Things I want to see for Newmarket/Aurora

In light of peak oil, pollution, global warming and those pesky food security issues that are dear to my heart(and belly) there are a great many things I’d like to see happen to make Newmarket Aurora a better and more sustainable place for what I believe will be a harder more austere future.

No more irrational development, yes we should increased density but stop building those damn 4000 sq ft homes, and stop allowing big box developments. Mixed use high density is the best model, each block should have a grocer, a restaurant, a bar, a play ground etc. Grouping all the retail and services around main arteries that no one can walk to is insane.

LEEDs certification for all new homes and major rebuilds, simple additions must be at least R2000 compliant. If people’s houses are so inefficient that they cannot heat them affordability you will get people freezing in the dark or installing in wood stoves that create smog and lead to deforestation, not to mention the number of dumb asses that burn down their houses or gas themselves when they bring the BBQ inside.

New Commercial buildings must utilize their roofs as green roofs, Solar PV or Solar thermal applications, 20 year phase in for all existing commercial buildings.

I’d like to see more open mindedness in the building codes regarding alternative building materials; Straw bail, earth bag, rammed earth etc. The carbon footprint of the building process must also be taken into account, not just the day to day carbon use.

No more drive through businesses with notice that existing ones must be phased out in 10 years. Having both an anti idling law and numerous drive throughs makes absolutely no sense.

I want the city to stop planting foreign ornamental trees everywhere. All trees should be indigenous species with at least half being productive varieties of fruits and nuts, providing both natural foods for wildlife and energetic citizens.

I don’t want the Widening of Davis Drive for public transit lanes.
Peak oil is going to severely reduce the amount of public traffic on the roads within the next 10 years. Widening this road to accommodate transit on the assumption that oil availability or price will never impact car use is blinkered thinking. The age of the car is ending, stop building infrastructure that perpetuates a broken model.

I want people to come forward to found a transition town movement (I’ll certainly join and take part but I won’t kid myself that organization or consensus building skills are my strong point, I’m too much the lazy malcontent)
Transition towns is a great movement devoted to helping towns and communities adapt to peak oil and more self reliance.

I’d like to see the creation of a food not lawns movement. The waste of water, energy, time and fertilizer on grass is a national disgrace. The potential benefit to food security, biodiversity and the survival of pollinators greatly outweighs the benefit of the uniformly boring dead zone we call lawns. While it’s your right to have a lawn I it’s also my right to utilize my soil to grow food.

I also want a lobby for the legalization of small urban livestock, hens, rabbits, dwarf goats as part of a greater Right to Farm legislation.

I want to see tax relief and zoning concession that encourage land owners to lease, donate or even use their honking big lawns to grow food locally. Just drive around the Pony and Stellar Drive industrial area, the lawns on some of these properties could supply 100s of people with produce. The utilization of urban lands to feed people is becoming more prevalent

Stop jerking us around on community gardens. After years of improving the soil in Newmarket’s community garden the region is giving urban farmers the boot, our new location will be a dead field of clay adjacent to the Magna center. In reality Magna should be additional garden plots not replacement plots

I’d like Ontario hydro to allow us the use of the hydro corridor for garden plots. There are many acres of untended and usable land going to waste.

I want a local food cooperative selling locally grown fresh and canned produce as well as bulk purchases of food staples.

I want to see the careers ended for those local politicians who think that the only thing they must offer to get my vote is more public ice rinks. There is more to life and their jobs than facilitating hockey…arrgggg!

I want to see strict enforcement of the no free range cat bylaw. If your dog, child or spouse is running amok in my yard I can call the police, if it’s a cat however you must trap it yourself because police or animal control won’t do anything. Cats and their freakishly zealot owners are apparently above a law that protects indigenous species like song birds from being hunted by a foreign and destructive species. If you’re too lazy to clean your own cat box put the cat down, don’t send it to crap in my garden

Ban golf courses- a place that Ontario exempts from the pesticide spraying laws

I want to see a group of environmentally aware people create a slate of like minded candidates in the next round of municipal elections.

I’d like the Newmarket Farmers market to have its board fired and a neutral party placed in charge. The market has lost good vendors because board members did not like losing market share to a better product, (the best meat pies are sold by a guy at the Aurora market now.) It also looks pretty obvious that many current vendors are breaking the rules and bringing out of region produce from the food terminal.

I’d like to see at least one weekend Go train that goes down 9:00ish a.m. and came back at 5-6 pm so that people can do the Ex, trade shows, theatre, the islands etc.

There are so many things that I want done yet I see no awareness to the need for change. I guess there are several answers but they all boil down to 2 categories

I’m a delusional crank
or
People are inherently short sighted and stupid

Or maybe there are people out there who will say, "Those are great ideas, I want to get involved" and will contact me to do something.

