Would YOU, be willing to go back to the basics to save our planet??

Question

Would YOU, be willing to go back to the basics to save our planet??

Answer 1

I think I already do quite a bit.  

I gave up the car several years ago in favour of walking and cycling.

I only buy basic foods, local and seasonal if I can, and cook from scratch, including bread and cakes.

I would dearly love to live somewhere with a large enough plot of land to produce at least most of my own food.

Answer 2

The trouble is if you were willing to back to basics to save the planet, there would be no one Else that would do it, so it would be a none starter from the beginning.

Answer 3

You didn't define "basics," so it makes your question rather difficult to answer.

I'm not willing to forgo modern medicine, birth control, and modern Vetrinary care (for my livestock).

  

We are willing to live on our own farm, raise over 90% of the food we eat.  That includes doing things like canning, baking bread completely from scratch (right down to grinding wheat into flour), dehydrating, and putting up harvest in other ways.  Even butchering the meat animals we raise ourselves.

However I still want my refrigerator and freezers.  The freezers are a way we preserve much of our harvest, to see us through winter and spring.  A refrigerator is needed to keep things like the goats milk (that I milked myself), or the yogurt I made.  I would not care to see my husband doing a dangerous job, like cutting ice blocks from our pond in the winter.  That's saying something too, that I concider that to be too dangerous a job for him.  You see he works on the commercial wind turbines, and climbs 300 foot towers.  They walk on top of those hubs, out in the wind, to get to different sections of the turbines.

I'm not willing to spend my life whapping laundry against a rock.  So a wash machine is a must for me.  However I'll use one that could reasonibly be powered by a goat, or large dog on a treadmill.

We are perfectly willing to grow our own wood for our winter heat.  That means planting baby trees, cutting trees down, limbing, hauling the timber out, cutting into lengths, splitting and then stacking the wood.  That's a huge amount of work.

My water needs to come when I turn the faucet on....not willing to haul by the bucket from the creeks or pond, nor to hand pump from the well.  However perfectly willing to hook a wind mill up to the pumphouse, and allow the wind to pump our water (something we actually plan to do).

I still want electric for certain things.  However, once again, we are perfectly willing to live completely off grid, and install our own wind turbines.

Perfectly willing to give up TV (as we actually did years ago), but not at all willing to give up radio, or books.

I'll keep wearing modern shoes, thank you much.  I do not care to live in the Pacific Northwest, barefoot, in sandles, or in leather moccasins.

I like my toothbrush.  I'm very anti plastic.  I think toothbrushes are one of the rare things that should be made from plastic.  I'm in my 40's, and have perfect teeth, not a single cavity, nor a single one missing.  Not willing to give up modern toothbrushes.

I want hoses to carry water to the water troughs.  I don't want to go back to the old days (basics) when farmers would allow their stock to wade, wallow, deficate and otherwise disturb creek, river, and stream beds.  I have two creeks on my property.  Both have salmon that come up them for spawning.  

Toilet paper is possibly one of man kinds greatest inventions.  Just go a week without it, and let everyone know if you think it's such a good idea.  So modern TP for me.

I could however live most of my life without a car.  It does however mean the stores need to put hitching posts out front, so when I show up with a horse and buggy, or goats and cart to make stock-up purchases I have a convient place to hitch too.  Still need to go to town and purchase items like 25 pound sacks of sugar, and one pound bulk yeast.

So how "basic" are you talking?  I'm willing to live without an awful lot of things....but there are just some things that make life enjoyable, and I'm simply not willing to do without.

~Garnet

Permaculture homesteading/farming over 20 years

Answer 4

i am trying my hardest (well i could try harder as we all can)

but i find its the people around you that are hard to convience to help you! i am not saying people should do it if they dont want to i am suggesting that they should respect your choice on how to live and just help you help !!! as in dont question your ways etc etc

i think we all could help and well done to those that do sooo and to those who dont i hope you join us sooonnn

x x x x x

Answer 5

In the first place, only human arrogance lets man think we can do anything to save or distroy the planet.

In the second place, just what do you mean by "the basics", and would you be willing to go back? YOu don't realize how this country and in fact the world would suffer without some of the things we have today.

My job takes me normally through 14 states in 4 days. Yes. I am a truck driver. How long do you think the same trip would take by wagon and mule teams? My normal run is from Nashville, TN, to Kansas City, MO, to Scranton, PA, back to Nashville. My loads for the week will average over 40,000 pounds. That much freight, over that many miles, may get moved in 6 months by wagon and mule.

In the third place, I would not go back to the basics, just to be politically correct. Because going back to the basics, will do nothing to help the planet, and in fact could harm it.

