i want to read this book. i totally agree that in new york we individually consume less oil.

though, i think for me to consider new york to be “the greenest community”, all the cabs and buses would have be solar powered or electric or some other sort of alternative to dirty smelly fuel.   all dry cleaners and laundromats would be using non-toxic methods and products.  all restaurants, bars, coffee shops, and cafes would recycle.  all residential spaces would have community compost…

just because we live in a congested beehive, doesn’t make this city green.    it is a unique situation; but, when i think of a green community, i think of cleanliness and purity.

sure, i may use less electricity because one lamp lights the entire room.  that’s really all there is to this 400 sq.ft apartment.  the notion we consume less electricity as a city is a farce.  all those commercial spaces are burning electricity all night long, and there are tons of them.    it’s the city that never sleeps. there is no darkness.  we may be discarding less trash at our apartment, but this is a coffee shop, cafe, and restaurant culture. in fact, it seems all people do here is consume.  someone else discarding your waste is still waste.

i do agree many of us live lighter, but we also spend less time in our living spaces.    and we do walk instead of drive…miles per day.  but the air isn’t clean and neither is the water.  perhaps nothing can be done about the water, but the air could be cleaned up easily.

i hope to find green metropolis in my stocking this year, i think it will be a good read.  perhaps it will change my perspective.

If Thanksgiving is the appointed time for rampant overeating and Black Friday our annual date with discount frenzy, then today could perhaps become enshrined as Hangover Saturday, a good time to reflect on consumption rather than engage in it.

Here a selection of Hangover Saturday thoughts gathered in the course of a restful day:

When people talk about what they are grateful for (on Thursday), they never say, “I’m grateful that I have so much stuff” or “My cup runs over because of those Manolo Blahniks I bought last spring” or “The best thing that ever happened to me is my Lamborghini.” It’s possible they’re just trying not to tip their hand, but I suspect we don’t hear those things because, actually, we all do know better.

Our current economic woes have had one advantage: to clarify the point that consumption is not a selfish indulgence but a patriotic duty, philanthropy flowing ceaselessly towards the wealthy, so that our expenditures can come back to us in the form of jobs, which may be defined as a palliative for massive debt or as a subsidy for patriotic duty, sadly insufficient.

Can't touch that 42% of greenhouse gas tied up in goods and food!

Whoever thought of the slogan “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” was not really clued in to the realities of our economic system. We do our bit to help with recycling at least in some parts of the country, but when we make an (unwilling and modest) start on the “Reduce” component, the whole country goes off the rails. That must be why the EPA report “Opportunities to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions through Materials and Land Management Practices”—which is to say “How to Save the World by Tackling Consumption and its After-Effect, Garbage”—declines to estimate the impact on greenhouse gas production if we ate less and bought fewer things. Instead, it tries to figure out what difference it makes if, for example, we were to capture ALL the landfill gas that percolates up from our trash and convert it to electricity or if we recycle ALL the construction and demolition debris coughed up by the never-ending pursuit of bigger and better (as opposed to affordable) homes and gardens.

The opposite of consumption that most easily comes to mind on Hangover Saturday would be abstention. But consumption also has an opposite in creation, which is or can be blameless and much more fun than just saying no. The best place I know to get a feel for the truth of that proposition is S.C.R.A.P. (www.scrap-sf.org), an inspired program in San Francisco that diverts virgin merchandise from the landfill, makes it available for dirt cheap to all those with an urge to create rather than consume, and provides a bunch of jobs into the bargain.

What one might do with scrap

The San Francisco warehouse (on Newcomb between Toland and Selby) is huddled rather inauspiciously under Highway 280, but step inside and be greeted by a carnival of color and texture—papers, fabrics, buttons, doodads, figures, threads and yarn, birds, notions, glass, wood, boxes and containers, table legs and carpet squares,  stickers, ribbons, cards, and vinyl discs. On and on. Not everything leapt out at me as obvious fodder for art, including the industrial-sized potato mashers. For many things, it is immediately obvious why they are not in a store somewhere. In their original identity, the scraps that S.C.R.A.P. offers are not saleable, but as art materials they’re irresistible, guiltless, and very inexpensive.

Over it all hangs an exhibit of unpretentious art: scrap boxes emulating the best of Joseph Cornell, mobiles, a digestive tract laid out in flopping beakers and retorts, quilts, and many other works that demonstrate the virtues and joys of clean salvage.

I had been wondering what the word on Black Friday was going to be, then I ran across this story from NPR on Black Friday.  Like manna from Heaven, only if you think manna is in the form of a news story to blog about.

At any rate, here’s what the story had to say:

This year retailers did their best to lure consumers to open their wallets with lots of early-morning specials. But while the economy has shown some signs of an improvement, analysts say the high rate of unemployment is weighing on people’s willingness to spend.

Well color me surprised.  Actually, don’t.  How this qualifies as news given that we have  unemployment over 10% and wages that are still falling is beyond me.  It’s not like we could expect to have a Christmas like we did 3 or 4 years ago, despite the price action in the equity markets.

But numbers in a vacuum mean very little.  What about the comparison to last year?

The National Retail Federation predicts sales will be down 1 percent this holiday season compared with last year. The 2008 holiday sales season was rough for retailers, who were caught off guard by recession-driven frugality. This year, Edwards says, they seem ready.

“They did a phenomenal job, as best I’ve been able to tell, of buying at the right price so that it appears to the consumer to offer great value, but also provides decent margins to the retailer,” she said, adding it is a change from last year when there was “really a smell of fear in the air when you walked into any of the stores and the consumers knew that they had the retailers right where they wanted them.”

This is important because ultimately what we care about in looking at retail is a mosaic of things: sales volumes, prices, and margins.  So it sounds like – at least on the surface – there’s something to be optimistic about.  But let’s flashback and see what everyone felt about last year’s holiday retail season.  From the New York Times on January 8:

Industry sales fell 2.2 percent for the holiday shopping season, the biggest decline since at least 1970, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers. December sales dropped 1.7 percent on top of even-weaker November sales, when chains posted a 2.7 percent decline, the council said.

Those numbers would be worse except for some huge categories, like food and beverages, on which consumers were less likely to cut back.

So the only thing to be really optimistic about for a lot of retailers is that this season they’re prepared for a horrid retail season.  Because remember: the forecast is for a 1% decline from last year’s sales which had the biggest decline seen in their data for almost 40 years.

That’s not to say it will be uniformly bad for all retail.  Some will do better if they have unique products, great service, or they cater to a market with hardcore shoppers/fans.  But the prognosis still isn’t good when you see things like this in the NPR report:

Another unlikely big seller: kids’ pajamas for $5. Bernadette Carter had a pile of them in her cart that she planned to give to nieces and nephews as presents.

