Eco-Junk: Why Buying Less Is More Than Buying Green

It wasn’t meant to happen like this. The climate scientists told us that our winters would become wetter and our summers drier. So I can’t claim that these floods were caused by climate change, or are even consistent with the models. But, like the ghost of Christmas yet to come, they offer us a glimpse of the possible winter world we’ll inhabit if we don’t sort ourselves out.

With rising sea levels and more winter rain (and remember that when the trees are dormant and the soils saturated there are fewer places for the rain to go) all it will take is a freshwater flood to coincide with a high spring tide and we have a formula for full-blown disaster. We have now seen how localised floods can wipe out essential services and overwhelm emergency workers. But this month’s events don’t even register beside some of the predictions now circulating in learned journals(1). Our primary political struggle must be to prevent the break-up of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets. The only question now worth asking about climate change is how.

Dozens of new books appear to provide an answer: we can save the world by embracing “better, greener lifestyles”. Last week, for example, the Guardian published an extract of the new book by Sheherazade Goldsmith, who is married to the very rich environmentalist Zac, in which she teaches us “to live within nature’s limits”(2). It’s easy: just make your own bread, butter, cheese, jam, chutneys and pickles, keep a milking cow, a few pigs, goats, geese, ducks, chickens, beehives, gardens and orchards. Well, what are you waiting for?

Her book also contains plenty of useful advice, and she comes across as modest, sincere and well-informed. But of lobbying for political change, there is not a word: you can save the planet in your own kitchen - if you have endless time and plenty of land. When I was reading it on the train, another passenger asked me if he could take a look. He flicked through it for a moment then summed up the problem in seven words. “This is for people who don’t work.”

None of this would matter, if the Guardian hadn’t put her photo on the masthead last week, with the promise that she could teach us to go green. The media’s obsession with beauty, wealth and fame blights every issue it touches, but none more so than green politics. There is an inherent conflict between the aspirational lifestyle journalism which makes readers feel better about themselves and sells country kitchens and the central demand of environmentalism: that we should consume less. “None of these changes represents a sacrifice”, Sheherazade tells us. “Being more conscientious isn’t about giving up things.” But it is: if, like her, you own more than one home when others have none.

Uncomfortable as this is for both the media and its advertisers, giving things up is an essential component of going green. A section on ethical shopping in Goldsmith’s book advises us to buy organic, buy seasonal, buy local, buy sustainable, buy recycled. But it says nothing about buying less.

Green consumerism is becoming a pox on the planet. If it merely swapped the damaging goods we buy for less damaging ones, I would champion it. But two parallel markets are developing: one for unethical products and one for ethical products, and the expansion of the second does little to hinder the growth of the first. I am now drowning in a tide of ecojunk. Over the past six months, our coatpegs have become clogged with organic cotton bags, which - filled with packets of ginseng tea and jojoba oil bath salts - are now the obligatory gift at every environmental event. I have several lifetimes’ supply of ballpoint pens made with recycled paper and about half a dozen miniature solar chargers for gadgets I don’t possess.

Last week the Telegraph told its readers not to abandon the fight to save the planet. “There is still hope, and the middle classes, with their composters and eco-gadgets, will be leading the way.”(3) It made some helpful suggestions, such as a “hydrogen-powered model racing car”, which, for £74.99, comes with a solar panel, an electrolyser and a fuel cell(4). God knows what rare metals and energy-intensive processes were used to manufacture it. In the name of environmental consciousness, we have simply created new opportunities for surplus capital.

Ethical shopping is in danger of becoming another signifier of social status. I have met people who have bought solar panels and mini-wind turbines before they have insulated their lofts: partly because they love gadgets, but partly, I suspect, because everyone can then see how conscientious (and how rich) they are. We are often told that buying such products encourages us to think more widely about environmental challenges, but it is just as likely to be depoliticising. Green consumerism is another form of atomisation - a substitute for collective action. No political challenge can be met by shopping.

The middle classes rebrand their lives, congratulate themselves on going green, and carry on buying and flying as much as ever before. It is easy to picture a situation in which the whole world religiously buys green products, and its carbon emissions continue to soar.

It is true, as the green consumerists argue, that most people find aspirational green living more attractive than dour puritanism. But it can also be alienating. I have met plenty of farm labourers and tenants who are desperate to start a small farm of their own, but have been excluded by what they call “horsiculture”: small parcels of agricultural land being bought up for pony paddocks and hobby farms. In places like Surrey and the New Forest, farmland is now fetching up to £30,000 an acre as city bonuses are used to buy organic lifestyles(5). When the new owners dress up as milkmaids then tell the excluded how to make butter, they run the risk of turning environmentalism into the whim of the elite.

Challenge the new green consumerism and you become a prig and a party pooper, the spectre at the feast, the ghost of Christmas yet to come. Against the shiny new world of organic aspirations you are forced to raise drab and boringly equitable restraints: carbon rationing, contraction and convergence, tougher building regulations, coach lanes on motorways. No colour supplement will carry an article about that. No rock star could live comfortably within his carbon ration.

But such measures, and the long hard political battle required to bring them about, are, unfortunately, required to prevent the catastrophe these floods predict, rather than merely to play at being green. Only when they have been applied does green consumerism become a substitute for current spending rather than a supplement to it. They are harder to sell, not least because they cannot be bought from mail order catalogues. Hard political choices will have to be made, and the economic elite and its spending habits must be challenged, rather than groomed and flattered. The multi-millionaires who have embraced the green agenda might suddenly discover another urgent cause.

George Monbiot has been awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Essex and an honorary fellowship by Cardiff University.

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

30 Comments so far

eris July 24th, 2007 12:29 pm

Conspicuous spending is the American (and Western) ‘dream’ and is the root problem. Changing our minds is the only real solution - our lifestyles reflect the way we think in a very direct way. “…the long hard political battle” isn’t going to mean much if people don’t change their minds so that their lifestyles reflect that. Unfortunately THAT change may require more trauma than persuasion; consumer-slanted ‘hip trends’ are designed to make us feel ‘cool’ not conscientious.

Not One More July 24th, 2007 1:24 pm

Everybody wants things to change (including me to some degree), but we won’t change how we do things. Some have a mistaken belief that there is a technological fix that will allow us to consume as much as we want.

But in fact that is the one thing that we must change, the belief that we should be able to consume how much we want.

Is ’sustainable consumption’ an oxymoron?
http://www.wordsareimportant.com/sustainable.htm

peace

Paul Bramscher July 24th, 2007 1:43 pm

The crux of the problem is the artificially inflated cost of real estate and rent. It forces people to work more, to simply survive. By working, they’re either making products — or probably involved indirectly in the transition of resources->products.

