Frugality and simple living must go global then?Quote:
Originally Posted by JaneV2.0
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Frugality and simple living must go global then?Quote:
Originally Posted by JaneV2.0
How will humans fuel and fund such massive operations?Quote:
Originally Posted by Williamsmith
Exponential growth in technology....new ideas. A willingness to take risk. We are going to have to accept that as individuals we have short lives. We push the human race into the future. The Earth will be fine. We will continue to explore and exploit.Quote:
Originally Posted by UltraliteAngler
How are technology and energy different?Quote:
Originally Posted by Williamsmith
We will continue to exploit? The Earth will be fine? The development of the human did fine when it lived cooperatively with nature, with no exploitation. The natural world does not have to be collateral damage in the quest for the next "big step for mankind"Quote:
Originally Posted by Williamsmith
I agree with self-development, I agree in development and growth, but not growth for the sake of growth, and not growth that "exploits"--in fact, Williamsmith, I'm so surprised you said this, that I'd like to ask you for some elaboration. With your background and love for nature, I'm sure I'm not reading you correctly.
We did not create the world. We have inherited a world that had already grown to such prolific diversity and beauty before we even got here. It's a true miracle. And what has happened over the past 150 years with our technology--our exploitation? The world has given to us, and it's not wise to just take from it. We are poisoning soils, so that arable land becomes desert, we are poisoning plants and destroying habitats, killing off species at record speeds. The balance of nature is out of whack. This is not our planet to mess up and throw in the recycling basket while we go find another.
I am not against new ideas and creative use of our hearts and brains. Pushing the human race into the future can mean new strides in many things--creative ways to live in peace and prosperity--creative ways to stem the consequences of human greed. It doesn't have to mean exploitation.
I become rather dubious when I ask how we'll fuel and/or fund major projects (like terraforming Mars) and I get this answer: "Dude...we've got, like technology!"
That would seem a logical endpoint, I guess. We can get rid of massive waste and plunder (and stabilize population), and start from there.Quote:
Originally Posted by UltraliteAngler
I wonder how open people would be to this globally. I am part of a simple living group in my area. The group is almost entirely retirees -- aged 55-70, give or take a half-decade (I am considered young because I am 36). They talk about how people should consider going car-lite or car-free, how people should have fewer children (perhaps none), how people should use less water/oil/gasoline/resources of all kinds, quit "pleasure-shopping," etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by JaneV2.0
But these folks grew up and came of age in an era of American triumphalism and mass abundance. So to younger people -- ones with Master's degrees who work at Starbucks -- this sounds like: "We baby-boomers used up all the good stuff. Now you all must be wise how you consume the crumbs we left you."
I fear that many in the third world who want to drive SUVs, buy all sorts of stuff on Amazon, have 4 kids, jet-set to sweet vacation spots, etc. will have a similar reaction: "You got yours. Why can't I get mine?!"
But all this reminds me of that old maxim: "Everyone knows money can't buy happiness, but they insist on finding out themselves."
Thoughts?
You are right. There's a really good book by Gary Cross called "An All-Consuming Century: Why Consumerism Won in Modern America" Very well-written and researched, but it pretty much stated what you said. People need and want tangible signs of success, especially if they are coming out of subsistence and into comfort and relative wealth. So this is the nouveau riche and the waves of immigrants and countries in the Third World.. the pattern you describe of Aspire, Acquire, Satisfy, Reject is a predictable one.Quote:
Originally Posted by UltraliteAngler
The book had literally no insights for how this might change in the future, which I found to be kind of disappointing. You could probably trace the same patterns back to Greece and Rome and the Enlightenment and the Tower of Babel and all other rise/fall historical precedents.
"Aspire, Acquire, Satisfy, Reject" -- Whoa! Mind is blown! That is really it, condensed.Quote:
Originally Posted by catherine
This was a topic of discussion at one of the Columbus Minimalists meetings I attended last year. There were a few people from the working-poor class and them some from the upper-middle class at the meeting. The working-poor seemed to have a harder time convincing themselves to let go and minimize, even though it made sense to them logically. The upper-middle class folks seemed more at ease about letting go.
I was the anomaly. I grew up working poor but I really never went too far with my acquiring. Since I was a kid I felt like having time was better than having stuff. Now, I don't think that I am special or anything great because I always kind of knew this, and I am not saying I haven't bought some stuff I regretted (pricey archery equipment, for instance). What I became curious about during the minimalist meeting discussion was why. Why did I not need to go through the predictable cycle like most people seem to?
