 I've now finished Jim Merkel's book Radical Simplicity, which I described in an earlier post. Some of Merkel's ideas for living simpler were incorporated in my personal How to Save the World scorecard.
I was mindful of the comments of several readers who complained that
such books are only useful for salving the guilt of rich people who
have lived extravagant lifestyles, and offer nothing to 'average'
people who live a frugal existence struggling just to make ends meet.
I'll leave it up to readers to consider what I've learned from this
book, and decide whether these lessons have any applicability to them:
- Our ecological footprint (EF) is modestly higher than the
North American average. This is due primarily to the fact we live in a
larger-than-average house (the average North American home size is 1700
s.f., up from about 1300 s.f. a generation ago), and, as Canadians, we
use a lot more BTUs for heating than the average North American.
- We actually buy less 'stuff' than the average North
American, by a considerable margin. This is because we tend to save
until we can afford better, more expensive, more durable products, so
we 'turn over' what we own only half as often as the average North
American, who disposes of clothing on average every 4 years, computers
and small appliances every 3 years, major appliances every 8 years, and
furniture every 10 years. This is a staggering amount of waste, and
shows the false economy that our consumer culture and the Wal-Mart Dilemma push many people into.
- Thanks to our progressive community, that recycles paper,
plastic, glass, cardboard, aluminum, and organics ('green box'
program), we produce much
less unrecycled garbage than the average North American (who adds 3/4
of a ton per year into landfills). I am aghast at the lack of progress
in both municipal and business recycling in many parts of the continent.
- As Merkel's book progresses, it moves from very simple,
logical, sensible steps that can lower your EF, to steps that only a
die-hard and exceptionally devoted environmentalist would take. I'm not
interested in growing most of my own food, living in a 100 s.f./person
home and making my own clothes -- that's way beyond responsible living, even beyond austerity.
Even I'm not that idealistic. After going through the workbook
sections, I've concluded that our EF is less than I thought it would
be, and a reasonable 'zero sacrifice' target for reducing our EF is more
than I thought it would be. So while at first blush I'd pledged to
reduce our EF by 80%, I'm lowering that pledge to 50%. That's still a
worthwhile, and not terribly difficult, goal, which will reduce our EF
to about 60% of the North American average. But it still leaves our EF
at three times the current global sustainable per-capita level. In
other words, if everyone in the world lived at our proposed lower EF level,
it would take three Earths, and zero population growth starting
immediately, to sustain us all, and that would leave no room for all
the rest of the life species in the world. Merkel, like McKibben,
urges us to pursue an average one-child family strategy to reduce and
sustain human population at a billion people, which would allow us all
to live at my target EF level (i.e. very comfortably) and still allow
half the planet to be left in natural state for other life species.
- The methods I propose to use to halve our EF are not rocket science:
- Make our home much more energy efficient. Either build a
new, exceptionally energy- and space-efficient home on a lot that would
be left 90% in its natural state. Or alternatively, as some readers
have suggested, do a radical energy retrofit and functional redesign of
our existing home, and close off or lease out half of it. Our existing
lot is only 50% in natural state, so much of our lawn would have to be
returned to forest.
- Change jobs to substantially home-based businesses, and sell one of our two cars -- an end to wage slavery.
- Learn to cook (though probably not as well as my wife) so
we can become more vegetarian, and eat less processed and packaged
foods.
- Learn to be more self-sufficient and self-efficient (fixing things instead of tossing them out).
- Not only would these changes halve our EF, they would have
a comparable impact on our utilities, maintenance, household,
transportation, and other costs, allowing us to retire in seven years
(if we want to) instead of the projected twenty.
- The book also talks a lot about overcoming fears -- of
striking out on your own, of being viewed as 'weird', of wilderness, of
doing without the possessions that sometimes come to own us, of not
having 'enough'. This is important because Radical Simplicity is about
culture change, and while I'm convinced our lower-EF end-state will be
idyllic, it's the journey, the 'letting go' that's difficult, and
ultimately, in some ways, a leap of faith.
I still recommend the book, but you'll need to look past some of the
more over-the-top rhetoric and the more extreme and impractical
reductions in EF, and adapt the ideas to your own circumstances and
standards.
Postscript December 29 -- please read
Kevin Cameron's comments in the thread to this post. He addresses, much
better than either I or Merkel have, the issues that make many people
skeptical about the concept and practicality of Radical Simplicity.
Kevin also makes some important points that Merkel and I both missed.
|
11:28:49 AM 
|
|
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
