Earning, financial security and climate change

A few years ago I looked up from my well paid research job and thought “if I really believe that the world is facing serious limits, is this the work I should be doing?”  The answer to my question was essentially, ‘No.” And as I thought about it more, I realised there were a number of reasons why I should take the plunge and leave my well paid, regular job and start working in the alternative economy. 

First, high incomes lead to high consumption. People with high incomes can travel and consume whatever they like.  They tend to have large houses and all the things that go with it.  With spare money, one ends up investing – even if only be doing it via the bank.  The best I could do would be to give money away and so, in the end, I decided the best course of action was to do the giving by giving my time and skills.

Second, I realised that we have a kind of weird belief in our economic system which really only exists in our collective mind and a few computers that are controlled by us.  On top of that, like any Ponzi scheme, the system requires endless growth and is simply not sustainable.  If the money system collapses, it will cause all sorts of problems if we don’t have other ways of exchanging our skills and goods.

If you think about it, this is pretty weird because, as Charles Eisenstein points out in Sacred Economics, we will still have all the skills and means of production that we do now.  We will only have lost our means of exchange.   Strong community underlies the operation of things like time banks, generosity and reciprocity, which provide different but effective ways to effect that exchange that we need to survive and even flourish.

Third, we are reaching environmental limits and our climate is changing as the planet heats up.  There will be shortages of all sorts of things. It seems very likely that people will be unable to live the kinds of lives they have been used to.  I’m a social scientist and it is clear to me that we can go one of two ways when this happens.  We can pull together and do what is best for all of us, or we can fall apart and become violent and competitive, so a few of us get more.  We have seen both of these things happen in countries where environmental limits have come into play.   I’d rather the former happened at my place and I want to do everything in my power to make that more likely.  Building community, and helping people get to know each other, and conversant with alternative means of trade and exchange, is my way of doing that.

Getting unstuck or coming unstuck?

The Earth is reaching its limits with regard to human consumption on the earth.  I know this is not news because scientists have been talking about this for at least half of the last century.  However it still seems important!  None of us can predict exactly what will happen over the next 50-100 years.  But we do know that serious issues are arising now.  Our climate IS changing, our energy consumption is not sustainable, fresh water is becoming scarce in many places, sea levels are rising, to name a few.

Stand by a busy road one day and watch the endless line of stuck cars.  See if you think there is anyway that this could be remotely sustainable after you have been there for 10 minutes, and think about how much this consumption makes us happy while you  are there!  I'm gobsmacked sometimes when I look at our nonsensical way of life that makes many very unhappy at the same time as it destroys our own unique, miraculous planet and life support system.  The only way this can change and that people can get out of the many binds that they are in is to work out how to act collectively to change the broader system.   While individuals can change, we do need to find ways to make these changes easier and more likely - more ecologically probable as WR Catton put it some years ago, and to do that we need to consider things like the mutual cooercion mutually agreed upon that Garret Hardin talked about in the 60s. 

Governments and transnational organisations such as the World Bank and the UN need to take action now to encourage people to change before the bite comes. An international carbon tax is the idea that currently makes the most sense.  We have already seen that governments will need considerable pressuring to do this – and this means all of us need to be working to get action across the population  –  convincing voters not to vote for governments that refuse to take action,  attending rallies, letter writing, submissions, and educating people about the connections between energy, climate change, our capacity to adapt and our current way of life.  

Overall, we need to build our capacity to act collectively, locally, nationally, and internationally.  We need to minimise the disaster that looms, and we need to increase the likelihood of pulling together to weather disasters and the changes that face us. We can do these things and the need to all be happening at once.  Almost anything you do from writing letters to ministers, to organising or attending rallies, to building community at your place or simply getting to know your neighbours a little better and talking to them about how you’ve stopped using your car or thought about your power consumption, can help!

Stopping the busyness

I'm often in conversation with people about how busy we all are.  And for many of us it seems to be a good thing and I suppose as I've reflected on my propensity to be busy and fill up my time, I've found myself asking what benefit does all this busyness has?  Does it benefit us as individuals racing through the world?  Does it benefit those we love?  Does it even benefit our workplaces?  It seems to me that the answer to any of these questions is pretty much "no".

A few years ago I was travelling; moving from place to place and through places, either walking cycling or driving.  The times I most treasured were when we stopped, because, at those times I’d suddenly see magical things going on around me.  In the mountains, small animals went about their lives, in cities people were hurrying, relaxing, talking, watching and in amongst all that were beautiful or interesting flowers, shops, buildings, parks and wildlife that were easy to miss when I was just passing through.  As I noticed this more, I found more excuses to stop quietly and enjoy the richness that teamed around me.  

