Self suffiency for all?

The recent snow has got me thinking about self suffiency and the ways of modern life. I was wondering how long we would survive as a nation if we were shut down completely by something like freak snowstorms or such.
Not that long I would imagine...how would we live without shipped in food, electricity, commmunications via internet and phone, no gas or oil? Of course we are not set up for this but should we be? And could we if we needed too?

It might be fine for people like us with a little land to prepare for this eventuality but not everybody has some land to grow food, wood for heating and harness wind, water or solar energy. I would like to know if there would be enough room for each family to live in a self sufficient way, and if not then how many families could this island support.

Could we even make smaller changes like no electricity for one day each week or would this be unbearable. Being able to stop the torture simply by the flick of a switch may be too much temptation. What if we used only a little grid supplied heat and power only in the 'off-season' of late autumn and winter and then focussed our energies through the summer to grow, harvest and preserve enough food, heat sources and power sources to keep us. Surely in the summer we would all be to busy to need television, heating and elaborate meals. Would this mean more people could enjoy the pleasure of this life we have today? Would we be prepared to do it even if it meant the earth and its resources as we know them would last twice as long?

Personally I'm a both a wishful consumer and dreaming self supporter. The dream for me has both sides. I would like to grow enough fruit and vegetable to keep our family and friends generously for 365 days a year but wouldn't want to have to pay the mortgage aswell. I'd love to build my own house from materials gathered from the land..hand hewn timber beams, strawbales, sheep fleece and clay are available locally, but I still have a dream of owning a Range Rover one day!

Maybe as a generation we've grown up confused about what we should be doing. The marketing men have done a fantastic job of telling us we can't live without the latest fashion or gadget and we believe them but we also believe that we should be doing more to cut our energy use or fuel consumption. I'm sure there is a growing movement of people out there starting out on the road to self suffiency but if you look in magazines like Smallholder its full of adverts telling you that you need a fancy hand built poultry shed costing hundreds of pounds to keep a few hens or that people are living on a smallholding on weekends and the husband spends the week in the city earning the cash that pays for it all.

So basically my thoughts are that we could do it, we have before and I'm sure we'll do it again before long.

Just a thought...