adapting in place
sastyk | September 28, 2010Various Updates:
First of all, Aaron Newton and I will be offering the Adapting-in-Place class again for the very last time for at least six months, and maybe longer. So if you've ever thought of taking the class, now is the time!
Adapting in Place is my favorite class - it covers everything from what's inside the walls of your home to appropriate technologies to family issues to money to security. It is the whole picture of how we are going to go forward into a lower-energy, warmer, less wealthy future. The idea is for you to come out with a plan that is uniquely suited to your realities…
sastyk | September 8, 2010Super-quickie from me today - officially I'm in transit, but while my visiting my MIL and miraculously having time to read the entire New York Times before breakfast (admittedly the skinny Wednesday edition, but hey, I'll take it), I wanted to draw your attention to this article by David Leonhardt about how to think about housing.
Read the whole article - it is a good, basic overview of how economists generally view housing. What I'd like to write about it, but don't have time for right now (we hit the road shortly) is the way in which I think both of these viewpoints are inadequate to the…
sastyk | August 4, 2010I'm about to go out of town for three days to a conference on dealing with poverty issues, energy depletion and climate change, and I'm a little nervous. We've had no babies born since Meadowsweet's appearance two weeks ago, and I have three does due in the next week - not only am I a little nervous about abandoning Eric and Phil-the-Housemate to delivering baby goats (which has historically been a she who did the birthin' of the boys job), but I'm also a little sad at the thought of missing all the fun!
Still it is a good and important thing, and it reminds me to let y'all know about…
sastyk | July 5, 2010The northeast is having its first heatwave of the year, and I thought it was a good time to re-run a piece I wrote about what to do in extreme heat if you don't have air conditioning. Because we all know what heatwaves mean - not just physical stress, health crises and unnecessary deaths from heat, but also blackouts and brownouts as everyone charges up their a/c. So what do you do when the power is out and the heat is on? These suggestions include, I think, the most important strategy - be aware of other people.
There are a lot of parallels between dealing with extreme heat and extreme…
sastyk | July 1, 2010
(Awesome image of zombie me by Joseph Hewitt of Ataraxia Theatre and the originator of the cool RPG Gearhead Check out my fellow bloggers to see their zombie pix! I wonder if New Society would let me use this as my book jacket photo for the new book?)
As all of you obviously know, July 1 is International Zombie Day - celebrated around the world by the zombifying oneself, posting brain recipes, strategies for fightin' em off, etc... Well, ok, it is kind of a new, science-blogs-only-holiday so far (credit for the idea goes to Scicurious!), but following the stunning success of international…
sastyk | June 17, 2010
(I really wanted to post Ronnie Gilbert's version of this song, because not only is she a fine old folkie of the sort you are damned grateful exists, but she has one of the finest set of pipes out there. But there's no video anywhere I can find of her singing. I like Mississippi John Hurt's as well, though)
One of the inevitable realities where people get poorer and are subject to more climate-related and infrastructure failure disasters is that people have to take in friends and family who have no other place to go. Hurricane Katrina, for example, for several million people represented…
sastyk | June 2, 2010Most of the people who take Adapting-In-Place, reasonably enough, are doing so because they intend to stay where they are or fairly nearby in the coming decades. They know that they may not be in the perfect place, but for a host of reasons - inability to sell a house, job or family commitments, love of place...you name it, they are going to stay. Or maybe it is the best possible place for them. But I do think it is important to begin the class with the assumption that everything is on the table. Because as little as each of us likes to admit it, it is. There will be many migrations in…
sastyk | May 27, 2010Before I take off for the weekend, I thought I'd leave you with another re-run on the very basic process of adapting to rapidly changing conditions.
Today I'm starting another Adapting-In-Place Class, beginning with the basics of evaluating whether you have a future where you are, what your other choices are, and then triaging your situation. One of the most basic elements of triaging any system - whether the systems that power your house or the ones that help you keep your head together when the going gets tough, is identifying redundancies.
Why redundant systems? Well, for the simple…
sastyk | May 24, 2010Just a reminder that Aaron Newton (my co-author on A Nation of Farmers) and I will be running our Adapting in Place Class online for six weeks, starting Thursday. The class is asynchronous - you don't have to be online at any particular time, just participate when you like. The goal of the class is to help people develop a coherent plan for how to create a good and viable low energy life with what you have. Previous participants have told us that the class was "life-changing." This class attempts to deals as clearly as possible in such a murky subject with the question of "how should I…
sastyk | January 12, 2010Ok, as you all know from my "Pyr-Buck-Bees-Sheep" post, I need inspiration to get this book cooking again. So I know you've told me before, some of you, but I want to hear about how you are making a lower-energy life where you are, or how you've found a new place to do it. I'm also looking for a couple new people to profile for my book - I've had some dropouts, and would love to add a couple of new participants. I'm particularly looking for people who are trying to AIP in very dry climates and deal with water issues, those adapting in rental housing, anyone adapting as part of a religious…
sastyk | January 5, 2010Today is the first day of Aaron's and my new "Finding Your Place" Course (for anyone who would still like to join, we've got two remaining spots and since the class is asynchronously online, you won't miss anything by starting today or tomorrow - email me at Jewishfarmer@gmail.com). I've been teaching Adapting-in-Place, for people who intend to stay where they are and want to lower their resource consumption and build greater resilience for several years now, but this is the first time Aaron and I have taught a similar class for people who are either considering relocation or definitely…