“Normally I’d spend $20 a kid. This year I’m doing $5 a kid. I know that’s cheap but at least they get a little something,” she said.

And this:

“Those price points just grab you. Like anything that’s $10 or less and it’s something neat and would make a great gift,” he said. “People are just going to jump on a price point.”

Margins on low cost items tend to be higher, which helps, but this holiday season I think we might see some margin compression at retailers.  It may not be a huge compression that we see, but it does point to a less jolly holiday profit forecast (Oh dear God, did I just go there?  Jolly?  Really?).  Plus, you still need top line revenue, because that’s what The Street really rewards.  Kind of hard to get there if you’re selling a lot of $5 & $10 items, so having the right product mix will be crucial.

But the most telling part of the story?

So, instead of paying with credit, she went with debit — right out of her checking account.

Consumers won’t leverage up the way they used to.  The real estate ATM is permanently damaged, jobs are more scarce and they pay less, too.

So the bloodletting in retail continues… and not just from me tripping unsuspecting shoppers at the mall.

This morning, feeling slightly fluey and wanting to take it easy on myself, I picked up a copy of GQ Magazine, a magazine that promises to help me ‘look sharp and live smart’ that is read by ~1m every month globally. A closer reading of that catchphrase might indicate that vanity is something to be desired. Let us have a quick look inside this magazine and just pretend, for a minute, that I’m highly impressionable and vain, obsessed by looking sharp and smart – a marketer’s dream consumer who buys everything he sees.

By the time I’ve got to a piece of ‘smart’ in the intellectual sense within the magazine, the letter from the editor – which is the first page that isn’t an index or an advert (or the first one that has any meaningful writing), I’m on page 60. This is a rare oasis, the next piece of content that is unrelated to consumption of goods or services is on page 151 of the 320 page magazine. A total of 185 pages within are dedicated exclusively to adverts. The remainder include index pages, pictures, contents of features that persuade you to buy things in the adverts, or see films, or go to restaurants. In total, there’s very little ‘smart’ within the magazine measured purely by the number of pages dedicated, without going so far as to analyse the content. Plus there is an awful lot of stupidity. For example, purchasing a $27,000 Rolex (note that I need not tell you what this is – the brand is so effective you already know), when you can buy a watch for $5 that performs many more functions and doesn’t turn you into a walking security risk would seem somewhat foolish.

Let’s say I bought one of each of the items advertised on pages 1 to 59 at the cheapest price a quick search of the internet can provide. My total shopping bill comes to $78,253.66 and I’ve bought a total of 40 items, including 7 jumpers, 3 watches, 5 jackets, 7 bottles of cologne and a host of other accessories that should rightly make me ‘smart and sharp’. I’ve also noted that 5 brands are now claiming that their products have the environment in mind. Whether that’s the truth or to induce me to believe the brand is worth buying, I’m none too sure, but boy do I feel better about the $78k hole in my bank account. The poorest country in the world, Zimbabwe, has a per capita GDP of ~$200, meaning that my little shopping spree would cover a mere 391 years of an average citizen’s life there. 80% of the world’s population lives on less than $10 per day. In their case, we’re covering 21 years of life. 21 years of life versus 40 items that, as far as I can tell aside from car insurance and a laptop, provide very little net additional utility to an individual’s life. Especially considering that aside from the car insurance, two bottles of liquor and a laptop, I’m fairly confident that I could purchase an item of replicable quality without a label for less than a tenth of the price. If I went second hand, we’re looking more like a twentieth or more of the price.

I’ve also glanced, in the adverts, at some of the most enviably beautiful and rich people in the world. I’ve just youtubed one of the adverts and found out I can watch a ‘compelling’ video of the making of the adverts, in which a number of supermodels get almost (i.e. never quite but almost) naked. I’ve also been enticed by products and people that I don’t know but I now envy, or at least that’s the hope.

Now before you expect me to go off on a rant about the shameful differences between rich and poor and the horrific inequality in the world, remember that the aim of this site is not to guilt you into making an immediate donation to Oxfam. Its purpose is to make you think about what is good for you and what makes you happier, rather than making you feel bad about wanting more stuff and then guilty about the poor people of the world for the stuff you have.

With that in mind, here’s the rub. The average income of a GQ reader is $75,103 – meaning that to purchase the heavily overpriced goods that come before the editors letter page would require more than a year’s salary… before tax. What’s interesting about this salary is that although fairly generous by modern standards, it isn’t the kind of pay that would allow for too many purchases of $5,000, let alone $27,000 watches. If we presume that there are a few readers of GQ who earn significantly over this amount, it is possible that the average is actually higher than the median. So what is really going on here? If the average reader is not the average purchaser of the goods advertised, why advertise at all? The simple answer is because the marketers are creating aspirational desires in these consumers resulting in occasional purchases of these goods. These desires also enable the companies selling these goods to price them way beyond the levels of their utility and comparable models. The cost of the marketing is easily covered by the increase in perceived ‘value’ that these goods are given by the marketing. The same unlabeled cashmere sweater as is sold by many of the ‘boutique’ brands can be bought at a fraction of the cost, a legal replica (one that isn’t an exact copy) watch of the same quality can be purchased for many multiples less. It’s not even as if these companies require a huge budget for research and development, an argument that many companies (think pharmaceuticals) use to justify high prices.

The point behind all this is that there is little reason, sorry, absolutely no reason what so ever, behind the prices charged by many of the brands that people aspire to being able to afford. There is an argument that wines, or cars, or houses justify additional value on the back of improved quality or performance. Certainly a $1000 dollar bottle of wine may well be of superior quality than a $10 bottle, even if it might be hard to make a case that it is 100 times better. But for many fashion brands, the only thing you are paying for is the brand, the image, the perception. That, my friends, is pure insanity. We work harder, to earn more money, to buy products that are more expensive than those that can be replicated identically for a fraction of the price. We climb voluntarily into a vicious circle that leaves us poorer and unhappier. We’ve become so used to the marketing we’re bombarded by, we no longer notice the subliminal effects they have on our day-to-day.

I’ll leave you with an advert that is at least honest, although I’ve a funny feeling it may have been modified slightly… Happy thanksgiving, let’s hope you consumed all the right things – love, friendship, laughter, conversation…

What: “Questionnaire”
When: 26.11.09
Where: Email, internet, kitchen (napkin)
Who: Friends

On thursday I sent an email to a few of my friends and a couple of people from class, asking them to record what they ate for a day. Five people replied with a full list of what they ate that thursday, (just one using the form I created – which implies this was not a very successful form at all), and on friday I sent them an email back with more questions. The reason for doing this research was not because I needed the full list of people’s food, even though this can come in handy later I presume, but to ask them if they lied at any point during the documentation of the food.

