The benefits are so all-encompassing that they will touch every aspect of your life. You will eat better food, with no chemicals, preservatives, taste enhancers, artificial colours, herbicides or pesticides. You will feel more in tune with nature. You will use less (non-renewable) fossil fuel. Your fuel bills will go down, your stress levels will go down, and generally you will be living a healthier, more exciting, more enriched, more satisfying and more caring life.
ENERGY SAVINGS
One look at the average home will demonstrate that not only are most of us incredibly greedy in terms of energy – we want bigger homes, bigger vehicles, bigger appetites, bigger everything – but, even more illogically, a good part of the energy that we do use is wasted. Our homes and lives are leaking energy at every seam. If we did no more than look at self-sufficiency from a very narrow money-saving viewpoint, it is pretty obvious that most of us could quite easily and dramatically reduce our spending on energy, simply by bunging up a few of the leaks.
If we look carefully at our spending – heating, cooling, lighting, water, waste, transport and so on – and then apply the self-sufficiency mantra ‘little in and little out’, it is plain to see that the best way forward would be to minutely examine our energy needs, and see if we can attack the problem from both ends – meaning reduce both the initial need and the resultant waste. It would be wonderful if we could afford to make huge dramatic high-cost changes, but for most of us the best way of saving energy is to make lots of small modifications. You should not try to change everything at a stroke, either; it is much better to tackle one problem – say lighting – and then to move on to the next one.
So, for example, we could all cut our heating costs at a stroke simply by wearing more clothes, having thicker curtains, settling for a slightly lower level of heating, and living a more active lifestyle. Of course, this advice is rather simplistic, but I am sure you get the point.
ENERGY STATISTICS
Energy costs will of course vary depending upon your individual needs.
Insulation – Every household spends about 42 per cent of its energy budget on heating and cooling. In the knowledge that most of this energy leaks through the structure of the house, we could make huge savings simply by insulating our homes.
Wind turbines – Every household spends about 36 per cent of its energy budget on lighting and small appliances. If every household did no more than fit a very small, low-cost 1 kW turbine, use energy-efficient light bulbs, and reduce lighting to a sensible level, then lighting bills could be halved.
Geothermal energy – When it comes to geothermal energy, it is very difficult to quantify savings. All we can say is that, in terms of coefficient of performance (meaning how much energy is used set against how much energy is produced), while a fuel like coal is about 70–90 per cent efficient, geothermal energy is 400 per cent efficient. Even if we discount these figures as being wildly exaggerated and settle for geothermal energy as being twice as efficient as, say, coal and gas energy, then heating/cooling costs could be halved.
Solar energy – There are so many options with solar energy – passive heating and cooling, solar collectors heating water, solar photovoltaic cells producing electricity, and so on – that really it is almost impossible to say that any particular way is best. Nevertheless, if we brought together passive insulation and passive solar gain, we could at the very least halve our energy costs.
THE ENVIRONMENT
The average person in a developed country throws away about 450 kg (1,000 lb) of rubbish every year. The easiest way for us to make a difference to the amount of energy used and the amount of pollution produced would be to cut both consumption and waste. If we buy fewer throwaway items – short-life goods and packaging – and if we recycle goods, we will take weight off both ends of the consumption-pollution seesaw. With efficiency and conservation being key components of energy sustainability, the best advice for us as individuals is to tackle the problem by nibbling away at our initial need for grid energy. The truth is that if we all did a little the problem would be well on the way to being solved.
Many people who are new to self-sufficiency find it difficult to stay focused and balanced. For example, I know of one couple who are doing their best to be self-sufficient; they keep chickens for eggs and bees for honey, they grow fruit, they run courses, and so on. Yet, while they are so desperately concerned about every aspect of the environment – cars, fossil fuels, organic food – their neighbours drive huge, fuel-guzzling cars, and are champions of unrestrained consumption. The question is what to do? The answer is beautifully simple. We live in a free society where each one of us is entitled to do what we like within the law. These neighbours are perfectly entitled to lead their lives as they think fit. My advice to this young couple would be to quietly lead their own lives – certainly they should not preach or in any way start telling the neighbours how they should lead their lives. The best that they can hope for is that things will slowly change around them – smaller cars, incentives to recycle rubbish, and so on.
ORGANIC FOOD
Even the most ardent anti-organic growers and producers – those people and organizations who were once pulling up hedges, spreading artificial fertilizers and spraying chemicals and pesticides everywhere – are now coming around to the fact that the future has to be organic. The reason for this huge U-turn on the part of governments is that, for growers who once advocated factory farming, facts, figures and reports have shown that the dangers of agrochemicals and pesticides are all too real. The endless food scares have shown that ‘what goes around comes around’. The simple fact is that, if we spread poisons on the land today, these self-same poisons will be back on our plates tomorrow.
All that said, while we do have to look at the negatives in farming – if only to see how not to do it – it is so much more exciting and upbeat to look at the positives. Perhaps it is enough to say that, from a self-sufficiency viewpoint, organic gardening and organic food can be equated with tastier food, healthier eating, more exercise, improved nutrition, a healthier environment, better soil conditions, better wildlife and geneally a healthier lifestyle.
Home-grown organic food is the best option on many counts – it is tastier, healthier and all-round good fun to grow.
LIFESTYLE
Being self-sufficient will eventually have an impact on every aspect of your life – where you live, how you live, the work you do, the car you drive, the food you eat, and all your activities. In this respect, it is very difficult to dabble with self-sufficiency, or settle for half measures. For example, it would be strange to become interested in off-grid energy and then buy a car that has a very high fuel consumption – the two just would not go together. So it is for food, entertainment, clothes, everything. Once you start out on self-sufficiency it is very difficult to be anything other than totally committed. Being committed does have its problems, and it can be hard work, but the positive aspects will by far outweigh the negative ones. You will be eating better food, your appetite will be better, your stress levels will go down, you will know what it is that you are eating, you will get more physical exercise, you will be fitter, you might well be able to give up your car, and you will be presented with a whole range of interesting food-producing options – chickens, pigs, bees, organic gardening. You may be able to say that you are physically tired and exhausted, and doing so much exercise that you are losing weight, but you will not be able to say that you are bored or stressed, or have difficulty sleeping.
If nothing else, digging the garden will make you fitter, and you