It is my conjecture that we as a society are in deep trouble, but at the same time there is great hope for us all also. I have every faith in our collective ingenuity to get us out of the mess that we are now in. However it will require a totally new way of thinking and doing things. If we continue in the vein that we have adopted over the last century and a half we may well sink without trace. We need to take Albert Einstein's advice when he said to us that 'you can't solve problems with the same kind of thinking that created them!'
The growth model that we are all still sailing upon, the Titanic, has to my mind already hit the iceberg, heralding the limitations of any future expansion of both our global economy and society as a whole. The chaos we are still seeing in world financial markets from the credit crunch that occurred in 2008, brought on I believe by the oil price hitting its highest ever mark and consequently straining household budgets to the brink, doesn't show any signs of rectifying itself. This is primarily due to the way that the financial, utility, housing and administration systems have been constructed in recent years, creating the house of cards affect that we are now seeing. It seems to me that it is only a question of time that the Euro fails and then what.? Is there a plan B?
When I went and visited
Tamera last year I witnessed another style of community that does offer one solution for sure to the problem we are faced with, although it is a pretty small vessel at the moment and needs to be built upon. This is the closest thing to the Carpathia that I have found as yet, but I will keep looking. This community in Southern Portugal offers an alternative to the grid system we are all caged within. With the right technology and land use they are living proof that it is possible to create a system where free energy, food and water if not shelter as well can be provided to a community if we so choose it, in a decentralized way. Just think what that would mean to us all and what would be possible for us if that was an everyday occurrence, if our household bills were practically zero, how creative and fulfilled we could all be then?
The work
Transition Towns are doing is helping to create the necessary lifeboats needed to start rowing ourselves away from our stricken vessel more towards that of the Carpathia and it needs that collaborative effort to start to find the ultimate solution that we need for our society, with a new housing, finance, utility and administration system put in place. All is still possible to secure our rescue but we now need all hands on deck I believe if we are to make it so. Can you lend a hand? :-)
