The future; pretty picture or scary thought? What does the future of humanity look like? What does my future look like? I feel the best way to convey my idea of what the future looks like it to describe a bit about what I picture my future to look like.
The year is 2032. I can hear the crow of the rooster in the coup in my backyard. I rise, stretch, and roll over. The sun is not quite up yet but I can hear my 13 year old stir muffled by the sound of the PV panels on my roof redirecting to catch those first morning rays from the east. I roll over and wake my husband; it’s time to start the day. I get up and throw on a Canadian made sweatshirt and rubber boots. It has become increasingly important to buy Canadian or better yet locally produced goods. Since the price of oil has risen over 200 hundred dollars a barrel the import and export of goods has become increasingly expensive, giving boom to local production operations.
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| hoflandtech.com |
Once my son brushes his teeth we both head out to the back garden and chicken coup. My son picks a cup full of raspberries for his oatmeal, tomatoes, a pepper and a cucumber, while I collect the beautiful presents left by my eight hens. I quickly give the gardens a spray of water from one of our rain collection barrels around the house. The cost of water provided by the city has increased significantly since we started selling large quantities of water to our counter parts experiencing severe drought due to climate change in southern west coast, this has led to increased concern over water usage and lawn watering has been banned in our neighbourhood. I can feel the rising sun on my neck and sweat begins to run down my back. It’s only early May but climate change has increased the annual average temperature by 3°C and the seasons have begun to change drastically.
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As I follow my son back into the house I note that my husband is finished his shower. I instruct him to use the harvested veggies to make our lunches and I take my turn. As is step under the low flow head I remember back to the weekend 10 years ago we installed our new solar thermal hot water system. It cost us $3200 to install and to date we have saved over $6342 dollars; not only have we covered the cost of the system but we have begun to benefit financially.
I jump out quickly, as to use as little water as possible and quickly turn on my blow drying. Since the sun is up it should be running solely off PV power and not using the excess energy we have stored in batteries attached to the PV system. We installed the 20 PV panels when we first bought this house, 15 years ago now, and since we have added 15 more. We have been off the grid now for 8 years, and occasionally generate enough to even feed back into the grid. I can’t remember the last energy bill I received.
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| cmhc-schl.gc.ca |
I hurry downstairs to cook my eggs. I can see my husband out by the garage unplugging our car, and I urge our son to dress accordingly and hurry out to the car. We bought our first electric car over 11 years ago now. It was around that time that barrels of oil reached $150 a barrel and the city pushed or the implementation of several electric charging stations. After installing the last 5 PV panels on the roof we are also able to charge our car at home fully by energy from the sun. We only own one car today; we sold our second 13 years ago and have never looked back. It was hard to adjust at first but I have become very efficient in my everyday life by using a bicycle and transit.
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| cmhc-schl.gc.ca |
As my son and husband begin their day I hope on my bicycle and begin my journey. I only ride approximately 2 km, as I live outside the city, to the closest neighbourhood; a Wind Walk community. This community has an excellent transportation system within but I load my bike onto the bus headed downtown. There are lots of the examples of “new urbanization” that have popped up in the last 10 years. Not only have they begun construction on the outskirts of the city to deal with the quick population increases but they have also utilized old wasted space within the city. Transportation efficiency within the city has improved tremendously in the last 10 years. Not only has the city begun to structure differently, increasing density and decreasing land use, but transportation within has improved sufficiently within. People are now able to live closer to where they work and travel there more efficiently.
As I sit on the bus I have the day ahead to think about. I am contemplating what to grab at the market for dinner on my way home. We attempt to eat a diet of food grown or produced within a 100km of our home. We are able to almost fully follow this guideline as we produce most of our own fruits and vegetables, eggs and chicken. As I said before import and export costs have increased making it only really economically to buy local these days. I also begin thinking about our yearly camping trip. We forfeited our annual trip to Mexico 5 years ago. Plane flight costs have increase so rapidly due to the price of oil that vacation is a thing of the past. Perhaps one day we will save up enough to travel again.
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Although it appears that we will have less tangible items or extravagances we enjoy today in the future, I anticipate being closer to my family and community. I can’t make choices for others surrounding me, but I can shape my life to influence the future of the world I wish to see. I have to be the change I want to see.