No, you are right. I must a be delusional Crank!!! bwahahahahaahah

.Recommend this Post

Top Doomer Accessories

I often see lists of things people like, best electronics or the best cars but what about us doomers? What are the best things we should own to be well prepared?

Now I'm not talking about having a weeks worth of food or 10 candles for an emergency because I expect you to already have the basics, rather I'm talking about more substantial items that would be of great advantages for either powering down or in an emergency. I know this is not necessarily the definitive list but more of way of arguing with myself and with you on how to best utilize my meagre resources and prioritize my doomer centric purchases.

Solar oven

I’ve actually have one of these and think it’s a great tool for cooking small breads, casseroles, roasts, even boiling and sterilizing water but as my current yard is not consistently sunny enough I don't get to use it except at the cottage. The Peak Oil Hausfrau says this is her favourite appliance and has a number of useful posts on oven use I'd recommend you read. There are several types of solar cookers made; some are simple reflectors, some have back up gas heating or are very portable, mine is the Global Sun Oven pictured here which ran about $320 with shipping, tax and dollar exchange. While slower than a real oven this useful toy is absolutely free to use and is also carbon guilt free. Depending on your location this might be only a three season product but fuel saved in one season will mean more available later.

Berkley water filter

Whether it’s for constant use, seasonal concerns about your ground water or even to drink roof runoff in an emergency the Berkley Water Filter family is the Cadillac of free standing home water systems. These systems range in size and flow allowing you to get a good match for your personal usage and your budget. For long term use I would suggest getting several sets of spare filter up front and then repurchases them each time you change them out. This will give you the most use in case supply disruptions should occur as some point

A Quality Grain mill






Wheat's long term storability and nutrition makes it a common find in most doomer's pantries but since most of us don’t want to pound it with a stick or grind it between two stones a good quality grain mill such as the heavy duty Diamant Grain Mill or the more modest but highly rated Country Living Grain Mill is a must. A Grain mill is a tool that could be used several times a week if not daily so it does not pay to cut corners and buy the cheapest thing you can find. Most mills have spare part kits available which you may or may not need but certainly buy a spare set of burrs(the part that actually grinds).

A Pressure Canner

Unless you have guaranteed access to fresh meat and/or a working freezer with a stable power source you control you will eventually need to preserve low acid items such as meat, fish, and veggies.
I swear my Grandmother use to do carrots and beans without pressure canner and no one died but what do I know? Government health agencies say high pressure canning is the only safe way to can low acid stuff, high acid things like jellies, tomatoes, chutneys etc do not need a pressure canner.

A Smoker

A smoker is an ideal way to preserve meat by making hams, sausage or even smoking fish but since many of the commercial smokers look to be propane or electric powered I think I’d be looking to make my own wood/charcoal fired smoker. Or perhaps you'd rather buy the Big Green Egg


A Still

Alcohol is now and always has been one of mans great escapes. With your own still not only can one make potable alcohol but you can also produce fuel for a modified engine, medicinal alcohol for sterilizing wounds and equipment, or for making tinctures, tonics, pain killers like Laudanum. A small still with a hopper or basket allows you to strip essential oils from herbs and plants for medicine, flavourings, or scents. Finally alcohol is a great preservative for such things as seasonal fruit or Admiral Nelson if you’ve got one laying about. There are many sites dedicated to building your own or you can purchase them here, or here.
check local laws I did not suggest that you do anything illegal


A treadle sewing machine

An old singer or its contemporary’s with all the parts and bobbins in tact are ideal for basic sewing and should be a no brainer addition to the doomers home. More recently the Janome made a model called the 712T(and probably others) which fit into the old singer treadle tables and had many of the more modern sewing machine features. Old treadles are a dime a dozen on the used market but because some people think they are collectible they may ask far too much for them, many also are incomplete. Some like my Grandmother's looked original but had suffered an electric conversion and some of the original pieces missing. Look carefully to assure you get both a structurally sound table and a working sewing machine. If you end up with a spare treadle and no sewing machine I've seen some great plans for a treadle powered hobby lathe.

A modest solar recharging system


While it would be great to be totally off the grid with enough power to live life exactly like we live now that is not financial viable for the majority of people. However a modest solar recharging system
consisting of enough solar cells to charge a laptop, cell phones or batteries for flashlights, lanterns small small appliances or toys can add a little safety and normalcy to a tough situation without breaking the bank

Water capture system

Every doomer needs a water system that not only fills rail barrels or a cistern for the garden but one that allows you divert water to tanks for indoor use during droughts. Roof run of is certainly fine for laundry and flushing and if you prefilter for sediment would be quite drinkable after passing through your Berkely water filter, or boiling it in the sun oven. Do both if your paranoid.

