Solutions for climate change

[pinkytoe]

I have way more questions than answers but they mostly come down to how our culture has played out and I guess why I was attracted to a simple living philosophy:
Why do we keep building 3000 sf houses on cul de sacs on the far edges of towns and cities?
Why do we keep throwing up carwashes, storage units and strip malls all over the place?
Why do we continue with the standard gardening paradigm of grass lawns, irrigation systems, mowers and blowers, fertilizers and pesticides?
Why do we need one more hamburger chain?
Why is 90% of every non-food item I buy made in a foreign country, primarily Asia?
Why is making money/profit at the top of every decision
And on and on...

[iris lilies]

I watch the new houses being built in my hometown in Iowa. I’m actually amazed at how many are 1200 to 1500 ft.². These are not big houses.

[catherine]

I could say that the "con" of the current environmental movement is that people are willing to pour millions and billions into "green" technology which will not fix the problem because all green technologies are intended to allow us to uphold our current unsustainable lifestyles. (Bright Green Lies, Derrick Jensen, Liere Keith and Max Wilbert)

Or our values are unsustainable and corrupted and corporations, industry and government have pretty much conspired to break up communities and fragment the "wholeness" of the culture (The Unsettling of America, Wendell Berry)

Or a long time ago, agriculture has only served to kick us out of the Garden of Eden and turn us into a bunch of Takers (Ishmael, Daniel Quinn)

Or, we have lost of sense of awe and wonder and desire to preserve the natural world for its own sake

I believe that the climate change focus diverts us from some of these other themes. I think the climate change story is too abstract for most people. I don't care about numbers. I care that step-by-step over hundreds, if not thousands of years we have wound up with another Golden Calf due to our hubris, but we can't see it because we are in a Plato's Cave where the only images on the wall are what we see in our own homes, streets, cities and nations. And we don't allow ourselves to question anything about it. We defend it, and we can't even consider alternative ways of life.

I was talking to DH about these issues, and he was saying, "But what can we do? What you are talking about is Utopia!" And my response was--no, we had "utopia"--and left it behind for the devastation of land, air, water, and community.

I am open to technology to fix some things. I'm not a total Luddite, but I think our main issues are internal, not external. We've constructed a culture that has very little connection to the natural world. You aren't going to save what you don't value.

[bae]

"Many excellent thoughts"

Well said!

[flowerseverywhere]

Reduce, reuse, recycle. Eat less and local. Wear lighter or heavier clothing to reduce heat and air conditioning. Buy everything you can secondhand to reduce the amount that must be manufactured. Carpool, consolidate car trips, walk or bike. zero or negative population growth. Maintain everything in peak condition so you extend its life.

Turn off the electronics and read or play games or go for a walk. Or sit outside and meditate. In other words if you can find an alternative to using less energy for everything from can openers, food processors, cars, hot water, heating and cooling, etc. do it.

In other words, return to a simpler lifestyle.

[ApatheticNoMore]

Maybe humanity is just an evolutionary mistake/dead-end.

[happystuff]

Nicely said, catherine.

[JaneV2.0]

Maybe I'm just a cock-eyed optimist, but I think green technology and continuing world population decrease will go a long way toward alleviating pressure on the planet. At any rate, I don't believe human beings can destroy the earth--quite the opposite.

I have no desire to live in a yurt and subsist on salmon and apples. I'm more than happy to live simply in other ways.

[happystuff]

Sadly, I think the biggest problem to overcome is the mentality of "save the earth but don't inconvenience me in any way".

[JaneV2.0]

Come to think of it, a yurt would probably be an improvement...