Sustainability Blueprint
Practical Climate Adaptation Actions for You, Your Family, and Your Community
PREFACE
Humanity is at a critical juncture. Experts in various disciplines have noted that we are at a tipping point, and how we respond to the challenges before us will determine our future. It is make-or-break time. Our actions individually and collectively will define the coming decades and shape the lives of generations to come.
Choosing to do nothing is a choice that carries untold consequences.
We cannot return to the habits, beliefs, systems, policies, and leadership that have brought us to this juncture of climate crisis, resultant disasters, environmental degradation, and unsustainable growth. That would be insanity. For long-term resiliency, we must change how we structure our society, manage our systems, and treat the environment.
The climate crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic offer a crucial opportunity to examine how we have become so dependent on external sources for our lives and livelihoods, and to understand the vulnerabilities this approach has created. These events also highlight the urgency to develop resilient systems and sustainable solutions at all levels: family, community, and country.
Harmony and balance must be restored, but how? How can one person—you—hope to have an impact in the face of these overwhelming troubles? What is the answer?
The answer is self-reliance.
Making the choice to foster self-reliance and adopt a more self-sufficient lifestyle creates sustainability for your family and future generations, addresses the climate crisis, and protects you from disasters. This holistic solution will require real change. Adjusting systems or tweaking policy will not be enough to move us off our path of self-destruction. Instead, we must rebuild new ways, together. This book offers a blueprint to do just that.
In this book, I explain why self-reliance is the cornerstone of foundational change—and why it is the key to our survival and to the reversal of climate change. I present a three-part blueprint to bridge us to a sustainable future using self-reliance as the vehicle. We must reverse climate change but also learn to adapt to the reality of our situation. By increasing self-reliance, we become less vulnerable and dependent. In so doing, we strengthen our resilience, helping us adapt further.
This solution is an innovative and practical approach to develop self-reliance and secure a sustainable way forward. It offers hope and optimism about the future. It’s an all-in-one toolkit that meets the major challenges threatening the world in tangible, realistic, and powerful ways, starting in your own backyard.
COVID-19
We understand now more than ever that we are unquestionably one world. We are connected to one another in a web of interactions within our communities, our countries, and around the globe. We accept that what happens 10,000 kilometers away, or on a different continent, affects us directly or indirectly. Likewise, what others do—or don’t do—also affects us. Although numerous events throughout history have reminded us of such interconnectedness, including the ongoing climate crisis, no single event has demonstrated it more concretely or visibly than the COVID-19 pandemic that started in 2019.
The pandemic has ravaged almost every country. The novel coronavirus, extremely contagious, started with one case in China and spread worldwide within months. This pandemic has caused not only devastating human suffering, but also enormous economic and social breakdowns. The pandemic revealed how countries have become intimately interconnected, especially when it comes to relying on each other for fundamental goods.
During the pandemic, supply chains were strained, including food production and agriculture, transportation, medications, vital hospital equipment, safety equipment and devices, and personal hygiene items. If any part of the supply chain (production, packaging, delivery) is affected, the product doesn’t make it to market, causing a cascading effect. Disruptions are somewhat manageable for non-essential goods, but they are otherwise chancy. The disruptions in the supply chains highlighted the susceptibility of countries that had outsourced items required for basic needs and survival, placing their own populations at risk.
Likewise, the societal disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic exposed weaknesses in the supply chains. People around the world were sick from the virus and not able to work. Production of goods slowed down, industries stalled, and companies everywhere went out of business. Ground transportation routes were impeded, and international flights were reserved for essential travel. Important goods were not being imported or exported. This situation had a compounding impact on the accessibility of products and on regional economies.
Tightly interwoven supply chains can create dependencies on other countries and subsequently threaten the health of entire communities when they falter. During the COVID-19 pandemic, governments began reaching out to local industries to produce fundamental and life-saving items that had previously been outsourced and that were no longer available.
A chain is no stronger than its weakest link.
—Thomas Reid
While the age-old practice of trade will always be important, it should not inhibit access to the necessities that support people’s lives and livelihoods. The pandemic clearly illustrates that as individuals, families, communities, and countries, we need to adopt more self-reliant practices. We should be able to provide at least the fundamental items required to support our health, homes, and essential services.
Climate Crisis
The climate crisis has similarities to the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of its global influences. One stark difference is that it has been unfolding at a much slower rate, and therefore the consequences are not as noticeably linked. But the reality is grim: decades of multiple effects of the climate crisis have led to consequences of consequences. Environmental costs include floods, fires, drought, heat waves, violent storms, melting ice sheets, rising sea levels, and poor air quality. These disasters have caused food and water shortages; social, economic, and political instability; poverty; climate migration; mass population displacement; and security threats.
We cannot meet the demands of a population that has doubled from 1960 to 2000 (soon to triple) by increasing economic activity six-fold and cultivating one quarter of the earth’s surface without expecting consequences. Humanity’s use of the biosphere is unsustainable. We no longer have the luxury to wait for government, let alone delegate our responsibilities; we must take a proactive role in our future.
The climate crisis is a disaster with decades of research, analysis, and scientific evidence describing it. Yet that knowledge has not been translated into enough action to make a real difference, perpetuating the issue.
