From a post by bradders. Hope you don't mind old boy :wink: Make locally, buy locally, live locally. Telling you. Its the future. we can all earn a fraction of what we do now, have time to kill by working less because everyone will be employed. Global economics...evil incarnate What do you think ?
I'll go first. An interesting and attractive proposition, but we would have to live much simpler lives. How would we get to there from here without global meltdown of the financial markets and the catastrophe that would follow. Would the economic train slowly run out of steam and come to a stop or would it crash into the buffers with considerable loss of life ?
And so the nah sayers land...its not working now but lets knock down anything else...constructive as always. Local in context of UK for me. How about a British built bike, using materials sourced locally where possible, which is built by the guy next door and his chums. One which builds on the engineering ingenuity the British are great at. Imagine the carbon saving (if you believe the hype) and saving on the earth's resources. No more moaning about greedy bankers. No more moaning about immigration - those who come will work and contribute or starve. No more paying to support third world tyrannies in arms, killing and raping their own peolpe. You all know it makes sense.
There are nay-sayers here already? It makes a lot of sense to be self-sufficient on a regional basis: reduced transport costs, wealth stays within the community/country plus you end up with a multi-skilled workforce and you aren't at the mercy of external economic ructions. Everyone would be a lot poorer, in purely consumerist terms, probably healthcare as well, but who knows - maybe much richer in spiritual terms (community, quality of life, etc).
If the world keeps going how it is, then thats a.l that will be left anyway. There is something to be said for a simple life i reckon, probiding I can keep my bikes ;-)
You are misreading me bradders, I have been a supporter of the Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales for many years. I am genuinely interested in sustainable lifestyles and supporting local businesses, the town where I live is a Transition Town. The only problem is how do we get the ball rolling and what are the implications. What would we need to do and what are we prepared to give up to make it work.
How would you feed all your citizens? Do you have enough free viable land to grow all your own food, now and into the future? NZ exports a lot of food to the world, we contribute 30-35% of all internationally traded dairy food, we only domestically consume 3-4% of the meat we produce, we export fruit and veggies worldwide, so we'd be right, dunno about you fellas. A lot of the dairy food you eat may say Nestle, Danone, and many others but is from NZ.
i do have a wee bee in my bonnet about buying locally, if there's only a couple of pounds in it i always will.
