excessive, consumption, environment, "voluntary simplicity", "sustainable living", population, elite, rich, oppression, poor, reduce, "too-simple economics", over-consumption, extinction, "rain forest", civilised, civilization, "end of the world", apocalypse, cars, meat, "food supplies", grain, minimum, "food intake", diet, vegetarian, vegan, no-cook, inequity, disparity, OECD, O.E.C.D., IMF, I.M.F., "structural adjustment", exploit, exploitation, "poverty line", "dropping out" "The net worth of the 358 richest people in the world now equals the combined income of the poorest 2.3 billion, who comprise 45 percent of the world's population. "(UNDP Choices)

my World View:

my Personal Actions:

__ I believe the human race passed a comfortably sustainable population in about 1950, at 2.5 Bn, but now there's twice as many of us, and three times as many in very few decades, with a most influential minority using FAR too much. The middle- class and rich have the wrong goals (largely induced by advertis- ing), if the world is to remain as civilised as it was between ' 55 and ' 77 (not incl. Stalin/Amin).
____ The >1 Bn car-using, meat- eating destructive people (CuMeDs) will need to drastically reduce both their consumption and what they do! Doing too much, while there are too many people, should be reduced since this is the origin of most of our excess consumption. Job- and- income- sharing would be a major step in the right direction.

__ I have reduced my demands on the Earth to a bare minimum by spending US$850 p.a. TOTAL; including no more than US$450 a year, or $8.65 per week, on food (all of it bought at the super- market). I pay for my share of the rates on our mortgage- free house, and I walk or (occasionally) take the bus, e.g. to buy the groceries. I walk barefoot year- round (@ lat. 37, maritime), wearing thongs/jandals if the road is rough or my pack is heavy. I haven't thrown out clothes for a couple of decades, and I'm now gradually using up that capital investment.
____ I am now free, from the boss's pressure to produce more and from "keeping up with the Jones's"! It's not exactly a religious decision, but it's based on some of the same basic impulses.

I'm not recommending others do this, though I am saying it's possible.

Want a more authoritative opinion than the above?

Observer article

Click here for a real expert's view of the future (Donella Meadows).

Here Donella Meadows contrasts economic and planetary imperatives.

Our local paper Front Paged me, in 1992. Check it out?

Click, for article on the Environmental Backlash

Total costs under $900 p.a.?!: My diet, for minimum healthy eating (at under US$9/wk).


Free Speech (Also check my ecological/activist site.)

Click BELOW for larger version
. .[may take a minute, after connection.]
The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at James Cook University, Townsville, Australia is acknowleged for receiving and processing the images. Permission from the Japanese Meteorological Agency is required and they are to be acknowleged for providing the raw data. (JMA Fax +81 3 3212 2453)

Click here for Green Co-Leader's maiden speech in the New Zealand Parliament.

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Please visit:

Worldwatch Logo

The Worldwatch Institute. Worldwatch is dedicated to fostering the evolution of an environmentally sustainable society, one in which human needs are met in ways that do not threaten the health of the natural environment or the prospects of future generations.

For an extract from a recent WorldWatch book, click Here

{It also has the whole of the Press Release containing:}
"China, with its vast population, simply will not be able to follow for long any of the development paths blazed to date. The country that invented paper and gunpowder now has the opportunity to leapfrog the West and show how to build an environmentally sustainable economy. It will be forced to try and chart a new course. If China succeeds in charting an environmentally sustainable course, it could become a shining example for the rest of the world to admire and emulate. If it fails, we will all pay the price."

Income for All (?) :

A nation's Universal Basic Income is an idea whose time has come.