I realised while doing this exercise this summer for possibly going to a nutritian, I lied about what I had eaten. It makes no sense at all, this is a person who is going to help me, not judge my consumption. This was a very interesting observation, and talking to Ralph in tutorials, we discussed the idea of cheating – how we hide the food we are not proud of consuming. The idea was based on observation from one of my classmates earlier, who said he was hiding the extra sugar canes he put in his coffee.

(Reference to “In Defense of Food”, Michael Pollan, trial, p. 74.)

Why do we hide it, even when it doesn’t make sense to?

• Can this be addressed, to make consumers more aware of their actions, and take control of them?
• Is it neccessary to control them?

I’ll write more about the results of the research when they are completed, the current version is writing down what you eat for a week, and see if it changes what and how much you eat.

I will come back to what Michelle Obama has to do with this topic after I present the facts that are pertinent to the story. These facts are fairly well known but it was nice to find them described succinctly in Jared Diamond’s book (Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed) that I started to read again at the urging of Vinod.

Here is the essential statistic: on average, each citizen of the US, Western Europe, and Japan consumes about 32 times more resources and puts out 32 times more waste than do inhabitants of developing countries.

The leaders of all developing countries aspire to lift the living standard of their citizens to match those of the developed ones – the elites are already living at that level shaping the aspirations of the rest of the citizens. The East Asian countries have been growing rapidly over the last quarter century and the goal of the Indian government is to grow the economy at ten percent per year for the next twenty years.

Is this a feasible proposition? Diamond calculates that if every developing country citizen adopted the living standards of developed countries, the global impact in terms of resource use and waste generation would multiply by a factor of twelve. And he notes: “I have not met anyone who seriously argues that the world could support twelve times its current impact.”

People in the Third World aspire to First World living standards… Even in the most remote villages and refugee camps today, people know of the outside world. Third World citizens are encouraged in that aspiration by the First World and the United Nations development agencies, who hold out to them the prospect of achieving their dream if they will only adopt the right policies, like balancing their national budgets, investing in education and infrastructure, and so on.

But no one in First World governments is willing to acknowledge the dream’s impossibility: the unsustainability of a world in which the Third World’s large population were to reach and maintain current First World living standards…. Even if the human populations of the Third World did not exist, it would be impossible for the First World alone to maintain its present course, because it is not in a steady state but is depleting its own resources as well as those imported from the Third World… What will happen when it finally dawns on all those people in the Third World that current First World standards are unreachable for them, and that the First World refuses to abandon those standards for itself?

I thought of this as I heard the chatter surrounding the state dinner in Washington for Dr. Manmohan Singh. All the talk was about Michelle Obama’s ensemble that must have cost over $10,000 – it took over a dozen persons working more than twenty days under the supervision of a hotshot designer to the glitterati. In all likelihood, it would be worn just once. And then I imagined the prime minister’s wife taking out a sari she has probably worn before, and will wear again, tying up her hair as she does every day, and accompanying her husband to the White House. This is a huge contrast in living styles and standards – the opulence on one side not fazed by the deepest economic crisis for generations and over ten percent unemployment; the modesty on the other not dented by almost double digit growth for over a decade.

How will these trends play out in the future? My guess is that the First World is unlikely to abandon the lifestyle that it takes for granted. But would the billions in South and East Asia resist the temptation of emulating them? And, if not, would it be a fair outcome to the distribution of global resources.

Both presidents Obama and Hu Jintao are going to the Copenhagen climate talks with pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But this should not be mistaken for any intention to decrease the desired rates of economic growth. All it means is a commitment to be more efficient in the use of energy, i.e., to use less energy per unit of output – the output itself is not to be restrained. One can draw a parallel with the goal of increasing fuel efficiency of automobiles – by itself that is not enough to reduce the total amount of fuel used; the gains can be offset if the number of miles that automobiles are driven increases in proportion which has been the case to date.

Given this dilemma, do we have a choice not to question the notion of progress that we have taken for granted and that has become synonymous with the relentless growth of GDP? Instead of developed and developing societies, the anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss spoke of “hot” and “cold” societies. “The hot societies are the modern ones, driven by the demons of historical progress. The cold societies are the primitive ones, static, crystalline, harmonious. Utopia… would be a great lowering of the historical temperature [yielding] freedom in which man would finally be freed from the obligation to progress, and from the age-old curse which forced it to enslave men in order to make progress possible.”

Is there an alternative conceptualization of progress that could make everyone better off? Or, are we condemned to either accept an unfair distribution of global resources or to hurtle down the path of an inevitable confrontation?

The excerpt on Claude Levi-Strauss is from an essay by Susan Sontag, A Hero of Our Time, in the New York Review of Books, November 28, 1963.

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So I love to make social commentary. Even more than that I love to critique society and its ills, get out my soap box, climb aboard, rant and rave with arms aflailing. It’s true, I really have quite animated gestures. This passion plays forth in my daily life and in my performance where I often like to comment on damage done to the female pysche by idealizing their image and isolating their bodies. By eating cupcakes on stage. It’s a win-win situation, really. In the
GMV’s next show, we’re offering up a healthy helping of disdain towards America’s favorite past time and holiday tradition: Consumption.

HOWEVER, and this is the important part, I may have to cancel the show due to inability to perform unless someone rolls me onstage after I’ve eaten myself sick on three-loaves-of-bread-two-sticks-of-butter-best-thing-i’ve-ever-tasted-vegetarian-stuffing.

What is the point? Is it to share a beatific food stuff I’ve discovered with you? Well sure, just toast up corn bread, dark raisin bread, and white bread, crumble, mix with sage, parsley, veggie stock, salt, two sticks of melted butter, and celery (it’s healthy, there’s a vegetable!!) and bake.
But that’s not the point.

Is it to point out my own hypocrisy?
Ok, we can do that. I ate like a pig all day today and yesterday, yet in three weeks I’ll get on stage and rail against America’s overconsumption and capitilization on it. Done and done, but not the point.

Is it to confess my sins? Most certainly not!

The point, my dear readers, is to tell you this: On my way to dinner yesterday, I couldn’t quite think of anything inspired to be thankful for. And now I have. I am thankful for my darling friend Phoebe Lipkis and her magic baking hands, and I am thankful that I will never ever ever be silly enough to (again) go on a low carb diet. There is hope and its name is “three kinds of bread!” hallelujah.

Oh, and this last sentence reminds me of a cool mural I saw tonight which said:
The only recognizable feature of hope is action. So go out and take an action, thank a friend, and eat some carbs! Happy thanksgiving all. And to all a good night.

