I live in the United States, and we are a nation of consumers
in a world of consumers and hopeful consumers.
As I sit in front of my laptop and look around my home, I see very few
items that I actually need. The roof is
one, the water in the tap, the food in the fridge, and the electricity that
made all of that possible, and makes this blog possible. Those items are needed. Much of the rest simply is not. Most of my items belong to the trappings of a
modern life. A life of comfort and
convenience and ridiculous excessiveness.
In case you’re wondering, I am not rich, at least by American standards,
and I don’t own much that I purchased new. Compared to those in a developing world
though, I am rich beyond measure and likely live by a desired standard. And this poses a real problem. Those in developing nations deserve to live just
as well as all of their fellow humans, but if the entire world, 7 billion
people, live exactly as we do in the U.S., with our rampant desire for new and
better and more stuff, what of will become of our home?
Developed Nations’ consumer culture is not one to
emulate. Frankly, we are doing things terribly
wrong and our Earth is suffering for it at a catastrophic rate. Landfills grow at an enormous pace and are filled
with our cast offs. Plastic bottles,
torn T-shirts, broken microwaves, outdated cell phones and disposable diapers
fester among rotting food, each a testament to our obsession with convenience,
our disposable income, our love affair with technology and our wasteful
attitudes. Have you ever really thought
about how that stuff in the landfills and the stuff in our homes were made, and
how they came to occupy our space? The
answer is that energy was needed to create them and energy was needed to
transport them. Energy is a lovely
sounding word and we’re taught to almost revere it in this country. Energy is light and heat and progress right? Sure.
Energy is also coal and trapped miners, oil and the Gulf spill,
pollution and asthma, nuclear plants and Chernobyl. Energy can be beautiful and it can be poison. It can bring us great medical technology and
great medical harm. Energy is all of the
above and it’s important to see it clearly.
The environmental movement and clean energy crusaders offer
suggestions and solutions to mitigate the damage we’re doing to ourselves and
our plant, and each person has a responsibility to act if we are to slow down
our polluting, runaway train. Recycling,
buying local food, eating less meat, using public transportation, purchasing
used items, volunteering for river and ocean clean ups, participating in
citizen science research, planting wildlife gardens, advocating for clean
energy and voting for environmentally conscious policies are so important, and
can result in a real impact if we are each willing to do some of these things,
even just part of the time. Just imagine
7 billion people deciding to skip meat at meal times just 2 days a week. Reducing that much factory farmed meat from
our world plate would save tremendous amounts of water, grain and fossil fuels
from being consumed and would reduce huge quantities of methane, pesticides and
antibiotics from our environment. Now
that you’ve imagined that, take a minute to imagine all 7 billion of us
deciding to purchase 50% less stuff next year.
Imagine us deciding to drive our old cars for a little
longer, and then buying a hybrid when we have to. Imagine us saying no to another pair of dark
skinny jeans that were made in a country half a world away. Imagine us filling a metal bottle of water
from our tap before we leave so that we won’t be tempted to stop at the convenience
store for a plastic bottle of water that came from some tap in some far away
city and then transported to that store.
Imagine us using that old microwave, even if it’s not plated in
stainless steel, until it won’t work, and then recycling it when it doesn’t. Imagine your home with far less junk and
embracing the “less is more” attitude. Imagine
a Friday night dinner party where everyone brings a dish with items from the
farmers market and swaps old stories as well as clothes and books, while
relaxing in your simple, uncluttered space.
Imagine you all agreeing that “this is what life is about”. Imagine the windows open to allow the breeze
to come in and the sound of an owl hooting just beyond your yard. Imagine your body and mind and relationships
growing cleaner and clearer. Imagine
closing your eyes that night and feeling positive about the future. Positive about your future, your children’s
future, that owl’s future.
And now that you imagined that, I ask you to imagine a
Friday night dinner party in your current life. Chances are, this image will not portray nearly
such a relaxing or healthy gathering.
But you can have a life similar to that if you want one. We, especially those of us in the most
developed nations, can decide to have that lifestyle, it’s the easiest thing in
the world to do. We can choose better
and choose less and choose to make our planet healthier for us all.