A rugged bike and trailer



Eventually getting around or shopping will no longer take place in a car and a durable bike for all members of your household is very important as is at least one trailer for hauling what ever it is you need to move from place to place. If age, health, mobility is an issue they make adult trikes with a good size cargo basket on them or get an electric assist bike

A real first aid kit

I'm not talking one of those crappy 3 band aids and a safety pin things the car emergency clubs give you as a premium but a real high end kit supplemented with a good assortment of painkillers, antihistamines, antidiarrheals, antibiotic creams, calamine etc as well as a complete backup set of any prescribed medicine you use that is regularly rotated to keep fresh. I’m not a first aid expert but a couple hundred dollars is minimum to get a relatively complete kit.

Now I can probably think of many other things I think doomer should own or could find useful but what do you think? And before someone starts on me about this, lets leave a discussion on guns and firepower to another day, ok?

.Recommend this Post

Doomers Amongst Us!

An article in the Star today takes a look at doomers and their preparations for what they believe will be a crisis as oil depletes and the modern high carbon society collapses. The story covers a self sufficient farmer/homesteader type , the Bug-Out and start over type and the optimistic urban survivalist who opts the Adapt in Place scenario. (Personally I prefer the first option but will likely be forced by necessity to follow the last.)

As I read the article I can imagine the eyes of my friends and family rolling they way I do when I bring up such subjects, and then I start to panic thinking "Shit, these people seem better prepared than I am." I can't help but laugh when I see the "ideal" provisions list for a family of 5 with pet. I'm truly sceptical that any family needs 34 cans of anchovies or would want to live after 114 of Spam but we know the Star published this abridged version of the attached provisions list making sure there were just enough items on it to heap scorn on these "poor deluded" survivalist types. Can't take them too seriously can we?

I want to know where was the doomer like me? Someone concerned about growing local food and the conservation of open pollinated seed, strategies that will create personal food security and alleviate the need to store outrageous amounts of food.

Where was the reference to Cuba and the movement to low carbon urban farming and food self sufficiency? A reduction in fuel does not need to bring starvation and panic but it will if we do not prepared for it.

I think the doomers they covered were far too weighted towards the "screw you I'm saving my own ass" camp and ignored the good work and advocacy by people looking to Power Down society and adapt. It seems that making the doomers survivalists types rather than seers and mentors for the masses was a better way at marginalizing people who would question the status quo.

It was unfair to imply that most doomers are simply survivalists looking for the next perceived crisis, especially considering the connotation that the survivalist label has generated in the U.S.
At least they did not ask these people how many guns they owned!

What concerned me most about the article was the ignorance of commenter's who cling to claims that oil is not depleting, that Alaska, Alberta, Unknownia all still have massive reserves that will keep us wallowing in our exuberant lifestyles for another century. Beside these cornucopians we have the usual techno fix types who think that wind mills and solar will somehow replace a dense, easily transported liquid hydrocarbon for cars, fertilizer, pesticide, or as used in a gazillion chemical compounds including many medicines.

Did they all miss the report I posted about last week questioning the sustainability of most new "Saviour" techs which are commonly touted as our future.

When it comes down to it unless people are hoarding guns so they can steal their neighbours food, fuel, wife, land etc, why ridicule them? As long as they are not working on an online longpork cookbook why sneer at them. Each prepared person is one less the government will be able to fail, one less that will initially compete for resources as they decline, and one more likely to have the skills rest of us will need to learn. We've all heard the the boy scouts motto, about 7 fat years followed by 7 lean years, the stories of hardship from your depression era family, yet suddenly it's insane to be prepared "just in case". Are we too affluent to worry about mere food?


Also don't forget that the financial Doomers like Marc Faber and Peter Schiff are now becoming celebrities in financial circles for being all to correct. While chicken little was just a stupid bird it was those around Cassandra who could not see the truth.

Associated article

Embracing the doom: What kind of doomer are you?

.Recommend this Post

Chickens, Genetic Diversity Crisis

We hear a fair bit about biodiversity and the loss of species in the wild but what about the damage we have done to the genetic diversity within domestic species because of our industrial breeding practices?

Everyone knows someone who has had a pure bred dog, horse or some other domestic animal and how their finicky natures, hereditary defects or diseases can lead to great costs and great headaches for owners.

We all know that heavy inbreeding can lead to higher occurrences of deformity and genetic diseases but it can also lead to the loss of genes related to disease resistance, the adaptability to deal with stress, drought, and in some species and breeds, a loss in the ability to birth or mate naturally and even the desire to care for ones offspring.