So back to the OP: I finally re-did the quiz (I had done it a long time ago and can't remember how I did). I'm surprised at how big your footprint is! How is it over 5? My footprint WITH the business travel I do for work is 5.6, BUT when I took that out to just look at my personal impact, it was 3.9. And I have a car, live in a single-family house, etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by UltraliteAngler
I ran a scenario for what it would be if I downsized, and I went from 3.9 to 3.3.
What were your biggest impacts? I'm just curious, because you definitely seem to be a simpler-living person than I am.
I drive something like 1630 miles a month. I don't recycle at all. I think those two issues really dinged me. I also eat a fair amount of fish and poultry, so I think they got me on that too.Quote:
Originally Posted by catherine
Gotcha. Well, goes to show that this isn't a perfect tool to measure lifestyle and ecological impact, but it's still a good awareness tool. Makes you think about what you're doing.Quote:
Originally Posted by UltraliteAngler
Right, I kind of think the tool does not realize that I don't buy or consume much; I also don't think it factors in that I catch my own fish.Quote:
Originally Posted by catherine
Not a perfect tool, but I agree. It makes you think about your environmental impact in a comprehensive way. I know many people (myself included) tend to zoom in on our "green fetish" and not think about everything else we do. My green fetish is reducing. For others it is recycling or solar panels or planting trees, etc.
People in developed countries are already having fewer children. Much of Europe--like Italy--is in decline. (I would think the refugees would be a godsend for those countries.)Quote:
Originally Posted by UltraliteAngler
I keep my fuel usage (I'm at about 1500 miles a year) in check partly by buying "all sorts of stuff on Amazon."
It's my position that conservation can be done on an individual basis without trading in stereotypes, and I don't believe we have to live like penitents to cut way back on waste.
World population growth still looks like a hockey stick though. And we're over 7 billion, so that is a massive amount of overshoot.Quote:
Originally Posted by JaneV2.0
If you buy stuff on Amazon, aren't you simply outsourcing your gas mileage to someone else?
But with the above said, I think we can have great lives without consuming too much or being wasteful. But I think some aspects of transitioning to this way of life are tricky in our current paradigm. Some aspects are really not that hard though.
I'm outsourcing my gas mileage to a corporation with large trucks full of packages. I bet UPS uses their fuel far more efficiently than I do. I'm not only outsourcing my fuel use, I'm saving automotive wear and tear and arguably supporting a local company.Quote:
Originally Posted by UltraliteAngler
That hockey stick shouldn't require everybody everywhere to render their genes extinct. We're just barely replicating ourselves here. Most of the people I know have one child or none (like me), and rarely do they have more than two.
Both valid points, especially in our current paradigm.Quote:
Originally Posted by JaneV2.0
you could preach not having kids until the cows come home and some people will still have kids (so maybe: one should keep preaching!), the human species going extinct through deciding not to breed isn't going to happen. One's genes? Meh most of one's genes were probably already passed on by some cousin who did procreate anyway, and in 1000 years your genes will be so intermingled it won't matter anyway. The vanity about one's precious genes is such narcissism. All we are is dust in the wind :~) Most people in the U.S. may not have many kids but maybe very few is too many given global population growth (and u.s. resource use, well that too).Quote:
That hockey stick shouldn't require everybody everywhere to render their genes extinct.
Pretty much what Janev2.0 says. When you buy from Amazon your packages are essentially car pooling. Plus I get stuff from Amazon that I might have driven all over heck and back trying to find locally. The thing that gets me about Amazon is all the packaging materials.Quote:
Originally Posted by UltraliteAngler
I am not preaching, I am merely lamenting. ;)
The intersection of breeding and consumption is an issue though too. So each couple only has two kids instead of seven. If those two kids are major consumers, it leads to a similar end.
That sounds crappy because it IS crappy. But I also think it's true. From personal and very flawed experience, accepting truth rather than starting a movement to protest it is usually a good beginning toward a workable life.Quote:
Originally Posted by UltraliteAngler
ETA:
Thank you, baby boomers and Gen X, for inventing things that took our lives beyond the imagination of our grandparents. For technology that allows at least the privileged practically unlimited access to knowledge and to each other, almost immediately. Thank you for medical advances, thank you for creature comforts.
