Then think about all the shit we buy. How much of it do we really need? How much of it ends up in the landfill in a year or two?

I worked in logistics for a few years running trucks out of the DRC mainly moving copper cathode and cobalt. When visiting those mines the conditions were horrific from a human and environmental perspective. It really changed how I consume.

Not to mention anything using tantalum capacitors are effectively funding war crimes currently being perpetrated in the DRC.

All of that human life, and the destruction of our plant just to fill a landfill.

When I said buy local I was specifically talking about food and similar. Depending on few factors such as: climate, availability of land, other people with similar goals, food can be easy to produce either as a group or individual basis and there are systems looking at an aquaponics cycle for example tilapia -> leafy greens -> BSF maggots -> you can either split this into chickens and tilapia or just back into tilapia (we’ve done this it really requires a group effort and land availability).

Other things as you’ve mentioned like furniture can be a little more challenging due to economies of scale (also child labour, corruption, and general shittery) that major corporations are able to exploit that a local tradesperson can’t.

For this sort of stuff I just try to budget, I never buy it immediately.

I guess it’s about compromises, and unfortunately for certain things we have to do so.

To reiterate the importance of a group, it’s really made it a lot easier to cut costs by having a group with various expertise.

Depending on how complicated you want to make it you can build a pyrolysis plant this produces various forms of fuel and can be run of a solar panel. The feedstock to this plant is plastics waste be careful of the plastics though as certain plastics produce chlorine gas.

I.t.o farming I highly suggest into looking at aeroponics and aquaponics. Both have disadvantages and advantages. You can construct systems using off the shelf materials. Stay away from turn key solutions. Aeroponics is really interesting and we’ve been playing around with it for a number of years.

Plant a vegetable garden. Build a rain catchment system. Build a solar power system. Read books instead of consuming other media. Buy only local. Start a consumer or retail cooperative. Don’t participate in wanton consumerism.

Voting in the US doesn’t yield desirable results because of the gerrymandering and the voting system; however most changes which directly affect people are made at a grassroots level so participate in activities at a grassroots level.

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Please note that this is a scam. Wiremin is known spyware. These scammers have infested Lemmy.

o7 be safe.

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