I my wanderings around the net I found a neat project that represents the kind of imaginative, but practical, idea of how to deal with rising sea levels. It’s basically a barge built with recycled material, designed to be self-sufficient.
Seafaring people have lived on the water for long periods, in rafts and boats, almost since the dawn a man. Thousands of people live on the water in many parts of the world. The most important part of this project is the idea of living on the water and being self-sufficient.
I don’t think the people of New York need to worry about the city sinking below the waves just yet, but it is great to see people with the vision to try and build something that is as adoptable as the Waterpod.
How difficult would it be for you to adopt to a completely self-sufficient lifestyle.
I am sure we all can do it. I live a pretty simple life, at least compared to my neighbors, so I will guess I could adjust to the living as the people on the Waterpod hope to fairly easily. It would not be by choice however.
http://www.thewaterpod.org/about.html
The World Through My Eyes 
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September 1, 2009 at 1:16 am
lovewillbringustogether
Depends greatly upon your definition of SELF- sufficient. 🙂
My greatest problem by far would be in providing my own food – specifically my love for meat and fish (and that includes BACON!) 😉
Raising the animals? – no problem. Slaughtering and preparing the carcass? Houston? We have a big Problem!
However no-one is suggesting we all need to be entirely self-sufficient, merely sufficient as a community. I would be quite happy to help raising the cows and pigs so i could have the community butcher sell me some Beef and Ham.
Making each community bear responsibility for the provision of their total energy usage as well as their total pollution outputs would go a LONG way to helping us all live the way we are supposed to live – Sustainably.
Fair Trade between communities/countries, should involve being fair not just to the purchaser/consumer (the US) but also to the providers (the rest of the world). it should also include a far more proportionate responsibility for the pollution of the planet than has historically been the case. (User pays, not the entire planet).
A self-sufficient lifestyle requires a balance between what we take and what we give out so that no net imbalance occurs that others end up having to resolve.
<B
September 1, 2009 at 1:37 am
edfromct
I’ll slaughter the animals, and you can grow the veggies. 🙂
“A self-sufficient lifestyle requires a balance between what we take and what we give out so that no net imbalance occurs that others end up having to resolve.”
That is a very good defination.
“Making each community bear responsibility for the provision of their total energy usage as well as their total pollution outputs would go a LONG way to helping us all live the way we are supposed to live – Sustainably.
I agree the governing bodies of the world should adopt this suggestion.
Now that we have solved that world problem what’s next. 🙂
September 1, 2009 at 1:59 am
lovewillbringustogether
That was Easy – wasn’t it? 😉
let’s seeeee…
How about overcoming poverty? That could solve a few problems world-wide!?
Should we trust our governments with ensuring a more equitable distribution of wealth for the greater good rather than the good of a few? (who generally determine who governs!) 😉
<B
September 1, 2009 at 8:42 am
Indian Lake Papa
“trust” and “government” are two words that do not go together.
WE live 24/7 in a religious community – 175 homes on a church camp. We love it! We help each other, plus reach out to our community. We have been here 15 years.
Love – I too love my bacon!
September 1, 2009 at 5:24 pm
edfromct
The key word is community. We need to work at making the whole world one community.
“The law will never make men free, it is men that have to make the law free.”
Henry David Thoreau
“I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage with my books, my family and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post, which any human power can give.”
Thomas Jefferson
September 1, 2009 at 10:57 pm
lovewillbringustogether
“The key word is community. We need to work at making the whole world one community.”
As i see it we ARE a community – sharing the planet.
The problem is, as in any community, we rarely get on all that well with the neighbours or have a much respect for them. We will in most cases look after ‘our own’ while ripping off or distrusting/disagreeing with those ‘down the street’.
i’ll bet that, while TJ’s words sound quite idyllic, that he kept a gun or two handy in that cabin because he did not trust his neighbours to share his philosophy and just ‘let him be’. I wonder what he would do with his garbage waste and what his sources of energy and ‘supplies’ were also?
No ‘man’ is an island, completely independent of the rest of mankind and nature. Ultimately every single one of us is connected in a thousand ways to everyone and everything else, today more than ever.
One large community.
<B
September 1, 2009 at 11:45 pm
edfromct
While we may share one world it does not appear that we view our neighbors as part of our own community. We erect the barriers of ethnicity, religion and nationalism between us. I hope for the day when we take all these barriers down.
September 2, 2009 at 12:09 am
edfromct
Thomas Jefferson clearly supported the right of citizens to “bear arms”. He was primarily thinking about the state militia’s of his day.
