Depletion and Abundance: Life on the New Home Front Book

Acknowledgments     xiii
Where Are We?     1
Getting Out the Boats: A Primer on Hard Times     3
Time to Get Out Our Boats     3
Facing up to the Future     5
Hurry Up, Please; It's Time     9
Defining Our Terms     10
With What Will We Fix It, Dear Liza, Dear Liza?     17
Actions as Activism: The New Home Front and the Riot for Austerity     19
The Riot for Austerity     19
On the New Home Front     22
Reconsidering Public and Private     24
Women's Work and Political Power     26
The Political is Also the Personal     30
The Power Lines     30
Coming Together on the Home Front     33
The Church Model of Community Building     36
Time to Pick Up Your Hat     39
Pick Up Your Hat     39
Feels Like I'm Dyin' From that Old Used-to-Be     43
The Long-Term Problem of Technological Solutions     45
Not the End of the World     48
The Theory of Anyway     49
Money Changes Everything     53
Meet the Real Economy     55
Confronting the Real Economy     55
Self-sufficiency as theOpposite of Poverty     58
Peasant Economics for Everyone     61
Digging for Dollars     63
Making Ends Meet     73
The Problem of Consumption     73
Use-What-You-Have Adaptation     74
Get Out of Debt     76
Use It Up, Wear It Out, Make It Do or Do Without     77
Hang On to Your House     79
Real Family Values - Facing the Future Together     85
Talking Population With the Old Men     87
Why Bring Up Population?     87
Trusting Women     89
The Limits of I=PAT     90
Understanding the Demographic Transition     93
The Tragedy of the Bathroom     100
The Permaculture of Family     107
Home Economics and the "Mommy Wars"     107
Husbanding Our Resources     118
This is the Way the World Ends... With Your Brother-in-Law Sleeping on Your Couch     121
Raising Kids in a New World: Family Life and Education     127
I Don't Know How She Does It!     127
Toys are Not Us     128
Childhood in a Changing World     132
School and Energy     135
Home Economics, Home-Land Security     143
Little House in the Suburbs     145
Home is Where You are Now     145
Staying Put     151
Buy or Rent?     154
Where to Live?     155
Sufficiency Plan for a Suburban Home     160
The Beauty and Necessity of the Low-Energy Home     165
Why the Lights Go Out and What to Do About It     165
What Life in Our Low-Energy Home Looks Like     173
Food and Health: The New Basics     179
The Bountiful Home: Grow and Preserve What You Need     181
The Crazy Lady and the Garden     181
The Bull's-Eye Diet     186
How to Start Your Garden     193
Squirrel Time     194
The Hand that Stirs the Pot, Rules the World     197
It's All About Food     197
Getting Over Picky     198
Food Preservation and Democracy     203
Frugality, Economy, Preparedness     206
How to Eat Cheap     209
Health Care     213
Public Health     213
The Myths of Medicine     215
The Costs and Benefits of Modern Medicine     218
Why Health Care Should Be at the Center of Things     219
The Most Bang for the Health Care Buck      221
The Beginning and the End     225
Recompense     229
Abundance, Democracy, Joy     231
Scared? Duh!     231
Abundance     234
Am I Romanticizing Poverty?     236
The One Thing We Did Right     240
Things You Can Do to Get Ready for Peak Oil, Climate Change and Difficult Times     243
The Best Books About Nearly Everything     257
Index     267
About the Author     273