I’m listening to an interesting lecture during my commutes to work on the Hindu caste system. Apparently there are 4 traditional phases on life for men, Sanyassa (renunciation of worldly pursuits) being the last. Too extreme for Western tastes, but apparently it was important to DELAY this stage as long as possible into a person’s life, since it meant that they were no longer part of the productive economy if they would drop out too soon.

So the criminally inflated real estate (through unregulated lending & speculation) has forced everyone to pay FAR more than they ordinarily would, and therefore work much more, and therefore produce a larger environmental footprint.

Siouxrose July 24th, 2007 2:20 pm

Monbiot raises good points. Because the entire discussion is framed by the corporate capitalist media it’s not about to shoot itself (profit motive) in the foot. Hence this particular slant on buying has co-opted for many the need to become wiser consumers and genuinely conservation-prone in what and why they buy. PAUL is also correct, the ridiculously inflated prices of real estate (and then rents) forces people to work sometimes two plus jobs. I watched these mediocre (we called them “smurf village”) houses, which were really 4 poorly constructed townhomes all connected, originally sell for $49,900 when I arrived in Key West in l986 to jump to close to $200,000 each in about 15 years. Since incomes (apart from CEO’s) have hardly kept pace with this form of astronomical inflation, naturally the pinch is felt intensively. Barbara Ehrenreich tried to subsist as a waitress in Key West, and while the KEYS are high priced real estate, the same phenomena is seen everywhere else (except perhaps what’s considered highly undesirable locations.)

Siouxrose July 24th, 2007 2:21 pm

This is also why the indigenous have a saying, “The land does not belong to us. We belong to the land.” Earth mother reserved her vote for some time, but is getting edgy.

Paul Bramscher July 24th, 2007 2:54 pm

I think it’s actually designed and managed to be this way by the elite at the top of the ladder. I think of all the other commodities in our society — which you can get at thrift shops, second hand, or find a range of values (cheap to not at all affordable) — and it seems that rent/real-estate offers no such range to the consumer. It STARTS OUT at barely affordable, and only goes up from there. So, given the wildly skewed pricing, I’m left to conclude somewhat that it is an artificial construct. Either due to the illegal/unregulated lending and speculation activity, or else someone somewhere is worried about a generation of people being able to “drop out” too soon.

Imagine — they might become poets, philosophers, writers, artists, small businessmen and women of sustainable industries, tinkers, etc. and rejuvenate an increasingly empty American civil/public/social life if they didn’t have to spend the vast bulk of their life producing/consuming for the Big Boxes.

jedediah zachariah jedediah springfield July 24th, 2007 3:13 pm

Paul Bramscher, well said, but it’s not just living space anymore, it’s everything: education, a car, health care, etc. doesn’t orwell in ‘84 talk about constantly keeping society on the edge of starvation? we aren’t quite there yet (well, most of us aren’t, but some damn sure are, in the US, that is; the world is a different story), but millions upon millions of americans are forced to be constantly on the edge of financial disaster.

anyway, this is a good article. the basic issue of environmentalism is consumption. not new gadgets, not green energy, but the colossal waste of the modern economy. of course we should convert to solar, wind, etc., but if we don’t decrease consumption, a new form of energy is not gonna preserve our forests, waters, oceans, etc. even if it does reduce carbon.

environmentalist will not work until we democraticize the economy. they are too many people getting obscenely rich off of the massive amounts of useless junk the 1st world devours; they will not allow environmentalism to occur.

www.wsws.org

JaneM July 24th, 2007 3:19 pm

It seems ridiculous to say, but so many “old” ways were better. Animals brought up on pasture have omega 3 fatty-acids and their manure nourishes the grass while killing ecoli bacteria. Wouldn’t you rather buy milk from a local dairy than buying from the supermarket (in central Massachusetts we get milk from Ohio)? But of course, the local dairies have all gone out of business. The added ingredient, though, is that local products are often more expensive. Perhaps the richest of us could rent out little serfdoms so poorer people could have access to farmland…

labrooks112@prodigy.net July 24th, 2007 3:40 pm

I just want to thank you for your article. The “soft” progressives, the progressive elite, need to get in touch with the working and not working poor. How can you claim to be for “a better world” and simultaneously flaunt yours in the face of the have nots? No one, who claims to work for positive change, should allow themselves to own 2 homes until everyone has at least one. Environmental issues are very important but so are issues of poverty, decent housing and living wages.

Paul Bramscher July 24th, 2007 3:46 pm

jedediah zachariah jedediah springfield,

In my own case, anyway, it’s all predicated on cost of living. My single greatest expense — by far — is the mortgage bill. If my home cost a fraction, I’d be happy to:

* Immediately invert my week inside-out. I’d work 2 days/week and have 5 day weekends.
* Spend more time on my gardens, reading, writing, etc.
* Probably fix more things, and buy fewer new replacements. Fixing takes time, but it’s usually better on the environment, and is often cheaper.

The corporate taskmasters are keenly interested in commoditizing everything. Spare time presents at least two risks to the system. (1) People might work/consume less and (2) They might do more things “off the grid” (trade/barter/etc.), so the ueber-capitalists would not be able to skim off or monopolize that exchange of goods/service.

I think Orwell is right about that edge of starvation, the elite see it as a form of motivation. Being intrinsically sadistic and sociopathic, they have no problem using it — to whatever extreme, even if it results in social breakdown, high rates of divorce, extreme pressure on trying to have kids today, etc.

The carrot on the end of that sick is deliberately held just a little out of reach in the hopes it’ll make people tread water. But I think it’s getting old, the stick too long, the folly increasingly recognized.

changeisgood July 24th, 2007 3:53 pm

Souixrose, you are in Key West? Me too. I’ve been reading Commondreams for a while now but did not feel the need to post since others seem to speak what I feel.
I have been practicing the ‘less is more’ philosophy for the last 25 years (most of my adult life). Repair, reuse and recyle, I learned this from my parents who grew up very poor. I do find it difficult to live this 100% though.

Michael Hughes July 24th, 2007 4:11 pm

Yes, too many people are suckered into buying all that eco-tat.

The real problem is that there are too many people in the world so the long-term goal should be to reduce the population; to achieve this we should agree to have only one child per family for a few generations. But we all know the barriers there are to such a solution - in fact it is the only solution.

In the meantime …
Grow as many vegetables, fruit and nuts as you can.
Use barter (LETS System, Ithaca Hours).
Convert to solar energy - especially to harvest heat and store most of it for the winter (http://www.dlsc.ca/).

