The numbers of "sustainability"

That's just for the human animal. If you have any protein producing  creatures such as chickens, ducks, goats, fish , you better think about planting some food for them also.
I agree it is time we thought seriously about sustainability.

Hi just weighing in , pun inteneded...:)

Caloric intake
Women 10 calories per lb of body weight
Men 11 calories per lb of body weight..
Just to  MAINTAIN.

Farming your tush off .: at 2500 calories you'd likely be in a calorie deficit.  As a 180 lb guy would need 2 have 1980 calories just  to maintain and have less that 500 calories "banked" for manual and cerebral  labor...

Also with high muscle mass there r more calories "burned", and  hence "needed" to keep pace. .  Never mind the increased need for protein, lets cut to the chase is there a morton's, a ben and jerrys  or a croissant factory on the property? :)
 

my initial thoughts
From my personal experience i would agree that a quarter acre, well managed, is about the minimum per person needs to produce enough calories crops and vegetables, calorie crops taking at least half the space.
I also find a quarter acre garden is a sweet spot as far as Intensive vs. Extensive horticulture.
In my personal experience you get diminishing yields per unit of area when going above 1/4acre because of inadequate maintenance while farming under low tech conditions. Produce quality suffers as well.(maybe im just lazy but other serious gardener friends have mentioned the same plateau "The 100ftx100ft wall")

My experience is also that 4000 calories a day is a minimum for comfort when actually working. I once wrote a paper about medieval subsistence and from my research i found that people ate between 4000-6000 calories a day during normal times, contrary to the popular image of the starving peasant. The data was more abundant for military soldiers diets during the time period and there was an interesting phenomenon of mutiny and abandonment occurring once calories dropped below the 4000 level.
Basically, i think 2500 calories is already a stressed situation.

Even most of the starving 3rd world countries are still above 2400 calories in this map


Of greater concern to me is Quality protein
and fuel for cooking.

i know hoale koa(leaucaena hybrids) is one of the most productive fuel woods on earth but im guessing one would still require at least a quarter acre of intensively managed woodlot for personal fuel production. I will try to get some hard numbers later because im particularly interested in this. ill be busy for the next few days though, ill post when i got it figured. what i remember off the top of my head was between 20-100 cubic meters per hectare(2.5acres), with 30cubicM per hectare being normal.Fuel use figures i had were 1-2 cubic meters per person/year using small rocketstove like cookers. i think those figures came from a NGO in haiti.

im sure some people on here have some guesstimations from personal experience on the amount of fuel wood they use annually for cooking,   Jay......thoughts?
 Im leaving heating out of the equation because sleeping bags dont require fuel other than the food you eat. Warm showers on the other hand are worth thinkin on.

protein= my guess would be an acre per person would be adequate. this comes from ranchers telling me that one Acre of irrigated fertilized tifton85 bermuda grass pasture can support one large head of beef.
however it takes more like 18 months to get a sizable carcass on pure grassfed. yielding about 400-600 pounds of meat. A pound of beef has about 100 grams of protein. which is adequate for survival and when your eating lots of fresh homegrown veggies its a pretty comfortable level of meat intake per day. the reason im saying 1 acre for protein is because other animals are probably more efficient than cattle and in an intensively managed polyculture you could get better production probably on par with the industrial cattle on fertilized hybrid grasses.

on an optimistic note,having a 1/4 acre of veggies and calorie root crops like sweet potatoes/taro would take a hell of a lot of the sting out of food shortfalls in the industrial system. Just having the high nutrient density of all you can eat veggies and enough calories to keep on moving puts you way ahead of the game. In food shortages people usually die of diseases that are lethal to the compromised immune systems of the malnourished, not directly from starvation.

lol... optimistic note... followed by talk of starvation and diseased death.
D

Hi DF, that's a great response and exactly the kind of thinking we need to be engaged in. I'll tell you, after working through the numbers in some detail yesterday morning I spent the rest of the day putting in a new banana patch, yikes. Hey, though with bananas and taro as base staple crops we're so far ahead of so many in the world, and the labor costs and returns in either of those is so excellent that I can't imagine anything better. They require some processing, I suppose, but no tools more complicated than a stick and the ability to boil water.

