This happened about the time they no longer deemed it neccesary to know their neighbors. I live in a little pod of two duplexes, do I know more then one name of the other 12 people who live near me? Nope, and they would be insulted if I kept asking.

I actually lived in a cohousing (google it) community some years ago where the place was designed to promote sharing by the evil sneak of an utter lack of garage space. It was there that I found out that sharing meant that the new tricycle that I had purchased for my three year old ended up "shared" in somebody's backyard until she was six and too old to use it. Similiar things happened to several tools I left in the community workshop.

We have lost the sense that our welfare is in any way connected to the person next to us. Your disease, your pain, your financial problems are yours alone. This is true to such an extent that a frequent result of one partner in a marraige aquiring a chronic, debilitating disease is divorce.

The untold story of Katrina was that instead of the gunfire and rapes that CNN was gleefully reporting there was actually a concentrated effort by the more able bodied to get supplies to everyone else. The government forces that were present were actually disrupting the residents efforts to self-rescues. FEMA also prevented volunteer rescue squads from reaching New Orleans at gunpoint in some cases.

I think we need to rework our economy so that a person has an inviolable right to request certain kinds of aid from their neighbors. The idea that in this wealthy country we have housing for untold storage units full of crap and homeless on the street is criminal.

So when Ma Nature destroys your Mcmansion in a mega-storm and the folks from the next town drive by to take pictures of you but don't help.....  Well, you may have earned it.

Put the Carbon Back

We're always borrowing our neighbors' wheelbarrow, giving away lemons (two super-productive trees), lending pruning tools. A neighbor brought over a bunch of fallen plums for our chickens and another neighbor gives us culled broccoli rabe (or it it tatsoi - hard to tell when it's bolted) for our rabbits.

I'd hate to think of how much money we'd waste if we and other didn't make use of each others' extra resources - particularly skills. Do you know how long it takes to get PG&E to come turn off your pilot light? And back on again? (GreenEngineer to the rescue!)

It's kind of weird to get out and rub elbows with the neighbors, but well worth it. Gardening in your front yard does the trick, though. That's why I planted sunflowers and a sungold out front - they're intrinsically friendly plants.

Freecycle and Craigslist are good extensions, but it's so nice to have folks close by who can give and take.

Eat what you grow, grow what you eat

http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle ...

Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.

Some musicians I know here in Austin, Texas, have built a stage and are setting up a place to have an open mic, potlucks, music events, workshops and whatever else they can think of on 3 1/2 acres on the south side of town. I write about grassroots communities like this, local farms, living in harmony with the natural world and small things we can do to help heal the planet in my blog at http://goodwordswan.wildflowerstew.com

"Us nature mystics got to stick together." Edward Abbey