Sustainable Future Self-sufficient towns?
Elon has suggested the vision of a "sustainable future" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkManNuuYog
This is a technology-maximized future. However, in the book "This Civilisation is Finished: Conversations on the end of Empire - and what lies beyond" we find that there are 3 likely near-term endgames for society
(1) This civilisation could collapse utterly and terminally, as a result of climatic instability (leading for instance to catastrophic food short- ages as a probable mechanism of collapse), or possibly sooner than that, through nuclear war, pandemic, or financial collapse leading to mass civil breakdown. Any of these are likely to be precipitated in part by ecological/climate instability, as Darfur and Syria were. Or
(2) This civilisation (we) will manage to seed a future successor-civil- isation(s), as this one collapses. Or
(3) This civilisation will somehow manage to transform itself delib- erately, radically and rapidly, in an unprecedented manner, in time to avert collapse.
The second option basically amounts to designing future towns that are self-sufficient based on local production and consumption, perhaps with trading skills with nearby towns. The towns could not rely on any form of support they could not maintain. This includes virtually all electronics.
It would be interesting to construct "guidelines" for structuring a self-sustaining town.
For example, constructing a mechanical windmill that pumps water to a man-made lake on very high ground. This is made from simple technology (iron for pipes, geo-engineering, etc). It feeds a simple filtration system constructed from rocks and soil. Deep drilled holes could provide heated water. A food and barter economy would prevail, etc.
Thoughts? It's a good question and I have been thinking about it recently. I think the biggest challenge is: if civilization does fall, e.g. due to a massive virus outbreak, and not enough people know how to produce industrialized products locally, it's going to be very tough. So the immediately urgency is to bring some industries back. I'm thinking of "published designs" for communities which detail the
necessary and sufficient items required for "mostly" self-sustainability.
The hope is to provide guidance for town planning. A return to local farms, animal labor, barter economics, cooperation, etc.
would be the basis for a model. On the other hand we have a lot more refined
materials readily available such as aluminum, copper, steel, etc. This used to be true historically. Sounds like you are describing the Amish who have been doing this for a long time. That's an interesting place to investigate. The Amish don't seem to depend
on technology they can't create and they tend to develop their own food source. I'll look into it further. Thanks. This is a good resource http://the-knowledge.org/en-gb/the-book/ The odds are so steep against you being alive to participate in such a future that investing time in preparing for it seems wasteful. Probably. But I have children who might benefit.