On the fuelwood situation, I think your numbers are pretty close to my experience. I've kept good receipt on fossil fuel usage for heating and cooking, living here, living on the boat(s) and hiking and backpacking as well. Fortunately, here, as my climate warms I've gone in just a few years from using a woodstove all year round to rarely during the winter months. . .it's not strictly good news but it takes the edge off. You can't beat the strawberry guava for fuel wood, and that's why it was imported here in the first place. A rocketstove with a coil in it would provide fine hot water year round, and supplemented with a simple solar collector takes care of that issue. Taro being a staple takes long cooking times, but a pressure cooker halves that easily. Still, it's worth considering a 7500btu burn for an hour to process a families worth of food. 20 lbs of dry hardwood like guava has the same approximate btu's as a gallon of gasoline, of course low quality and even burned in an efficient manner is hardly as fuel efficient as a modern propane stove, but I think numbers like 10lbs a day for a household is conservative and reasonable. Since we have to figure for sustainable harvest we've got to assume 80 percent or better of the mass created needs to be returned to site, but I think an acre of woodlot can probably provide that here, especially in a mixed forest setting with appropriate choices in trees. Of course fast growing nitrogen fixers are great ideas for all that and have other benefits as well. At least that's been my strategy.

Protein as well is the crux of the issue. Poultry has been my answer for that until now but it's a very interesting question to consider what kind of flock size scales to the area of the site, and I have to say I think unless one can support a flock that's more or less population stable it can be uneconomic. A flock of 20 hens eats as much or more than a big guy but fortunately they'll eat things I won't. I've over the last year put in crops simply for bird fodder. That's been successful.

The worthwhile and obvious question that arises and I've been chewing on it all night-- and I'd enjoy some help in thinking about it, is this. Suppose you don't have the space? What then?

Well, that's another issue entirely, and a more complicated one. Sustainability was my goal in my project, and direct stewardship of my own resources with my own personal skillset a natural solution. I understand that not everyone wants to live on a small farm/homestead or whatever and there are valuable and sustainable occupations that are worthy in and of themselves-- but in the human societies that most approximated sustainable living historically at least 4 of 5 people were farmers, and not hobbyists at it-- we're not remotely close to such numbers. That's but that's a discussion about sustainable societies, I'd suggest working at the personal level first.

I guess without personally taking on the responsibility to attempt to viably step outside the system--or at least with a level of commitment that it's actually possible to live without being tethered to an inherently destructive society-- there may be some value in using smaller plantations to supplement one's diet and provide some means of personal security. Again, how much security it really provides is going to go back to those square meter numbers-- but since sustainability isn't in the cards, the basic economics may still make sense as a means to achieve sustainability at some point. But, again, we're no longer talking about sustainability, but simply about whether in someone's suburban back yard one can grow some food and make it pay. If it doen't pay, and it's strictly farming at a loss, all through puts being measured--it's neither sustainability, nor a step in the right direction, it's just another version of conspicuous consumption. If I assume round numbers for many across the country of perhaps a 250000 mortgage on a quarter acre lot in a suburb, most of which covered by driveway and structure, and elsewise, there is simply no way gardening makes any economic sense. The opportunity cost of the property is far too high, the labor costs involved in the garden more intelligently and constructively could be applied to other ends--like paying down the mortgage-- and one ends up with green beans that cost 50 bucks a pound. These things are complicated, and must be worked through on a case by case basis, assuming and accounting for all costs. If it doesn't make economic sense, it certainly isn't going to prove to be sustainable. Does that mean it's a bad thing to do? Well, of course not. There's stuff I do that certainly not sustainable either and is purely recreation, consumptive, and even therapeutic--my guitars being a great example. The problem is that again,  it's becoming very fashionable to market small time gardening as some kind of revolutionary act that's going to save the world-- and the fact is, in most cases, if one actually looks at the numbers, it's pretty easy to make the case that it may well do more harm than good physically-- as it may well consume more resources than it actually creates. But I certainly don't and won't pretend that my fiddling with electric guitars is some path to salvation-- We've got to get beyond our commitment to a better planet being merely a fashion statement. We have to add some rigor to the conversation, there's little time left. To promote strategies or actions as somehow as step for the a better future-- when they simply, in fact, don't pan out-- may be misleading and doubly destructive. To move to a truly sustainable future can't be made without some serious concessions and modifications in one's lifestyle. It's not an impossible transition, but it's not a easy one either.