I read a great post this week over at enviralment about the greening of Mcdonald’s, and the length that companies will go to sell themselves off as eco-conscious. There is no question that advertising, and branding work. Daily we are bombarded by more than 2000 messages telling us how we can improve every little insignificant aspect of our lives. From Edward Bernays to viral ads, marketing hopes to play on euphoria and emotion creating a feeling that continuously resonates with the consumer and hopefully influences their future decisions. So how do you market an idea? How do you market a movement? Well NGO’s and environmental groups have been continuously asking themselves this question since their inception and here are some of the most creative advertisements that I have seen dealing with anthropogenic global warming, power consumption, and climate change. Enjoy.

Remember the last power black out? – PWU

The power workers union use humour to parlay the message about the pluses of having a strong energy grid.

Use only what you need – Denver water

A great ad campaign by Denver water pushing for water conservation during the spring and summer seasons. The campaign was met with amazing success with water usage down 33% from the previous year.

Ocean levels are rising faster than ever – WWF

Most brilliant use of shadows on a billboard yet. World Wildlife Federation uses this gorgeous billboard to demonstrate the rise of water

Falling Polar Bears- Planet Stupid

I saw this one earlier in the week it just kind of sticks with you.

We wanted to confront people with the impact that short-haul flights have on the climate. We used Polar Bears because they’re a well understood symbol of the effect that climate change is having on the natural world

Use electricity wisely – Eskom

Eskom is a power utility company from South Africa who get the point across about conservation practices in this simple, yet effective ad.

Think about what it consumes before buying – Belgain government

Before its too late – WWF

WWF France presents a visual reminder of the importance of trees to the atmosphere in “Lungs”, a print advertisement developed by TBWA\Paris.

Black Cloud – WWF

A creative yet effective way presented by the World Wildlife Foundation(WWF) to create awareness to China about the pollution created by vehicles.

Drive one day less and look how much carbon monoxide you’ll keep out of the air we breathe.

I’ve decided to give up my cellphone, again. I have been down this road before — initially getting one for work, but never using it. Cancelling it, then regretting doing so… going pay-as-you-go, using it enough to make a plan worthwhile again, signing up for one, and then not using the phone again and not renewing the plan. It reminds me of smoking. First I smoke socially, then before I know it I’m buying a pack a day. I become disgusted with myself, attempt to quit, but convince myself that the occasional cigarette is OK… But I eventually feel guilty for bumming smokes, so I buy my own pack, trying to go slow with it, and ultimately fail. (I no longer smoke, thankfully.)

Now I’m going cold turkey with the cellphone. In two weeks, I will be cellphoneless.

I am experiencing all kinds of anxiety. My first fear is that I will upset a client. Sometimes I’m away from my home office, and a client is having some sort of emergency with a current job I’m doing for them, or they want me to start a new project and it has a really tight deadline so they want me to start right away. They call the cell, which is the logical choice of communication in an emergency situation. However, 9 times out of 10 I won’t hear it ring, and won’t even get their message. I so rarely check my phone, because I usually only get two kinds of calls: calls from my mother, or calls from telemarketers.

Solutions to this fear: announce to all clients that I will no longer have a cellphone, and can be reached at home and via email only. These two methods of contact are good in emergency situations: I generally have my iPod touch with me everwhere, and in most places I can get a signal. Also if I am already ON a project, and happen to be away from home, I check in for messages every hour or so. Checking in won’t be as convenient anymore, but most situations I imagine being away from home for would have phone access.

Even making this announcement to clients makes me a little nervous — what if they think I’m cutting back because I’m not successful? But this fear is unfounded, too. I believe in myself too much to fall prey to this idea.

The second major fear is that of losing the highly coveted, hard-to-get 416 area code. They’re so rare, and I’ve had the same number for years! When I quit my cellphone last time, I think I paid 9 bucks a month or something just to hang on to the number. Silly. This time I’m letting go of the 416.

Part of my reason for quitting the phone is emotional. When I first realized my contract was ending soon, I called a couple of cellphone service providers in the city, and inquired as to how to go about switching companies, and set up a pay-as-you-go with someone. As it turns out, I will have to buy a new SIM card, and of course go through all the hassle of becoming a new client with one of them. The whole idea makes me nauseous. I’m not sure why, but I’m just sick of the whole consumer deal of speaking to customer service reps, dealing with insincere salespeople, and paying money for something I don’t even enjoy using.

So, goodbye cellphone. Goodbye all you hungry companies. I don’t want your services any longer.

I had the BEST Thanksgiving EVER! Allow me to break it out in bullets:

• I slept in (yay for no regular job day!)
• I made pancakes for breakfast & watched Fringe (yum!)
• I beat New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Thx, game designer Shigeru Miyamoto)
• I baked a [spot on] sweet potato casserole for the first time (Holla)
• I enjoyed a [drama free] family Thanksgiving dinner (The turkey was jive, fo shno)
• I am now watching Abrams’ Star Trek with a happily full, but not overfull, tummy (Heh. Karl Urban)
• I have officially decided not to “Black Friday” it tomorrow (Suck it, long lines!)

Best. Day. Ever.

Also, I’ll have you know that even though I (Luigi) defeated an enormous Koopa on my own, ZRose25 (Mario) got the girl and I had to hitch a ride with the Toads. Boo. Tomorrow? An Old Dogs screening with my ‘rents and grand ‘rents and Lego Indiana Jones 2! What wholesome holiday fun…I’ll have to get in some shenanigans to maintain my cred.

I am still completely horrified by the images of someone being trampled in a Walmart mob. But I am also finding the broad critiques of our “consumer culture” less and less useful when it comes to thinking about social change and opportunities for a more sustainable system of production and consumption. There have to be more nuanced ways of dealing with an area of our lives that has such profound geopolitical, social, economic, and environmental impact as well as an equally profound place in our attempts to make meaning and relate to each other. (Please send your thoughts on this my way!)

That being said, there are a number of tools popping up that try to help us make consumption decisions in ways that align with our values. Here are a few that resonate with me. They each come with their own sets of ethics and measurements so I encourage you to read the fine print of what is being evaluated and decide for yourself if they are the same standards you would use to rate a company/product.

Adbuster’s Buy Nothing Day: This 24 hour moratorium on consumer spending has been around for a while, encouraging us to leave Black Friday alone and spend the day shopping-free and technology-free.

Freecycle: Giving and getting does not need to mean shopping. The Freecycle Network consists of grassroots groups around the world who participate in a gift economy. You can become a member, give stuff away, and get all sorts of stuff for free.