Rodso64 July 24th, 2007 4:30 pm

I second what Michael Hughes said. Half of the things we do (”Green” or otherwise) that bring about global destruction and resource depletion would not be anywhere near as bad if their were not so many humans on the planet DOING them.

So why has population stabilization dropped off the radar of so many environmental activists, even those so hepped up on the hot topic of the day, global warming?

Siouxrose July 24th, 2007 4:37 pm

CHANGE IS GOOD: I left Key West in 2000 when the rents went crazy and a change in my status as a writer compelled me to sell my townhouse. I live in North Florida now, lots of nature, but the citizens are one notch above those depicted by the film Deliverance. The ignorance factor is partly due to the small town mentalities, and is also aided and abetted by fundamentalist churches. It’s another Dianne Fossey style sociology experiment for this writer in evolution.

PJD July 24th, 2007 4:48 pm

…would not be anywhere near as bad if their were not so many humans on the planet DOING them.

But most humans on the planet ARENT DOING them. They don’t own a car, or a 4000 sq foot house or air conditioning. It is only in teh global north, which in turn is predominated by a large margin by the USA, where there is such proflagrate energy consumption.

“So why has population stabilization dropped off the radar of so many environmental activists, even those so hepped up on the hot topic of the day, global warming?”

Because, the countrties emitting nearly all the greenhouse gasses already have stable, or stabilizing populations. And, short of some kind program of mass extermination, population stabilization/reduction will take far too long. Also, large brown populations slaving in sweatshops and fields are needed to support the white populations who are emitting all the greenhouse gasses.

ezeflyer July 24th, 2007 5:11 pm

Let’s put our money where our mouth’s are and vote for the Green Party… and some progressive Democrats.

jbatch July 24th, 2007 5:44 pm

Mr. Monbiot:

I find you one of the most thoughtful and insightful writers on the environment and global warming around.

There is another aspect to this mindless consumerism, whether green or any other color tha merits examination. Study after study reveals that, once the most elemental of needs are met 9food, shelter, water, warmth) there is virtually no correlation between wealth, consumerism, and happiness.

Which begs the question: why do we mindlessly strive to accumulate and consume? The answer is embedded in your ovservation of the solar panel mounted on the uninsulated attic roof. We chase the thousands of geegaws and gadgets that muck up our lives for the same reason that birds of paradise do absurd dances; for the same reason that male deer ram each other in their heads for hours on end; for the same reason a butterfly’s probiscus exactly matches a flower’s shape — because we are hardwired to do so. Our curse is — gifted by reason — we are able to step outside the normal confines of evolution, and consum beyond anything the earth can endure, yet still survive — for a while.

But nature is the ultimate bill collector. We are now eating our seed corn, rich and poor alike, and the future lies before us, barren, fallow and no amount of wealth can longe evade her emissaries — flood, fire, pestilence, and chaos.

andersdl July 24th, 2007 6:22 pm

When I started college in 1970 I joined the zero-population-growth (ZPG) Club and the Appropriate Technology (AT) Club. ZPG is self-explanatory, appropriate technology focussed on need-based (rather than create the need and maximize profit potential based)technologies. Appropriate technologies would be part of the solution and not part of (or adding to)the problem.

By 1980 not only had the clubs disappeared, the mere mention of either ZPG or AT would brand you a heretic.

Y2K, terrorism, etc. have proven to be big time sell-more-stuff success stories for big bizz and they are on track to add climate change to that list.

dcgood1 July 24th, 2007 7:50 pm

Part of what makes Monbiot a conscientious writer on issues where making your sources of information available can be extremely helpful is his liberal (so to speak) use of citations. I’d like to encourage CommonDreams to include such citations whenever possible. It means enough to me that, poor though I be, I promise to donate 50 bucks if you do! Thanks.

lunafish July 24th, 2007 8:01 pm

Greetings,

Many good comments posted on this topic. I have to agree that the “need less” concept needs to take hold, including less children/people. The “curse” Monbiot mentioned includes conditioning that the advertising industry has championed since they goaded American women-”Rosie the Riveter”-to go home and make babies and take care of the hubby or there is something wrong with you. (A program to influence women to go home so the troops could have their jobs back after the war and put women back in the subservient position of society. Oh, and then there were the endless new and improved products with ad campaigns designed to make women want the latest “thing” so the hubby could keep working for that carrot.

Why do you think Cheney/Rove and Co. hired that Beers woman to do their ad/marketing for the Iraq war and the 911 events? Great PR, the best the taxpayer dollars can buy.

One of the greatest problems we, the people, face is the challenge of “conditioning”. The advertising industry of America has made a great institution out of the “marketing plan”. I worked in advertising for a spell but got so disgusted that I had to find another way to be gainfully employed. It’s all based on phycological manipulation and is no more complex than the Pavlovian theorem.

I found an interesting article that was posted on CD a couple years ago that was written before Katrina but after the war started but relevent today…

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0208-24.htm

Says a lot.

Other things that you don’t hear about in the global warming/environmetal problems scene are the current atmospheric conditions over the majority of the US–too hot, record high temps all over; Idaho, Nevada and Utah are burning down; and has anyone heard that the trout are dying in Yellowstone NP because the water temps are too high for them? Or that the glacier in Glacier NP is not expected to last more than a couple years(?)–I think that’s what they said in the article I read last week. The article was about the visitors wanting to see the glacier for, perhaps, the last time it will be possible.

Of all the atrocities we discuss here, the worst is the fact that the population of this nation has lost its way… morally, intellectually, spiritually (if it ever really had it), through conditioning via TV, mags and movies.

Democracies only last, historically, for about 200 years. Perhaps our time is up. I can see how a socio-political implosion can take place in the near future if the population doesn’t get off its butt and change this.

It requires willpower and inconvenience as we know it.

Perhaps if we give simplicity a chance… need less, take the time to fix things, just say no to the big boxes. Learn to sew and knit/crochet. When you stop buying things to make you feel better for buying them or making shopping a “feel good” event, you start realizing how much of your capital is wasted on stuff that becomes trash in a hurry. Instant gratification/instant obsolescence.

I hate to shop, when I do, I go in, get what I went for and leave. No extra stuff at the checkout line. I also choose to be selective about the quality of what I buy. I avoid Wal-Mart and the like and buy things that usually are materials for something I will make or grow from a small locally owned business. If I really need to have something, I will wait to get it as well, forcing me to re-evaluate the need before participating in the capitalist realm. Don’t do credit cards either.

