Rebuttal to “micro consumerist bollocks”

Some well-intentioned eco-minded opinion leaders are coming out saying that any efforts to reduce our own footprint are just “micro consumerist bollocks.” That — as long as refineries and factories and banks and lobbyists and such are belching out bajillions of tons of evil every second — what is the damn point of any of us little people doing anything?

My response:

I consider this line of thinking extremely seductive and deadly. Trading our personal agency for the false comfort of feeling righteous and let-off-the-hook from any kind of responsibility for the mess on this planet is a really, really bad trade. Bye-bye to any personal power we might have! And this trade has a somnolent effect. It’s like a personal drip-feed of soma! You are getting verrey, verrrrry sleeeeepy …

NOOOOOOO!!! Stay awake!!! Don’t go down that sleepytime path!!!

I think all of our efforts on all fronts are valuable! Thank you all for whatever high-level, big-picture efforts you are making to pressure governments; and to shut down the refineries, and the extractive colonialist-consumerist system in general.

And, quite honestly, a BIG part of my motivation for choosing a low-footprint path (besides the wish to do my part though it be but a drop in the ocean) is to simply get used to living with less. It’s an incredibly rewarding feeling to just not be so dependent and vulnerable as I used to feel before I got on this path.

Thoreau got it right when he said that “a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.” (Obviously this applies to people of all other genders as well.)

The amount of money I save by living a life of hardcore thrift reduces my cost of living by a huge amount, thus liberating me from having to spend most of my waking hours running around chasing money just to barely survive. I get to spend most of my time doing creative pursuits, running my little micro businesses, and helping my community instead.

Here’s another important point that may not have entered the conversation yet: Quietly changing our consumption patterns is an action that is immediately accessible to just about all of us. Whereas blocking a coal train, chaining oneself to a giant redwood, vandalizing drilling equipment, trespassing on private property to document abuses, and so on are just not things the average run-of-the-mill person is going to be able or willing to do.

At the same time as I admire the courage of the coal-train blockers and others who put their lives on the line, I’m also adamantly opposed to needless death and suffering. Would I be willing to risk my life to defend the planet for future generations? Maybe, possibly. But I would rather choose a path that will allow me to stay alive and keep making a difference through other kinds of actions that might be just as effective, without triggering some authoritarian crackdown.

Do I admire people who are willing to risk imprisonment or death for pushing for the right thing? Yes, I admire their courage and dedication. I’ve always thought it wrong that society lauds people as heroes for enlisting in the military and invading other people’s homelands at the order of their government, whereas the same society condemns people as terrorists for trying to protect the forests and rivers and air and wildlife of their own home bioregions — and ultimately the entire biosphere, on which all of our lives depend.

I’m not kidding myself; authoritarian crackdown of some kind is going to be almost inevitable as the fatcats see their easy profits and docile labor supply dry up. The crackdown would be more likely to take the form of protective legislation that reshuffles the economic deck in the favor of the powers-that-be.

That’s my interpretation of what happened a few years back when a huge percentage of the USAmerican population had fallen out of health insurance coverage. Instead of addressing the problem at the roots, the government made it mandatory for people to buy health insurance! Voilà, the corporate fatcats get their gravy train running again.* So basically, the fatcats will always keep finding ways to stack the deck in their favor. If too many people stop buying too much stuff, they might find a way to punish us for it! Already out in the media there’s an implication that we are hindering the economic recovery by being thrifty.

* (Later the penalty for not having health insurance was repealed, much to the relief of people who would have had to choose between buying food and buying health insurance.) (Note: I am aware that many people at the lower end of the income range have been helped by being able to get insurance through the Affordable Care Act.)

So it’s not that I assume there will be zero consequences for a quiet de-growth, de-consumerist revolution. But, for most of us, who may just not be Joan of Arc but are just average humans trying to put food on the table and keep our families together and repair the tattered fabric of our communities, “wallet action” is probably going to be our best bet.

I think everything we do matters! I think that dismissing household thrift and conservation as “microconsumerist bollocks” is self-defeating, and undermines our own best chances at self-reliance, creative and occupational freedom, and real happiness. Living an ethical life is one of the surest paths to genuine happiness even amid hard times. And doing our part, however small that part might be, to try to avert biospheric collapse is an ethical way to live.

Grassroots green revolution is real! Deep-green troops, mobilize! (like a herd of bioregionally hip feral cats)!

PS. Speaking of wallets, and “the economy” as defined by various overlords: An article that popped up in my feed the other day asserted that Americans are hoarding too much money and it’s hurting the economic recovery.

To which I say: Our individualistic, industrial-consumerist-colonialist society and economy actually encourages hoarding, be it in the form of cash or Wall Street stocks or bitcoins or what have you. These storage vehicles have become a (poor) substitute for mutual aid and community cohesion. And it’s all rooted in a disconnect from nature and from our fellow beings including fellow humans.

That said – this doesn’t mean we should be spending on consumer goods instead of saving. We owe “the economic recovery” nothing!! We need to make a whole new kind of economic recovery where we spend our money investing in family, community, local farms, local cottage industries, rainforest conservation etc etc.

RIOT (for Austerity) re-intro post

Someone in one of my favorite green groups asked how we each felt about voluntarily reducing our personal/household consumption activity by 90%. The questioner wondered: Has anyone already chosen to do this? Do you or don’t you consider it necessary? Does the prospect of such a dramatic loss of lifestyle seem too distressing?

