Moving Even More Forward: Addendum (or, how I learned to relax and love the change)

Having finished watching "Gasland" (on YouTube, not mega upload, thank you very much) an hour ago, I feel really sick to my stomach. I would like to apologize again for working in the oil and gas industry. The last job I had was preparing a refinery to accept natural gas piped in from Marselis, Pennsylvania so that they could convert it (ethane) into ethylene, which they then polymerized (I think) into poly-ethylene, or plastic. This is where it comes from.

I am developing a deep moral objection to my job and I am not sure if I will be able to do it much longer, if at all. It's not that I liked it before, but well, y'know ... I mean, what am I working for…or for whom? How can I use the finite number of hours of work I have left in me in a more constructive fashion? How can I improve the way I spend the money I do earn? Should I fire it out the window on interest payments? Or would I be better off to pay cash for land and building materials?

If I am not part of the solution, I am part of the problem.

Maybe I should build a hydroponic potato-growing operation in my basement for next to nothing. Or even better, aquaponics, which uses the ammonium nitrate-rich "waste" water from a fish tank (instead of petroleum-based ammonium nitrate plant foods which you have to buy) to water and feed the plants. The left over water from the grow-op is clean and fresh and is used to refill the fish tank. The fish thrive so you eat some. The plants thrive so you give some away. You also grow fish food.

Having read "Dealing with the Overpopulation Myth" by Leo Gesvanter (find it, read it, love it) I realize my earlier estimates of one family per acre is maybe (very) a touch low, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I now realize I do not need a farm or a solar-powered golf cart/tractor, it’s a waste of resources. I need a bunch of hydroponic ops on different cycles. I can easily "trick" the plants into blooming all year long by controlling the number of hours of sunlight they receive from my lamps. They should be at waist height so I don't have to bend over to harvest them. Realistically, the largest, cheapest lots are almost always rural, or at least the ones you'd like to live on anyway.

The next time somebody asks me what I do for a living I want to be able to tell them I grow food. I no longer feel like I need a "farm" to do it, because, what's a farm, really? My yard is plenty big enough for a greenhouse, which will even work in the Yukon or Alaska. If I actually had a basement, I would be able to use low wattage lights and proper ventilation to grow down there all year long, producing way higher annual crop yields than conventional farming. No weeds ... No bugs ... No floods ... No droughts. This will be especially easy if I have lots of windows and some solar panels on the roof...and fish. It’s tough to beat the free energy of the sun. Of course, I'd like fruit trees and stuff outside but you get the drift.

It's like Woody Harrelson states in "Ethos" (great film, ages 12+) "We, the consumer, control the market through the products we demand." At the risk of sounding preachy, we all need to stop buying horrible products. Do the healthy restaurants have line-ups at lunchtime? NO!--fast food does. Doing dishes sucks, but it's ten times better than eating fast food trash.

In response to one of my earlier articles recently published in this series, "Moving Forward with 'Moving Forward'," Isak Okvist asked me how much I think this will cost. I think the more relevant question is, "How much will it cost if we don't do it?", because the answer to that question is, "Everything." The answer to the first one is, "Next to nothing." If more people get involved, it will be less money per person. I am not worried about the cost too much anyway. Last year I spent approximately fifteen thousand dollars (after taxes) on interest payments alone. I KNOW that this will be cheaper, but that's beside the point.

As I see it right now we can all sit on the sidelines and complain about the rules of the "game" and the "referees," or we can develop new plays and get in there and start putting some points on the scoreboard. Maybe throw a couple elbows here and there, I don't know.

Put me in coach. I'm ready!

More to come...