So what happens when we breed chickens for decades, all within the same blood lines in order to fix specific genetic traits such as being a heavy egg layer or reaching an eating weight in record time?


Well a recent study by Bill Muir of Purdue University, as reported in the New Scientist says we create breeds that have lost up to 90% of their genetic diversity. We have created the millions of damaged, inbred, avian Cletus the slack jawed yokel


This loss of diversity destroys the ability of these breeds to adapt to change, be it climatic or a something like a new wave of avian flu. If a disease should hit a flock it is practically guaranteed that if one bird dies they will all die because they are pretty much genetically identical (not to mention the horrible crowed conditions). The loss of parenting skills and the inability to breed naturally makes these species useless for the non industrial farmer, unless he wants to breed via turkey baster. Many of today's factory farm breeds no longer even have enough instinct left to make a nest, sit on their eggs or to avoid drowning in a water dish.

If we really need to revert back to a low energy agricultural system as promoted by activist/writers like Richard Heinberg, there is going to be a need for livestock that can breed, birth and parent without massive intervention. We will very likely return to small, local, non specialized farming practices and there will be great demand for breeds that are more self sufficient and adaptable

Professor Muir who did this study, is pushing for a reintroduction of genetic diversity into modern flocks but there are also many heritage breeds out there that are in decline which need to be better managed not only to maintain their own diversity but also as possible sources of fresh DNA for commercial flocks.

For those of you who are interested or already have the resources to raise endangered breeds consider supporting Rare Breeds Canada
, your national equivalent or more importantly join one of their breeding programs.Recommend this Post

Saving the world one bread at a time!

The way I see things the western world is about to get bitch slapped by reality as an economic and possible fiscal crisis could destroy our banks, money and financial infrastructure. On top of this issue we have global warming, peak oil, and the specter of expanding famine zones spreading around the world all ready to bend us over the bottom bunk like in some sick prison movie.

Now there are things we can do to meet these issues and I do what I can for the environment by trying to curb my consumption of energy, stick to the 100 mile diet when we can, trying and failing in my pitiful attempt to grow a reasonable amount of food from my tiny yard, as well as my activism, blogging and GPC involvement. I am unconvinced however that we will reach a solution that will allow most or any of us to maintain the lifestyle or level of civilization we have grown accustom to in the long term and I’m trapped somewhere in-between going Amish or survivalist. I like basic black clothes and the idea of a simple agrarian life but wool jackets, full beards and a lack of beer just don’t do it for me. On the other side gun toting fundamentalist Christians with no necks and brush cuts scare the fucking shit out of me, mmmm choices?

In the mean time I am trying to learn basic skills that might prove useful in a post carbon future. Gardening has been a bust this year do to a combination of bad weather, very limited space and a herd of slugs and snails that decimated the beans, potatoes and cabbage. Over the years we’ve done some preserves and canning but we are certainly not experts. We expect to be drying whacks of tomatoes, some herbs and if we are lucky we might even get some homemade raisins. I don’t see a lot of reason to learn the proper techniques to freeze things when our power grid could collapse in a couple years when oil/gas prices drives people to space heaters.

As a frugal college student who could not always find what he wanted to wear at the vintage stores like Courage My Love in Kensington Market, or the occasional find at such stores as the South Pacific on Maitland I even taught myself to make shirts. Of course I would need a treadle machine in a post carbon future but did you know you can still buy one?

Apparently a manufacturer did a couple of short runs of an existing electric machine modified to mount to vintage treadles, finding a working treadle does not seem to be much of challenge you can find them on ebay or Kijiji daily.



One place where I have made progress in self sufficiency is in the kitchen where I’ve made great progress in the last year progressing from the occasional misshapen loaves of homemade bread to nice ones like this that the family actually wants me to make. Now rationalizing making my own bread had to include time, taste, cost and assumptions that I can do it using less carbon than a commercial bakery. The time is simple, I do it early weekend mornings while listening to financial web casts. Hell I’m up anyway because the kids don’t sleep and it’s too early to cut grass or go to the farmers market.
It is nice tasting bread and as long as we avoid the real discount breads it’s not only cheaper but I know the ingredients. The only real issue I can’t verify is how much energy my bread, cooked 2 loafs at a time consumes compared to a commercial bakery, per loaf it’s probably more at least until transportation is added. I also cannot know for sure that in a post carbon situation I will have access to the natural gas I will need to cook. So what to do?

Well after a surge in hits and advertising revenue on my financial blog I finally got windfall in the form of my first cheque from Google Adsense and after getting through the spring without going on strike I decided to blow my meager new earnings (plus some extra $) on a SUN OVEN


Now I was somewhat skeptical it would work as well as stated but I was willing to give it a shot as an emergency or camping oven. My first experiment fared poorly because I did not realize the full extent of my yards afternoon shading, the oven works great if I want to cook from 6:00 to 8:00 rather when the family wants to eat. My second attempt, tried and documented at the cottage and was a success, the only exception was I did not know how big a loaf I could put in the pot and it ended up a little on the small side.



