Because we seem to be trying to turn a planet that supports life into one that does not, I’m posting a question or topic here every week to see if together we can work out some nuts and bolts of how to survive. The whole linkable list of prior questions/discussions can be found here.
This week’s discussion topic: It’s Cheaper To Invest Now.
Life-saving investments can be expensive, but they’ll be more expensive later
We all know a gram of prevention is worth a kilogram of cure, and that in the trio of fast/cheap/good you only get 2 out of 3 (i.e. fast and good isn’t cheap, fast and cheap isn’t good, and cheap and good isn’t fast). But for dealing with climate chaos, is this idea actually true? We are out of time, so is expensive all that is left?
Let’s look at individually-owned technologies first
In the U.S. in the 90s and very early 2000s, Electric vehicles (EVs) were initially availble in limited quantities for lease only, then were repossessed and destroyed by automobile companies once they had scuttled a few key environmental laws. In the late 2000s, along comes Musk with his very expensive, luxury iteration of the EV; Teslas still dominate the U.S. EV market today. So buying a new EV in the U.S. is generally a big ticket purchase, and while the used EV market here is growing and prices are falling, the number of used cars available is limited.
Solar panels are still a big upfront cost for most people. If you don’t have the cash on hand, can’t get a loan, or there aren’t programs in place to support the purchase and installation of solar panels, you’re reduced to small scale solar (solar radios, solar phone chargers, maybe a single folding panel to run a sewing machine). And adding batteries to the equation can increase the cost substantially.
Heat pumps are yet another big ticket item that yield big benefits in terms of personal comfort and greatly reduced CO2 output plus energy savings. There are some programs in place in the U.S. to help people get heat pumps, and installation prices are going down as more contractors are learning how to install them. Pair a heat pump with insulation (an old technology with lots of options and a wide range of price points) and you’ve got a comfortable climate container, but at a cost.
The general advice on tech is that as it is more widely adopted, it will go down in price. So being an early adopter will cost a lot of money and might result in lower quality than will be available later. However, there are a lot of assumptions in that statement that we need to look at, specifically the assumption that life will go on as usual: that technology will continue to be refined and developed, that your ability to purchase technology will continue as is or increase, and that the infrastructure to support technology will continue to be available and growing. These are not safe bets in the middle of climate chaos.
What about individual non-technological investments?
You can collect and store water, you can grow food, you can grow shade, you can landscape for fire control — all these investments range from free to very expensive, depending on how you do them. For example, collecting and storing water can be planting natives in swales that recharge the groundwater or buying and installing stainless steel water tanks -- one takes effort and the other takes money.
Along the same lines is creating and maintaining a community that supports survival. This can be in planned developments, informal groupings, tenancy-in-commons, a tight-knit neighborhoods, condo complexes, cohousing, religious communities, political communities, etc, etc. The options here are endless, the time investments tend to be big, but the money investments often (but not always) less so. For community, a lot depends on if you are betting on staying in place or being mobile. Both options historically have been tried and refined, but neither has faced what we are facing now.
It’s a brave new world.
No matter what you pick, you’re likely better off investing now
Assuming that things will continue as they always have is denial. The physics and chemistry are very clear, and the time we have to act in is getting shorter and shorter, faster and faster. When systems collapse, money (paper or photon) will lose value, whereas things you can depend on such as heat pumps and communities will gain in value. Now seems like the right time to be turning the effort spent accumulating money into actual things and communities that will actually be usable.
Weimar republic million mark notes being used as scratch paper.
When there are no EVs available, it’ll be clear that if you wanted an EV investing earlier would have been good.
Figure out what things you actually need or what experiences or services are vital. Teeth? Eyes? Other medical needs? Stay-in-place infrastructure? Mobile living? Seed stock? A still? Raw materials? What do you need to invest in to try to survive?