If one assumes, as I and many others do, that the world (as we know it) will end with a whimper rather than a bang, then it may not be meaningful to discuss a stand alone self-sufficient situation that will be a generation into the future.  If things were to get that bad within a year or two the main task would be staying alive through the ensuing panic/predatory behavior of other people.  I think instead things will first get very expensive.  As such I think it is reasonable to assume some subsidy from the rest of society.

It is not that I am so sure things will occur gradually.  I am just arguing for consistency.  If you will starve next year without your 1/2 acre per person then "pest" control will be as important as anything.  Since that is not being discussed we might as well assume the more gradual scenario.

I guess another aspect to numbers of sustainability, to add to domestics point of fuel, and I guess markp idea of pests( being criminal, self defense ect?) is the sustanabilty cost as one gets to b sustainable.
Things seem to b increasing in cost rather dramatically, the bag of almonds that were 4 bucks r now 6, and tortilla at 2.14 in April 2.48 in June. These numbers affect purchasing power 2 become sustainable, and I suposse show increase value opportunity in plants grown to sustainably pay for Internet, gas, treats ect.

Hedging the costs of things make sense. Putting yourself in the postion of what is the LEASTI have to do, own, garden hardly bodes well for grand success.

Hi Mark, I think that's a reasonable point, but. . .

Recent history(say the last five years) doesn't support the notion of a gradual precession of events. Neither does it necessarily support the notion of total, widespread, systemic collapse-- but something more in the middle of a system falling apart slowly, in lurches, and by chunks. I know plenty of people who have lost houses, careers, and life-savings--and future prospects of recovery--for them the collapse has already come. With each lurch, someone else gets thrown under to bus to support the people next in position up the totem pole in entitlement. But in many ways that's neither here nor there.

Maybe it's a good idea to define "gradually." How about in the context of how many years from now will the State of Hawaii be in the same situation as Greece, with widespread systemic unemployment, a complete abandonment of social programs and obligations, and the resultant disruptions? 2 years? A decade? Never? To put it in further context, I can tell you that I've worked my ass off out here and it's taken 4 solid years and few mistakes to get to the point where I would feel I'd have some immunity to such events. It will take me another 4 to really get it together, I'm sure, but I'll be pretty solid by then. So I hope it's certainly a decade, though I personally doubt it. Still, I'm lucky enough to be a pretty skilled guy with pretty good health and the experience of doing this kind of thing in various environments for a long time too, and I'm lucky enough to be in a position that I didn't really start from scratch on that score. A lot of people are trying that and boy, that would be tough.(Honey, this is a chain saw, it cuts trees. Can you start that and hand it to me once I get up the ladder?)  I find as well that, typically, of the people I know, the higher and more comprehensive their practical skill set might be, the more puckered up they are about the consequences of the future.

I don't know necessarily that the issue is one of starving or not, or at least I hope not, as I've got at least an acre in productive cultivation now, and I'd doubt I'd hang in 6 months if it really came down to it. That's changing rapidly, and things are maturing and gaining scale, but if one is serious about the issue it's something someone won't play loose with. Even so, practically every "viable"--meaning it supports enough calories and protein to keep one's health up-- meal a couple eats out of their project at this point nets a real income of 10 to 15 dollars, as it's tough to cook real food for working diets on less, at least in Hawaii.  I'm a big fan of taro, plantains, and eggs, for sure.

I guess it's a mistake, or so I think, to plan for either collapse or a slow gradual decline, as both are the least likely scenarios. The most likely scenario is one of periods of reasonable calms with intermittent disruptions. On a societal level, that sort of thing doesn't look terribly difficult. On a personal level, if you happen to be the one caught up the the layoffs this time around, or a foreclosure, or lose your access to healthcare, or your savings, future, retirement, pension-- etc., well, it's a bummer. Having real self-reliance and meaningful personal resilience offers another line of defense against those sorts of events and can turn personal catastrophes into inconveniences. As long as sufficient scale is there to provide a sufficient enough buffer to be meaningful. That buffer needs to be scaled to the kinds of events that might seem reasonable. It's pretty easy at this point in history to lose a job and be un/underemployed for years--suddenly if you have that unwelcome free time and you've got scale to employ yourself in the backyard garden, the real economic impact can be hugely diminished. With a acre of land, and all the time in the world, you'll make a meager income, which isn't zero, in the worst environment. With a 1000 square feet or so of beets in a suburban environment, not so, as no matter how much time you spend looking at that little garden, stuff only grows so fast, and you'll have ample time to panic about how you're going to pay the mortgage.