The lump of dough in a new but old fashioned granite pot (speckled black enamel on steel) This was a simple white bread recipe I could do off the top of my head without a recipe book.


The Sun Oven in all it’s reflective glory, you point the oven at the sun and adjust occasionally in an attempt to keep the sun focused inward. The simple method is try to keep the shadows even on all sides, I found myself adjusting it every 15 minutes or so. You need sun glasses or you’ll go blind near this thing.



A close-up of the thermostat proving you can get the oven up to a useful working temperature. Eventually about mid cook I did touch 400 degrees.



Dough in the oven and starting to steam up


1 hour or so in, turning golden and surface cracking


The finished product waiting to be served with BBQ and fresh corn.


Now I fully understand that weather conditions, shade, heat up time etc do not make this practical for every person but for the dedicated homesteader or environmentalist, the cottager in area where the power is suspect, the Amish or the survivalist, this is a low tech, zero emissions way to cook bread, stews, soups, casseroles etc. Frequent users claim that burning is not much of an issue and if you walk away from it pointed at where the sun will be later you can come back to a fully cooked mean hours later, and even if you are late the less direct unfocused sun and insulated box will keep your dish warm for quite some time. After trying this I went looking for and found a do it yourself plan that puts the oven on a solar powered turntable that tracks the sun, neat!

While I would recommend the Sun Oven as a quite a useful contraption, for non portable use or a large family I might suggest people attempt to build a larger one that has bigger reflectors, a more stable tilting mechanism (the worst flaw of the Sun Oven) and perhaps the turntable I mentioned. I would also consider any charity project delivering Sun Ovens or some other variant of a solar oven to be a good, long term solution to fuel costs, carbon emissions and deforestation in the 3rd world.

I now know I can make cheaper, better bread with a lower carbon footprint than a commercial bakery. Now I must find a source of locally grown, organic hard wheat and a quality hand mill.Recommend this Post

Collapse of civilization, crisis and opportunity

This article from the UK Guardian shows that while the fear of civilization collapsing is growing, the survivalist movement is maturing beyond it's U.S. stereotypical militia image to a more international mainstream viewpoint including an opportunity to make future communities better.

Natural born survivors
Rising oil prices, global food shortages and the economic crisis are proof for many survivalists that society is on the brink of meltdown. But are their predictions all gloom and doom - or a chance to create new communities?

Harriet Green reports

For three years, my husband has talked about taking to the hills. About buying a smallholding on Exmoor where, with our four-year-old daughter, we can safely survive the coming storm - famine, pestilence and a total breakdown of society. I would wait for his lectures to finish, then return to my own interests. I had no time for the end of civilisation. As an editor on a glossy magazine until a few months ago, I was too busy. There was always a new Anya Hindmarch bag to buy, or a George Clooney premiere to attend.

But recently, I've wavered. Much of what he has been predicting has come true: global economic meltdown, looming environmental disaster, a sharp rise in oil and food prices that has already led to the rationing of rice in the US, and riots in dozens of countries worldwide.

This week, the details got scarier. The UN warned of a global food crisis, like a "silent tsunami", while Opec predicts that oil, which broke through $100 (£50) a barrel for the first time a few weeks ago, may soon top $200.

In the course of an idle conversation at work last week, a colleague casually revealed that he keeps a supply of tinned food in his bedroom "just in case". He has done this, apparently, ever since the July 7 bombings in 2005 and the fear of global pandemics such as Sars and bird flu.

And he's not alone. On the internet, you'll find numerous would-be survivalists discussing strategies: where to find a hideout in the UK, what goods to stock up on, and the merits of carrying a 48-hour survival kit. Some are even wondering how to get round the UK's relatively strict laws on the possession of weapons.

If not stockpiling food, many others are growing their own, with Jamie Oliver urging us to turn our gardens over to food production: sales of vegetable seeds are up 60% on last spring. Others still are moving towards taking their homes "off-grid", with rainwater harvesting and solar electricity, and withdrawing their money from pensions to invest in precious metals and other time-honoured securities.

I've started to worry. Is my family prepared for the worst? I'm reasonably nimble at the computer keyboard, and a whiz with the hairdryer, but otherwise pretty useless. I've barely made or mended anything in my life. Thankfully my husband is three years ahead of me, and - with help from the many self-sufficiency manuals he's collected - has evolved (or regressed) into a creature from the past: he's got an allotment, has turned our garden into some kind of nursery for innumerable apple trees grown from pips (farewell, ornamental rose) and recently started knitting. He even has plans for a composting loo, in the event that water supplies fail.