“For a people who are free and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security. It is, therefore, incumbent on us at every meeting [of Congress] to revise the condition of the militia and to ask ourselves if it is prepared to repel a powerful enemy at every point of our territories exposed to invasion… Congress alone have power to produce a uniform state of preparation in this great organ of defense. The interests which they so deeply feel in their own and their country’s security will present this as among the most important objects of their deliberation.”
–Thomas Jefferson: 8th Annual Message, 1808. ME 3:482
September 2, 2009 at 3:01 am
lovewillbringustogether
Fundamental problem: one man’s ( nations) defence forces are another’s Army requiring ‘defence’ against.
A nation at peace with it’s neighbours cannot afford to support a massive ‘defence’ ( militia) capacity that serves no ‘useful’ purpose.
Those who are being paid to eliminate the ‘enemy’ are inclined to find other ‘outlets’ for the basic level of violence they are trained in to justify their ongoing careers.
Peace might be the stated ‘profession’ of some militaries but it is war that pays their bills.
A country largely dependent upon weapons manufacture for income will not be genuinely interested in seeking a peaceful world of Trust and mutual co-operation.
<B
September 2, 2009 at 4:21 pm
edfromct
I agree with you. The problem is how to build enough trust in your neighbor to stop buildings weapons. I think it is possible, but likely will take hundreds years, perhaps a thousand or more years, or evolution, to both our brain and the societies an evolved brain can create.
September 1, 2009 at 10:47 pm
lovewillbringustogether
Papa – Unfortunately (or fortunately depending upon your point of view) we DO trust our governments. In your case you trust your government with almost unimaginable power.
Power to determine if you are at war or at peace.
Power to determine if your kids and grandkids will have four days of schooling a week or five (or 3??).
Power to determine if ridiculously rich companies like AIG go bankrupt or live another day on taxpayer funding; power to let Lehman Brothers go belly up when they could have been saved like AIG was.
Power to determine how the the Health funding budget for the next decade will be funded and spent.
Power over most of the important aspects of everyone’s day to day life.
Governments rarely if ever make EVERYONE happy, but they are given the power over alll of us and that requires a large degree of Trust from us in them.
When they get it completely wrong however it is up to us to let them know it in a very clear manner. But that requires us also to understand the whole situation a lot better than most ever do.
So i could rely upon you and Mama for a source of home-made bacon?? 😉
<B
September 1, 2009 at 7:20 pm
Debs
I think that whatever the future holds we will adapt to that situation. We ain’t no dummies… 😉
Found a site for ya Ed! http://www.royalbaconsociety.com/blog/bacon-recipes/bacon-chicken-cheese-roll/
and incase you didn’t know….
http://bacontoday.com/september-5th-is-international-bacon-day/
September 1, 2009 at 10:20 pm
edfromct
Internation Bacon “Day”? Bacon deserves at least a month.
Thanks for the links.
The Royal Bacon Society site has a store with some interesting bacon products. I love bacon but I am not yet ready to pay $33 a lb for Boss Hog Style Honey BBQ Rubbed Bacon.
September 1, 2009 at 9:44 pm
Debs
I think I’m in spam cause of my links…***sniff***
September 1, 2009 at 10:11 pm
edfromct
Today is the first time I have had comments “moderated”. The first was spam, your’s obviously not.
A lot of people had problems with G-mail, and Twitter has been very slow.
Maybe swine flu has hit the Internet. 🙂
September 1, 2009 at 10:21 pm
Debs
LOL If swine flu were to hit blogland, I’m sure it would stop here first with all the bacon talk…
So what are you going to do to celebrate International Bacon Day????? 😉
September 1, 2009 at 10:31 pm
edfromct
I might start trying each of the 400+ receipes with bacon in them on the Bacon Show blog.
http://baconshow.blogspot.com/
September 2, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Rain
Hmm, fascinating stuff! I would never want to live on water, self-sufficient or otherwise. Or if I had to, the land has to be close enough to swim too! I’d quite happily live self-sufficiently in the forest though, living off fruits and berries and hunting- that would be fun:)
September 2, 2009 at 5:37 pm
edfromct
Forest have a very primordial vibe about them. Like going back thousands of year to living as our forefathers, the hunter gathers, did. Many Americans move to the Alaskan wilderness for this reason, to live off the land, away from “civilization”.
My favorite Forest Park is the Redwood National Park in California:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redwood_National_Park. The tallest redwood in the Park is 379′.
Walking amoung these giants gives us a good perspective of how we are only on small cog in a very big wheel.
I could live in an forest except for one thing, mesquitoes. The forest I have been in are loaded with hordes of these blood suckers. I need to take a bath in Deet before I step one foot in a forest. 🙂 Mesquitoes can not be one of God’s creatures. They must be Satan’s invention. 🙂