Years ago, a friend told me, "If you want to create a sustainable society, aim to meet the needs of the poor." Today I would add: aim to meet your community's basic needs (food, water, energy, construction materials, governance) with supplies from within your bioregion. (Your watershed defines your bioregion. The U.S. has six main and about 2100 small watersheds.)
To keep local, grow even a wee bit of your own food. Support local farmers. Know your watershed: protect it for local residents and farmers and study how to generate healthy water cycles. Recognize that covering land (with pavement, gravel, data centers, shopping malls, substations) blocks the Earth's ability to absorb and hold water. Limit short-term rentals to tourists so that teachers, grocery stockers, police officers, nurses and writers (assuming you want such people in your community) can afford housing. Enact ordinances to prohibit data centers, silicon fabs and factory-farmed livestock from consuming and polluting local water supplies-- and from consuming energy. Delay children's use of electronics at least until they've mastered reading, writing and math on paper; and prohibit cell phones in schools.
As 2026 begins, federal acts block local authority over telecommunications, AI and data centers, over ecosystems and even the right to repair our own devices and appliances. Local authority has become scarce.
I'm encouraged by people who reduce their tech use, adhere to sustainable directions, sow healing seeds and restore healthy water cycles. Here are some 2025 headlines:
PEOPLE REDUCING TECH USE
In Spain, FUNDACI-"N HERMES envisions a future where technology serves people, not the other way around. It advocates for the right to be offline, to a non-digital life. It promotes access while aiming to ensure that access does not undermine the rights of those who choose to opt out. Individuals should be able to interact with government agencies, access healthcare and engage in other critical activities without being forced to use digital technology. Non-digital options allow individuals a means to protect their privacy and avoid surveillance, tracking and data collection.
Also in Spain, Diego Hidalgo has launched The OFF Movement. It invites users to remove social media apps from their phones during February"and reclaim life in the real world.
On December 10th, Australia banned under-16-year-olds from social media platforms. The European parliament has also called for an under-16 social media ban. In the U.S., according to a survey of 20,000 public school teachers, stricter school cellphone policies lead to more focused classroom environments.
Julia Angwin (a tech-lover) killed the color on her phone, and her use of it shrunk from eight-plus hours per day to less than five hours.
Oberlin students, part of a new generation of Luddites, have implored their college to opt out of AI.
CHIP FABS
Reducing tech use might start by learning what it takes to manufacture, operate and discard a computer-including what it takes to make semiconductors (chips). Every computer (and every vehicle, appliance, data center, substation, AI search, etcetera that needs a computer) depends on silicon chips. A chip factory hub in the Sonoran Desert north of Phoenix (owned by Taiwan's TSMC) will span 1,149 acres and cost $165 billion-- one of the most expensive projects on Earth. The first three factories will collectively use 16.4 million gallons of water per day-- about enough for 200,000 homes. TSMC says its wastewater treatment plant will eventually recycle nearly all of its water"while environmentalists worry about the site's impact on desert tortoises, protected species of desert flora, and ozone.
We can't ignore the big semiconductor water problem.
Who will win the water: computers or living creatures?
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