Lifeboat Communities: Do they exist?

LIFEBOAT COMMUNITIES - Do they exist?

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I think the Time of this idea has arrived, and there must be communities like this springing up around Asia. Has anyone seen one?


As Ed has posted:

"We got on the this treadmill 150 years ago with the industrial revolution and there is no getting off ... more people, more growth, more shopping, more strip malls, more freeways, more LV bags, more 'progress'..."

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Of course, we can get off the treadmill : But maybe only slowly, family-by-family - finding a place to live, and a way to live there, where we are less dependent. This way, individual families may thrive while the blind idiots around them in the Large society struggle to adjust when the crunch comes.


But to make that work, you many need to be surrounded by a like-minded community, where a MAJORITY of people share your values - A "lifeboat community", if you will.


I am very keen to find a place like that and am very eager to hear suggestions, if anyone has found something like that.

MORE DETAIL

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By way of background, this thread arose from a conversation on another thread.


First, a comment from Ed:


I think what we are experiencing now are the symptoms of the limits to growth


5. I do not believe that any changes we can make to the current system will make any differences to the ultimate outcome - this system is burning itself out - and something will replace it - regardless of whether or not we fight it with reformist polices here and there... I have no idea what that will be .... but I am to some extent confident it will result in a world that is completely different from one we live in now...

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Big changes that may work - Cut the wasteful use of limited resources:


+ Reduce dramatically use of fossil fuels - an end to suburban living

+ Grow food locally

+ Build products to last, rather than to be replaced

+ Learn how to repair and recycle

+ Stop advertising products that do not fit these ideals

+ No more Wars ! They waste too much energy

+ Escalate research on free energy technologies

An interesting concept... I've mentioned before I was looking at a small farm in a fairly remote area of BC rockies... I'll close on that next week...


The couple who live there are in their 70's who have been there for 27 years... they live a very simple life with no luxuries - but to talk to them they have a huge passion for life... their indulgences involve a drive to Nelson once in a while to have lunch... a short trip to the hot springs for a dip... a spotting of a moose on their property...


In fact I got this email from them today which sums things up far better than I could ever hope to do:


we had nearly 8 weeks sunshine every day, which came to an end with a very heavy shower, today. then some moderate rain after that and the forecast predicts more showers for a week, which is good for the bush, even though, everything is still lush and green thanks to a prolonged cool and wet spring and early summer.



btw this was an excellent cherry year, as well as thimble berries and wild raspberries. they were so thick with the never ending suns chine that there will be for sure some left as dried cherry raisins, and later when you come, the plums look also very good and plenty. margret makes always some delicious jam and the boys, when they come for a visit in time, make some good tasting wine. we might be able to leave you at least some of the jam. i am not sure if the timing is right for the boys to be here for the wine making.




So yes there are such communities in existence ... in remote areas of western countries... definitely in the villages of Asia... they are self-sufficient...


The question to me is, is this model viable with 7 billion people on the planet - a large proportion of whom live in cities... what do they do - where do they go?


In Egypt there is talk of a hunger revolution ...


I have no answers... only random thoughts...

I do think that 7 Billion people will not come out of whatever cataclysm we may face.


One possible future is "A World Made by Hand": - as described in a Novel by JH Kunstler:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wG4qsYoBEI


REVIEW of the book:

http://www.amazon.com/World-Made-Hand-A-Novel/dp/0802144012


But I do not think it will come out that way somehow.


BTW, I have borrowed the "Lifeboat" label from Mike Ruppert, and his concept* is similar to mine, but I am probably less pessimistic than he is.


One area I have wanted to visit to see if this concept is already developed is Chiangmai, since someone in HK told me that he had a friend who moved to Chiangmai to establish such a community.


I doubt that the concept would appeal to your average retiring expat, so the plan for the community might self-select for the right sort of people.


BTW, you BC farmhouse sounds lovely in many ways, but perhaps a bit quieter and colder than I would be looking for.


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*footnote:

In 2010 Mike Ruppert founded Collapse Network, intended to concentrate essential news stories and facilitate relocalization. “Relocalization”, says Ruppert, “is the only hope we have to build LIFEBOATS that can save as many lives as possible as human industrial civilization comes to an end and as a new and uncertain era with unforeseen challenges leaves us asking not what kind of a world we can save, but what will be left to pass on to future generations.”

