Who thinks that in the next 20 - 30 years, we will return to pioneer lifestyles?

Question

That all the resources which make modern day modern will be either gone or so expensive that only millionaires will be able to benefit from them? That every family will have to be self-sufficient? That you will go to the doctor's one day and they will accept a payment of a dozen eggs and a litre of milk?

Answer 1

The question you really want to ask is, ‘Do I want to live like that?’

I have to agree with most of the answers given here. We still have a great deal of resources available. But the wars all over the planet are evidence that things may be getting tighter. Stuff will get more expensive, especially energy costs. Fortunately for people in the so called western civilization we have many choices open to us simply because we have more money than those in the third world. Unfortunately our western way of living hangs on the fact that we get poor people to make all our stuff for us. And they do it cheaply which means they do it irresponsibly – by plundering the earths resources without giving anything back. This method is completely unsustainable and totally unnatural given that all life exists due to a balance that has evolved since the earth began rotating. There is no doubt, in my mind anyway, that the human race is tipping that balance too much in one direction. To what effect no one can be sure. But it is completely disrespectful. It’s like robbing your parents of everything they have ever worked for.

So the choice is this. Do you want to be a part of an unsustainable culture that just like every other recorded culture throughout history, will rise and fall. Or do you want to try and live a life tuned to natural systems, smug in the knowledge that you, being part of the earth’s ecosystem has understood the nature of life and thus constructed a lifestyle in accordance with natural laws.

Forget everybody else and start to read books that will help you develop skills that will lead to you being personally responsible for your life on this planet. For it is the ignorant, waiting for their respective messiahs, that will die off first if everything does go belly up.

Well that’s one view point anyway :o)

Answer 2

In 1970 a body with very august members called the Club of Rome was predicting the disastrous depletion of virtually all natural resources by the year 2,000. Instead we have seen plentiful new supplies emerge and many are relatively cheaper now. I do hope though that a culture of being more economical with resources will develop along with the concept of small is beautiful. The problem of a declining or stagnant Africa should be on the mend and countries like China and India may be as prosperous as Europe. CO2 emissions will probably be stabilised at around the turn of the century levels by a wide range of measures and there will be significant challenges from the effects of global warming in some regions of the world.

Answer 3

Far from it. People in 3rd world countries who live like that now will in fact be elevated to a modern, energy driven culture. This will accelerate the depletion of oil, so we will need to find alternatives to oil as an energy source. But oil will probably last another 100 years. It won't run out in only 20 or 30. Coal is more plentiful and will last 500 years. And there are ways to make gas and liquid fuels from coal.

Answer 4

No. We are on the verge of an entirely new technology--a sift to alternative energy sources that will make our lives better--not roll the clock back. The current technology base--fossile fuels--is essentially obsolete. The only reason we aren't already getting more of the benefits of the new technologies is the obstruction of special interests trying to protect the fossil fuel industry from the inevitable. But htey are headed for the scrap pile--just like sailing ships and horse-drawn wagons when steamships and cars were developed.

Answer 5

Next 20 to 30 years will become quite difficult for the G8 countries - with stock market uneasiness, continued war, depression, dying oceans, climate change, heavy pollution from China and India, corporations taking their money to the newly industrialized nations and so-on.

However, we will not regress (or progress) into a pioneer civilization.

Answer 6

I live in the country and have 5 acres..My wife and I are retired and we live off of the land..My wife bakes our bread and pies etc. We have a small monthly income but we don't have the stress that we had when we lived and worked in the city..yes we even have chickens but our doctor doesn't take eggs as payment..we have health insurance to take care of that..it was our dream to live in the country and were lucky enough to have our dream come true..living off of the land requires alot of hard work

Answer 7

Who do you mean by "we".

Many people are simplifying their lives all over the country. I know many that have bought many acres of land far away from any cities. They will be living a simple life.

Now if you are talking about the end of civilization, I think we have a couple hundred years left before that happens.

Answer 8

Pioneer lifestyles included personal responsibility and use of personal firearms.
Barring armageddon, we will never return to those ideals. Being serfs in a global socialist regime is more likely.

Answer 9

We've barely begun to scratch the resources this planet has to offer. I'd have to say no..

Answer 10

Yes we are doing it.
I mow the lawn with my horse
I only eat plants and animals that died of natural causes.
Never cook eat food raw or warmed in sun.
I drive a donkey cart to store
Wash clothes in creek by hand
dry the on rocks.
I only turn electric on for 1 hour a day.
take bath in creek or shower in rain.
Remodeling a cave to live in 50 degrees car battery for light.'
most of our clothes are hand woven out of hemp.
shoes for kids are made from leather road kill sandals and tires for bottom of shoes.
repaired old shopping cart for kids to collect empty soda cans.
Beds are old newspaper & tree Moss with hemp covering. furniture is made from logs and tree stumps.
Floor carpet is woven out of brightly colored rags woven in circle.
My job is picking seed pine cones for forestry dept
This cooling has already killed hundreds of thousands of people. If it continues and no strong action is taken, it will cause world famine, world chaos and world war, and this could all come about before the year 2000. -- Lowell Ponte "The Cooling", 1976

If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder by the year 2000...This is about twice what it would take to put us in an ice age. -- Kenneth E.F. Watt on air pollution and global cooling, Earth Day (1970)

What we've got to do in energy conservation is try to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, to have approached global warming as if it is real means energy conservation, so we will be doing the right thing anyway in terms of economic policy and environmental policy. -- Timothy Wirth, former U.S. Senator (D-Colorado)

If radical environmentalists were to invent a disease to bring human populations back to sanity, it would probably be something like AIDS -- Earth First! Newsletter

Human happiness, and certainly human fecundity, is not as important as a wild and healthy planets...Some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along. -- David Graber, biologist, National Park Service

The collective needs of non-human species must take precedence over the needs and desires of humans. -- Dr. Reed F. Noss, The Wildlands Project

If I were reincarnated, I would wish to be returned to Earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels. -- Prince Phillip, World Wildlife Fund

Cannibalism is a "radical but realistic solution to the problem of overpopulation." -- Lyall Watson, The Financial Times, 15 July 1995

ALL USEFUL IDIOTS of GREEN PARTY

SO the ANSWER to YOUR QUESTION IS THEY WANT a CARBON TAX to tax evil OIL Corporations DEM Senator DODD. that means trickle down to you $6.00 a gallon Gas Higher food prices TRUCKS deliver food run on FUEL,higher electric they will build NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS its a low carbon foot print .

ANSWER: ask teachers What happen to the polar bears during the last 5 ICE AGES?.
Al Gore JET do you agree Al needs to drive a electric Golf Cart instead of a Jet his power bill is $3,000 a month for 1 of his houses

Step it UP We want a carbon Tax,Carbon tax on internet, it would increase gas $8.00 a gallon increase food and goods because of shipping cost .and a increase in electric price ,Its a problem lets fix it by Shut off all electric 6 days a week,only turn water on city for 1 hour a day, We have to SAVE the EARTH ,ride bikes outlaw driving except politicians, 1 gallon of gas a day , mandatory jail think live green ! EU Carbon Tax paid by the Workers,Bush Al Gore & Hillary Trust the UN carbon Tax