Thanks for the thorough write-up. I appreciate how much time it took you to do this.
I'll toss in my two cents on the thought process. I did something very similar several years ago. I listed all of our necessities - starting with heat, water and food, and getting down to details like dental hygiene and entertainment (fun and games are important, too!). For each item on the list, I marked whether it is available locally (i.e. is it sustainable in the absence of global supply chains) and whether we have an alternative or backup source. Wherever the answer was no, I tried to think of alternative sources/methods.
I'll just give a few examples to demonstrate the process. We use city water, but there is a spring just up the hill from the house that we could use in a pinch (in fact, we regularly use it to water the garden, but would probably want to boil it before drinking it). Absent that, I probably would have thought about digging a well. For heat, we were using imported fossil fuels, so we installed a wood stove to make use of locally available fuel. Hot water is important, too, so we installed a wood-fired bath boiler (which is an easily available commercial product where we live).
For an example from the nitty-gritty end, I thought about what to do about shaving. Of course I could just let my beard grow, but I decided to buy a box of razor blades for my safety razor. I generally prefer sustainable production over stockpiling as a strategy, but in this case it is a small item, not very expensive, and the one box will probably last me the rest of my life at the rate I go through them. I also researched what people did for toothbrushes before plastic toothbrushes were invented. Turns out you can make a pretty good toothbrush out of the twigs of a local tree (you chew on the end to crush the fibers, and then use that end as a brush). I haven't made the switch yet, but it is good to know I have that option.
In some cases, such as the wood-burning stove, the "alternative" has become our primary source. In other cases, it has required learning new skills and/or investing in tools, such as a pressure canner. More often than not, the changes we have made have also saved us money in the here and now, as we have reduced our dependence on commercial products.
no subject
I'll toss in my two cents on the thought process. I did something very similar several years ago. I listed all of our necessities - starting with heat, water and food, and getting down to details like dental hygiene and entertainment (fun and games are important, too!). For each item on the list, I marked whether it is available locally (i.e. is it sustainable in the absence of global supply chains) and whether we have an alternative or backup source. Wherever the answer was no, I tried to think of alternative sources/methods.
I'll just give a few examples to demonstrate the process. We use city water, but there is a spring just up the hill from the house that we could use in a pinch (in fact, we regularly use it to water the garden, but would probably want to boil it before drinking it). Absent that, I probably would have thought about digging a well. For heat, we were using imported fossil fuels, so we installed a wood stove to make use of locally available fuel. Hot water is important, too, so we installed a wood-fired bath boiler (which is an easily available commercial product where we live).
For an example from the nitty-gritty end, I thought about what to do about shaving. Of course I could just let my beard grow, but I decided to buy a box of razor blades for my safety razor. I generally prefer sustainable production over stockpiling as a strategy, but in this case it is a small item, not very expensive, and the one box will probably last me the rest of my life at the rate I go through them. I also researched what people did for toothbrushes before plastic toothbrushes were invented. Turns out you can make a pretty good toothbrush out of the twigs of a local tree (you chew on the end to crush the fibers, and then use that end as a brush). I haven't made the switch yet, but it is good to know I have that option.
In some cases, such as the wood-burning stove, the "alternative" has become our primary source. In other cases, it has required learning new skills and/or investing in tools, such as a pressure canner. More often than not, the changes we have made have also saved us money in the here and now, as we have reduced our dependence on commercial products.