The trap of a good idea

A word before we begin ...

I am very busy with three fairly mobilisants projects in terms of time and this is why the spacing of my columns. Please be patient (e), I still for several months! I'll still end up taking a cruise and regulate my publications.

As you know, or if you do not already know, I am observant of almost everything that moves and connects closely and far to the foresight and which may affect it. This means that the subject is vast.

I also observe human behavior and attitudes that guide. I learns that when they are repeated with regularity, can become rules in my world survivalist.

I saw a report a few weeks ago on freegans, the "gratuivores" people who make the garbage from restaurants and supermarkets in order to get food that is still edible and eaten. Original idea, a practice that is not for everyone and I respect that even if it does not appeal to me for a second.

Everyone knows that people manage to heat by burning the waste edible oil recovery or use it as fuel instead of oil.  Ditto for pallets that are used to feed the stoves or fireplaces  to wood.

We could also talk handymen who go to auto retrieve cemeteries used but still perfectly usable for their own vehicle parts. 

The examples are numerous and these behaviors are laudable in themselves: what is worn and may have thrown a new life and the people who recover these things are paying less, consume less new resources and freed a little company consumption.

I get myself piers and wood pallets produced by the size of my cedar (falsely called "cedar" in Quebec) is recovered, some is composted and used other reserves firewood for cooking or emergency for bonfires.

I used frying oil is restocked in its cans white and stored iron to serve as fuel for lighting an oil lamp or as a means of heating in a small boiler, called a "pig" in my corner.

I'm also a fan of the recovery pallets , which can burn to produce heat or use for building structures. 

The trap

In the absence of a change in conditions of normality, ie in a situation of abundance, no supply problem and a consumer economy running, even at idle, the recovery as a means to increase autonomy is a great idea and a way of life certainly clever as environmentally .

However this is not a reliable way to be independent in all circumstances .

In the Soviet Union, the population living in institutionally foresight mode. It produced some household waste because everything was reused.  

 population consumed fewer things that Westerners, in part because of restrictions but because the Soviet citizens producing their own food on the ground of their dacha.

Their food waste would fatten the garden as compost, wood was kept if it could be used to produce objects or burned for fuel, metals were recovered paper packaging used for kindling, and so on.

As a way of life offers few opportunities for recovery of goods and food, so that is a good idea from an economic point of view, environmental and ethical, completely loses its applicability in a world of scarce resources so that 'they are not wasted.

Autonomy opportunity or "autonomous" self

I distinguish the two forms of autonomy, unfortunately at the cost of a tautology, but it has its place in order to understand the distinction I want to make.

Humans are a gregarious and complete independence is unrealistic: we others need to live and thrive, because the days were only twenty-four hours and that our talents are limited and unevenly spread from person to another.....