Answer 6

Definitely.    Basic is good.  However, it will not be easy living in a box of a flat.  Can't even compost my peelings.

Answer 7

You can not control mother nature it was programmed for humans to be here and it is programmed for them to disappear but the planet will still be here long after

Answer 8

Back to the basics could mean survival of the fittest or the one most armed and willing to kill or die and possibly eating things you would puke thinking about. Is that what you want?

I am certain you have never lived like this or your question wouldn't be so accusatory or "hi-tone" as if you have gone back to the basics listed above. Those are what the REAL basics are when it comes right down to it.

I assume you would not eat anything cooked or heated since  you certainly don't want carbon from smokey fires to be in the air destroying the planet.

Be a little more specific about what the "BASICS" are.

Answer 9

no. i really have done enough and i'm not willing to change my lifestyle which i worked so hard to achieve go to waste!

none of this climate change c**p will affect me in my life time.

Answer 10

yes, definitely - i can't think of anything better than to swap my mortgage, bills and job for a tepee and a vegetable patch

Answer 11

mostly

Answer 12

I already have gone back to basics.  

I started when i lived on a boat, in the first place you are limited to what you can have, then you have to know and calculate the wattage of everything that you use, be aware of water consumption and use things that have more than one output, for instance the engine powered the boat and heated the water and put power into the batteries.  The aga we used for cooking, heating and heating the hot water.

I live in a house now but i still check everything out and make sure that there is one than one use for things is it can be done.

Answer 13

Are YOU prepared to go back to basics to save yourself is perhaps more apt.

The circumstances surrounding the rise in oil is less than simple. Supposedly it's because of an economic boom in China and Asia. That doesn't make sense, who do they plan to sell to if imports are now more expensive in developed countries.

If oil demand is starting to outstrip sustainable assets OPEC has to cap production.

Nobody in the know is going to tell the man in the street how much actually is left. Fuel and food prices aren't going to drop and there will be an increase in deaths among the vulnerable, notably pensioners.

Forced back to basics might be more of a truth, we have been abusing this planet of ours for quite some time, how long that can continue is conjecture when we can't decide if global warming exists?

Answer 14

No I would not be willing to give up A/C, cars, airplanes, refrigerators, or whatever you mean by going back to basics to save our planet. Of course by the term "save our planet" you mean keep it from changing.

But I might do it so save my sanity!

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the pressures of modern city life and am tempted by the simple life. I have so many things to take care of and so much to remember. I recall spending a few days in Philadelphia on business, and compared to Austin, it is just CRAZY! So much traffic and crowding! And I went to see the liberty bell and an Amish family was in line behind me and I envied them.

Answer 15

suppose i would . but i reckon we would be a bunch of miserable folk.

anyway , don't you mean "......to save our species ".......

Answer 16

I've been cutting down on high-technology and going back to the basics. Anything to save our planet.

Answer 17

i would if the basics are as they were originally,[ if u would care to define them]. i dont understand this tirade against India /China. these two are also developing and that too with the added insight of saving the planet. who spoiled himalayas , who trekked to the ends of the world and then spoilt the remotest parts, surely not the ascetics and monks of Asia ?instead of blame game , repay for the luxuries extracted from the nature.  Invest in nature conservation and most important start now .and remember the WHOLE of the globe needs protection for our survival , not just one or two nations.

Answer 18

yeh, if only land wasn't so expensive.

Answer 19

this is such a stupid question..... yes stupid. (and I can hear the "there are no stupid questions"..... this one is to me.

Are you willing to go back to basics to save our planet?

1. NO, why? because that means giving up everything thing we know. here are some things you have to live without:

food grown by farmers.... fertilizers use petroleum bases

clothes.... polyester... sorry use fur

any and all PLASTICS... so much for your nice house, car, etc. they are made from plastics (most)

refrigeration.... gone.

electricity... gone

so after thinking about all these things.... would you be willing... h**l no. COULD WE, yes, but it would take something global to make us do it.... like an asteroid causing mass destruction.... but to "save the Planet" no way, not a chance.... do you think people would actually give up everything? anyone who says they would needs to watch "INTO THE WILD" and then answer the question again......

Answer 20

Yes, there won't be too much change in my life.  I try to stay "green".

Answer 21

no.

Answer 22

Only if everybody else in the world does. China and India pump millions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere every day, and make no attempt to be greener, so why should I?

Answer 23

yes

Answer 24

I already have, it's good to be able to do my own little bit for the planet :)

Answer 25

thinking about it, yes, I quite like the idea, would not be surprised if it made me and a lot of other people happier as well

Answer 26

Yes. I already have! It's nice to know that all the little things we do..on one way or the other makes a difference in this world ! =)