This kind of survivalism is not entirely new. In the 70s, with the threat of nuclear war in the air, government leaflets suggested we stock up on food and drink to last 14 days, and advised how to build our own fallout rooms. Some of my cousins left the UK for a nuke-free life in Australia.

Then there was the oil crisis, with associated blackouts and abbreviated working weeks. In 1975, the BBC reflected the forced move towards self-sufficiency and survivalism in two landmarks series: on a lighter note, Tom and Barbara dug up their back garden in the Good Life while, more apocalyptically, the drama series Survivors imagined that 90% of the world's population had been wiped out by a deadly bacterium in just a few days. The series followed a few disparate survivors as they struggled to form ad-hoc communities, relearning ancient skills in order to survive. The BBC recently announced that it is remaking Survivors to air this autumn. I can't help thinking it's horribly timely.

Survivalists have always seemed quintessentially American; scary, bear-like loners in commando jackets, loaded with ammunition. Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma bomber, was a survivalist, as were many of the scary characters in Michael Moore's anti-gun film, Bowling for Columbine, including one, with bulging eyes, who kept a loaded firearm under his pillow. But today survivalists include the likes of Barton M Biggs, former chief global strategist at Morgan Stanley, who warns in his new book, Wealth War and Wisdom, that we should accept the possibility of a breakdown of the civilised infrastructure.

"Your safe haven must be self-sufficient," he advises, "and capable of growing some kind of food, should be well stocked with seed, fertilizer, canned food, wine, medicine, clothes etc. Think Swiss Family Robinson. Even in America and Europe there could be moments of riot and rebellion when law and order temporarily completely breaks down."

Aside from climate change, what underpins all this gloom is a belief that we have nearly reached, or already passed, peak oil - the point at which global demand for oil permanently outstrips dwindling supplies, causing prices to shoot up. And not just the price of oil, but the price of virtually everything else too, because our lives depend on ever-increasing amounts of cheap energy and synthetic petroleum byproducts.

Dr Vernon Coleman is a writer and broadcaster who has placed full-page advertisements in national newspapers to promote his new book, Oil Apocalypse. "This isn't a script for a horror movie," the terrifying text declares. "The lorry that collects your rubbish won't be running. Streetlights won't burn. Hospitals will have to close . . . There won't be any more television programmes. You won't be able to charge your mobile telephone. Within a generation, five out of six people on the planet will be dead. I'll repeat, five out of six people on the planet will be dead."

Blimey. How long have we got? Well, at the annual conference of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil in Cork last year, the former US energy secretary, Dr James Schlesinger, said that oil industry executives privately conceded that the world faces an "imminent" oil production peak. And last week it emerged that output in Russia - the world's second-biggest supplier after Saudi Arabia - has peaked already. The Saudis may have peaked, too, but they don't allow outsiders to audit them, so we won't know until it is too late. Brazil announced recently a massive new oilfield, but within a week its own government had urged caution, warning that the claims were premature.

"We've got to start preparing now," says Coleman. "The Saudis historically have always increased oil when there is a need, or if the Americans ask them to. This time they haven't done so. Suddenly they have stopped increasing. All the evidence is there: we've reached peak oil."

Like many others, Coleman suggests that the recent move towards biofuels would not have happened unless conventional oil supplies had become scarce - and that it has been a disaster. "How stupid can you be? If you use land to grow crops that enable Americans to drive 4x4s, of course you're going to reduce the amount of food that people can eat."

After a long period of steadily increasing globalisation, Coleman foresees a future in which everything will shrink back to the local. "You must prepare yourself for a different world. A world in which the rich ride horses, the middle classes use bicycles and the poor walk. If you are planning for the long-term - and in this scenario, five years is long-term - don't buy a house that relies on you having petrol for your car. You want a house in a town with a small garden where you can grow vegetables, and you want to be relatively close to railways, hospitals, shops, and libraries. The government shutting down local post offices is an enormously stupid thing to do." Coleman believes that many big companies will collapse, taking their pension plans with them, and governments will not be able to step in. He's switched his own investments to gold and silver.

Another prominent survivalist is Paul Thompson, a graphic designer living in Reading who also happens to be a modern-day prophet of doom. His website, Wolf at the Door, offers a brilliantly argued lecture on peak oil for the beginner and attracts vast numbers of visitors. In person, however, Thompson is low key. "I'm still pretty cautious. People find the idea that society might fall apart nonsense. I wouldn't bring it up in front of just anyone."

