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Re-thinking Jobs and Money |
>From: atlas@oocities.com >Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 20:13:21 -0700 (PDT) >Subject: New Discussion > >I now have a new discussion set up and I need your input. Drop by http://www.oocities.org/RainForest/Vines/6723/env/sustainabilty.html > >Thanks for your time, >Adam <anott@sfu.ca>** Adam has said: "[we should] expand the question of what we as individuals and as a community can do about our consumption patterns, population and the technology we use."
** I agree with him that the original question, focussed on population, is less than half of the problem facing the world. The co-opting or take-over of more than 40% of the world's natural production systems by humans (as estimated nearly ten years ago; a higher fraction now), is caused by their total consumption, i.e. by the sum of all the products: one individual times his/her consumption, (added up) for everyone.
** So with people in the rich (OECD) countries using up something like half of measured human production, it's clear that the most rapid (and I think, easiest) way to reduce total consumption is for those in the richest tenth of world population to drop their consumption to below half (and for CO2-producing activities, under a sixth) of what it is now. I refer here to the great majority of people in OECD countries.
** There are several ways to do this. One would be to take at least some of at least a score of steps to directly reduce consumption, such as major reduction or elimination of car use, and not buying large houses for small families. I have seen such a list recently, and was going to send it on (as I think Adam Nott was expecting). But another way, mine and my family's, is much more effective though very much tougher to do: reduce one's income so that there just _isn't_ the money to spend on consumption.
** The following lays out this approach; it is a letter to the Editor of the largest daily paper in this nation of under 4 million people. I was prevented from sending it in April 1993 (when I wrote it) by my eldest son, then just 21, who knew that it would redound upon him, since our surname is unique in New Zealand. He wished to appear to his acquaintances as more "normal" than we really are.
The Editor, The NZ Herald, PO Box 32, Auckland, NZ (suggested title: )
As I see it, they are free to 'do nothing', provided that they expect nothing: no unemployment benefit or any other state-provided support. including all types of low-income-targetted assistance.
Where do they get essentials like food and shelter? From a combination of two sources: family/friends, and their own money-earning efforts. The latter could be as little as a few weeks work in the year, provided they have very little use for money; e.g. use only buses and do mostly free things: libraries, beaches, visit friends, work on a farm for only bed and board. And if they are happy enough with living on less than $2.50 a day for food. I am, and have done since last year! [And still am, nearly 7 years after 1992.]
I encourage this option for most, because:
This is: http://www.oocities.org/Athens/Delphi/3142/JobsAndMoney.html#top