Why not; Own power generation. Own sewerage disposal. Own water collection for toilet flush. All new houses and other buildings to be self sufficent as much as posable. The govt; is being very generous at the moment, giving enormous rebates for house-holders to get along the path to self sufficent power generation, and water-saving measures like collecting your own toilet flush water.

Jason, it all sounds very nice for each and every one of us or each family or each little group to be entirely self-sufficient. But there are real economies of scale to be had for larger groups, like whole towns or even cities....or even nations, to be self-sufficient.

I don't think we need to do it on a personal basis. In fact the key to our future wellbeing is to be able to do it on a national basis, with reliable and affordable public utilities like water and power provision and central business districts or larger shopping centres where we can get all our bacis needs.

In fact, I'm inclined to think that the idea of finding a nice block of land with good soil and a high rainfall, a few chooks, solar panels, water tanks and the rest, is not going to work and is in fact quite the wrong way to think about developing a sustainable future.

One of the big problems with it is that it can only really work for a small portion of the population... and if things get desperate, the areas where it is working will be overrrun with desperate people wanting to set up the same sort of thing....or raiding established crops and other resources.

Let's think about national sustainability, not our own personal sustainable....or at least; as well as our own personal sustainability.

And let's for goodness sake, everyone of us that is in any way concerned about sustainability, very loudly denounce Rudd's policy of absurdly high immigration and the concomitant ever greater disparity between the demand on our resource base and the ability for this largely dry and infertile continent to provide the necessary resources in an ongoing manner.

I'd love to debate this with you further Jason, but I'm on the road for several weeks longer, through the Kimberley and Pilbara. So there may be several days between responses.

Cheers

I agree. The secret is household responsibility for energy and water creation and consumption. It's possible to be totally self-sufficient and in my way of thinking that is the way to do it.

Even where there is an abundance of water households should be responsible for their own. Leave the infrastructure for industry alone.

Every new house built from now should be made to do it. Phase out the rest over time. Put the rates to real use.

Yes Jason; all very practical from a stand alone residence.
There are a number of problems that have been mentioned in a number
of places.

Power generation; Can be done, has been done and is being done.
The catch 22 is;
Will we be able to obtain enough raw materials to make
the number of solar panels required ?
Will we be able to obtain enough raw materials for the batteries required?
Will there be enough technical people available to install and maintain all this gear ?
To do the job in 10years it would require 1094 teams of two men two
days each to do Sydney assuming 2 million homes and no days off.
Not impossible but a big project.

Water:
Has been done, is being done.
Our roofs are big enough to collect enough water if we use it like country people did in the past.
Sewage:
More of a problem when you consider the separation between properties. Less these days.

So all loverly and green but due to the scale of the project probably
not very practical.

Nice thought but, seriously, the government would never allow it.

They make too much for themselves and their power and utility company cronies to ever let such a cash-cow go.

Also, if we were self-sufficient, they couldn't grab us by the balls and tell us what to do. And what politician could live without power over the people?

In principle I agree and have been arguing for some time, that
small town, rural living, is long term far more sustainable then
high density living, as the chardonay set tried to force on people.

But you need to start small and somewhere. I've had solar hot water
for 25 years now, easily installed, subsidised now, makes a huge
difference for most of the year. Yet I gather that most homes still
use electric power for hot water, as they would rather spend the money
on a plasma screen or whatever.

Do I trust Govts to provide me with services? Not really, thats
one reason why I prefer to live in the country. Our whole present
way of life and 6.7 billion people rising, is based on cheap fossil
fuels. Who knows what will happen, when that is no longer the case.