Is anyone else considering switching to a life of militant environmentalism

[Saveourearthuk]

Me and DH are absolutely petrified and can no longer in any good conscience collide in the selfish shitshow that is modern life destroying the plannet. We are thinking of in the next few years
-selling most/all of our possessions
-selling the house
-moving to a small shack in the woods
-we would forrage for food and drink from a well
-we would use no modern technology and essentially shun the outside world.
While this might seem radical we are willing to bravely make this sacrifice to save our glorious planet. Is anyone else considering this?

That cannot be a model for everyone. By separating yourself from society in this way, I doubt you'll have a role in shaping it to become better.

Ironically considering this site's focus, the single best thing you can do for the environment in the long term is don't have any (more) children. Or pets. (Well, actually the best thing is probably to kill a lot of people, but I'm not encouraging that!)

After that it's living car-free, avoiding air travel and indeed any long-distance travel, and going vegan.

And if by doing that you set a good example and lead others to follow, you just might do more than by reclusing yourself from society.

Nope! Because in the scheme of things it won't achieve anything. we all need to be making massive changes which most people will only do when it's been imposed on us.

You should seek proper help for feeling like this. Seriously it’s not normal or healthy.

@Saveourearthuk

Me and DH are absolutely petrified and can no longer in any good conscience collide in the selfish shitshow that is modern life destroying the plannet. We are thinking of in the next few years -selling most/all of our possessions -selling the house -moving to a small shack in the woods -we would forrage for food and drink from a well -we would use no modern technology and essentially shun the outside world. While this might seem radical we are willing to bravely make this sacrifice to save our glorious planet. Is anyone else considering this?

"we are willing to bravely make this sacrifice to save our glorious planet."

Oh FFS, what twaddle! 'Bravely.' Did you hold the back of your hand to your forehead and sink onto your fainting couch as you said this? You sound as if you are drunk, and maybe you are - drunk on being a melodramatic drama llama misunderstood heroine.

What you are describing bears no relation to 'militant environmentalism'. That would involve actually doing something; protests, campaigning, lobbying, being prepared to go to prison for chaining yourself to the railings. Not thinking how romantic it would all be to withdraw into the woods. (Spoiler alert - you're more likely to pick up a waterborne disease and malnutrition with your pie-in-the-sky plans.)

Don't be ridiculous. You will achieve absolutely nothing.

No, I could never live like that. I don't eat meat, do refill shopping / minimal plastic, never fly, don't often drive, use cloth nappies / wipes and hardly ever buy new clothes. Took over a year to make all these changes and that's enough for me.

Yes, but militaristic in the sense of becoming an activist, protesting, organising, going to jail, running for parliament or taking a company or the government to court over environmental crimes.

A couple in BC did something similar for a year. But the plot they are on is VERY fortuitously located. www.cheknews.ca/chek-upside-one-year-later-we-check-in-with-pender-island-couple-living-solely-off-the-land-859874/

Ah, I see Lovefall mentioned them further upthread

Sounds a fantastic idea - enjoy.

You could make a start by recycling your phone or laptop or whatever you're using to access MN. That would be a start - recycle the components and use less energy to charge the things. But do let us know how it goes, especially when 1000 other people also build cabins in your woods and start pissing in your water supply because they also haven't thought about it properly.

Nah. Until the big companies get their act together even if I lived the rest of my life carbon neutral, it would be pissing in the ocean.

Interestingly, I feel exactly the same when it comes to women's rights. There's absolutely no point in me pretending that women are equal when the big boys don't have their act together. Instead I'll just wait for them to lead the way and until then I'll expect women to remain in their "place".

By militant I thought you meant blowing up a fossil fuel power station. That would actually be doing something. Attempting to live outside of society won’t achieve anything even if you do succeed

You'll get a lot of stick OP but honestly, 10-30 years from now we'll all be utterly fucked so any practice you get in self sufficiency will be invaluable.

How are you going to handle your waste without polluting more than the very efficient sewer system we have? How will you stay warm in winter in the middle of nowhere without polluting more than being in a city that (all or partly) uses green energy? What will you use to cook your food? Because burning wood is terrible for the envirement. Living in a civilization does make some things more efficient and greener.

I've stayed in a house in a nature reserve (but not forest) without electricity, gas or sewage in my youth. I don't think that it's a less polluting way to live.

Quite a lot of people have done this, as in living a different way of life, as shown on TV programmes, like the Ben Fogle ones. You have to plan big time for a massive change of lifestyle, and be very resilient in all ways, and be able to cope, with inventing , and making things, mainly out of nothing, for yourselves , to be able to live in a rough and ready kind of way.. It's not just like going camping for the weekend.

You can wash your clothes in the river in the woods, and string some rope up on the branches of a tree, to dry the washing., but you have to make your own pegs out of bits of wood lying around. And you will need a few chickens to get some eggs,, but no chicken feed, as they can find their food in the woods.

Loads on tiktok live 'off grid' but all tik tok which I don't get.

Are you in the UK? What happens if one of you die or get seriously ill?

Can you cope with the cold? Serious question.

How will your source food? Water?

I mean corona might wipe us all out but really they don't predict the world ending for a long time.

I can thoroughly recommend reading “Factfulness” by Hans Rosling when you have feelings like this.

Forage for food and drink out of a well? Do you live in an Enid Blyton novel? And why does it need to be a shack, surely if you’re already building you could build something nice, little house on the prairie style.

Anyway, we won’t be doing this. My son gets aggravated when we can’t get the right brand of crisps, don’t know how he’d feel about foraging in the woods and drinking from a well - especially given I’ve never seen a drinking well just hanging out in close proximity to good shack building space.

No

People keep saying saying 'loads of people have done this' then listing people who haven't done what op is proposing.

Op wants to shun all modern technology. Thats quite different

@SchrodingersImmigrant

I hope you also weave your own yoghurt... Unfortunately not😔 i am fully eartan though. I only eat soil and what i can grow. My cave is very good for mushrooms, which i unfortunately hate😔 Worth the sacrifice tho

Mushrooms? Luxury! We dreamed of having mushrooms. The best we could manage was to suck on a bit of damp moss clawed off the cave wall. But we were lucky.

Who's woods are you going to live in, OP? Unless you own the land then you can't go setting up home in someone else's... Everything belongs to someone/thing in one way or another, be it privately, council, trust, business, royal estate...

If you want to help our planet you need to help change behaviour in China and India

No one needs to go to that extreme anyway, but yes I make lots of choices with environmental impact in mind.