On his website, he takes reasonable account of conflicting arguments about how peak oil and climate change will play out, but overall he remains gloomy. "I'm 50 this year. I've had a good run," he says. "I want to enjoy the next five or 10 years." With that in mind, he's leaving Britain for the Czech Republic, where he will teach English and put into practice the self-sufficiency theory he's absorbed from books.

"I'm pretty depressed about Britain. I think we won't cope well. We are overpopulated, we have poor transport links. In the Czech Republic they still have trams. Eastern Europe is better prepared. They were kept back for so many years, they haven't become so urbanised. It'll be easier to slip back to a more rural lifestyle. We've got to get back to little villages and towns, growing our own food, putting in place micro-generation. You won't be able to rely on the centralised state any more.

"I've got no house, no immediate family. I have tried to make things more flexible in the past few years. I've taken money out of stocks and shares, stopped paying into a personal pension, and put all my money into bank accounts where it's accessible tomorrow if I need it. I've got total flexibility."

Has he put together any kind of emergency kit? "It's probably a good idea, but the problem is you don't know what you need. You can have petrol in your garage, food, candles and water. But you don't know for sure what you're going to be facing."

One of the most gloomy websites that you will ever read is Lifeaftertheoilcrash.org. Set up by an American, Matthew Savinar, it presents the bleakest possible outlook. A lawyer by background, Savinar litters his website with ads for freeze-dried food. There's even a picture of Savinar himself, crouching beside boxes of the stuff in his kitchen. But when asked if the Guardian could reproduce that photo, Savinar declined: "I don't need the marauding hordes descending on me here as my supplies are quite limited."

It is presumably this fear that recently led a British member of the international survivalist community to ask for advice on Survivalblog.com (which attracts 82,000 visitors a week). Noting that the British government has banned samurai swords, he wondered what other weapons might be kept handy. American correspondents replied that he should get out of England soon, while the US and New Zealand were still letting in foreigners.

Having no samurai swords at our house, we have little chance of fighting off the hungry masses when they tear lettuces from our window boxes and scale the fence of our allotment. And the truth is that probably few places in Britain are much safer - not even in the most remote parts of the countryside. Which is why we have put our hopes in a saner band of survivalists, who believe the answer is to work together.

The "transition town" movement was started by an Englishman, Rob Hopkins, after a stint working as a teacher in Kinsale, Ireland. After learning about peak oil, Hopkins and his traumatised students spent several months trying to imagine what Kinsale would be like without oil, some years in the future - then worked backwards to create an "energy descent" plan that, on completion, was unanimously endorsed by the local authorities.

Returning to the UK, Hopkins started something similar in Totnes, Devon, which became the first official transition town. There are now more than 35 of these grassroots initiatives up and running, not only in towns but also cities, villages and entire islands - and more than 500 communities, worldwide, are taking steps to join the Transition Network. Even Ambridge, on The Archers, is weighing it up.

Hopkins recently published a manual, The Transition Handbook, a startlingly cheerful book that gives some idea as to how transition initiatives work - from the very early stages, in which groups raise awareness through film screenings and talks, to the later development of local food networks and even the launch of local currencies.

The movement uses 12 steps, rather like Alcoholics Anonymous, to wean us off our dangerous addiction to oil. This includes honouring elders, Hopkins says. "They have the knowledge of how things were done in the past" - when our lives depended so much less on the black stuff. "We have been doing work with people who remember the 30s and 40s, people who say it would have been insane to eat apples from New Zealand. Back then, all the food came from near the town, but we don't have that resilience any more. In the lorry strike of 2001, we had only three days' worth of food in Totnes."

The key to effecting a smooth transition is rebuilding resilience and self-sufficiency at every scale - from the household to the wider community - all at once. To Hopkins and others, Cuba offers a great example of effective community-based survivalism at the national level. Many transition towns have been launched with screenings of The Power of Community, a short documentary showing what happened to Cuba after the breakdown of the Soviet Union led to oil supplies drying up, and the US embargo stopped many other crucial imports.

Faced with potential starvation or capitulation to the US, the Cubans gradually turned from heavy reliance on carbon-intensive agriculture: all kinds of urban spaces were cultivated, from window boxes to wasteland, and oxen were put back into use as there was no fuel to run tractors. The transition took several years, and for a while Cubans had to forgo the equivalent of a meal a day, but eventually even people in cities were producing half their annual fruit and vegetable needs.

It's films like this that explain why Hopkins remains fundamentally upbeat, and rejects the gloomiest prognoses. "If we didn't do anything," he agrees, "there are all sorts of grim scenarios. But I like to think of those as like Dickens' Ghost of Christmas Future - just one possible scenario."

