds. I used to look up the route on the computer and make notes of the important cross roads etc. I could go back to doing that but I've also found that having maps available to me while I'm out has saved me lots of distress. Approaching strangers and asking for directions seems to have gone from a fairly normal thing to do to an unwarranted imposition. As others have mentioned being able stay in contact with home when I'm out is certainly a plus. About the only other things I do are take pictures and use the timer/alarm/stopwatch functions.

So the question remains. No answer yet but we'll see.

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In this house we believe . . .

Thu, 19 Sep 2024 00:09:24 GMT

These are all the variations on the theme contributed in response to Clay Dennis' comment (#84) on the August 4 essay on ecosophia.net . I'm sorry I didn't record the names of the commenters.
https://www.ecosophia.net/the-nibelungs-ring-5-the-early-philosophy

The original from Clay Dennis:
Science is Real

Black Lives Matter

No Human is illegal

Love is Love

Faith is real

What lives matters

No law is human

Talk is talk.

… or …

Science is religion

Colours are constructs

Law is not morality

TSW

… or …

Wotan is real

The ring matters

No opera is a put on

Wagner is Wagner

Cthulhu is Real

Eldritch Lives Matter

No Shoggoth is Illegal

Madness is Madness

Peak oil is real

Resource limits matter

No civilization is immortal

Decline is decline

In This House We Believe
Philosophy Begins In Wonder
The Soul Is the Form of the Body
A Friend Is Another Self
Metaphysics Is Real
Virtue Is Everything

Tautologies are tautological

Philosophy begins with Love

Wisdom recognizes its ignorance

The Truth is beyond mans understanding

But ideas can still be useful

In this narrow house we believe

*Undead lives matter

*The blood is the life

*Science is what the Master says

*Freedom is obedience

*Don’t buy the lie: not all must die

*They travel fast who travel with the dead.

In this house we believe

Bigfoot is real

I am going to kiss him

He will be my lover

I will be the little spoon

Me and Bigfoot will f***

And you can’t stop us

In this house we believe that:
simplistic platitudes
trite tautologies
and semantically overloaded aphorisms
are poor substitutes
for respectful and rational discussions
about complex issues.

In this house we believe

Trump won the debate against David Muir

Kamala Harris was a terrible moderator

In this house we believe

Whatever Mama says

Go on

Ask her

Politely

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Light Therapy

Mon, 09 Sep 2024 15:42:04 GMT

More on sunlight and light therapy from A Midwestern Doctor.

https://www.midwesterndoctor.com/p/why-light-is-an-essential-nutrient

https://substack.com/@amidwesterndoctor/p-147382537

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