But again this is a place where numbers can inform the situation. . .

Fwiw I know what a chain saw is.:)
Also fwiw I worked w very rich Beverly hills people that were tightening their collective huge wallet over 3 years ago. So Athens to Hilo? Not a huge stretch- EVERY time I shop in Hilo the person behind me and/or infront of me uses EBT ( food stamps.) The impact on stores without the influx of ebt and wic cash infusions will b tough. Certainly mostly and sadly on the direct receipents but I imagine will b reflected in higher prices and shop lays offs that will have dbl effect.

Jay and Ciel:

I can't fault your reasoning.  I merely like a good argument and was observing that if a society wide lack of food occurred next year such as would preclude any outside input of resources, there would be challenges to meet that we have not yet discussed.  To remain on a firm logical footing we can't then discuss an end of the world scenario without an accompanying discussion of the construction of fortified palisades made of sharpened tree trunks (sharpened banana stalks?)

The topic has come up of resorting to an alternative currency or bartering and trading goods and services, which can only happen locally.  Such changes won't occur in a vacuum.  As it gets too expensive to ship cashews halfway around the world people may either start growing cashews locally or they may develop a taste for some local product.  I am not suggesting that this will save us but it is a corrective force that I think often gets left out of the equation when people look very far ahead.

Hey Cal,
My wife does not know anything about chainsaws, nor want to learn.  Are you going to come down and help me chainsaw the weed trees on our lot so I can put in my various plantings?

Jay,
The rental management agent took some pictures in March of the areas where I had planted a few things last fall.  The 4 taro that I bought from the Kinoole Farmer's Market, sweet potatoes and 2 bananas looked good.  Unfortunately, he did not include a shot of where I planted the taro you gave me, but they are only about 3 feet away, so I am optimistic.  There were even seedlings where I planted some fruit tree seeds, for the heck of it!  We should have food for a few days when we get there - LOL.
Allen

Hey Allen, looking forward to getting the chance to talk with you again! You're about ready for the big move, aren't you?

Hi Mark,  a couple of points, appreciating the feedback.

1) The first thing we'll face isn't a society wide lack of food. That hasn't happened yet in the countries that had rebellions in the Mid East or any marginally developed countries yet. What has happened so far and what has happened here already is the price of food is beyond what a large proportion of the population can afford. If you stand in line at a grocery store, 3 of 5 if not 4 of 5 people in that line will be on some kind of assistance. On the days the checks come in Hilo is on the verge of a madhouse. This isn't a future scenario, it's right now.

2) I appreciate the input about logical consistency, and yup, it's hugely important. I think often my assumptions may not be the same as the assumptions as others. Part of the vision of this forum project is based on these assumptions, and I try to direct the conversation in a direction that aids that vision.

For the record,

A) Climate Change will impact us at the mid to high levels of projected warming by mid century, which means 3-4 degrees C. My papayas I had for breakfast this morning agree.

B) We've already passed peak production in total energy, and will never again proximate levels produced or seen in 2005. We haven't seen those levels since, and I see no reason we'll see them again.

C) We're about to pass the threshold of the debt burden our society can bear without disruption, and A) and B) do not help the matter a bit.

I conclude from those three points:

i. The necessity of living a lifestyle that reflects the inevitable impacts of A)B)C) is unavoidable at some point in the future.

ii. Ethically, there's no other choice but living it now. Those of us who can see ahead have a responsibility to not contribute to this mess to the best of one's ability. We also have a responsibility to each other and the planet to preserve and protect from destruction as much of it as we can.

iii. Practically, it seems, especially with the uncertainty in timing involved, the wise choice is to buckle down and get serious. Wise to me means being capable of being ethical and practical in the same moment.

So, perimeters of the sustainable lifestyle I'd be wise to adopt.

A) From an ethical point of view, ala. Kant; it would be unethical for me in my pursuit of a personally sustainable lifestyle live beyond what might be available to all on a fairly distributed basis. Otherwise, if I live "sustainably" on a a disproportionate footprint, in a world of scarcity, I by necessity force others into un-sustainability if not outright deprivation.

B) From the position of an ethical advocate; it's unethical for me to either request others to shoulder burdens I personally haven't or that they haven't the means to so. Fortunately, I guess, since the lion's share of the problem with sustainable living doesn't come from sub-Saharan Africa but the good 'ol USA where the average kid consumes as much as a village in the 3rd world, the average person of average means does have the ability to make changes towards a sustainable lifestyle.