Keith Rankin teaches international political economy at
Massey University, Albany, Auckland.
 ( Keith's papers )
He has told us about recent European developments, for example (reporting on the BIEN conference): "The tone of the conference was often one of impatience with arguments based on the old issues - like the free-rider problem. So Francesco Silva, an eminent Italian economist, raised (in this workshop) the point that modern economic growth theory clearly attributes genuine economic growth to 'social externalities', and that this argument - about social inputs to production, about social inheritance - is so powerful that it renders much of the earlier discussion as near to irrelevant. Clearly, a person receiving a basic income as a social dividend can be no more a free rider than can be any person possessing privately inherited wealth. I sensed that the southern Europeans - especially the Italians and Spanish - have come to grips with this argument more easily than have those from the north. Indeed, Italy has a long and wonderful tradition of scholarship in the history of economic thought."

Sally Lerner on Ensuring Basic Economic Security. From: Canada Watch (Sept.-Oct 1996), a York University (Toronto) publication.

Sally Lerner's paper on the UBI in Nth. America, presented to the July 5-7/97 meeting of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics in Montreal.

Ian Ritchie's A New Approach: The need for a new approach to our society which includes a Universal Basic Income

(last modified: Tues. 12th. Aug. 1997. )

Signs of hope:

Editor's picks Urban Ecology Use Less Stuff Use Less Stuff bi-monthly Newsletter
Food activism Vegan Anarchism

the World Bank has abandoned its long-running support for minimal government in favour of a strong and vigorous state. Its latest report on world development calls for "reinvigoration of public institutions" and says the role of government has been vital in encouraging the dazzling growth of East Asia. An 'effective state' is the cornerstone of successful economies

Simple living Links: 

 
   (On the theme of this cartoon from 1994:)

MOM: "Any good mail today?"

DAD: "Mm...not really.
  - Here's a 'you're not covering the cost of all these mailings' charity request.  
  - You got a 'you're not attractive enough' women's magazine 
with an article on swimsuits that minimize all your body flaws.
  - Here are some 'you're not stylish or ostentatious enough' 
catalogs....and coincidentally, an invitation to go deeper into debt 
from a credit card company.
  - And here's our news magazine to identify the trends we're missing,.... 
  - and I got a hobby magazine featuring new equipment I ought to have. 
  - Yikes.... why do I get the feeling that society is trying to 
make us discontented with everything we do and insecure about who we are?"

MOM: "I suppose if people thought about real issues and needs instead of 
manufactured desires, the economy would collapse and we'd have total anarchy."

DAD: (with evil grin) "So pitching this junk would make me some kind 
of terrorist, huh?"

MOM: "Yep. It's our patriotic duty to buy distractions from a simple life."

CAL: "Hey Mom, I saw a bunch of products on TV that I didn't know 
existed, but I desperately need!"

Click here for "Voluntary Simplicity" article in Detroit News

... and here for my selection of some June '97 discussions: Frugal-Ed

Other Web-sites showing up in a search for my 38 keywords, i.e. with similar concerns.

D Simple Life......

EcoNet's Frugal Living Pages

The Frugal Corner WWW Site: Tips for Frugality (Inspired by The Tightwad Gazette)

"Alternatives'" web site

Carol's Place

LOTS of simple-living Links

Ash Grove Community Farm & Center for Sustainable Living

U.S. Consumption Hits Top (pick: overcons.zpg )

Sustainable Resources on the Internet (contributed to: sgarrett@wsu.edu by: Robert Wilson)

Center for A New American Dream

(my letter to Frugal-Ed, on extreme water-saving measures - in a severe drought.)

Links:

Hello! Sea Mammals Fantasy Worldrudyw's world

Indonesian lizards & snakes gecko


Hopelessness and Nihilism; (from: The Pro-Life Activist's Encyclopedia)
the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, incl. The "Eco Depth Gauge"; Excerpted from KOOKS
From Metropolis to Design is a holistic vision of a healthy, well-functioning environment.
The Planetary Work Machine; & "futuribles (as the French say) are not very appetizing: they stink of renunciation, moralism, new labors"

Toni Jeffreys PhD: "I fancy that most New Zealanders would walk quietly into the gas chambers on request ..."

cdMom's Home-Schooling Software Centre Home School supplies


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