Skills the world needs us to know

I wrote in a recent blog that when we lose so many of the skills our predecessors knew then we place our lives in the hands of others ... and with just a few large companies holding the greater part of the market share we are left to buy what we need from a small number of super-corporations and they can produce theses goods however they want. These large companies care more for profit than sustainability.  They can use as many pesticides as they see fit, grow GMO crops, use child labour, transport goods all around the world, wrap them in plastic etc etc ... and as consumers our choice to have anything different is lost with the skills to produce these items ourselves.

What skills, therefore, do we need for the sake of saving our planet from further environmental damage?

Skills the world needs us to know

Food

How to cook/bake our own food from scratch
How to use up left-overs to create more meals
How to preserve food - bottling, drying, salting, jam and pickle making etc
Brewing
Cheese making
Knowing what food is in season when
Growing your own food - how to grow fruit, vegetables and herbs
Raising your own animals - chickens for eggs and meat etc
Butchery skills
How to forage and knowledge of what you can eat
Fishing and hunting

.... will reduce food waste, food miles, unnecessary packaging, factory farming, growing crops under cover out of season, excessive antibiotic use, palm oil use ...

Clothes 

How to make your own clothes
How to mend clothes
How to upcycle one item of clothing into another
How to make cloth and wool
Knitting, crocheting, weaving etc
Leather working

... will reduce excessive use of pesticides on cotton crops etc, reduce the amount of clothes going to landfill ...

Health

Basic First Aid
How to use natural remedies for simple ailments
How to know when a trip to the doctor A&E is really necessary

... will reduce excessive use of medicines and antibiotics, help ease pressure on health services, limit plastic waste ...

Around the House and at Work

How to mend things
Natural cleaning methods - the power of vinegar and bicarb!
DIY of all sorts
Building useful things eg compost bins, solar panels
How to upcycle/repurpose things
Pottery
Metalwork, Brickwork and Woodwork
Conservation skills - tree care, habitat management etc

...  will reduce consumerism, keep things out of landfill, reduce plastic use, reduce use of harmful chemicals ...

In the past one family would have known a large number of these skills.  Not everyone would know how to do everything but together they would be able to tackle most things.  And when they did lack something they certainly knew how to barter, swapping their excesses for things they were short of either due to their locality or missing skills.

I have tried to keep this list fairly general but as I was writing I kept going back and adding more skills.  In fact, there are hundreds of useful skills we must not lose but if we were all able to say we were competent in just a few of those I have listed think how much environmental damage we could reduce.  How much plastic packing would we not need if we simply grew some of our own vegetables or how much less pesticides would be sprayed if we made our own clothes by upcycling old ones?

I am OK with food and health and have a very practical husband ... but both of us is lacking on the clothes side of things ... I can manage basic mending but have never got to grips with sewing.  So I do the next best thing and buy second hand whenever I can and make do with the clothes I already have.

How do you rate your environmental life skills?  And have you skills I have not included here?