C) This website caters to those who are interested in making this kind of transition: And yup, here's where logical consistency comes in. I'd say the example of the sustainable lifestyle must:

i. Again, must be scalable and achievable by persons of average means in this society.

ii. Must be affordable without finance, outside unearned income, subsidy, grants, benefits or whathaveyou, as the average person doesn't get these and they aren't sustainable. Reliance on them also makes for an obvious conflict of interest with the ethical issues at hand. If a person is lucky enough to receive the outside help, that doesn't make them bad, but it also kinda disqualifies them from being a particularly effective advocate. People are smarter than many think, and they figure out pretty quick if you're sitting on 300 acres in lower Puna you didn't "manifest" that capital by stealing coconuts.  It would be very helpful if those whose living have already been made were more empathetic about the fact that very few people are in that position. If one has a living made, well, gardening at a loss can be therapeutic, sure. No one begrudges these sorts of activities, and for some some of these aids may be necessary compromises: fine, as long as nobody gets their face rubbed in it or further exploited. It's noteworthy, the growing number of people I meet most are far more interested in making a "sustainable living," of which gardening is only a part, and kind of a small part, and it must pay in some kind of real value return, not loss.

iii. That means I advocate a strict "pay as you go" model. I assume that it will take some time to get the project up and running, but implied income often starts rolling in from day one, which is great. Cash flow is harder, but anyone actually capable of succeeding at sustainability isn't clueless or helpless can very likely command a reasonably reliable journeyman level rate for a couple of years to get the ball rolling until the farmstead can provide shelter, security and, employment. I'm also assuming that the outside earned income comes from occupations that aren't inherently opposed to the value set represented above.

And lastly before I get accused of being negative once again, let me insist: all of this is completely doable. There is real hope here. It isn't easy, but it is doable, as long as we're diligent and play straight with the facts.

Input and criticism is welcome.

Sorry Allen, tho I know what a chain saw is ,I gracefully decline from any real involvement with it. I like my limbs:) The bee sting was tramatic enough;)

Jared Diamond said in his book "Collapse" that there were some people in Rwanda trying to subsist on as little as 1/10 of an acre per person.  Granted this resulted in warfare and what is usually described as genocide although there were several examples of violence occurring in villages populated by only one race.  What was more universal in each case of someone getting targeted was whether they had land and how soft a target they were.  Being a minority is probably strongly correlated with being a softer target but being a single woman with few relatives would do in a pinch.

Anyway, someone owning 5 acres was wealthy.  All of this makes me wonder what you have already touched upon.  Does having 5 acres, or 3, or 2, make one a robber baron in the grand scheme of things?  How much arable land is there on earth, divided by 7 billion as of today?  As a reality check (that pesky consistency of logic) could anyone have survived for any length of time on 1/10 acre or was this this just the tragic end game of an overpopulated land?  Of course Diamonds facts might be off or I might have misinterpreted what he said.

Someone owning 5 acres was wealthy in Imperial Japan as well. Maybe Tim has some insights on that history.

Trying to pull it out, without subsidy, for real,  on a 1/10 of an acre is unimaginable poverty and can only work if you eat the dirt itself. Which, of course, is unsustainable. But it is, after all, what happens in Rwanda. . .

Rwanda: this is an edit, for it has triggered a memory. I have a friend that I've lost track of, older than me and quite the fellow, much like the Dos Equis guy, who was in Rwanda about a year after the, well, event. He was a pretty capable technician and, well, they needed some stuff rebuilt. He and I were both sailors and had some background in geology--it seems good sailors have backgrounds in almost everything because you have to be good at something for serious and then you often have a lot of free time to learn other things to be good about--and he had photos of leaving a border town in Rwanda to wherever there was an airport; on the bus on the remaining highway. The highway was mostly a raised berm with gravel on top and in the photos the shitty bus was loaded with people rolled along with a dustcloud following and nothing was visible for miles but dead red dirt, dead red dirt-- not a weed on it. The sky was about the same color, but you could mostly see the horizon. We were drinking PBR as I remember on his boat and he sucked me in-- Jay, he asks, what do you think all those strange white rocks are out in the desert? They seem very out of place. There's thousands upon thousands in the photos, mind you. I'm curious myself, as they seem very out of place.