Free2Work.org: I just learned about this one this week so I’ll need to look into it more. Free2work.org is a joint venture between the Not For Sale Campaign, International Labor Rights Forum, and Humanity United so it is specifically evaluating companies based on publicly available info on forced and child labor. It’s still in Beta and needs fleshing out, but there are some interesting grades on companies like Patagonia, Gap, Wal-Mart, Apple, etc as well as smaller companies founded with social missions like Equal Exchange and Maggies Organics.

Made-By: This is a newish European organization that works with brands to improve their sustainability considering both environmental and labor standards.  On the Made-by website, you can see how the brands they work with live up to Made-By’s standards for use of raw materials and social certification. I wish there was a bit more info made available to the public on the results of all of their research, but its a start.

Fair Trade Labels: I’ve mentioned certification labels before, each of which come with their own standards and levels of accountability. Apparently there are now over 400 certification labels out there, making it increasingly more confusing for us consumers to figure out their value. Transfair is the U.S. 3rd party Fair Trade Certifier. The Fair Trade Federation (FTF) which consists primarily of craft organizations, functions on a peer review system and so is not a certification as such but that is also because there is no one consistent supply chain through which all crafts are produced and therefore no standardized measure. Global Goods Partners (GGP), the fair trade/grassroots development organization I worked with for several years is a member of FTF and sells handcrafted items from across the globe that support women-led grassroots human rights organizations.

CorpWatch CrocTail Database: CorpWatch has annotated info from the SEC filings of several thousand U.S.  publicly traded corporations and their foreign subsidiaries.It is probably more useful for researchers than casual shoppers but I find the subsidiary trees interesting.

Etsy.com: While one finds all sorts of things on this online marketplace for the handmade (some eco-conscious, some not-so-much; some fairly valued, and some sadly undervalued) I continue to be intrigued by the idea that one of the ways we can counter the economic power of transnational corporations is to slow down. And part of this means continuing to value the human desire to make things with our hands, which also means supporting each other in an alternative marketplace. With that in mind, I also encourage you to MAKE SOMETHING =) I don’t have a web link for that, I’m sure you’ll be totally fine on your own with this one.

Thanks to all of you who make this world a bit more beautiful, be it through your art-making or your commitment to social change!

thanks. tanks. think tanks. hats. clasp the mouth shut both hands holding back the words to come out. in all honesty honestly i have so much to be thankful for but finding myself in all the spaces i wouldn’t consider too happy. it bothers me so it succumbs me. past race fast race so life is like the sixty miles per hour leaves passing by. in the car on the road meditating. i’m thankful for breathing. wish i go under the water thank the fish for simply swiftly swimming. i have so much to be thankful for. i’m thankful for family. always. space i can come back to even if sometimes it hurts. i have so much to be thankful for. i’m thankful for friends. even if it sometimes hurts.

layer this bad boy another piece of cake. on top of the hurt to make it look presentable resentable. resent-able. even if the skin wrinkles and dies i’m thankful  at least got to experience it. now i’ve got a tooth ache but still wanting another piece of me for consumption to recycle the emotions and go through the motions and go through the loops and hoops of hopping up and down hoping up and down that this day is just another day to say thanks thinking i’m so privileged.

feasting on open wounds filled with salt. like stinging. but i’m still thankful for being able to feel.

Time that it takes to read this post: 4 mins approx. [with media]

Tommorow is Buy Nothing Day, the infamous campaign created by the Adbuster’s Media Foundation over 20 years ago. It takes place on the United States biggest shopping day of the year: “Black Friday”. The day when people get trampled to death at Walmart (literally, see here) to save some cash on more useless crap (literally), one of the most repulsive consumer orgies of the year across the country. This is not however limited to the States, buy nothing day campaigns take place in Canada as well as across the globe. According to Adbuster’s website, the purpose of this day is to:

“Make a pact with yourself: go on a consumer fast. Lock up your credit cards, put away your cash and opt out of the capitalist spectacle. You may find that it’s harder than you think, that the impulse to buy is more ingrained in you than you ever realized. But you will persist and you will transcend – perhaps reaching the kind of epiphany that can change the world.”

Personally, I have taken part in this event for a couple of years now and I would highly suggest that you yourself participate this year. I must admit, when I was younger and much more naive I did find it more difficult than I assumed it would be to not spend even a penny for one whole day. As the years have gone by, I now find it much easier to refrain myself from spending for one day – perhaps more so simply because I learn more and more daily about the environmental repercussions of consumer societies, as well as, the value of a dollar and the tangible vested interest that I have in investing my money rather than spending it. To the benefit of both my bank accounts and our environment.

More from Adbusters.org:

“So this November 27 (November 28 in Europe and overseas), we’re calling for a Wildcat General Strike. We’re asking tens of millions of people around the world to bring the capitalist consumption machine to a grinding – if only momentary – halt. We want you to not only stop buying for 24 hours, but to shut off your lights, televisions and other nonessential appliances. We want you to park your car, turn off your phones and log off of your computer for the day. We’re calling for a Ramadan-like fast. From sunrise to sunset we’ll abstain en masse, not only from holiday shopping, but from all the temptations of our five-planet lifestyles.”

I love the concept. Realistically however, we must admit (which thankfully, Adbusters does) that this will, on a worldwide scale, not make any huge dent in the destructive consumption machine of free-market capitalism. Regardless of this fact, it is an excellent initiative to take on in your own personal life. It becomes a chance to reflect on the choices we are making. To reflect on the environmental costs of those choices. A chance to recognize the rediculous amounts of time that we spend consuming rather than living. A chance to reflect on how we are brainwashed to spend every penny that we have (then pull out the credit cards!). A chance to relax. A chance to breath. A chance to momentarily snap out of our addiction to the throwaway society that we’ve allowed corporations to convince us with decades of lies as being the only viable economic ideology for our planet and our personal wellbeing. A chance to express our creative spirits through more organic mediums which allow us to return to the mental clarity we had before financial wealth was the world’s number one preoccupation.

A chance to realize how our constant consumption for the “new and improved” is killing the planet. We are literally destroying a PLANET at this stage in our species’ evolution. Pardon my French, but this is fucked up!

Let’s step it up a little. Enjoy yourselves. I’ll see you next week.

Thank you for connecting,

Cooper

Click here to visit adbusters.org for more information

Hello Friends here we come up with an extension of our previous blog, “Seasonal Index……“Time is Money” Part 1

In previous Blog, we had touched upon the aspect like what is seasonal pattern and reasons for studying seasonal variation.

Seasonal Index……“Time is Money”

Now we would see the analysis part of seasonal patterns in predicting the future prices of the commodity.

