EP 136: Building Resilience Through Natural Resources

Apr 22

Written By Laura Lynch, CFP® ABFP™ AAMS® CDFA®

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Building a Resilient Future: An In-Depth Look at Natural Resource Security

This episode of Less House More Resilience dives deep into the critical, yet often overlooked, role of natural resources—specifically water, soil, and oil—in building personal and community resilience. Host Laura encourages listeners to move beyond sensational headlines and engage in the critical thinking and in-depth research necessary to navigate the compounding risks facing our world today.

Water Security: Looking Beyond the Headlines

For those living in the Western United States and other drought-stricken regions, water presents an immediate and foundational resilience challenge. The host emphasizes that crucial information about major water systems, like the Colorado River and the Rio Grande, and the status of local aquifers is often not featured prominently in mainstream news.

Key Resilience Action: Proactive research into your local and regional water systems is essential. The host shares her personal experience of creating redundancy through rainwater harvesting—a practice encouraged in New Mexico to conserve aquifers. Understanding local laws regarding water collection is a necessary first step. Water scarcity and quality are complex issues that require a commitment to understanding the "compounding effect" of environmental pressures.

Food Resilience: The Crisis in Topsoil and Fertilizer

The discussion shifts to food, highlighting two major threats to global food stability: the degradation of topsoil and critical component shortages in conventional agriculture.

Topsoil and Soil Health: Decades of conventional farming practices have severely degraded topsoil resources in the US. The episode stresses that creating healthy food is intrinsically linked to creating healthy soil, a core principle of permaculture. This degradation is compounded by the reliance of large-scale commodity crops (like corn and soybeans) on chemical fertilizers.

Fertilizer Shortages and Global Impact: The recent geopolitical conflict and the closure of key shipping routes (such as the Strait of Hormuz) have created a significant global shortage of fertilizer components (urea, sulfuric acid, etc.). The host notes that while this is often framed in terms of inflation and rising food prices, the deeper implication is a potential food crisis due to reduced crop yields during the spring planting season. This is a clear example of a ripple effect that extends far beyond immediate market volatility.

Key Resilience Action: While not everyone can immediately become a large-scale grower, increasing food resilience can involve:

Deepening your pantry: Stocking up on staples you regularly use.

Localizing food sources: Supporting local growers, especially those using organic methods who are less reliant on global chemical supply chains.

Starting small-scale growing: Focusing on soil building and composting, adapting to local environmental challenges like dryness and short growing seasons.

The Invisible Lifeblood: Understanding Oil’s True Role

Oil is identified as a critical, yet often "invisible," natural resource—the literal lifeblood of the modern economy. The average person typically only considers the price at the pump, but the host encourages a wider view of oil's pervasive influence.

Oil’s Economic Pervasiveness: Every aspect of our lives, from the food we eat to the goods we purchase, is dependent on oil:

Transportation: Diesel fuels the trucks and trains that deliver all goods, as well as the farming equipment used to grow food.

Packaging and Products: Plastic is an oil product, and all container ships that transport global goods are fueled by bunker fuel.

Geopolitical Shocks and Supply: The episode addresses the cognitive dissonance between a soaring stock market and the reality of a global 20% fuel shortage since late February. This shortage—caused by shipping route closures—will have severe, second and third-order effects on global product availability and pricing, even for countries like the US, which are net exporters.

Key Resilience Action: Acknowledging the deep dependency on oil requires a shift in perspective. Resilience at this juncture means:

Prioritization and Triage: Focusing resources on essential needs.

Letting Go: Releasing the psychological need for superfluous, non-essential goods.

Gaining Awareness: Recommended research includes resources like Nate Hagens' "The Great Simplification" podcast series on Oil 101, 201, and 301.

The Call to Critical Engagement

The episode concludes with a powerful call to action: personal resilience in this moment requires awareness and learning. We cannot be prepared for "shocks" if we remain "blissfully ignorant" by only scrolling through headlines. Building resilient wealth means actively engaging with the details of our natural resource base, creating redundancies, and fostering community support around critical needs like water and food.

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