Yup, I agree, as the discussion goes, a think a cap for the upper limits is about 3 acres, based on population. Still a doable number, and it raises interesting questions in and of itself, which might be worth discussing at some point. With skill a surprisingly high quality of living can be eked out of 3 acres per head. It involves issues I'm currently working through and it's taken some time to find defensible positions.

Seems to me there is a lot, a LOT of perfectly good land out there, both in Puna and the mainland, that is sitting unused because someone, some company, or a government 1000 miles away owns it.

Once we get to a point where people are really starving in the USA, expect that land to get appropiated by people willing to work it. Perhaps having seeds and enough food for 1 year is the best plan for this scenario.

Millions of people in Africa farm land that they do not own, and been doing that for thousands of years.

Of course, now China is buying that land and trying to kick the people off. I wonder what happens when you take away someones ability to feed themselves, and their home, and leave them with nothing but easy access to AK-47s........

Kinda getting at what markp alluded to.

There's good points there.

Two things:

First, in the tropics, you better get to squatting and planting marginal land at least a year to a year and a half ahead of your potential starving, as that's what it's going to take to get a crop to bear. Unless you can live on ohia leaves. That assumes, of course, as well, someone will give you 3000 taro keiki to play with. Nobody has that level of foresight, well, that isn't already doing it.

Look, even if you thought you could survive wholly on radishes, and were a ace radish farmer, you have to think a month out.

Second:

I think it's important to consider that every square inch of land, marginal or not, and the whole surface of the ocean is indeed in use right now, absorbing CO2 as fast as it possibly can and it's losing ground rapidly against our current levels of population and consumption. Still, I think one of the most optimistic and hopeful ramifications of this kind of careful analysis is the observation that it's possible for an individual who is interested in good stewardship to take their 3 acre +/- share and in fact improve it so it has the vitality and capacity for sequestering of waste at a much higher rate than it might otherwise. I doubt it's hard at all to double that figure, in many cases. If I had the money to do it(hah!) I'd love to take acreage of that miserable christmas berry scrub over in Kau, which is easily my favorite part of the island and restore it to the forests it once was. It's doable, I think, and important, and one could make a fair crack at it in 20 years.

But we're cutting the most valuable forests as fast as possible to plant biofuels crops-- we've got to do the numbers and demand others do them too.

Jay,

Input, but not necessarily criticism, to the points related to your comments to Mark’s feedback.

Cheap energy is running out, and about a growing season behind it, cheap food is running out.  Most food is sold into a world market, so the world’s [economically] poor are the first to be affected.  Simply put, if you are not in this “poverty” category, you have some time.  It is an exponential function, so most people likely have a lot less time then they think to implement a personal plan.

I think your comments past this point, in your brief, are too specific to your personal philosophy.  I would like to try to make a more general case and try to end up in a similar place as you do.  In general, your numbers look reasonable, your expectations are too lofty.  CO2 is too big an issue to attempt to attack on a personal level, at this time, in this world (as it is).

From my prospective, it is too late for world wide, national wide, or even state wide plans to be developed and implemented and save all or even most of existing humanity – in the long run.  In the short run, simple strategies can pay big dividends for individuals and families.  And, there is some hope for small communities, but the binding agent (fear and/or collective desire to survive) has not set in yet at the community level.  

Also, I think we can all agree, in twenty to thirty years everything, in the world, will be different.  I think we can imagine some of “what” the future world might look like, but the truly difficult mental exercise is envisioning the transition that gets us from here and now to there.

And, ...

There is a four way fork in the road, everybody will take one path or another.  The economically poor, unhealthy, lazy, and those with no foresight at all - die off, in a generation.  The rich and elite class attempt to enslave what is left of the lower classes to survive: money and power being their currency of control – and likely survive, as always, providing structure to society, more than anything else.  What is left of the lower classes will toil in economic slavery, if they are fortunate to survive. 

Then there is the educated and techno classes that are betting heavily on a technological innovation that includes sustainable and cheap energy – their future wholly depends on whether or not they can delivered: with no true survival skills, failure means death to these classes, or at best a slow slippage in to economic slavery of the lower classes.  However, technological success is a game changer.  I see some possibilities, but nothing likely: there just isn’t enough time.  I’m personally betting against this scenario.  Some are hard at work and will even work harder in the future as it becomes more apparent, time is running out.

