The coming DEPRESSION...PART TWO.

[Ankesh]

Thanks Cornell for calling me young

Its probably more than youth. Its a different perspective living in a different place...

India:
* we are living in a perpetual oil and power crisis. Outside Delhi and Bombay - every city and village in India faces power cuts every week.
* We've seen food prices rise like crazy
* We've seen a terrorist attack on land in the past 4 years
* But at the same time, we've also grown our GDP by 100% in the past 4 years!

On top of that, history shows that:
* the rich never die of hunger. Never. Even during WW2 - rich folks managed to get a distribution of food going on.

So I optimistically claim: its better to specialize and become filthy rich. Then to become self sufficient.

But thats just my opinion. Maybe formed by staying in another country where circumstances differ.

India is facing all the same problems as all the other countries are facing - and a few more. But we are booming like crazy. And thats because our economy opened up only 20 years back. And our population won't mature until 2040-2050.

But who knows - this type of thinking may not be right for a country like USA anymore where you don't see double digit growth rates - even in the best of times.

(An average Indian is still 20 times poor than an average American. But thats down from 40 times poor 4 years ago.)

Saying all that - I love the idea of a geodesic green house! Thats awesome. Would love more details. And pictures and videos too when you start building it. How big is it going to be? Are you going to construct it on your own? This seems fascinating.

Hi Ankesh:

You are welcome for the age comment.

Yes I agree different countries different circumstances.

Rich is good. Self sufficiency is good.

Both together are best.....but North America is not what it used to be and this is dictating my lean toward self-sufficiency. Years ago merchants and vendors had stock but now everything is just-in-time....there are no stock piles....local farmers producing beef, dairy, and other animals for consumption are so few and far between here one would be hard pressed to find them. We basically have only a handful of local producers of vegetable crops...most are trucked in from 2 hours away....it is just a bad all around scenario.

While I remain optimistic, like Gordon I watch, listen, and dig.....and I really don't like what I am seeing.

North Americans, in general, have their heads stuck in the sand....Gordon's parade of life...they are so involved in their own little world and as long as nothing actually disrupts it, they are totally impervious to what is actually taking place or going on.

I spent 2 years erecting and repairing traditional greenhouses back in the 90's and that was where I was headed for my own use, but the cost factors (erecting, heating, etc.) of the traditional greenhouse are actually quite prohibitive. This led me to the dome greenhouse concept.

The dome is about 95% self sufficient so the actual cost of maintaining it is quite minimal.

Also the dome provides a year round growing area, whereas the traditional greenhouse is not really conducive to that.

My intentions are a 30 foot diameter dome....this will triple the current container gardening area I presently use

To answer your questions....

Yes I will be building it myself....could purchase but at a cost of $10,000+ whereas I am looking at about $3500 if material costs don't escalate too much.

I will be documenting the process as it goes along with the intention of it becoming a product....I have acquired domain names for it already and ideas for furthering it....we'll see how it goes.