The Analysis

Crop prices tend to follow a general seasonal pattern of their own, identifying the major turning points in prices, setting their seasonal low at harvest followed by a post-harvest rally, where the supply of the crop is fixed and consumption gradually takes that supply, causing prices to rise.

However, major market shocks or powerful influencing factors like monsoon, production figures, stock levels & demand may significantly alter seasonal patterns & the prices may experience the special condition.

This is what happened with the Guar prices.

The ‘Guar’ legume plant is rain-fed monsoon crop.

Monsoon has been the decisive factor for the trend in guar futures.

The sowing period is July and August right after the first shower of the monsoon and the harvesting period is September and November.

Fresh arrivals of the crop from Haryana and Punjab begin immediately after the first week of September and continue till the month of December.

One example would be redeploying capital in Guar futures in two phases by taking selling positions from April as monsoon sets in – boosting the production levels, and buying in the month of June when the rally begins.

If we follow the price index & compare it with the actual, then it is seen that the prices have followed the path of the seasonal trend many times in this year & have given their best highs from month of June to August.

The seasonality shown in the below graphs depicts that the positive wave has given a satisfying return on investment in both of these commodities, & the strategy adopted of “Sell in April” makes this clear.

Guar Seed Seasonal Index vs Actual

Guar Seed Seasonal Index vs Actual

Again, the investors taking fresh buying positions from the end of June & holding till the end of the year have had always hard-earned profits.

Stay Tuned for more on this.

In next blog we would read about that how an annual average method can be used to generate a seasonal pattern in predicting the future prices of the commodity and seasonal pattern in the year 2009.

Note : For More Latest Industry, Stock Market and Economy News and Updates, please click here

In the future the holiday season will continue to start earlier and earlier. Eventually it will take place in four parts over the course of the entire year. Each quarter will have entirely new traditions and consumer expectations. Santa now comes four times a year. In each quarter he has a different helper.

Winter: The season of light, in which electricity is celebrated. In this season people stock up on lights, video games, movies, and appliances. People decorate their homes with elaborate light displays. Santa’s helper is Jesus.

Spring: The season of sex, in which chocolate, baked goods, flowers, contraception and intimate toys are all the rage. People decorate their homes with music and genetically engineered flowers that glow in the dark. Santa’s helper is the playboy easter bunny.

Summer: The season of fire, in which flames and fireworks are endlessly exploding. People decorate their homes with torches and flame-throwers then go to monster truck rallies, demolition derbies, and rocket launches. Santa’s helper is a cutified Satan.

Autumn: The season of death, in which candy and meat are gobbled up in massive quantities. People decorate their homes with carcasses and wear costumes for the entire season wherever they go. Santa’s helper is a zombie turkey.

Gradually, over the course of the next centuries these holidays are decomercialized as individuals begin to band together and effectively compete with corporate sponsorships of the major Christmas seasons. Homemade goods replace store-bought ones and society becomes more environmentally conscious. Corporations are forced to move off-world where they will take Christmas to other planets and make tons of money off of them.

Father Christmas will be immortal, adapting from culture to culture (much like Horace became incorporated into some of Jesus’s traits).

I really appreciate the opportunity to be compensated monetarily for learning how to do the work I want to do–environmental justice community organizing. It has been a really wonderful experience, full of challenges and growth and laughter. This has been one of my first breaks since I started my program in early August. I also am thankful to be able to just sit at home and play catch with my dog and peruse through my high school journals. Oh Thanksgiving—or Thanks-taking as it is sometimes renamed—what a conflicted holiday. Let me be clear: I definitely appreciate the break and opportunity to surround myself with loved ones who really know and care about me, to enjoy eating slowly and thoughtfully prepared food, and of course to talk local politics. I have a lot to be thankful for this Thursday, and in fact everyday. But I would appreciate this time even more without the accompanying over-indulgence of food and needless material goods or historical amnesia on the origins of this “holiday”.

Instead of being able to fully acknowledge and accept the challenges and privileges we have, so many turn to emotionally numbing actions. We buy, eat, and drink in excess–some of the more acceptable addictions in our society, and ones that are especially intensified and glorified on this holiday. Maybe that’s one of the only ways we can forgive ourselves for the collective historical amnesia on how Thanksgiving really originated.

This quote opens one of the top news articles published today:

Without question, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.

It is my favorite because it may be our only holiday that does not require a victim for our commemoration — no one is conquered, no one subjugated, and no one is assassinated. Thanksgiving is a holiday that is free of violence.

–Byron Williams, “Finding That Reason to be Thankful” November 25, 2009

I literally choked on my pecan pie as I read these lines. A holiday free of violence?! Could we possibly be talking about the same day?!?! Is this not one of the ways our country commemorates mass genocide, the death of over 96% of a population and the ensuing occupation of these lands? A colonization very much driven by profit-motive, might I add, not freedom from religious prosecution as history books often like to claim. How appropriate that it is now so closely tied with unabashed gluttony and compulsive consumption. (In case you don’t know what I’m talking about and even if you do, check out this fairly short and comprehensive article written by historian James W Loewen. It’s one of my grandfather’s favorites and reposted here.)

So as I sit and recount the things (and more importantly people) that I am grateful for this week, I am also reminded of current struggles and wars being waged in and by this country. This week there has also been much talk of increasing the number of troops in Afghanistan (CNN article) as we enter year nine of this multi-billion dollar war.

Sometimes the battle hits even a little closer to home. A few days ago a good friend of mine passed along this extremely powerful video about yet another silenced and ignored genocide:

Lost Count: A Love Story

Will they ever call your death beautiful? Your life a sacrifice? A love story to be jealous of? How many deaths will it take before this will be called a genocide?

I am left wondering why do we choose to commemorate the loss of millions and millions of indigenous lives with over-consumption of food followed by over-consumption of cheap, plastic crap? What are you really thankful for?

Art is a very specific mode of communication, and the way that photographs can communicate images, themes, events, and so on, can be incredibly powerful. I came across Heidi Leverty’s photography the other day by way of an ‘eco’ design show. Although her art is somewhat reminiscent of Chris Jordan’s work and his views on consumption, Leverty focuses more acutely on particular moment in the life-cycle of a product. The photographer has a unique eye and takes ordinary objects like stacks of recycled cardboard boxes, a mass of cat food tins, and crushed pop cans and photographs them in transformative ways. I never thought I would consider hanging a picture of old cat food tins on my wall until I saw her images.

Leverty’s bio on her website best describes her work.

