 I've written several
articles about achieving Radical Simplicity, reducing our footprint to
zero, to the point where we recycle everything we consume, live in
harmony and balance with all-life-on-Earth, and leave no trace after we
are gone.
As long as we are part of modern society, and modern political and
economic systems, it is impossible to reach this goal, because a huge
amount of non-renewable consumption, pollution and waste is involved in
the production and distribution of everything we buy, and because we
are an integral part of systems that are vastly wasteful and
destructive. Buying 'carbon credits' may make us feel better, but they
don't undo the damage we do just by living as part of these systems.
I've been thinking about this from a different perspective recently.
Instead of reducing our footprint by incremental changes to what we do,
what if we started from zero, and figured out what we really need to live a comfortable, full and joyful life.
I'm a pretty simple guy, so perhaps my list would leave most people
cold. I have a very rich imagination that entertains me, so I don't
need Hollywood or high tech to keep me amused. I enjoy my own company,
so I don't need to be stimulated 24/7. But I also like my creature
comforts, so perhaps my list of All I Need isn't that much leaner than
anyone else's. I've learned that as much as half what I spend each year
is spent by virtue of my working away from home. If I worked at home,
or didn't 'need' to work at all, my needs and footprint would be much
lower than they are now. This isn't just travel savings, it's time
savings, time that would be freed up to do things for myself instead of
paying others to do them for me.
Much of our consumption is a matter of choices, choices that for the
most part are made for us early in life, so we don't know that there
are other, more responsible, less resource-consuming choices.
Vegetarianism, eating raw foods instead of processed foods, buying
local and durable. Our extravagant, unsustainable economy depends on
wasteful, accelerating, mindless consumption, so realizing these
alternative choices can take some thought, some time, and some
research. But they're there. We need a lot less than we think.
All I Need:
- A place, a home: Shared with others, natural, sustainable,
in balance with and as part of all-life-on-Earth. A community with a population
density of no more than 25 people per human-sustainable km2
(1 person per 4 ha). That's about 25 times as much as the average
gatherer-hunter culture density throughout history, but it's still only
1/10 of the current worldwide average, so as a 'need' it's out of reach
of most of the world. Ideally this home should not need heating or cooling,
but if it does these things should be achieved through solar, wind or
geothermal renewable sources. It should have a space for social
activity, a space for quiet work and reflection, and a space for
sleeping. Three communal spaces. For 50 people, indoor space totaling
perhaps 10,000 sf (1,000 m2) on a little less than a square mile (2
km2) of land. Footprint 0.05% of the land.
- People to love:
A community of people with whom I share values and passions and a sense
of purpose, to whom I can be of use. The ideal community seems to be
around 50 people, and that feels right.
- Attention and appreciation: It's not so much love and affection we want in return from those we love -- receiving those things doesn't do
much for us. It's attention and appreciation we crave: having others
listen to us, and nod in agreement or in thanks. That comes down to how
we apportion our scarcest resource -- our time.
And when we live in a society that gives us so much more than all we
need, and demands so much of us in return, that time is especially
scarce.
- Simple, healthy food and water:
Locally produced and preserved as necessary over seasons when there may
be a shortage of fresh produce. A healthy variety. Fruits, handmade
juices, raw vegetables, nuts, whole grains.
- Communication and information media:
The Internet, more for virtual presence and connectivity than for
content. The gives us the ability to do things without traveling to do them.
- Music and art and literature: I can make do with the music on my mp3 player and the books I exchange with others, but what I really
want is to produce these things with those I live in community with,
not just consume them. Why should we buy these things when we can make
them, together, for free?
- Health: I believe that good health stems naturally from having the things above.
- Security:
Freedom from worry that these few things above that I need will be
unreasonably taken from me. This means that the people around me also
have to have all they need as
well. As long as there is inequality there can be no security. If only
the world's 'leaders' understood this simple truth.
How much do these things cost? Except for the habitable land, which has
become horrifically scarce because of overpopulation and inequality,
only the food (which we can grow ourselves and trade surpluses with
other communities, without charge, as part of a Gift or Generosity
Economy) and the Internet (which we need to learn to fully manage
ourselves as well, as a true World of Ends) 'costs' anything.
What I don't need:
- Meat
- Processed foods
- Restaurants
- Furniture
- Motor-powered vehicles
- Clothing or jewelry (other than what we make ourselves and for each other, as art not as necessity)
- Entertainment (other than that we make ourselves) or entertainment media
- Information (other than that we produce and share among ourselves) or information media
- Laws
and governments and privacy (if we have security, as noted above, we
can self-manage without laws or governments, and need no privacy)
My level of consumption today is half what it used to be, but it's
still unacceptably high. I have to think about extracting myself from
the systems that give me what I don't need, walking away from them,
refusing to buy from them or participate in them, no matter how easy or
inexpensive it is to just go along with these systems, and no matter
how much brainwashing we're subjected to that causes us to believe we
need this crap, that there is no other way to live.
The waste, pollution and resource exhaustion that I
indirectly am responsible for, by virtue of participating in these
systems, may be invisible, and that is what those who perpetuate these
unsustainable and reprehensible systems count on. But when we buy
products from giant corporations we are as responsible for the
destructive extraction, the effluent, the resource exhaustion, the
waste and misery that these corporations, and the corporations they buy
from, produce, as if we produced them ourselves.
We can't go from All We Consume to All We Need quickly or easily. But
it's worthwhile realizing what is possible, if, instead of trying to be
better consumers, we simply stopped consuming the way we do entirely,
and started from zero. Radical Simplicity is, ironically, not easy. But
if it's important enough to us, we'll find it's all we need.
|
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
