A newspaper writer addressing offshore drilling recently said, very matter-of-factly, that no rational person could seriously suggest cutting back on energy use, because that would send civilization back to the Stone Age. I’ve been seriously advocating cutting back on energy use for about four decades now, and most of the time, I’m quite rational.

My argument goes like this: About 70% of our energy is used for transportation. How much of that could be eliminated without even getting close to going back to the Stone Age?

One advantage of getting old is that in scenarios like this I can compare today with when I was a kid, 60 years ago. We didn’t have a car.  We had bicycles, but my dad usually walked to work and we walked to school, church, shopping, and visiting relatives. On rare occasions we rode the bus to a nearby town, took the train on longer trips, and in an emergency, there were taxis.

We lived in a small town, but city life was similar. And my country cousins were also able to walk to school, church, and the country store.

Today my kids, their spouses, and their kids all have personal, individual cars. And I honestly don’t think they’re any better off than we were.

So, is the writer cited above talking about an honest-to-goodness primitive Stone Age, or is he just using that as a metaphor for retreating a bit from a civilization that produces (and uses) 1,000 barrels of oil every second of every day? If my childhood was what you want to call the Stone Age, I say, “Bring it on!”

Sure, everything was different then. For one thing, it was possible to walk almost anywhere. But instead of saying it’s impossible to reduce energy use without going primitive, wouldn’t it be more rational to consider making it possible to walk again? After all, we got into this mess only because the automobile made it possible!

If you think this is outrageous, check this out: Some people are actually choosing their homes on the basis of “walking scores.” Web sites such as www.walkscore.com allow you to type in an address in any of 2,500 neighborhoods in the 40 largest U.S. cities and get a rating based on the distance of certain amenities such as shopping. This doesn’t help rural-dwelling homesteaders, but then, we are supposedly more self-sufficient and eco-conscious than the average urbanite anyway. Interestingly, our rural area has seen a recent resurgence in those old-time country crossroads stores, mostly Mennonite. As it is, we often go a week or more without even opening the car door.

And of course, we’re vastly outnumbered by city people, who use most of the petroleum and therefore could account for saving most of it.

Fewer cars and miles traveled would also mean less need for new roads and maintenance, traffic lights and cops. There would be less smog and fewer traffic accidents. We’d spend less on insurance, tires, and batteries.

This is just personal transportation. We haven’t even mentioned transporting goods, especially food, which is the focus of locavores. And what about lawns… and energy slaves…

But oops, I see another argument coming: All that would raise havoc with our capitalist economic system (which is no more pure capitalism than our government is pure democracy), and that would certainly — you guessed it — send us back to the Stone Age!

On second thought, maybe that’s not such a bad idea. Then we could start over again, on a more sustainable — and rational — basis. — Jd Belanger

Farm workers have issued a challenge to the 15 million or more unemployed Americans: Come on, take our jobs!

The effort is tongue-in-cheek and its real purpose is immigration reform, but it made me think about something else.

If you’ve been following my scribblings you’re aware that I’ve been suggesting that many unemployed people could make productive use of their enforced idleness by doing what many employed people dream of, but are too busy to accomplish: homesteading. At the very least, they could grow some of their own food. And you’re also aware that I have been saying (for years) that most Americans have no idea where their food comes from — and that it’s highly subsidized, which is one of the reasons growing your own isn’t always cheaper than store-bought stuff. But this farm workers’ campaign combines all that and more in a neat package, and ties it with a bow.

The U.S. Dept. of Labor says three out of four farm workers were not born in this country, and more than half are here illegally. A small part of this complex issue involves the concern that illegal aliens are working, while American citizens are not. So the United Farm Workers are saying, “come on, take our jobs!” not because they expect very many takers, but because the lack of enthusiasm for that back-breaking kind of labor will spotlight the need for immigrant workers.

I have had some experience with this. The first time in my life I ever made more than $100 a week was as a migrant laborer. That was in 1953, when $100 was big money. The catch: the pay was 90¢ an hour. (Side note: That was a decent wage. I worked many jobs for 75¢ an hour, even years later.) That means an average 14-15 hour workday, although I vividly recall one sweltering June morning when we started at 6 a.m as usual, worked straight through to 2 a.m. the next day, and went back to work at 6 again.

And I was 15 years old. Even then, nobody wanted to work like that, so the 16-year age limit was lowered to help save the crop.

This was in a Wisconsin pea cannery, in the days before peas were combined in the field. Truckloads of pea vines were dumped and forked into the viner by hand. The shelled peas spilled into wooden boxes, while the vines piled up in huge stinking stacks. My job was to remove and stack each box as it was filled, replacing it with an empty. The guys forking the vines into the shelling machine worked a lot harder than I did.

A few years later, I found myself in California, nearly broke and with nothing to do. So I signed on to pick green beans, by hand. We were paid by the pound.