In her current body of work, Outbox, the focus is on one particular moment in the life-cycle of everyday objects -  the passage firm refuse or trash to recycled material. These materials of paper, metal, plastic, and fabric, shaped by the treatment they have undergone become unique works through her perspective, sculptural forms with an intense beauty. What appears to be without value is in fact a source of inspiration, the unique and extraordinary in the seemingly ordinary. Her images are a product of chance, caught in the transient moment in her life, an ephemeral state between original use and new purpose. When most would consider and appreciate these objects anew, thus adding another layer of recycling to their lives.

From Heidi Lerverty – Fine Art Photography Website “Biography”

What Leverty and Jordan manage to accomplish through their creative eye(s) and their vision is a way of expressing that many objects can be reinvented and the way we see the world; in so doing we can begin to re-examine our consumption habits.

River Runs Red – Midnight Oil:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EyQkc2w5E4

“Feasting at God’s Table: Father Divine, Conspicuous Consumption, & Racial Harmony.”

During the Great Depression, a man who believed he was God came very close to achieving a measure of racial harmony in America. How did he do it? Through conspicuous consumption and the belief that salvation can come through sharing a feast. His success, although also attributable to charisma, was primarily the result of his skillful use of American traditions, traditions that appealed to a broad range of people regardless of race, class, or gender. He took familiar conceptions of religion, the work ethic, and the centrality of food and compiled them to form an attractive social doctrine familiar enough to the mainstream to attract millions of followers throughout his life, despite his eccentric pronouncements of divinity.

As you read about Father Divine on this Thanksgiving Holiday, think about how blessed we have been with the bounty bestowed on this county, and how the simple act of sharing food got us through one of the darkest periods in our history.

Click here to download and read “Feasting at God’s Table”!

General Motors has been inundated in recent years with nothing but bad news. After filing for bankruptcy and receiving a controversial government bailout, the ailing car maker is trying to revolutionize the auto industry and breathe life back into its deflated sails with the introduction of the Chevy Volt. Considered to be an “extended-range electric vehicle” or E-REV, the Volt is set to go on sale late next year and is unlike today’s hybrids. A lithium-ion battery powers the Volt for the first 40 miles of a trip and then the gas engine kicks in to create more electricity to keep the car rolling. If recharged every 40 miles, the Volt’s owner may never need to go to the pump again. The Volt is slated to receive a 230 mpg rating (through a bit of creative math), which is impressive, but we wanted to know how it stacks up against the current hybrid front runner, the Toyota Prius.

Prius Vs. Volt

First off, let’s take a look at Chevy Volt’s stats. The Volt does 0-60 in 8 seconds and runs on electricity for the first 40 miles, then the gas engine kicks in and recharges the battery. Once the batteries are depleted and the generator kicks in, the car has an additional 260 miles of driving range. If the Volt is driven farther than 40 miles without recharging, it will get roughly 40 mpg while running on the generator. The wheels, however, are always driven by the electric system. The Volt has to be plugged in and takes 6.5 hours to charge using a standard 100 volt home outlet. For those curious about the Volt’s electrical consumption, GM says the car, under normal driving, will consume about 2,520 kilowatt-hours of electricity annually. The company figures the car will cost 1 to 3 cents a mile to operate. Given these estimates and based on an electricity price of 11 cents per kWh, the Chevy Volt would cost around $275 a year to charge. This is just in electricity costs and doesn’t factor in the cost of gas, if needed. The Chevy Volt, however, is expected to have a price tag around $40,000. Though it is eligible for the $7,500 Federal tax credit, which was enacted to help offset the high cost of the batteries used in the Volt, it is considerably more expensive than the Toyota Prius.

The 2010 Toyota Prius, which is a gas-electric hybrid that uses both sources of energy, relies on the gas engine primarily and the electric motor is supplemental. The new Prius will come with a revised Hybrid Synergy Drive System, which will deliver even better gas mileage. The Prius can do 0-60 mph in 10 seconds and averages about 51 mpg. The Prius does not have to be plugged in because it automatically recharges using regenerative braking, or by running the on board generator. If driven 15,000 miles each year, the Toyota Prius would cost around $750 in gas. The Toyota Prius starts at only $21,000 and fully loaded, costs $32,500, which is still considerably less than the Chevy Volt.

For more click HERE

In the United States we are so very fortunate. Most people can buy whatever they desire. If we go shopping and see something we like, we can buy it.

See it, like it, buy it

However just because we like something, doesn’t mean we need to buy it.

On a recent flight my daughter liked this Skymall item:

Forest Faces: Show everyone which team you’re rooting for with this outdoor ornament sensation.

This new outdoor craze is only $19.99, so it’s easily within my reach.

Should I buy one? Let’s see.

Can I live without it?

Yes. My trees have been bare for years and haven’t been yearning for ornamentation (as far as I know).

Would I use it regularly?

No. The ornament serves no real purpose other than promoting a sports team that doesn’t need further promotion. 

Is it going to improve or simplify my life?

No.

Asking yourself these questions can help you prevent clutter and debt. It’s possible to see something, like it and not buy it.

See it, like it, don’t buy it

The result? More money in your bank and less things in your home. Sounds good to me.

Interested in consuming less, decluttering and organization? Check out Monica Ricci’s blog: “Your Life. Organized.”

Most people I talk to support “sustainability” and “social justice” goals. Ecology teaches us that we need to frame these human aspirations in relation to the biological capacity of the earth: the energy, and resources that support our burgeoning populations and economies.

As human society sets out to achieve ecological sustainability and social justice on earth, we face two serious challenges: One, humanity already over-consumes the biological capacity of the planet; and secondly, humanity suffers from a vast gap between rich and poor.

Free-market fundamentalists claim we’ll close this gap, and restore the planet, by growing our economies, perhaps with “green” jobs, but this business-as-usual approach fails to account for ecological reality.

Do the Math

According to data compiled by the UN, the Global Footprint Network, and Dr. William Rees at the University of British Columbia, total human consumption already exceeds the earth’s capacity by 30 percent. This is known as biological “overshoot.” The UN estimates that most natural services to human societies – forests, fish, fresh water, and clean air – are now declining annually. As human population and consumption grow, our collective overshoot increases.

Meanwhile, the wealthy 15 percent use about 85 percent of the resources – the total energy and materials, the “stuff,” that Earth provides. The “wealthy” includes anyone who has a home, job, transport, access to education, hot showers, convenient fuel, and food every day: people in the so-called “developed” world. If you have those things, you live among the wealthy 15 percent, who use most of the world’s resources.

There is more to social change than the biophysical numbers, but any serious ecologist or justice advocate needs to know how resource overshoot limits our choices to achieve sustainability and social equality. Let’s do the math.