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Read more: http://prn.fm/hosts/political-hosts/michael-ruppert/#ixzz2ap08VMR6

Probably not what you are looking for, but a company called Vivos does something a little similar.


Alternatively seems like you could just buy a little farm out in deep NT somewhere.


Doug Casey has his community setup in remote Argentina and Simon Black has his setup in Chile. You can look into both of their projects. I have a few friends who live down at Simon's farm so I can vouch that the entire thing is very real.

Yeah I have met two guys who bought property in Casey's La Estancia de Cafayate project:


http://www.lec.com.ar/


It was still under development when I spoke with them, and they were pretty enthusiastic about it.


Others thought that is the crunch really came, the cigar-smoking and cabernet swilling rich expats in that community might become a target for their less-rich neighbors. So maybe it is not as safe as it imagines it is.


Being surrounded by people who are less well off, and speak a different language can have its drawbacks.


I am thinking of something less expensive, and not so high profile, better able to blend in with the life around it.


One of my Skype friends, a guy called Gonzalo Lira, who has become a well known blogger, was planning something similar in Chile - but I don't know if it ever got off the ground.

The Oberlin Project - a lifeboat community in progress


I have called it so, because of its aims:

+ To produce 70% of food locally

+ To most of its energy locally from renewable sources

+ They now produce energy which is 85% Carbon neutral


But this project has many challenges, and some of them come out in this interview just published on James Howard Kunstler's website:


Podcast #240:

MP3: http://traffic.libsyn.com/kunstlercast/KunstlerCast_240.mp3


(They touch on a wide range of issues, beyond the community design)


JHK interviews David Orr, the Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Science and Politics at Oberlin College, in Oberlin, Ohio.



David is the author of Down to the Wire: Confronting Climate Collapse (Oxford Press, 2009) and many other books. He articulates the multiple predicaments of our time in clear, plain terms, and he runs the Oberlin Project, an exemplary effort for the rehabilitation of local economies and the towns at the center of them.

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At the end, they agree: (I paraphrase):

"There's a race on between rising corporate authoritarianism, and re-building sovereignty by investing at the local level."

The Oberlin Project, a joint effort by Oberlin College and the City of Oberlin


... to create “full-spectrum sustainability” in which the parts are integrated to reinforce the resilience and durability of the whole community.


image : http://www.ecobuildingpulse.com/Images/tmp7366.tmp_tcm131-1496015.jpg


Typically, we’ve gone about implementing sustainability as a series of one-off projects unconnected to each other. As a result, work in sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, green buildings, economic development etc. were not designed to take advantage of the synergies that exists between the parts.


Specifically the goals of the Oberlin Project are to :


(1) Rebuild a 13- acre block in the downtown to U.S. Green Building Platinum Standards as a driver for economic revitalization;

(2) Transition to carbon neutrality by a combination of radically improved efficiency and deployment of renewable energy;

(3) Develop a 20,000 acre greenbelt for agriculture and forestry;

... and

(4) Do all of the above as a part of an educational venture that joins the public schools, the college, a community college, and a vocational educational school that equips young people for decent and creative lives in a post-cheap-fossil fuel economy.


The Project, now eighteen months old, is organized around community teams working on strategic issues such as energy, public policy, finance, community engagement, economic development, and education. In plain English “full-spectrum sustainability,” means lots of meetings between different teams and stakeholders because applied sustainability crosses virtually all of the fences and walls by which we organized the industrial world.


http://img856.imageshack.us/img856/4792/2rn.gif


Like light refracted through a crystal, the Project appears different from different vantage points. For Oberlin students it means a cool 24/7 downtown. For College faculty it means better facilities. To the local merchants it means more business and higher profits. To public officials it is a model of climate neutral economic revitalization in a region devastated by de-industrialization. To architects and urban planners, it is a model of ecological design at the scale of a small city.


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/more: http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/04/06/207826/the-oberlin-project-and-full-spectrum-sustainability/

Hey OTP,

first thing I thought about when you mentioned "lifeboat communities" was preppers, lol


UK version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MN4sAgK8HfM


US version (with ALOT of guns lol) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5foN9u_ZiqM

That could be similar - but not quite the same in my mind.


Most prepares seem to think that the future will bring a big crisis where they will need guns, and will need to live through a TEMPORARY period of stress.


I am thinking of preparing for a permanent change which will be a new normal, but doing it while we still have access to the Globalised economy, but want to learn to life without giving in to its "temptations" and "bad habits" that many people do today.