I grew up in Union Beach, New Jersey, at least until my father died what he was 57, and I was 17. Losing him was a shock that short-circuited me. I went through a great deal learning to accept his loss and was bitter for a time. He worked at a Dutchboy Paint plant in Sayreville making lead pigment, and most of his co-workers also died in their 50's (from working around lead). That was the cost, to me, of a life spent not only working, but serving corporate interests in conflict with "earth friendly" practices. Man destroys so much, and empires rise and fall, often for stupid reasons we keep repeating as a species. I think it is going to happen again, and I want a different choice. I want to move somewhere less developed, where I can be an asset as I live life in what I feel is a proper way to live around people who aren't as tainted by sprawl and urban life, and where I can do good and contribute, and where I feel safe and free.
I have many reasons for wanting to make a move away from American soil. I have fought for years to do good works, but much of the developed world has lost its way and I feel is on the road to global collapse. I grew up 20 miles South by water from New York City, actually the state line was three miles North cutting through the Raritan Bay. I grew up two blocks away from the bay and used to play in the marshes and reeds, and remember the oily rainbow swirls in the water and stench from pollution from the IFF factory (International Flavors & Fragrances). I was acutely aware of what pollution from man's activity has done to the earth. At an early age I was reading from a fairly compete collection of works of great philosophers my family had. The most influential upon me was "A Dissertation on the Origin and Foundation of the Inequality of Mankind" by Jean Jacques Rousseau written in 1754. In it Rousseau was complaining about pollution and abuses of wealth distribution and other ills we still live with today.
I also came to study and understand that empires and civilizations rise and fall, and see many of the things that caused that fall of other great empires happening right now to the United States and throughout the world. I don't think collapse can be avoided, but like any "dark age" I think that in small, progressives nations and communities that the transition from an oil based economy to a renewable energy of will be less dramatic. I address these issues in a paper I wrote last year which can be found at: http://thefutureofmanandearth.blogspot.com/
In short, I believe we have:
1. over-used resources and abused the ecosystem, wherein the environment produces less and raw materials are more and more scarce;
2. artificially increased food production based on an oil economy which has created a population explosion which is not sustainable and bound to suffer as oil availability become more costly and scarce;
3. will not have enough potable water, or useable water in general, to sustain population growth, causing famine and drought;
4. will not have the energy to sustain economic growth leading to global economic collapse;
5. are too late in shifting to renewable energy, and do not have political of economic policies that foster sustainability or peace;
6. have faced a decline in education of citizenry in which people do not have the skills, or conscience, to avoid a dystopian future;
7. face wars, famine, mass starvation, pandemics, and other ills that will create turmoil mostly in the most highly developed and populated regions of earth;
8. and that all these things will start to happen and become major world issues by 2025 to 2030.
As much as I see doom I see hope, because man is so widely scattered across the earth, that in some places there will be a degree of insulation, and these places will have to become self-sufficient until the worst of these pending and looming world crisies run their course.
In America, I see gated and protected areas, revolts, crime waves and America suffering a third world status as gasoline hits $10 a gallon and food is scarce, jobs vanish, and martial law is eventually imposed. Technology can solve some issues, but not nearly enough. There will be a global thinning of the world population. When I was born there were about three billion people on earth, and now there are about 7 billion, with nine projected by 2030. This population cannot be sustained, especially as development and oil based transportation and economies grow and grow.
This is why I want to emigrate from the United States and move to one of several places. When I do I want to have "off the grid" water and power, have the ability to grow my own food, and work with a community that has natural barriers to mass population migrations and is somewhat insulated from wars, famine, and other problems I see as inescapable. Each place would require modifications as to what I do for income, like commercial gardening and import/export for the Falklands and servicing trekkers, fly fishermen, kayakers, and eco-tourists in Chile, but other basics are constants. These choices are, in current order, as follows:
The Falkland Islands
The Aysen Region of Chile
The Azores
Iceland
And in so doing live an environmenatlly sound lifestyle living in converted containers similar to these
and grow food in pitted greenhouses such as
using for power solar and wind to generate electric
In this way, I have a near 0 cost of utilities and near 0 cost for food. A water system or well can be run off the power system, and with power I can actually produce a some income just off my use of my own resources. With as little as an acre or two of greenhouse and cultivated land, I'd have an income able to sustain myself and with 4 to 5 acres enough income to prosper and do well. Having electric so cheaply, a hybrid vehicle makes transportation little or no cost in operation.
I've had the kind of lifestyle, to a degree, that I want to recreate in my life. I lived on a 35' 1967 Trojan cabin cruiser, and I lived off grid with friends, so I know of what I speak. I have had gardens that produced more than I could use, and even ran a school garden project.
agreengardengrows.blogspot.com
These plans are not only a good lifestyle choice, but economically sound. I owned and operated my own painting business for ten years and after some injuries in 2009 had to stop, so I went back to college and am working on a new degree in Environmental Science. I figure with a new degree that also opens doors to earn some income from environmental sampling and specimen collection and would make me an asset to whatever place I am able to make this kind of move a reality. I recently wrote draft legislation for an alternate side of the street lawn watering bill I presented to former mayor John Peyton's staff, which they modified and introduced and was passed in Jacksonville.
I have also worked with charities, civic groups, and have done historic preservation and worked as an advocate for same.
savestationfive.blogspot.com
My life experience has given me a skill set that makes doing all of this more than possible, and while I am still in a planning stage, I have started working towards making this transition possible. One other aspect of my plans include getting surplus and highly discounted goods, building materials, and the like and acquiring them here in the States where they are amazingly cheap and exporting them to earn income. If I am able to find interested people to partner with I could act as supplier to people with established businesses. A prime example is paint. I can get mis-tinted, discontinued, surplus, and slightly out-of-date paints for $1.00/gallon or less. I can also get used shipping containers for about $1,500.00, which would both allow me to do shipping and also be the means in which I move myself and materials to wherever I wind up going and use to convert to live in.
Too many people wind up in lives they wish were something different, or that don't fit their dreams. I find myself in that now, we get tied to lives we would not have chosen, jobs we do that we don't find rewarding that only produce income and not joy or reward. I can't allow myself to do that any longer, and for the stated and so many other reasons I intend to work to make changes and create the life I envision for myself.
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