Nature’s rules

Start with these facts:

1. Total human consumption =

130% of Earth’s capacity

2. The rich 15% use 85% of the stuff;

while the poor 85% use 15% of the stuff

If we define the sustainable, equitable consumption per person as “1 unit” of stuff, the facts above mean that an average 100 people use 130 “units.” To be sustainable, the total consumption of 100 people needs to be 100 “units” of stuff. And to achieve social justice, each person would use 1 unit. But of course, that’s not how our world works.

Total human consumption of a 100 average people equals 130, not 100, and since the rich 15 use 85% of everything, they use 110 units (130 X 85%). The poor 85, meanwhile, use the other 20 units of stuff.

Therefore:

The average rich person uses:

110/15   =    7.333  units of stuff

The average poor person uses:

20/85    =    0.235  units of stuff

How are we doing? Not too well. The average person in the developed nations consume 30-times more than the average working poor, dispossessed, and starving multitudes. And meanwhile, we already use more energy and materials than Earth can annually supply.

So if we want a world of ecological sustainability and social justice, then we must face some difficult facts. To start with, humanity must consume less stuff.

We must reduce the total human consumption for 100 average people from 130 to 100, and then, we must share those 100 units of stuff that the earth can provide.

If we were able to achieve that, then everyone would simply use 1 “unit,” the ecologically sound, socially equitable amount of energy and materials. As we know, in our current situation, we consume more than the earth’s capacity and the rich take almost everything.

Another way to understand this is to imagine humanity as a family of seven people, that earns $100,000 per year but spends $130,000, and one member of the family alone spends $110,000. This family is going broke because one person, 15% of the family, is pigging out.

Dysfunctional? Yes.

Sustainable? No.

Reality bites

By these figures, we see that to achieve sustainability and social justice, the rich would have to consume about 1/7 of what they currently consume. If that happened, the world’s poor could increase their consumption by about 4-times.

That’s the straightforward, biological and physical reality we now face.

Under our current economic system, achieving sustainability and social justice might appear impossible. However, using less and sharing represent nothing more than common decency, the sort of behaviour we supposedly teach our children.

We hear from our alleged leaders, of course, that this is politically and logistically impractical. So, instead, we labour under the delusion that we’ll make the world “equitable” by growing all the economies until the poor, developing countries achieve greater wealth. We’ll make our economies “sustainable” by creating “green” products, hybrid cars, and renewable energy.

If the earth was an infinite storehouse and could provide infinite sinks for our garbage, that would be a reasonable plan. But the earth is not infinite. It remains unequivocally finite.

And Nature doesn’t really care about our social theories, economic presumptions, or our whining about wanting more. Humanity is now like a clever but obsessive adolescent, who must be warned: “Sorry, this will sound really annoying, but there are real limits to your freedom to consume.”

Suppose we soften the blow for the rich world, the spoiled child of humanity. We could live within the earth’s capacity if the rich simply cut their consumption in half and the poor could then double their current consumption. Here is how that would work, by the numbers:

The average rich person would use 3.67 units of stuff, instead of 7.33. And then, the average poor person could use 0.53 units of stuff (slightly more than double), instead of 0.235. This equation alone would feed the 1-billion starving, and end world hunger.

Our equation for 100 average people would then look like this:

Rich consumption:

15   X   3.67   =   55 units of stuff

Poor consumption:

85   X   0.53  =   45 units of stuff

Total  =  100 units of stuff for 100 average people.

In this scenario we would be sustainable and the world’s poor could grow their economies to the point of doubling their use of energy and resources.

If we achieved this simple change in human consumption patterns, we could exist within the carrying capacity of the Earth.

Is this difficult to imagine? Is it fair? The ratio between the average rich and poor would then be about 7-to-1, far more equitable than the current 30-to-1 ratio. To achieve this, the rich only have to give up half their consumption. That could be achieved primarily by eliminating wastefulness, planned obsolescence, plastic packaging, exotic holidays in jet airplanes, and the most wasteful of all human inventions: cars.

Growth fundamentalists will grumble at this because they imagine a world in which they can look forward to being richer, consuming more, not less. However, biophysical reality sets the limits. We do not get to rewrite the laws of biology and physics for our own convenience.

Two problems remain

Even if humanity could make this simple change – the rich cut consumption by half, the poor double their consumption, and we achieve sustainability – we still face two problems.

First of all, we currently add 75 million new people to the planet every year. What stuff are they going to use?

To live decent lives, these new humans would need the infrastructure services roughly equal to a nation such as France, Germany, or Egypt. And then again, every year.

Human population growth proves to be both an ecological and social justice issue. The planet is finite. I’m mystified that some people find this so difficult to accept. Since we have already reached biological overshoot, human population growth pushes us farther out over the cliff.

For example, we now face declining oil and fish yields, but few people realize that oil and fish yields per capita peaked in the 1970s, thirty years ago. Each day, as we add more people and degrade our ecosystem, the average human – regardless of stock market paper wealth – becomes biophysically poorer.

Like the over-spending family, having a new baby every year, and spending more, while degrading their assets, every year we have less to go around and more mouths to feed.

To achieve sustainability and social justice, we must stabilize human population. We are breaking the back of the natural world with our insistence on endless growth of both population and consumption.

Fortunately, we could stabilize human population with three simple and socially beneficial policies worldwide: Women’s rights, contraception, and education.

The second challenge we face is that we share this planet with millions of other species. These non-human earthlings possess a right to life and habitat as much as we do. Furthermore, humanity relies on the benefits of biological diversity and symbiosis within the ecosystem.

We cannot design human culture to devour every last niche of the planet, every river and forest, the last corner of the ocean and stretch of grassland. We need to preserve every acre of wilderness that still exists on the earth.

Living within Earth’s budget

Growth is not evil, it just isn’t permanent.

In nature, all growth stops. New organisms may replace the old, diversity can increase, but there exist no cases in nature of endless growth. As Dr. Albert Bartlett at the University of Colorado points out, “After maturity, continued growth is either obesity or cancer.” In a finite world, we cannot grow ourselves out of overshoot.

Years ago, Canadian master ecological logger, Merv Wilkinson, came to our small, island community in British Columbia to show us how he had managed to earn a living for over 50 years, selectively logging the forest he grew up in, and still retain a healthy forest with more standing timber than the day he started logging. As we walked through the woods, he explained the nuances of soils, natural seeding, tree growth rates, cutting rates, and selection criteria for harvest. Then, he stopped, thought for a moment, and said: “It’s simple really: Just cut below the annual growth rate.”

That is now the lesson for humanity on a global scale. We simply have to learn to live within the capacity of our single island in space, planet Earth. To achieve this, the wealthy must find peace with a lower-consumption lifestyle.

Rex Weyler

You can respond to “Deep Green” columns at my Ecology, where I post portions of this column and dialogue with readers.