I work two jobs–I need shelter since I can’t afford a mortgage, and still take the time for these things. I don’t watch or own a TV and avoid any kind of advertising as much as I can. It isn’t hard. It’s like riding a bike once you find a rhythm that works for your needs. I don’t stress about money anymore and have decided that for most of the things I have or acquire; if I can’t pay for it all at once, I probably don’t really need it. As for the rest of material possessions, if I don’t HAVE it, nobody can TAKE it from me and if I don’t use it in a reasonable time, I give it away to someone who can use it. Lots of stress I don’t have to suffer protecting “stuff”.

PJD July 24th, 2007 10:38 pm

“the mere mention of either ZPG or AT would brand you a heretic.”

No one on the left would brand AT ad heretical, but CD readers should understand that the left is distinctly at unease about ZPG because domestically, it has often been taken up by racist anti-immigrant types, and internationally, it is associated with western cultural imperialism.

Shane July 24th, 2007 10:45 pm

REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE

Nope, nothing about buying green. Buying green is just another subversive consumer plot to get you to spend you money on useless crap.

ezeflyer July 24th, 2007 10:55 pm

Why should people have to pay for the recycling of products we don’t manufacture like chemical, biological and radiological pollutants?

Siouxrose July 24th, 2007 11:19 pm

LUNAFISH says, “One of the greatest problems we, the people, face is the challenge of “conditioning”. The advertising industry of America has made a great institution out of the “marketing plan”. I worked in advertising for a spell but got so disgusted that I had to find another way to be gainfully employed. It’s all based on phycological manipulation and is no more complex than the Pavlovian theorem.” This is a critical observation (good work there, Luna). AND I think it over-rides, or adds significant nuance to the analysis raised (lyrical though it is) by jbatch. I believe it was Robert E. Lane professor Emeritus who published a book entitled, “The Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies.” It showed that people value loving relationships over $. The thing is people tend to be insecure and many are natural conformists. It is a very human need to want to feel that one belongs to a group and is accepted. THIS is the thing advertisers use! They make people feel that to BE accepted, they have to own all those BS items.
Like Lunafish, I live very simply these days and my time is my own. There is nothing more precious. I have clothes from 20 years ago I still wear as fashions tend to recycle, and if not, who gives a shit? I ride a bike a lot, and as a result feel very fit and this goes a long way to balance against having no medical insurance like so many in this nation. How much food to people throw away? How many publications and catalogues that are not needed? I have pared down and it feels freeing. It’s harder when you’re still raising children, the luxury of maturity is not having to adapt to rules, customs or values your own developed sense of integrity tells you are extraneous. Of course I’d feel a lot better if this phase of freedom was not contradicted by an administration drunk on its own power and capable of launching significant trespasses here in “the homeland.”

capt.clevariant July 25th, 2007 12:30 am

Good article and comments. My favorite uncle gave me a nugget of wisdom a long time ago: “There are two ways to be rich: Have a lot, or want little”). And I believe it was Thoreau who gave me the image, which I have carried with me all of my life, of a man staggering down the road of life with all of his worldly possessions on his back. As Paul Bramscher points out, the possibilities for a rich life are much better if we are not consumed with the accumulation of riches. Of course we need to provide the necessities of life to ourselves and our children, but all we need is enough. More than that is absurd.
And enough is less than we sometimes think it is.

As consumers, we have the power to change our way of life. Blaming the corporations for doing what they do is pointless. It’s like blaming the shark for eating the sardine. But it is extremely difficult to change the attitudes and behaviors of enough people to make any difference in this old world. And any change that impacts the livelyhood and the economy of an entire nation is going to be resisted mightily by a vast majority of the people. So all we have left is the hope that the threat of an environmental catastrophe will change how we live. It may take an actual environmental catastrophe that impacts millions if not billions of lives to get the job done. And we may not survive to benefit from the change.

The easiest thing we can do to go green is stop buying things unless we really need them. As you replace those things you have, replace them with items that are of good quality and are environmentally sound. So I keep driving my old car that still gets 30-35 mpg and has over 250,000 miles on it. It’s well into its 15th year of service and still running strong, and honestly looks almost as good as many new cars. Our little house is clean, neat, well-maintained, and energy efficient. We only repair and/or replace what breaks or wears out. There are things we could buy and install that might save a little energy, but any advantage would be offset, as has been pointed out in the comments, by the materials and energy to produce the new technology. Why do people need houses more than 2000-2500 square feet anyway, much less two houses? And we are trying to buy locally as much as possible, and are talking with our friends about growing a community garden. Most Americans could save a lot of money and energy by simply eating less, and buying more in bulk, choosing healthy, simple foods and avoiding the empty calories and unhealthy ingredients in soda and junk food. It’s not that hard to stop unnecessary consumption and live a healthy lifestyle. We are not the slaves of the big corporations. We have the power of choice, and the ability to dictate to them what we want and will pay for. We are the customers. Without us, they are nothing. If we allow ourselves to be enslaved by them, we deserve what we get.

Jan Steinman July 25th, 2007 1:32 am

Most people can recite the three R’s: reduce, reuse, recycle. I’d precede them with a first “R”: refuse. Refuse to take part in consumerism, green or otherwise. Fix broken things. When absolutely necessary, buy used things instead of new ones. Drop out of the consumer economy.

This has a ripple effect. Not only will you be doing the greenest thing you can do short of removing yourself from the earth, you’ll also play a part in bringing down the rest of the economy. Remember how, after 9-11, Bush encouraged everyone to “go out shopping” for the good of the nation? Simply on the theory that one should automatically do the opposite of whatever Bush asks us, we should do whatever we can to bring down the greater economy, which is built on a house of cards, and has got to crash one of these days anyway.

To the extent you’re able to function outside the economy, you’ll already be prepared for the coming crash.

Many brought up property prices as an impediment to “going back to the land.” However, there are plenty of places one can take part in the neo back-to-the-land movement without going off and buying a farm. Check out the WWOOFing movement (http://http://www.wwoof.org), for example. Organic farming is labour intensive; many places will give you lodging and healthy food in exchange for work, and you get an education in self-sufficiency out of the deal.

In fact, going off and buying a farm may well be the worst thing you could do, unless you were raised on one or really know what you’re doing. The skills of low-energy farming are not simple nor trivial to learn. People with baby-pink hands don’t last long with a scythe. People who don’t know corn from beans have no place owning a farm by themselves.

But the growing communities movement (http://www.ic.org) can help. Again, you can often exchange your unskilled labour for meals, lodging, and education. Lunafish says she must “work two jobs” because she “needs shelter.” By working two jobs for money, then paying that money for rent, heat, and food, you are feeding the beast. I’d invite you (and others) to trade that for one job on an ecovillage or organic farm, where you will not only have your shelter, but you’ll also be learning skills that will be invaluable in the future, and you’ll stop feeding the beast by turning your income over to others who simply feed the economy.

