The ‘why’ of survival and self-reliance

I grew up in Utah, an area with a strong culture of self-reliance. We were often reminded by our leaders that we needed to have a two-year supply of food and medicine in case of an emergency. During the height of the Cold War many of us thought that we would need our food storage to survive a nuclear winter. One of the drills our community would do was for a church leader to choose a family to go for one week without going to the store. On the following week the family would tell the congregation about the experience. One week, three different speakers were assigned to give talks in church, not about how to store food and make preparations for emergencies, but why we should try to survive an emergency. While most members could easily talk about how to prepare and store food, and which foods last the longest, the topic of why it is important to survive an emergency stumped all the speakers. They all stumbled for ideas, with one saying all he could find in the scriptures was John the Baptist eating honey in the desert, so maybe we should store more honey.

A main purpose of the Aquaculture Science & Self-reliance project is to teach self-reliance, but why? Another question is why is it so important to produce energy through renewable sources? Why do we need so much energy anyway? Do we really need so much “stuff” that just ends up in the landfill? Paul Griffith, the president and chief scientist of Makani Power, explains that we simply use too much power and resources; however, he goes on to say that life can actually be better as we use less. He uses an the example of driving to work frustrated because of the traffic jams, or riding a bike to work along tree lined sidewalks. Another example he used was children walking and talking together on their way to school, compared to riding a bus, or riding in a car with a parent in a hurry to get to work.

Our hydroponics manager has his own Makani power (Makani is his son). The Makani Power that Paul Griffith is the president of is a company developing kites that can produce energy from the wind (Makani is the Hawaiian word for wind). The kites tap into the higher level wind energy, which is faster and more consistent. One kite design has the kite pull a cord that is wrapped around a spool that turns a turbine as it feeds line to the kite. When the kite has traveled to its limit, it does a dive and the cord is wound back onto the spool using much less energy than what was produced as the kite is fed out. It is estimated that kites can produce energy for less than half the cost of a ground mounted wind turbine. Another design is to use two kites with one kite reeling out while the other is coming in, and an even different concept is to use a series of kites flying in figure 8 patterns that causes the air to flow over the kites at speeds faster than the ambient wind speed (guardian.co.uk, Aug, 3, 2008 “Giant kites to tap power of the high wind”).

So maybe, instead of worrying about our dropping “standard of living,” we can think in terms of quality of life and take action to improve it. In the near future we may be able to fly kites at the beach that will produce power for the music, lights, and cooler; however, tomorrow most of us could choose to go to the beach and enjoy wave energy, wind energy breeze, and the friendship of friends and family; while at the same time leaving the air con, lights, and entertainment devices at home off. We can set time as families to plan our meals and go together shopping to get everything in one trip, rather than taking numerous trips throughout the week that waste time and energy.

Many people enjoyed observing the traditional canoes during the Flame Tree festival. The crew members seemed to be having high quality life experiences as they demonstrated their skills and worked together to prepare the boat for the return voyage. Quality of life can be improved by listening and learning from our elders. Learn about native plants and medicines, listen to stories of how they entertained themselves when they had to survive the war years, learn from the experiences they can pass down. All of us will need to use fewer resources and less energy to protect our limited resources; however, the challenge should be to remember why it is important that we survive.