People Get Ready

I’ve always been the nervous type. Thirty years of meditation practice have given me a handle on that, and I do an awful lot of thinking and breathing before I panic these days, but you still have that basic biology. And its sure kicking in now.

The problem is, I don’t understand the world any more. For the whole of my almost 60 years on the planet, things have been good. Born between major wars, narrowly missing the lesser ones, I have never bought a house that didn’t increase in value, and never lacked for employment or improving circumstances. There were times of poverty and struggle, but they were more caused by my search for meaning and an authentic life, not by necessity. There was always retreat into the mainstream possible and that mainstream gave even its humblest of participants access to air travel, books, cars, and congenial living.

But now, everything points to a massive economic collapse, and I don’t see anyone really facing that. Everything the government, and business, and the media talk about involves a key assumption that we can pull back, that this is just a glitch, or a setback. That growth and prosperity will always return. No-one questions the basic paradigm.

Yet the big picture history says that civilizations always fall. And we have the first whole planet civilization, there isn’t another one we can run off to. A system based on growth is a cancer and will always kill its host. Our economy only functions when its growing, and that just stopped happening. The growth economy is on the brink of collapse. So one stark thing keeps me awake at night..

What is our Plan B?

What I want to ask my fellow TT’ers is how should we prepare for a Tasmania where not only are a few schools and hospital beds threatened, but all of them are. Where its not just that there will be no sodding Pulp Mill, but no industry can thrive because markets are in collapse. Riotinto, Nyrstar, the West Coast Mines. Forestry, of course, retail, and tourism. It all goes into meltdown. Because thats what the business pages are writing about now, that was up until now just whispered. Its starting to topple.

We have to get practical, and fast. A global economic crisis has two major and immediate effects. Businesses fail, and massive unemployment results. And governments drastically lose revenue, and cannot provide what they once did.

When Tasmania has 100,000 unemployed, how will we live ?

If the banks fail, how will we live ?

When money doesn’t work any more, how will we live ?

Okay, the last three were my panic genes kicking in. But even if a quarter of what is being predicted comes true, we are in trouble. What I would like to see on this, Lindsay’s noble vehicle for alternative Tasmanian media, is a conversation which I am sure is already happening in living rooms from Cygnet to Stanley, but needs to be brought out in the open and resourced with every kind of viewpoint and expertise that might be available. How do we build an island that works in even five years time?

I don’t think this is being discussed enough, and especially not by government. We have a cargo cult mentality, “if you build it he will come”, in terms of help coming from interstate or overseas. An infantile primitive dependence on big money and the shiny people who bring it. I think those places and people will have enough problems of their own, even by the end of this year. 2012 looks like crunch time to me.

There is a glimmer of hope in all of this. Because we were headed for the cliff all along. Peak Oil, climate catastrophe and collapsing food systems were going to get us very soon and in an irreversible way. At least with the economy tanking first, we get to stop ahead of the cliff, not shoot over it like the cartoon coyote.

I have used the term “the New Tasmania movement” to describe the renaissance of community values, activism, and thoughtful living that has emerged in Tasmania in the last 40 years, and has been so spurred along lately by the helpful intervention of Gunns in our public life. There are many people working out how to be a networked, surviveable economy. We have a lot more chance of being able to eat in five years than the suburban wastelands of mainland Australia, for which a Mad Max scenario is hard not to envisage. Civilization, as they say, is only three meals deep.

So, the question. How do we live in Tasmania, when the economy tanks, which is looking like happening next year. What should we do to get ready ? What should our government be doing to prepare? (And please, no survivalism, because that is just selfish and silly. You might buy yourself six months with your shotguns and bottled water.) For me, we sink or swim as a state, and hopefully we can care about others beyond our shores as well.

How do we keep our schools open ? How do we keep a health system of sorts functioning? How do we eat ? Travel ? Stay warm ? When government goes bankrupt, how do we create a new system of self care and management that does not rely on money from a well that has run dry ?

How do we build something that lasts?

Appreciate your thoughts…