Yes, it’s tough to give up all the goodies you think you need. Someday soon, people won’t have a choice, and you’ll at least know how to live without those goodies.

genaman July 25th, 2007 6:18 am

Why is it so hard to concieve that even just one human being on this planet can make a differance with Climate change?
We keep shouting at the other guy to get his act straight .While we on the other hand make shadow puppets and call it a solution.

Eco Junk? Yes I believe it. But did I just purchase some just the other day?

Imagine if each of the other contributors on this piece all started to walk the walk individualy? That would be almost thirty humans. Over a day A month A Year Or a Lifetime that is mucho energy never used.

Finally The slogan Nacy Reagan Endorsed so long ago against drugs “Just Say No” Makes Sense. Buying stuff is as bad and addiction as any drug you can name.
This propaghanda that by buying you create jobs is garbage. Human jobs are replaced by machines daily. The workers are asked to sacrifice more and more to the corporations.
What we are living in today is a Fools Dream

We know the problem of Climate Change. We know what has to be done. It doesn’t start with the other guy sacrificing. It starts with ourselves.

whatever4 July 25th, 2007 11:04 am

Wow I couldn’t agree more, what a great article.

Now I know what’s been bothering me about the green movement, a little snobby, a little off, that’s how it felt. I respect myself a little bit more for shopping so much less the past few years. I felt pulled in the “just don’t buy any more crap” direction. I thought it was just the horrors our manufactures provide as employment overseas. Maybe it was more than that, a desire to stop using things up. Stop being overly disposable.

Sanitary pads I’ll never give up willingly. New plastic crap, like trashcans because they get dirty and other new stuff because the old stuff looks…old, that’s a game I don’t want to play anymore.

I feel much better about me and my freshly-scrubbed plastic trash can. I’m not just cheap, I’m brilliant!

Siouxrose July 25th, 2007 2:36 pm

JAN S & Capt Clevariant: Excellent points and useful suggestions. Many thanks to you both.

lpenek July 26th, 2007 4:39 pm

Paul Bramscher’s posts inspired me to look up lyrics to Working Class Hero by John Lennon:

As soon as your born they make you feel small,
By giving you no time instead of it all,
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
They hurt you at home and they hit you at school,
They hate you if you’re clever and they despise a fool,
Till you’re so fucking crazy you can’t follow their rules,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
When they’ve tortured and scared you for twenty odd years,
Then they expect you to pick a career,
When you can’t really function you’re so full of fear,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV,
And you think you’re so clever and classless and free,
But you’re still fucking peasents as far as I can see,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
There’s room at the top they are telling you still,
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill,
If you want to be like the folks on the hill,
A working class hero is something to be.
A working class hero is something to be.
If you want to be a hero well just follow me,
If you want to be a hero well just follow me.

eris July 24th, 2007 12:29 pm

Conspicuous spending is the American (and Western) ‘dream’ and is the root problem. Changing our minds is the only real solution - our lifestyles reflect the way we think in a very direct way. “…the long hard political battle” isn’t going to mean much if people don’t change their minds so that their lifestyles reflect that. Unfortunately THAT change may require more trauma than persuasion; consumer-slanted ‘hip trends’ are designed to make us feel ‘cool’ not conscientious.
Not One More July 24th, 2007 1:24 pm

Everybody wants things to change (including me to some degree), but we won’t change how we do things. Some have a mistaken belief that there is a technological fix that will allow us to consume as much as we want.

But in fact that is the one thing that we must change, the belief that we should be able to consume how much we want.

Is ’sustainable consumption’ an oxymoron?
http://www.wordsareimportant.com/sustainable.htm

peace
Paul Bramscher July 24th, 2007 1:43 pm

The crux of the problem is the artificially inflated cost of real estate and rent. It forces people to work more, to simply survive. By working, they’re either making products — or probably involved indirectly in the transition of resources->products.

I’m listening to an interesting lecture during my commutes to work on the Hindu caste system. Apparently there are 4 traditional phases on life for men, Sanyassa (renunciation of worldly pursuits) being the last. Too extreme for Western tastes, but apparently it was important to DELAY this stage as long as possible into a person’s life, since it meant that they were no longer part of the productive economy if they would drop out too soon.

So the criminally inflated real estate (through unregulated lending & speculation) has forced everyone to pay FAR more than they ordinarily would, and therefore work much more, and therefore produce a larger environmental footprint.
Siouxrose July 24th, 2007 2:20 pm

Monbiot raises good points. Because the entire discussion is framed by the corporate capitalist media it’s not about to shoot itself (profit motive) in the foot. Hence this particular slant on buying has co-opted for many the need to become wiser consumers and genuinely conservation-prone in what and why they buy. PAUL is also correct, the ridiculously inflated prices of real estate (and then rents) forces people to work sometimes two plus jobs. I watched these mediocre (we called them “smurf village”) houses, which were really 4 poorly constructed townhomes all connected, originally sell for $49,900 when I arrived in Key West in l986 to jump to close to $200,000 each in about 15 years. Since incomes (apart from CEO’s) have hardly kept pace with this form of astronomical inflation, naturally the pinch is felt intensively. Barbara Ehrenreich tried to subsist as a waitress in Key West, and while the KEYS are high priced real estate, the same phenomena is seen everywhere else (except perhaps what’s considered highly undesirable locations.)
Siouxrose July 24th, 2007 2:21 pm

This is also why the indigenous have a saying, “The land does not belong to us. We belong to the land.” Earth mother reserved her vote for some time, but is getting edgy.
Paul Bramscher July 24th, 2007 2:54 pm

I think it’s actually designed and managed to be this way by the elite at the top of the ladder. I think of all the other commodities in our society — which you can get at thrift shops, second hand, or find a range of values (cheap to not at all affordable) — and it seems that rent/real-estate offers no such range to the consumer. It STARTS OUT at barely affordable, and only goes up from there. So, given the wildly skewed pricing, I’m left to conclude somewhat that it is an artificial construct. Either due to the illegal/unregulated lending and speculation activity, or else someone somewhere is worried about a generation of people being able to “drop out” too soon.