Thus, when the price of oil rises, Hopkins cheers. "It's like a racehorse owner cheering his horse. The things I want to see happen only happen in times of high oil prices. In the 70s, there was the most incredible flowering of creativity. Solar power, permaculture - they all started in the 70s. Then cheap oil came back, and everything went out of the window. High oil prices will stimulate creativity all over again: the knock-on of rising food prices will make it more cost-effective to grow food here; the higher cost of petrol in your car will make you ask if it's worth making the journey." The bonus is that, as we burn fewer fossil fuels, emissions will be reduced and climate change might be slowed.

Peak oil can, Hopkins accepts, confirm the widespread belief that people are inherently selfish. But the "head for the hills" response, he says, is more typically North American than British. "I wrote a piece on my website, transitionculture.org, called 'Why the survivalists have got it wrong'. That elicited more comments than any previous post. Some came from survivalist websites, and included such gems as 'Which is better, a gun or a club? The answer: You can use a gun as a club but you can't use a club as a gun.'"

Hopkins does possess survival skills, and he thinks they're important. "Bushcraft training is very useful. It's very empowering, learning to eat the things that are around you." But there are other things we need to learn too. Indeed, a key part of the transition-town process is what he calls the "great reskilling". "We no longer have many of the basic skills our grandparents took for granted. One of the most useful things a transition initiative can do is to make training widely available in a range of these skills."

What skills does he have in mind? Bicycle maintenance? Home energy efficiency? Basic food growing? "You need to look at the skills people used to have that might still be appropriate, as well as looking at the skills people have now. Speaking to older people in the area around Totnes, it turns out that, for example, they all knew how to darn their socks. I know very few people my age who know how to do that, and it is a skill that, once we get beyond the throwaway society, we may well need again. Hence the sock-darning workshop we are running."

Sock darning, eh? It's not as glamorous as those George Clooney screenings, and it lacks the superficial appeal of a hoard of rice, or gold coins. But I'm pretty sure my husband hasn't tried it yet, and in the spirit of amiably competitive self-sufficiency that I'm confident will soon become mainstream, I have decided that sock-darning may well be the survival skill for me.

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Survivalist Sundays: Bread blogging

All this talk about peak oil, peak food, articles like the one in the New Scientist this month talking about the fragility of modern civilization, the impact Kunstler's Long Emergency had on me, has had me looking to lean some new/old skills that are often lost on us modern people.

In the last few years I've been toyed with homemade candles but unless you have a apiary on your land or a field of bayberry what are you going use for wax, paraffin will be impossible to get, pricey and honestly not that good for you to be breathing anyway. I guess I can melt down tallow if I can find it.

I've been learning about and practicing high density gardening for years, and I've bought a 5lb tub of freezable open pollinated seeds giving me enough seeds to plant 2/3 of an acre if somehow I can access 2/3 of an acre. The seed bucket has around 28 different varieties of seeds chosen for our climate and can be frozen for storage and still remain viable for 7+ years. I think this the best under $100 insurance policy available. If you garden anyway you can store it for 5 years, start using it and replace it with another insurance policy.


Most recently I've taken to spending my Saturdays or more often Sundays in the kitchen making bread and so far I've made a few dozen loafs alternately trying successful recipes I've used before or trying something entirely new as I did today with a batch of whole wheat sour dough.

Now what good this skill we do for me when flour is scarce is certainly in question but I am on the hunt to find a source of wholesale hard wheat flour or even better actually buying a couple hundred pounds of hard wheat which if stored dry and unground has quite a long shelf life. Of course this means I've been scouring ebay and farm auctions etc looking for a deal on a grain mill but so far no luck. New mills can cost $200-$500 and of course you need to find one with a crank because you may not be able to rely on having power, but enough of that

here are a few web cam shots of today's bounty.


Sour dough sponge after sitting 12 hours, lots of froth and volume shows my sour dough starter is still healthy


Mixed/kneaded and resting, plays hell with my carpal tunnel but I will not resort to a mixer


Slightly misshapen loafs placed in pans for raising, I really like the single raising breads, the ones that take 3 raisings can eat up an entire day


Fully risen after two hours in a prewarmed oven, I turned the oven off but left the light on to keep it warmer than room temp


The better looking of the two finished loafs. Nice hard crust, sounds good and hollow when thumped.


Will this make a difference to our survivability in a crisis? I don't know, At the very least we end up with a variety of good non factory bread each week that I know has no preservatives, no unneeded sugars and no molasses to camouflage white flour hidden in "brown bread".
It does take some effort but the kids love the fresh bread, it seems to be cheaper than buying artisan bread from a bakery and paranoia aside it's an enjoyable activity. Should I get through this year without going on strike I'll be buying this little baby to make my bread making energy free.


Other recent projects



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