Thank you (not so much), baby boomers and the generations immediately before you, for planned obsolescence and throw-away culture based on maximizing profit, period. Thank you (not so much) for ignoring indigenous wisdom regarding how to treat the planet, and the rights of those societies.
To be fair, it was the (hippie) boomers who raised consciousness about the environment and simple living, following in the footsteps of early conservationists. (Not to mention being passionately anti-war and pro a lot of fun activities.)
Didn't they also become yuppies and capitalists in the 1980s? ;)
Yes ... but we lost. :(Quote:
Originally Posted by JaneV2.0
before that people were frugal because they had lived through the Great Depression!Quote:
To be fair, it was the (hippie) boomers who raised consciousness about the environment and simple living, following in the footsteps of early conservationists.
Yes. and even in the 50's of my infantile youth consumption was less. The came the two working spouse families who thought two incomes were required to keep up. Take home pay increased as did the size of homes and the things to fill them. I'm sure there is more to the snowballing effect of consumption, but people have been just as happy on less.Quote:
Originally Posted by ApatheticNoMore
If we ask ourselves: "Could I be just as happy with less?" and the answer is "yes" then why don't we act upon that?
I could ask myself this. I would answer in the affirmative. But yet, I still don't act (or I act at a snail's pace).
But we tried.Quote:
Originally Posted by kib
Unfortunately, IMO, what the trying accomplished was to create a conservative backlash of money-worshiping, materialistic mindlessness we're still digging out from under. But yes, we did try.
I think that every generation tries, or rather some portion of every generation tries. Thus far: All have failed!Quote:
Originally Posted by kib
I generally find the Boomers the hardest of all generations to personally relate to, I just vibrate on a very different frequency, it's very alien to me. Even though I'm very hippy idealist at heart and like some of the ideas from that era.
But it's not any generation's fault entirely, it's always been a stacked desk (the odds are long, the path uphill, best to understand that). They had advertising, hippies had communes, enough said. They had assassinations (just civil rights leaders alone), hippies had protests.
Some interesting stuff has been written on how the social (and economic) support structure for such radical change didn't exist. It's easy to be a hippy on a college campus where such structures do exist (or did to some degree then), but that's one phase of life, people don't stay on college campuses, they get jobs, they get married, some will have kids, a structure to support radical change given that is what was needed some say.
I get along with the unrepentant 60s radicals pretty well. But they are few and far between.
I'm a tail end boomer, one of the last years. Not crazy about the designation because it spans such a long time, technically my mother could have been a boomer too, and if I was a 60's radical, I was a 5 year old one, not terribly impactive on the movement.
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...aa4c16bb95.jpg
I agree with the idea that the social support wasn't in place to implement a lot of lasting change - and we did get some changes, the 1970's women's movement got its start with the idea of upending social norms. The fact that there wasn't support for radical economic overhaul proposed by the hippies can probably be laid at the feet of the generation my parents were actually part of, I think it was both their fear of the conditions during the WWII and the Depression, combined with the post war prosperity boom, that made them rise up against the idea of Less is More. Too bad.
Really? How so? As a full-blown Baby Boomer (b.1952, came of age with Beatles, civil rights, hippie counterculture, MLK/RFK, moon landing, Vietnam), I'm always interested in learning how younger generations relate to "my kind"Quote:
Originally Posted by ApatheticNoMore
I am a tail-end Gen Xer.
I'm a boomer, born during Ike's first term. I'm often amused by people asserting people like me somehow damage them by rising above my humble beginnings. If you haven't lived in a house without running water, your only source of heat being a dirty coal stove in the center of the house, no insulation in the walls or floors and being able to see through the floors to the ground below, whole families sleeping in the same bed during winter in order to share body heat, no opportunity or ability to travel outside the circle of your own poverty and despair until you become old enough to take responsibility for yourself. We had a very small environmental footprint living that way, now, it's much bigger, and by design.
If you've never been there, don't expect me to agree that I should return to a reality you've never experienced.
I'm not suggesting you return to that reality. But I think the reality for people living the good life in the 50's, with their little Levittown houses and their one car and one tv, was a pretty nice set up with a significantly smaller footprint. With modern technology we could probably cut that energy and resource use by at least 25%. I could see a world like that, although I wouldn't want the social constraints of the era.
There is only so much good stuff to go around...
Perhaps not. :D go check out "paradise or oblivion". http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/paradise-oblivion/