Imagine — they might become poets, philosophers, writers, artists, small businessmen and women of sustainable industries, tinkers, etc. and rejuvenate an increasingly empty American civil/public/social life if they didn’t have to spend the vast bulk of their life producing/consuming for the Big Boxes.
jedediah zachariah jedediah springfield July 24th, 2007 3:13 pm

Paul Bramscher, well said, but it’s not just living space anymore, it’s everything: education, a car, health care, etc. doesn’t orwell in ‘84 talk about constantly keeping society on the edge of starvation? we aren’t quite there yet (well, most of us aren’t, but some damn sure are, in the US, that is; the world is a different story), but millions upon millions of americans are forced to be constantly on the edge of financial disaster.

anyway, this is a good article. the basic issue of environmentalism is consumption. not new gadgets, not green energy, but the colossal waste of the modern economy. of course we should convert to solar, wind, etc., but if we don’t decrease consumption, a new form of energy is not gonna preserve our forests, waters, oceans, etc. even if it does reduce carbon.

environmentalist will not work until we democraticize the economy. they are too many people getting obscenely rich off of the massive amounts of useless junk the 1st world devours; they will not allow environmentalism to occur.

www.wsws.org
JaneM July 24th, 2007 3:19 pm

It seems ridiculous to say, but so many “old” ways were better. Animals brought up on pasture have omega 3 fatty-acids and their manure nourishes the grass while killing ecoli bacteria. Wouldn’t you rather buy milk from a local dairy than buying from the supermarket (in central Massachusetts we get milk from Ohio)? But of course, the local dairies have all gone out of business. The added ingredient, though, is that local products are often more expensive. Perhaps the richest of us could rent out little serfdoms so poorer people could have access to farmland…
labrooks112@prodigy.net July 24th, 2007 3:40 pm

I just want to thank you for your article. The “soft” progressives, the progressive elite, need to get in touch with the working and not working poor. How can you claim to be for “a better world” and simultaneously flaunt yours in the face of the have nots? No one, who claims to work for positive change, should allow themselves to own 2 homes until everyone has at least one. Environmental issues are very important but so are issues of poverty, decent housing and living wages.
Paul Bramscher July 24th, 2007 3:46 pm

jedediah zachariah jedediah springfield,

In my own case, anyway, it’s all predicated on cost of living. My single greatest expense — by far — is the mortgage bill. If my home cost a fraction, I’d be happy to:

* Immediately invert my week inside-out. I’d work 2 days/week and have 5 day weekends.
* Spend more time on my gardens, reading, writing, etc.
* Probably fix more things, and buy fewer new replacements. Fixing takes time, but it’s usually better on the environment, and is often cheaper.

The corporate taskmasters are keenly interested in commoditizing everything. Spare time presents at least two risks to the system. (1) People might work/consume less and (2) They might do more things “off the grid” (trade/barter/etc.), so the ueber-capitalists would not be able to skim off or monopolize that exchange of goods/service.

I think Orwell is right about that edge of starvation, the elite see it as a form of motivation. Being intrinsically sadistic and sociopathic, they have no problem using it — to whatever extreme, even if it results in social breakdown, high rates of divorce, extreme pressure on trying to have kids today, etc.

The carrot on the end of that sick is deliberately held just a little out of reach in the hopes it’ll make people tread water. But I think it’s getting old, the stick too long, the folly increasingly recognized.
changeisgood July 24th, 2007 3:53 pm

Souixrose, you are in Key West? Me too. I’ve been reading Commondreams for a while now but did not feel the need to post since others seem to speak what I feel.
I have been practicing the ‘less is more’ philosophy for the last 25 years (most of my adult life). Repair, reuse and recyle, I learned this from my parents who grew up very poor. I do find it difficult to live this 100% though.
Michael Hughes July 24th, 2007 4:11 pm

Yes, too many people are suckered into buying all that eco-tat.

The real problem is that there are too many people in the world so the long-term goal should be to reduce the population; to achieve this we should agree to have only one child per family for a few generations. But we all know the barriers there are to such a solution - in fact it is the only solution.

In the meantime …
Grow as many vegetables, fruit and nuts as you can.
Use barter (LETS System, Ithaca Hours).
Convert to solar energy - especially to harvest heat and store most of it for the winter (http://www.dlsc.ca/).
Rodso64 July 24th, 2007 4:30 pm

I second what Michael Hughes said. Half of the things we do (”Green” or otherwise) that bring about global destruction and resource depletion would not be anywhere near as bad if their were not so many humans on the planet DOING them.

So why has population stabilization dropped off the radar of so many environmental activists, even those so hepped up on the hot topic of the day, global warming?
Siouxrose July 24th, 2007 4:37 pm

CHANGE IS GOOD: I left Key West in 2000 when the rents went crazy and a change in my status as a writer compelled me to sell my townhouse. I live in North Florida now, lots of nature, but the citizens are one notch above those depicted by the film Deliverance. The ignorance factor is partly due to the small town mentalities, and is also aided and abetted by fundamentalist churches. It’s another Dianne Fossey style sociology experiment for this writer in evolution.
PJD July 24th, 2007 4:48 pm

…would not be anywhere near as bad if their were not so many humans on the planet DOING them.

But most humans on the planet ARENT DOING them. They don’t own a car, or a 4000 sq foot house or air conditioning. It is only in teh global north, which in turn is predominated by a large margin by the USA, where there is such proflagrate energy consumption.

“So why has population stabilization dropped off the radar of so many environmental activists, even those so hepped up on the hot topic of the day, global warming?”

Because, the countrties emitting nearly all the greenhouse gasses already have stable, or stabilizing populations. And, short of some kind program of mass extermination, population stabilization/reduction will take far too long. Also, large brown populations slaving in sweatshops and fields are needed to support the white populations who are emitting all the greenhouse gasses.
ezeflyer July 24th, 2007 5:11 pm

Let’s put our money where our mouth’s are and vote for the Green Party… and some progressive Democrats.
jbatch July 24th, 2007 5:44 pm

Mr. Monbiot:

I find you one of the most thoughtful and insightful writers on the environment and global warming around.

There is another aspect to this mindless consumerism, whether green or any other color tha merits examination. Study after study reveals that, once the most elemental of needs are met 9food, shelter, water, warmth) there is virtually no correlation between wealth, consumerism, and happiness.

Which begs the question: why do we mindlessly strive to accumulate and consume? The answer is embedded in your ovservation of the solar panel mounted on the uninsulated attic roof. We chase the thousands of geegaws and gadgets that muck up our lives for the same reason that birds of paradise do absurd dances; for the same reason that male deer ram each other in their heads for hours on end; for the same reason a butterfly’s probiscus exactly matches a flower’s shape — because we are hardwired to do so. Our curse is — gifted by reason — we are able to step outside the normal confines of evolution, and consum beyond anything the earth can endure, yet still survive — for a while.

But nature is the ultimate bill collector. We are now eating our seed corn, rich and poor alike, and the future lies before us, barren, fallow and no amount of wealth can longe evade her emissaries — flood, fire, pestilence, and chaos.
andersdl July 24th, 2007 6:22 pm

When I started college in 1970 I joined the zero-population-growth (ZPG) Club and the Appropriate Technology (AT) Club. ZPG is self-explanatory, appropriate technology focussed on need-based (rather than create the need and maximize profit potential based)technologies. Appropriate technologies would be part of the solution and not part of (or adding to)the problem.