Then there is the small segment of the remaining working class (some skilled in trades or educated in [or knowledgeable of] practical and useful disciplines), capable of foresight, not prone to laziness, capable of learning and changing, with some survival skills.  And, if by chance they have some resources, they have the ability to implement a plan before time runs out.  I think this describes most of the congregation meeting here.

The best plans include some control over water and food sources: it makes sense that the water be safe to drink and relatively clear of pollution, and the food source be sustainable.  Food production requires land.  Water has several sources, but land is a good start. 

Based upon my limited experience, at 100% efficiency, under optimal conditions, with skilled development and completely productive, I think a quarter acre per person is sustainable.  But one acre per person is much more viable, robust and practical.  More than three acres per person seems difficult to manage without unsustainable methods.  Food production also requires time and skill.  Under good stewardship, trees require two to three years to start producing and gardens take two to three months: true sustainability takes years more.

To be truly viable, other marketable skills are needed.  It is best, if the generalized plan, includes a connection to the larger [economic] world to deal with legacy economic issues such as taxes, but this is a bit of a wild card and needs vary widely from place to place.  The future and the transition are not likely to include utopian states with governments that function without taxes.  Perishable food is not a currency: it is not money.  Cash flow is a necessity. The first order of business for a viable government is “how to force the cost of government, on to the governed?”.  Ultimately, “force” becomes the trump card.  Individuals, families and communities are not viable, let alone sustainable, unless they can overcome – government (with a capital “G”).  Large scale, government, controlled by the common people supporting it, is a myth.

For long-term survival, shelter from the elements, is also - almost a necessity.

For most, making the “jump” out of current conditions, requires ending legacy entanglements, we all seem to collect after a lifetime of poor decisions (usually, made prior to foresight part of the equation).  For me personally, the collection of material goods I have to let go of, is mind numbing to consider: I suspect this is a common situation.  The “jump” is both a logistical problem and a psychological issue.

So, the basic plan is - get ones resources together (which should include money, time and skills), find and acquire land with soil and water, plant productive food crops, build shelter, cut legacy entanglements, and learn to sell your food surplus or skills for tax money.  This plan can be implemented at whatever speed one is comfortable with, but for the prudent and cautious, the sooner the better. 

At some point, the entire plan is dependent upon the “jump” step: everything else is just prep.

Please show some sympathy for those of us in the planning and prepping stages.

And, as always, the example you set, is an inspiration to all of us.

Hi Sam, thanks for the feedback. I'd largely agree with where you're going.

A few things for us to consider:

Can you really expect to base a community on the shared value of (fear and/or collective desire to survive?) I don't think so. In fact, of any communities that I'm aware of that have successfully weathered hardship over any period of time, it's been only "lofty" ideals expected to be honored with integrity by the group that's been the binding agent. The (fear and/or collective desire to survive) game set as far as I remember is what Von Neumann called "Fuck you, buddy." John Nash published the idea as "So, long sucker."

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/So_Long_Sucker

This is where fear as a basis for action gets you. You get the illusion of community until within the group-- based on fear -- a given individual decides its in their personal interest to double cross the others for personal gain. And, well, it's inevitable.

Whether or not we can personally win the war against CO2 is doubtful, but the demonstration of the ethics to care willingness to try is a manifestation of personal integrity that is likely helpful in determining individuals that one may be able to form lasting, stable relationships with. Whether or not we can avert any of the effect of climate change I admit is very doubtful, but it's a certainly that we'll need to cope. Even as a pure thought experiment the knowledge gained doing what one can now is undoubtedly helpful in the actions required of us later.

Worth considering, I think.

Jay, thanks for starting this topic and sharing your thoughts!  I've been thinking along the same lines, but since until recently we planned to stay in the Pacific northwest, my number crunching analyzed temperate possibilities, where I estimated 1.5 acres per person for food, with inefficient land use (trees separate from the shrubs separate from the vegetables separate from the chicken feed, rather than planted as understories and polycultures with chickens running throughout) and most of that space (1.25 acres) supporting chickens & ruminants for eggs & meat as 40% of the diet.  I was figuring you could at least cut that in half for Hawaii with twice as much growing season, and was guessing that by improving efficiency half an acre per person might be the minimum amount I'd feel comfortable with.  But I know almost nothing about tropical food production so hearing from you and others with experience helps a lot to shape our plans for Hawaii.  Your approach concluding that 1/4 acre is the bare minimum helps me feel more confident that my 1/2 acre is reasonable.