We have spent the last 30 years with great ideas and pep talks. It is time for action.—Greta Thunberg
The slower effects of the climate crisis aren’t as tangible as those of the pandemic, masking the urgency and motivation for change and seeming to make it acceptable for us to defer our responsibilities to the next generations. Nonetheless, both disasters alert us that as one world, we need to work collaboratively and urgently to re-establish balance.
Re-Establishing Balance
In these chapters, I show you how to re-establish balance. I take you on a journey into self-reliance and show you how it is the fundamental element of a sustainable future. I define it, explore why it is needed now more than ever, and explain how we got to where we are. Then, I present the blueprint: an innovative, practical, and progressive three-stage action plan to self-reliance.
I have developed a framework for change at the individual, family, and community levels, with steps to self-reliance that you can begin implementing today. Regional and federal governments could of course apply the same principles, structures, and tools to rebuild or retrofit programs and systems on a broader scale. These strategies, centered around families and communities, certainly do not replace the big work needed by organizations, scientists, engineers, policymakers, and politicians. But they do give you a place to start.
This book is about action because action is exactly what we need right now. We have had decades of studies, analysis, and legless vision boards. It is time for real action, and there is no more time to waste.
Action is the antidote to despair.
—Joan Baez
On a Personal Note
People have asked what motivated me to write this book and how I came to create such a groundbreaking blueprint for families and communities.
My motivation has been fueled by an intense passion and a profound love and respect for humanity and the natural world. The thought of harm or trauma that could have been prevented is dreadful. I developed this blueprint from my experience, my ability to see global challenges and how they connect from a bird’s-eye perspective, and my expertise in developing practical solutions to complex problems.
Allow me to explain.
I have spent my life working to solve complex problems in disaster preparedness and response, community and public health and education, and humanitarian operations. It has become clear to me that we desperately need to strengthen our resilience to be able to overcome current and future challenges, let alone, of course, stop destroying the planet.
I have seen the increasing frequency and magnitude of disasters devastating vulnerable communities, as well as the climate crisis fast destroying our survivability. These two elements, combined with our increasing dependency on external sources, have put us on a path to self-destruction. We need an effective and practical solution for families and communities—and fast.
Global and national organizations have been developing strategies to address disasters and the climate crisis, but their work is insufficient, to say the least. I realized that while solutions were being developed at a higher level, the rest of us needed to generate power and influence from the bottom up. We will meet in the middle, I hope, to ignite real change, collectively. Ordinary individuals need to assume a much bigger role and take their futures into their own hands.
I have seen many communities waiting for someone else to step up. In the meantime, residents continue to live according to the status quo, perpetuating the problem. Over time, we have built system upon system to support us, and in doing so, we have somehow delegated our responsibilities and subsequent power to these systems.
The thing is, our lives and livelihoods have always been our responsibility, just as it is our responsibility to protect the planet. Why did we ever choose to destroy the very planet that provides so generously and abundantly for us? What were we thinking? Or maybe we weren’t thinking. It is as if we have been asleep or unconscious for decades and are only now waking up.
Well, it is time. It is time to wake up and get serious about our future—your future.
Families and communities have become more vulnerable and dependent on external sources for their survival. Self-reliance is desperately needed. An impediment in reclaiming our roots has been the assumption that if families are self-reliant, the economy will suffer. Our economy is predicated on the belief that it’s better for business when a vulnerability is created and a subsequent need can be filled for a profit. Valuing profit over long-term health and well-being is not a strategy that we (or the planet) can afford to entertain anymore.
The true strength of our society resides in families and communities, yet tools to help them build resilience are scarce. Information about disasters and the climate crisis is complex and confusing, and not very practical in terms of what one can do to prepare for disasters, mitigate the climate crisis, create a sustainable society, and set the stage for our grandchildren.
Yet the solutions are clear to me. To be honest, I have always had a knack for cutting through the crap and pinpointing practical solutions to complex problems. So, I decided to dedicate my energies to develop tools to support families and communities.
Seven years ago, I mapped out a plan for families to build strength and resilience at the most basic level: survival and essential needs. You see, most people weren’t even ready to manage small emergencies, let alone global crises. So, I wrote my first book,The 7 Steps to Emergency Preparedness for Families: A Practical and Easy-to-Follow Guide to Prepare for Any Disaster. It covers all the bases of how to survive for short periods while preventing harm to your family and protecting your livelihood. There is no better way to understand self-reliance than to learn about basic needs and what it takes to survive.
Then, as the climate crisis advanced exponentially, and we found ourselves in a global pandemic, I saw families even more distressed and vulnerable. If this isn’t a sign that we need to become more resilient, I am not sure what is! I was angry, deeply sad, and fiercely compassionate to see such susceptibility and trauma. It was time to offer the world the next set of strategies, not just to survive, but to thrive. So, I wrote this book.
I developed this blueprint with the simple goal of helping humanity and the planet as best as I can. It holds my vision, experience, skills, intuition, and love for humanity and the natural world. I hope it will help you prevent unnecessary harm and trauma in your family and community, lead to strength and resilience, and protect our beautiful, miraculous, and bountiful planet.
With love, respect, and much gratitude,
Kim