By 1980 not only had the clubs disappeared, the mere mention of either ZPG or AT would brand you a heretic.

Y2K, terrorism, etc. have proven to be big time sell-more-stuff success stories for big bizz and they are on track to add climate change to that list.
dcgood1 July 24th, 2007 7:50 pm

Part of what makes Monbiot a conscientious writer on issues where making your sources of information available can be extremely helpful is his liberal (so to speak) use of citations. I’d like to encourage CommonDreams to include such citations whenever possible. It means enough to me that, poor though I be, I promise to donate 50 bucks if you do! Thanks.
lunafish July 24th, 2007 8:01 pm

Greetings,

Many good comments posted on this topic. I have to agree that the “need less” concept needs to take hold, including less children/people. The “curse” Monbiot mentioned includes conditioning that the advertising industry has championed since they goaded American women-”Rosie the Riveter”-to go home and make babies and take care of the hubby or there is something wrong with you. (A program to influence women to go home so the troops could have their jobs back after the war and put women back in the subservient position of society. Oh, and then there were the endless new and improved products with ad campaigns designed to make women want the latest “thing” so the hubby could keep working for that carrot.

Why do you think Cheney/Rove and Co. hired that Beers woman to do their ad/marketing for the Iraq war and the 911 events? Great PR, the best the taxpayer dollars can buy.

One of the greatest problems we, the people, face is the challenge of “conditioning”. The advertising industry of America has made a great institution out of the “marketing plan”. I worked in advertising for a spell but got so disgusted that I had to find another way to be gainfully employed. It’s all based on phycological manipulation and is no more complex than the Pavlovian theorem.

I found an interesting article that was posted on CD a couple years ago that was written before Katrina but after the war started but relevent today…

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0208-24.htm

Says a lot.

Other things that you don’t hear about in the global warming/environmetal problems scene are the current atmospheric conditions over the majority of the US–too hot, record high temps all over; Idaho, Nevada and Utah are burning down; and has anyone heard that the trout are dying in Yellowstone NP because the water temps are too high for them? Or that the glacier in Glacier NP is not expected to last more than a couple years(?)–I think that’s what they said in the article I read last week. The article was about the visitors wanting to see the glacier for, perhaps, the last time it will be possible.

Of all the atrocities we discuss here, the worst is the fact that the population of this nation has lost its way… morally, intellectually, spiritually (if it ever really had it), through conditioning via TV, mags and movies.

Democracies only last, historically, for about 200 years. Perhaps our time is up. I can see how a socio-political implosion can take place in the near future if the population doesn’t get off its butt and change this.

It requires willpower and inconvenience as we know it.

Perhaps if we give simplicity a chance… need less, take the time to fix things, just say no to the big boxes. Learn to sew and knit/crochet. When you stop buying things to make you feel better for buying them or making shopping a “feel good” event, you start realizing how much of your capital is wasted on stuff that becomes trash in a hurry. Instant gratification/instant obsolescence.

I hate to shop, when I do, I go in, get what I went for and leave. No extra stuff at the checkout line. I also choose to be selective about the quality of what I buy. I avoid Wal-Mart and the like and buy things that usually are materials for something I will make or grow from a small locally owned business. If I really need to have something, I will wait to get it as well, forcing me to re-evaluate the need before participating in the capitalist realm. Don’t do credit cards either.

I work two jobs–I need shelter since I can’t afford a mortgage, and still take the time for these things. I don’t watch or own a TV and avoid any kind of advertising as much as I can. It isn’t hard. It’s like riding a bike once you find a rhythm that works for your needs. I don’t stress about money anymore and have decided that for most of the things I have or acquire; if I can’t pay for it all at once, I probably don’t really need it. As for the rest of material possessions, if I don’t HAVE it, nobody can TAKE it from me and if I don’t use it in a reasonable time, I give it away to someone who can use it. Lots of stress I don’t have to suffer protecting “stuff”.
PJD July 24th, 2007 10:38 pm

“the mere mention of either ZPG or AT would brand you a heretic.”

No one on the left would brand AT ad heretical, but CD readers should understand that the left is distinctly at unease about ZPG because domestically, it has often been taken up by racist anti-immigrant types, and internationally, it is associated with western cultural imperialism.
Shane July 24th, 2007 10:45 pm

REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE

Nope, nothing about buying green. Buying green is just another subversive consumer plot to get you to spend you money on useless crap.
ezeflyer July 24th, 2007 10:55 pm

Why should people have to pay for the recycling of products we don’t manufacture like chemical, biological and radiological pollutants?
Siouxrose July 24th, 2007 11:19 pm

LUNAFISH says, “One of the greatest problems we, the people, face is the challenge of “conditioning”. The advertising industry of America has made a great institution out of the “marketing plan”. I worked in advertising for a spell but got so disgusted that I had to find another way to be gainfully employed. It’s all based on phycological manipulation and is no more complex than the Pavlovian theorem.” This is a critical observation (good work there, Luna). AND I think it over-rides, or adds significant nuance to the analysis raised (lyrical though it is) by jbatch. I believe it was Robert E. Lane professor Emeritus who published a book entitled, “The Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies.” It showed that people value loving relationships over $. The thing is people tend to be insecure and many are natural conformists. It is a very human need to want to feel that one belongs to a group and is accepted. THIS is the thing advertisers use! They make people feel that to BE accepted, they have to own all those BS items.
Like Lunafish, I live very simply these days and my time is my own. There is nothing more precious. I have clothes from 20 years ago I still wear as fashions tend to recycle, and if not, who gives a shit? I ride a bike a lot, and as a result feel very fit and this goes a long way to balance against having no medical insurance like so many in this nation. How much food to people throw away? How many publications and catalogues that are not needed? I have pared down and it feels freeing. It’s harder when you’re still raising children, the luxury of maturity is not having to adapt to rules, customs or values your own developed sense of integrity tells you are extraneous. Of course I’d feel a lot better if this phase of freedom was not contradicted by an administration drunk on its own power and capable of launching significant trespasses here in “the homeland.”
capt.clevariant July 25th, 2007 12:30 am

Good article and comments. My favorite uncle gave me a nugget of wisdom a long time ago: “There are two ways to be rich: Have a lot, or want little”). And I believe it was Thoreau who gave me the image, which I have carried with me all of my life, of a man staggering down the road of life with all of his worldly possessions on his back. As Paul Bramscher points out, the possibilities for a rich life are much better if we are not consumed with the accumulation of riches. Of course we need to provide the necessities of life to ourselves and our children, but all we need is enough. More than that is absurd.
And enough is less than we sometimes think it is.