Little kids picked more than I did, and made more money. (They also spoke much better Spanish.) A buddy and I combined a day’s wages to buy a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter, which is all we had to live on. Shortly after that I enlisted in the Marine Corps, where the pay was $90 a month, but at least we got to eat. (A few years later I was back with the migrants, but that time to interview César Chávez, founder of the United Farm Workers, for a magazine article.)

Based on those experiences alone, I don’t foresee many average American citizens rushing to become farm laborers, even when their unemployment checks run out. And to be perfectly honest, I don’t really expect very many to become homesteaders, either. We as a nation have become too soft to do much actual physical labor, too dependent to scratch for ourselves, and too mentally lazy to figure it all out.

So the long spiraling vortex down the tube continues, with apparently nobody seeing the tangled webs and connections, much less able to deal with them. I certainly don’t have any answers — aside from homesteading, which is only slightly more popular than picking beans for The Man in triple digit temperatures.

When it all hits the bottom, that’s when things will change. Seems like that time is getting closer and closer.

Note: If you’re looking for work, fill out the online form under the banner “I want to be a farm worker” at www.takeourjobs.org

I’m down on blogging again, not in spite of my week off, but because of it. After driving 2,450 miles, I’m more convinced than ever that the world has gone crazy, and blogging is part of it.

Last Friday we were attending the American Conifer Society national convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. The entire trip violated most of the principles I love to rail against, especially in blogs. We burned up more than 90 gallons of gas, adding to the pollution and helping justify all that road construction and everything else that goes with the automobile culture. Even though we try to patronize local diners and cafes, there were times when we couldn’t find anything but McDonalds-type places. And then there was the old truism: no matter where you go, there you are. So why bother?

Why does everybody want to be someplace else? I didn’t know before we went, and I don’t know now. Sure, travel is broadening and all of that rot, and I’m sure that for some people at least it’s both educational and entertaining. But I’ll wager that for 90 percent of us, it’s nothing but mindless diversion.

Of course, this comes from a guy who, early in his career as a magazine writer, flew 100,000 miles a year, until every airport and hotel room looked the same. I quit that job so I could stay home and garden and raise chickens and goats. That was more than 40 years ago, and every time a plane passes overheard I still look up and wonder who’s on it, where they’re going, and why. I’ve written about this in my Countryside Beyond the Sidewalks column and got some tart replies from people who had just been on important trips, such as attending a funeral. That doesn’t change my basic view, but even if it did, it doesn’t affect my own attitude toward travel.

Yes, we saw some interesting sights. Meaning gardens, mostly, since not much else holds much interest for me any more. But they weren’t that interesting. A prime example: a pot at the famed Biltmore Estate Gardens in Asheville featured common kale — yes, the vegetable — and Creeping Jenny, which many gardeners consider a weed. And it cost $60 to look at it. (Okay, so they threw in America’s largest “home” too. Big deal. We didn’t even go in.)

We met some interesting people. In most cases, it was a brief encounter: we didn’t get to know each other, and we’ll probably never meet again. I’ve had much more interesting, and meaningful, relationships with pen pals in the olden days of paper letters, envelopes and stamps.

We learned a few things, but shucks, I learn something new every day without leaving home. Well, I learned some things I wouldn’t pick up at home.

For example, I was dimly aware that if I had a laptop computer I could have sent a blog last Friday from almost anywhere. But not having been out in the world lately, I had no idea how ubiquitous that has become. For me, getting away from the computer for a week or two ought to be part of a vacation. Other people go into a restaurant and open their laptops before they look at the menu.

Of course, that’s still not as bad as cell phones. Some people should have them embedded into their skulls. What took the cake in this department was when a lady pulled up next to our convention tour bus at a stop light with not one, but two cell phones! She was talking on one, texting on the other, and supposedly driving a car on a very busy highway in a large city, all at the same time. What in the world could she possibly have been saying that was so all-fired important?

She’s crazy. But so is most of the world. No doubt many would say the same about me, but that doesn’t mean I have get involved in their kind of insanity. I like the Amish precept of being in the world, but not of the world. I went for 10 days without reading a real newspaper or looking at a computer. When I got home and reverted to my old reading habits, I wondered why. If I didn’t miss it then, and don’t enjoy it now, why not just become a hermit?

Putting it all together, I don’t think the world needs any more yapping like I’m doing here. But I do think I know at least part of the answer.

A city fellow was visiting his brother on the homestead. The city brother’s family was impressed by the animals, the gardens, and the fresh food, but somewhat aghast at all the work involved.

Sitting on the porch after dinner, the city relatives talked about their Caribbean cruise last spring, their new iPad, and their upcoming trip to Las Vegas, while the country folks were more focused on the new kid goats and how good the tomatoes were looking.

Finally, the city brother said, “Bro, you really should get away once in awhile. Why don’t you come to our summer place on the lake and spend a few days on our boat?”

“Can’t,” came the reply. “Soon’s we get the hay in, it’ll be canning season.”

“Good Heavens,” the city brother exploded. “How come you never have any fun!?”

The homesteader calmly replied, “We’re happy. Happy people don’t need to have fun.”