Bottom Up Solutions: What Options Do We Have?

The race for the next Prime Minister is getting started. But judging by the focus of the candidates (culture war and tax cuts), none of them are serious about the crises gripping this country. It looks like whoever wins, we lose. This country will continue to go downhill, with the next PM promising to get into the driving seat and put his or her foot on the accelerator. If we're to thrive through this, we need to rediscover the pre-war English model of not relying on central government to get anything done.

Unfortunately, local government is a mess, and doing anything on a large scale invites the meddling of both them and Westminster. Anything requiring a competent government just isn't going to happen. Realistically, we need to be focused on the upper left of this grid -- solutions that require relatively small amounts of resources and which can be done without buy in from The Powers That Be (co-ordination difficult as I use it here comprises both the number of stakeholders you need onboard and how hard it is to get them onboard).


So, here's my jumble of thoughts on what options might be available to us as the state continues to fail and supply chains crumble. These are preliminary thoughts, not worked out plans; it may be that they take far more resources, or get crushed by the governments, than I first suspect.

Housing

You need to be permitteddevelopmentmaxxing. There are a lot of options available to extending houses without needing to beg permission from the local officials, and if your house was built (as most were) between 1948 and 2018, this includes the right to add additional floors, which can contain flats -- it is now legal to convert a bungalow to a duplex. Legally subdividing a house into individual flats requires permission, but renting out a large ensuite bedroom with its own external entrance, or lockable door in the case of a house in multiple occupation, does not. There is space to improve the provision of HMOs and lodging, which fall into the unilateral/low co-ordination (consider a small group buying a house to max and subdivide) and small resource squares. And if we are lucky, maybe we can convince the government to allow Accessory Dwellings by right...

Transport

The present government has promised to stop treating e-scooters as any different legally to e-bicycles, a policy that hopefully will survive the next one. Scooters and bicycles, whether human powered or electrically assisted, are great for short (1-5 mile) distances, and are transport options that fit the upper left square of being unilateral and demanding little resources to accomplish. Other options for improving transport are more carpooling (tiny resource cost, some co-ordination required), share taxis, and vanpooling (increased resource cost over carpooling, due to the need to purchase the minibus, but increased fuel efficiency per passenger).

Energy

Perhaps the most salient issue at the moment, the rising cost of energy. Let us put aside any hope government action reducing costs, whether in the short or long term. The question then becomes what can be done on the domestic level to either reduce demand or produce more energy (all of which are by nature unilateral by the homeowner of course). Demand side, there is still much low hanging fruit with regards to insulation. Many savings can be had by focusing on keeping the body warm rather than the whole house. Appliances are not as efficient as they could be -- there is still much room for redesigning fridges and freezers to reduce the loss of cold air and enable them to use power when it is available, and certain off the shelf options like swapping out ovens for slow cookers can save a lot of energy. On the supply side, heat pumps can significantly increase the efficiency of heating, by making use of the low grade heat this planet has in abundance. Solar thermal systems can provide hot water, whilst a solar PV system large enough to power lighting and tablets would not be that expensive to purchase.

I have other ideas, about how we can fix healthcare, education, food production etc, but these three seem to be the most pressing ones. Again, I have no idea how well they will work in practice. But I suppose the only way to find out is to put them into practice...

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