I was reminded of this yesterday when I read a blog post by Charles Eisenstein  about an encounter he had child in a playpen. He reflected that interacting with that baby may have been the most important thing that he did that day in amongst all his other work.  In doing that, he highlighted the abundance and potential that every moment holds.  I found myself thinking how easy it is to forget this in out rush to do things that seem important or, worse, things that are not.

 It might be good to stop and think about this.  I'm not implying that making these changes is easy.  For me to slow down, for example, I had to work through a number of issues that arose: taking a large cut in pay, worrying about the future, and feeling unimportant because I was no longer rushing from one meeting to the next are a few of the issues that arose. I had to step out of the mainstream and to find enjoyment in different things.  The beauty of it is that I have and that I'm happier living this way.  Occasionally I choose to be busy but I know that it will end and because it is a contrast I can  enjoy it consciously. 

Trying to pack a lot into our lives or trying to be highly productive is not necessarily going to make us, or our loved ones happy (the opposite often happens, in fact), and neither is it good for the planet.  Being mindlessly busy is a trap that does not make us happy or productive and which keeps us all from seeing the things that we should or could be doing instead. 

Finding balance. Or not.

I find myself pondering how to balance two things:  1) The pull of staying in the moment and practicing gratitude, as Buddhist practice encourages, and which I’m sure is good for my mental health and 2) the imperative to take action to try and make the future better by creating change now.

The present moment is just fine for me, thank you.  I’m sheltered, well fed, in good health, and I can rest in the observation that as a society, we’ve made some very good progress over the last decades on a number of fronts.  I have the good fortune to live in a great part of the world and have access to a lot of interesting information about the environment and the living things that share the planet with me.  I am grateful for all of this. 

It often seems that if I stay in the moment, I don’t have to worry about the future, don’t have to care about the suffering that we are creating for people both now and in the future. There is no need to be uncertain about how the future will be played out, whilst also figuring out out what I should be doing. Being in the present moment and being grateful for all I have, could be a good way to escape from having to act, or worry. However, I doubt this is wise or ethical.  I’m left, then trying to negotiate a set of balances – enjoying the life I have whilst also trying to save the world! 

Taking action, however, is not a comfortable path.  I am doing things differently to others around me.  My income has dropped significantly. I’d like to see more of my family and friends.  My garden is a jungle and my house needs maintenance.  I live with a lot of uncertainty about whether I’m doing the right thing or making a difference. I also know that my efforts are never going to cut it, so its easy to want to give up now, or to work myself to a grumpy frazzle.

I have recently begun to think that balance is a fallacy and a goal one can never really attain.  The tightrope we all walk means that we will be constantly off balance and trying to regain it.    Maybe it is so with acting for the future and enjoying the now.  Walking this winding, inconsistent path successfully, probably means finding a way to hold all of it - the gratitude, curiosity, love, fear, anger, frustration, the future focus, AND the unkempt garden - in the present moment.  

The environmental crisis and short showers

Derrick Jensen writes in this article  http://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/forget-shorter-showers-why-personal-change-does-not-equal-political-change/ that individual action around climate change is woefully short of what is needed.   

This might be a reason to give up on consuming less because his exhortations to become a ‘real activist’ who subverts the system might seem just too much.  

I agree with quite a lot of what he says, although I also find myself disagreeing with his title – forget shorter showers.  Actually, I think. remember them and also consider how you might do them using less energy and less water!  

It takes a lot of mindfulness and learning to really step lightly on the earth, whilst also living in today’s developed world, and I when individuals work to achieve this, they act as models for what is possible.  I, for example, was inspired by a story in the Guardian, years ago about a retired academic living in London who had worked to minimise her personal energy use.   

She walked everywhere, seldom cooked and didn’t have the hot water on.  Her area of research as an academic had been around energy and she decided that she should learn to put her knowledge into practice. 

After reading that article, I spent some time looking at my lifestyle and tracking my energy use and managed to cut it down considerably from what it had been.  I now drive my power company mad because I use about 4 -5 units of power per day summer and winter (and I work at home!).  My consumption, however is not as low as a good friend of mine who has his down to about 1 unit per day.  I do still own a car but just recently invested in an electric bike which has had no discernable effect on my power bill and which as halved my already low car running. Most of the car running I do is to carry large items needed for the community work I do.  

I don't think these things are a waste of time and I do talk about them with people as much as I am comfortable with.   I suppose an additional step would be to talk about it more and perhaps to write about it (which I've just done).  


Derek Jensen is right, though.  it is probably not enough just to do this and my reflections on some of the things I think we need to be doing will populate later posts.