I am trying to reduce my household energy consumption, live more frugally and eat more locally and sustainably. This is something I've been working on for a while now. There are a lot of resources out there for people like me, both online and in print, in fact there are so many they're a little hard to wade through.
My personal favorite is Mother Earth News. I have a subscription, and I save past issues for reference, but they also have everything on their website, so those of us who are trying to divest ourselves of piles of dusty magazines should really take advantage of this. Other good magazines along similar lines are Countryside Magazine, Backwoods Home Magazine, Grit, and Backyard Poultry, all with resources online as well. And of course I also use OCA's website www.organicconsumers.org and search engine quite a bit.
There are also inspiring books and videos available. The Foxfire Books and Rodale's Organic Gardening books are classics, and there are many other books out there to help guide us such as The Transitions Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience, The Natural Step for Communities: How Cities and Towns Can Change to Sustainable Practices and Post Carbon Cities: Planning for Energy and Climate Uncertainty. Some good DVDs outlining the dark issues we are facing and why we need to make changes include The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream, An Inconvenient Truth, What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire, and, on the solutions-oriented side, The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil, Kilowatt Ours, Seeds in the City, and The Greening of Cuba. Of course, there are many other books, films, websites and publications that I haven't yet had the opportunity to take in. Do some research on the Internet, or check your local library. You’ll be surprised how many resources you’ll turn up.
I haven't yet touched on the most important resource of all: your community. Personal and community connections are what will help us get through the changes ahead. Find out what kind of food and other items are produced in your area and what you can offer in return for them. For example, I keep chickens in my backyard, and I have traded my chickens’ meat and eggs for everything from mechanical work on my car to homemade maple sugar. Being able to do this is satisfying. Not only that, but I know that in the future I could ask these folks to teach me about their skills, just as they could ask me to teach them about mine. So these relationships not only help each of us out and build community, but they also insure long-term security by allowing knowledge and skills to pass from person to person. Once these relationships are established there are other possibilities. A group of people can form an effective organic buying club, cooperative or other exchange system to provide themselves with food or other goods. These kinds of community relationships are the key for transitioning to a post-carbon future.
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