When something is unhealthy, it can be a strong phenomenon, like a quickly metastasizing cancer, but cancer is not a sustainable condition for the human body. The cancer cells die with the body. One could say cancer is a body destroying itself.

The fossil fuel, growth economy is a cancer on human civilization. It destroys the ecology, and it also destroys human morality. Greedy entrepreneurs hiring illegal aliens in a race to the bottom of wages is a perfect example of the amorality of our civilization.

Economic growth is the determinant of our morality. It overcomes custom, tradition, and established law.

I believe it is possible to destroy the growth economy with something I have dubbed "Local Economy Volunteerism."

It is basically taking up a volunteer hobby of trying to start a Local Economy. There is certainly a possibility of "making money," in it, at least enough so you can become a full time Local Economy Coordinator.

Another way to describe Local Economy Volunteerism is "Create Your Own Job." The paycheck jobs are going away. They are going to get scarcer and scarcer. People will fight to get them, and the pay will get lower and lower.

The first step to becoming a Local Economy Volunteer is to decide on an industry or 2 or 3 and work towards those. Transportation is one -- namely carpooling. Want to start a business right now? Get one of those little buses, and start knocking on doors and leaving pamphlets advertising this business. People can get rid of their car, and still go to work. Look how much they'll save -- it's a LOT. And you could turn a buck. You could expand this business model if it works in one place. You may get copycats. Maybe the large corporations will take over this business. But you see what you did -- you forced a change on society.

The industry I chose is food production. I found many resources of "hobby farmers" in my area, and people related to what's left of agriculture in this state. Then I started getting people I know to rip out their lawns and put in mini-farms.

When I help them set up their mini-farms, they expect to be charged for everything. I say no, if I bring you horse manure, you need only pay for the exact amount of the gasoline. When we really need to exchange money, we will, but the mini-farm is like a game, and the object of the game is to get as much as possible while spending as little as possible. Go after the waste of society -- the bags of leaves people leave at the side of the road, the horse manure that the horse people want to get rid of.

The second object of the Local Economy game is to rack up the money you didn't spend on the System. We don't want to make money off each other, we want to get money this way. By cutting expenses and developing Local Economy, you literally take money out of the pockets of the Corporate System. I motivate myself by imagining corporate board meetings where the board is freaking out over losing profits.

Local Economic Volunteerism is a matter of breaking the standing inertia. The Standing Inertia is pretty strong; but it is simply a lack of personal initiative and the belief that this would work.

When a critical mass of Local Economic Volunteers is reached in a certain small geographical area, then we will start really saving money. This is likely to catch on with friends and relatives once we have something concrete to trade. Even an extra seat in a ride from one place to another on a regular basis is something worth trading. It would be a form of mass transit within the private automobile system. Food is also easily tradeable and saleable, especially as the price goes up.

It will reach a point where it catches on fire, so to speak. I think it's going to happen anyway, quite frankly, but my goal is to accelerate the transition. Local Economic Volunteerism will make for a less hard landing when TSHTF, and it will also disempower our enemies.

One more form of Local Economic Volunteerism would be second hand trading via Craig's List. Anything to get people to do more second hand purchasing and less reliance on Wal-Mart.