… but lets not look that far ahead.

Lets just do ten years, 2029 …

The trickle of, ‘it’s worse than we thought’, reports of environmental crises, collapses, and catastrophes, that even now are an almost weekly occurrence, will have become a flood.

There will be good news too, of course there will, just as there is now, but not enough.

Not enough to ‘save the planet’ … ah, what a wonderful catchphrase that is, and not at all accurate. To paraphrase another song, ‘She’ got along without us before She met us, She’s gonna get along without us now’.

The trick will be, to save ourselves. Not just pockets of humans, here and there, but the whole damn human race, and to be quite honest we’re doing a really piss-poor job of it so far, and by 2029 we’ll have a really good idea of how piss-poor.

So, 10 years. I’ll probably still be alive, (I certainly hope so) and so will you, all things being equal, but what will our lives be like, I wonder.

Technology will help mitigate the effects, for some people, in some areas, but for the majority of the eight billion people around the world (and who knows how many billions more by 2029) there will be no help coming, no magic fix.

Even if every government and corporation currently in existence pooled all their resources (hah! Fantasy, that!) it still wouldn’t be enough to support the way of life we currently enjoy or aspire to. That threshold is already long gone, and by 2029? … ‘we’ll have to do what we can, with what we can create, with the resources available, in a way that is ethical, and feeds our Spirit

I challenge you to look beyond the ‘feel-good’ fluff, and the ‘we’re doomed’ scenarios, and decide, with your eyes open, how you are going to survive, and if you’re lucky, thrive, working in harmony with and supporting your environment, during the next ten years.

Let’s get together then, and talk about how we’re going to do the same for the next ten.

In the meantime …

In 2013 I had thyroid cancer, had surgery, and radiation therapy, and my cancer is no more. I now take Synthroid every day to stay alive. Without it my Death will be upon me in a matter of weeks, and I’m reliably informed it won’t be pretty.

I’m nobody famous, nor am I rich. in ten years I’ll be 71 years old, will life-saving drugs be available for the likes of me then?

That’s my worst-case scenario. I’ve walked up to it and smacked it around, and come to a negotiated peace with it. Anything back from that precipice is negotiable.

We, Mrs Widds and I, live on the outer edge of a flood-plain of a major river, a mere 45 meters (148 feet) above sea-level, on top of a series of fault lines that run the entire length of the Eastern Pacific Ocean, in one of the fastest growing population regions in the country.

So next year we’re moving to higher, less-crowded, ground.

I have a goodly number of transferable skills, (as does Mrs Widds) both physical and intellectual, high and low-tech, that will be useful in the coming years, and both Mrs Widds and I believe in having three layers of backups. Lets take electricity as an example: (everything in our little cottage is powered by electricity. In a blackout the water doesn’t flow and nothing works) 1st layer – connected to the power grid. 2nd layer – if the power goes out we have a generator. 3rd layer – if the generator breaks down/runs out of gas/petrol, we know how to make a rocket stove, candles, campfires, etc. We didn’t come by these resources and skills overnight. They’re a result of years of work and in some cases a lifetime’s experience.

I’ll let you how it goes.

-oOo-

Speaking of the generator, it had a hissy fit the other day …

‘I shan’t start, and you can’t make me’

… and decided not to work. Mrs Widds jumped into the fray, and with assorted wrenches …

Matt-black wrench set in the late afternoon sun

… has determined that … well, we’re waiting on a new carburetor … I do love a woman who knows her way around her wrenches!

I also took advantage of the later afternoon sun to clean up our bicycles. Unfortunately I didn’t get past taking this photo before Stormy Weather showed up and rained on my parade.

Oooo, that’s the bean pyramid in the background, now laid low by the first frost of the season a few days ago

This is what it looked in peak greeness …

Should’a made it taller

And the Scarlet Climber eventually bloomed, scarlet

-oOo-