As consumers, we have the power to change our way of life. Blaming the corporations for doing what they do is pointless. It’s like blaming the shark for eating the sardine. But it is extremely difficult to change the attitudes and behaviors of enough people to make any difference in this old world. And any change that impacts the livelyhood and the economy of an entire nation is going to be resisted mightily by a vast majority of the people. So all we have left is the hope that the threat of an environmental catastrophe will change how we live. It may take an actual environmental catastrophe that impacts millions if not billions of lives to get the job done. And we may not survive to benefit from the change.

The easiest thing we can do to go green is stop buying things unless we really need them. As you replace those things you have, replace them with items that are of good quality and are environmentally sound. So I keep driving my old car that still gets 30-35 mpg and has over 250,000 miles on it. It’s well into its 15th year of service and still running strong, and honestly looks almost as good as many new cars. Our little house is clean, neat, well-maintained, and energy efficient. We only repair and/or replace what breaks or wears out. There are things we could buy and install that might save a little energy, but any advantage would be offset, as has been pointed out in the comments, by the materials and energy to produce the new technology. Why do people need houses more than 2000-2500 square feet anyway, much less two houses? And we are trying to buy locally as much as possible, and are talking with our friends about growing a community garden. Most Americans could save a lot of money and energy by simply eating less, and buying more in bulk, choosing healthy, simple foods and avoiding the empty calories and unhealthy ingredients in soda and junk food. It’s not that hard to stop unnecessary consumption and live a healthy lifestyle. We are not the slaves of the big corporations. We have the power of choice, and the ability to dictate to them what we want and will pay for. We are the customers. Without us, they are nothing. If we allow ourselves to be enslaved by them, we deserve what we get.
Jan Steinman July 25th, 2007 1:32 am

Most people can recite the three R’s: reduce, reuse, recycle. I’d precede them with a first “R”: refuse. Refuse to take part in consumerism, green or otherwise. Fix broken things. When absolutely necessary, buy used things instead of new ones. Drop out of the consumer economy.

This has a ripple effect. Not only will you be doing the greenest thing you can do short of removing yourself from the earth, you’ll also play a part in bringing down the rest of the economy. Remember how, after 9-11, Bush encouraged everyone to “go out shopping” for the good of the nation? Simply on the theory that one should automatically do the opposite of whatever Bush asks us, we should do whatever we can to bring down the greater economy, which is built on a house of cards, and has got to crash one of these days anyway.

To the extent you’re able to function outside the economy, you’ll already be prepared for the coming crash.

Many brought up property prices as an impediment to “going back to the land.” However, there are plenty of places one can take part in the neo back-to-the-land movement without going off and buying a farm. Check out the WWOOFing movement (http://http://www.wwoof.org), for example. Organic farming is labour intensive; many places will give you lodging and healthy food in exchange for work, and you get an education in self-sufficiency out of the deal.

In fact, going off and buying a farm may well be the worst thing you could do, unless you were raised on one or really know what you’re doing. The skills of low-energy farming are not simple nor trivial to learn. People with baby-pink hands don’t last long with a scythe. People who don’t know corn from beans have no place owning a farm by themselves.

But the growing communities movement (http://www.ic.org) can help. Again, you can often exchange your unskilled labour for meals, lodging, and education. Lunafish says she must “work two jobs” because she “needs shelter.” By working two jobs for money, then paying that money for rent, heat, and food, you are feeding the beast. I’d invite you (and others) to trade that for one job on an ecovillage or organic farm, where you will not only have your shelter, but you’ll also be learning skills that will be invaluable in the future, and you’ll stop feeding the beast by turning your income over to others who simply feed the economy.

Yes, it’s tough to give up all the goodies you think you need. Someday soon, people won’t have a choice, and you’ll at least know how to live without those goodies.
genaman July 25th, 2007 6:18 am

Why is it so hard to concieve that even just one human being on this planet can make a differance with Climate change?
We keep shouting at the other guy to get his act straight .While we on the other hand make shadow puppets and call it a solution.

Eco Junk? Yes I believe it. But did I just purchase some just the other day?

Imagine if each of the other contributors on this piece all started to walk the walk individualy? That would be almost thirty humans. Over a day A month A Year Or a Lifetime that is mucho energy never used.

Finally The slogan Nacy Reagan Endorsed so long ago against drugs “Just Say No” Makes Sense. Buying stuff is as bad and addiction as any drug you can name.
This propaghanda that by buying you create jobs is garbage. Human jobs are replaced by machines daily. The workers are asked to sacrifice more and more to the corporations.
What we are living in today is a Fools Dream

We know the problem of Climate Change. We know what has to be done. It doesn’t start with the other guy sacrificing. It starts with ourselves.
whatever4 July 25th, 2007 11:04 am

Wow I couldn’t agree more, what a great article.

Now I know what’s been bothering me about the green movement, a little snobby, a little off, that’s how it felt. I respect myself a little bit more for shopping so much less the past few years. I felt pulled in the “just don’t buy any more crap” direction. I thought it was just the horrors our manufactures provide as employment overseas. Maybe it was more than that, a desire to stop using things up. Stop being overly disposable.

Sanitary pads I’ll never give up willingly. New plastic crap, like trashcans because they get dirty and other new stuff because the old stuff looks…old, that’s a game I don’t want to play anymore.

I feel much better about me and my freshly-scrubbed plastic trash can. I’m not just cheap, I’m brilliant!
Siouxrose July 25th, 2007 2:36 pm

JAN S & Capt Clevariant: Excellent points and useful suggestions. Many thanks to you both.
lpenek July 26th, 2007 4:39 pm

Paul Bramscher’s posts inspired me to look up lyrics to Working Class Hero by John Lennon:

As soon as your born they make you feel small,
By giving you no time instead of it all,
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
They hurt you at home and they hit you at school,
They hate you if you’re clever and they despise a fool,
Till you’re so fucking crazy you can’t follow their rules,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
When they’ve tortured and scared you for twenty odd years,
Then they expect you to pick a career,
When you can’t really function you’re so full of fear,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV,
And you think you’re so clever and classless and free,
But you’re still fucking peasents as far as I can see,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
There’s room at the top they are telling you still,
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill,
If you want to be like the folks on the hill,
A working class hero is something to be.
A working class hero is something to be.
If you want to be a hero well just follow me,
If you want to be a hero well just follow me.

Join the discussion:

You must be logged in to post a comment. If you haven't registered yet, click here to register. (It's quick, easy and free. And we won't give your email address to anyone.)