A few of my thoughts on points that have come up:

-Fat is perhaps as important as protein (see, for example, rabbit starvation/protein poisoning).  Prime sources of healthy fats are animals able to roam while eating their natural diet (ie, not grain-fed ruminants) and nuts in moderation.  The tropics are fortunate to have coconuts and avocados as well, so it's easier to get your fats.

-Crop balance and seasonal availability is perhaps as important as raw calories per acre.  Figure out how much of what you can actually eat to provide you the macronutrients you need, and make sure you have those staple foods available through the year or ways to preserve food for the off seasons.  Easier to do in the tropics than in areas with low-productivity winters!  Even so, I found it very significant that Scott at Evening Rain Farm said during some parts of the year he'll go out into his food forest and realize he couldn't feed himself, though during other parts of the year he'd have plenty of breadfruit or avocados or whatever.

-Animals are less space efficient for feeding humans than plant foods, but they're much more time efficient, *if* you design your systems well.  Your animals can then spend their copious free time wandering around and converting dispersed low-quality foods into concentrated high-quality bundles for you to harvest--eggs, meat, and milk.  By far our most time efficient calorie sources here have been eggs, the occasional dead chicken or squirrel for meat, and honey.  (Space efficiency to maximize human population shouldn't be the goal; low maintenance, diverse food systems supporting a moderate number of humans while also supporting insects & wildlife seems a much better goal.)

-I'm surprised no one has mentioned pig hunting, as I've gotten the impression that hunting would be a sustainable, landbase beneficial activity, providing a relatively easy source of calories including the important proteins & fats.  Someone (maybe a Park ranger?) told me the big island has about 100,000 pigs, which it seems would go a long way towards feeding 150,000 people on an ongoing basis.  (Though I haven't yet looked into how fast they breed and how many pigs could be harvested regularly.)

-Jay, I think you're dismissing urban & suburban gardening a little too quickly.  First I'll say that I agree that there's no way that can be truly sustainable, and we shouldn't pretend or encourage delusions in others that it is or can be.   (Hint: civilization and cities by definition are unsustainable!  See Derrick Jensen.)  That said, for people who choose to stay in the city/suburbs for their many reasons, gardening can be as economically worthwhile as it would be on larger acreage.  It doesn't take much space, time, or monetary input to grow greens, vegetables, and berries, which are some of the most expensive food items to replace at market, even if you don't buy fresh/local/organic.  It's not fair to count the cost of the mortgage or property taxes against the produce--those are "sunk costs" that the family would have anyway because of their decision to stay connected to civilization.  And it's not fair to charge gardening time as an opportunity cost vs other ways of making money (to pay down a mortgage, for example) -- people are increasingly finding themselves with more free time and fewer opportunities to make cash; using that free time to provide for oneself and reduce the need to outlay cash makes a lot of sense.  Finally, there's no reason that small scale gardening should consume more actual resources than it produces, unless people are just plain doing it wrong.  Sheet mulching with free cardboard & organic matter can prepare a bed without the need to rent a rototiller or import soil, and seeds and divisions are cheap or free to come by.  Perennial gardening for produce & veggies minimizes ongoing work and expense to the point where almost all your labor is spent harvesting.

-As Jay keeps saying, the only proven historical and prehistorical examples of sustainable human cultures involved the vast majority of the population directly involved in food procurement, on communally owned land (or with land not even considered to be "owned" by anyone) or on small parcels of privately owned land.  To get there from here, land redistribution will be crucial for a relatively stable transition to sustainability.  I don't know how this will happen, but I think we need to be ready to support a culture of squatting & community resistance to eviction.

-And again as Jay said, good stewardship of land is important.  This isn't just about feeding ourselves; true sustainability has to include giving back to our landbase more than we take.  That means improving biodiversity, building soils, and sequestering carbon as byproducts of what we do to feed and support ourselves.  Climate changes (and the current inherently unstable dynamics of species interactions in Hawaii) demand that we create diverse, resilient systems and be flexible with our food strategies as conditions change.  Everywhere in the world, we need more forests and perennial food systems; and less reliance on annual monocultures with their environmental damage & climatic sensitivities.

I'll leave it at that...thanks again, Jay, for keeping it real!

Norris
Portland, OR