Oh wow, I thought: An opportunity to bring up the Riot for Austerity to a new audience! And, an opportunity to make a quick “Riot re-introduction” for readers who may be new to this blog.

I answered: I am super into it!! — am actually a participant in a longtime grassroots movement focused on reducing per capita consumption by 90% of the USA average. (People in many countries are of course already living way way below that and do not need to make any reductions).

The movement is called the Riot for Austerity, it started sometime back around 2007(?), and its name was inspired by a term used by George Monbiot in his book HEAT.

The RIOT metrics are easy to understand, and do NOT require a person to be able to grow their own food! The emphasis in the food footprint category is on how local one’s food is, how much of it is fresh rather than processed etc.

Other categories include water, gasoline, electricity, consumer goods purchases.

The group has not been super active online lately but I’m pretty sure most of the people are still at it!! Feel free to ask me if you have any questions not answered in the group’s files. I’ll look for you in the group!!!

Other great groups, tho not specifically dedicated to reducing consumption by 90%, are very active and full of great conversations & practical tips about reduction in every imaginable facet of daily life. Check out: • Zero Waste, Zero Judgement; • The Non-Consumer Advocate; • Degrowth – join the revolution; • Deep Adaptation.

Here is Post on my Deep Green book page with screenshots of the Riot rules (the web link on the Riot page, which worked for years, is dead and I was not able to copy-paste the text).

You can also see the Riot rules by reading my book DEEP GREEN, which is available in print by ordering direct from me; or free to read online on this blog.

Laundry Tip for Towel Troubles

Someone in the Non-Consumer Advocate group posted about how bath towels always cause their washing machine to make violent banging noises. (And, I have seen towels make washing machines do all kinds of other naughty things as well. The machine stops working and sounds a really piercing alarm; it chokes and stalls out; the Tilt light goes on and can’t be placated.) This laundry woe prompted me to share the following comment …

Awhile back*, when I was living in Tokyo, I copied the local custom and switched to small towels that are lightweight, and that dry really quickly. I never looked back!

I don’t have a washer or dryer; I just wash by hand and line-dry. But either way, whether doing laundry by hand or washer/dryer, small lightweight towels are a godsend!! (For a convenient body-wrap, instead of the giant thick towels I used to think were necessary, I just use a lightweight cotton sarong.)

I have written lots of other laundry tips on this blog; just type “laundry” in the search field and it should bring up several posts. Laundry habits in the USA (and in nations that have succumbed to the USA’s industrial-consumerist influence) are a huge topic, and a giant squishy target for optimizing energy use … not only fossil energy but human energy too!!!

*1990 through 1994

Meta Tip: My comment in the group has gotten quite a few Likes. I almost didn’t even bother to post the comment; now I’m glad I did. Takeaway: You never know which of your posts or comments might really be useful or inspiring to someone. Go ahead and share that tip or other info you have to share!

Let’s “Go Drastic On Plastic”!

So, turns out that my country, the USA, is the world’s top producer of plastic waste. Knock me over with a feather.

ARE YOU ALL AS FED-UP AS I AM?
What can we all do to refuse plastics today?
Post your pledges and successes!
And when the plastic-refusal going gets tough, consider this fact reported in the above-linked article: “If the current rise in plastics pollution continues, the world by 2030 will be putting 58.4 million tons into the oceans each year, or about half the weight of the fish caught in seas“.

My pledge:

  • I’m not getting any more takeout food unless it’s packaged in cardboard or other backyard-compostable packaging; or they let me use my own container. (I already refuse paper napkins and plastic utensils, have been doing that for years.) I enjoy takeout and supporting local restaurants, so this will take a lot of willpower on my part, but I am totally up for it!!! Enough is enough!
  • I’m not ordering any more mail-order anything, unless it is shipped directly from the maker of the product, and I can talk directly with the maker/shipper to ascertain they don’t use plastic in shipping. (A little bit of tape is ok.)
  • I will look into ways to pressure the manufacturers and other originators of this disgusting mountain of plastic.
  • I will find ways to make my neighbors more aware of what a crisis our thoughtless acceptance of plastic bags, bottles, etc., is causing.

From the article linked above:

“America needs to rethink and reduce the way it generates plastics because so much of the material is littering the oceans and other waters, the National Academy of Sciences says in a new report.

“The United States, the world’s top plastics waste producer, generates more than 46 million tons yearly, and about 2.2 billion pounds ends up in the world’s oceans, according to the academy’s report.

“If the current rise in plastics pollution continues, the world by 2030 will be putting 58.4 million tons into the oceans each year, or about half the weight of the fish caught in seas, the report said.

“Recycling and proper disposal alone aren’t enough and can’t handle the problem …

““One of the major barriers for recycling is the economics of virgin plastic and subsidization of the fossil fuel industry,” Spring said. The American Chemistry Council, which represents plastics manufacturers, lauded most of the academy’s report, but it blasted the idea of limiting plastics production.”

— My comments:

Actually one thing I really think we need to do is a full-on boycott! It may be impossible to boycott SUP packaging entirely but we can boycott bottled water, for example. Plastic bottles were the biggest single source of trash in a recent WaterGoat trash-catching net’s count!

We could post about our plastic-refusal successes and encourage each other, post the stores & restaurants that are good about letting customers avoid SUP, etc.

Killing the oceans with plastic junk is not a thing that I want our country to be known for!

Refuse junk plastic! Hit the manufacturers in their wallets!

Another thought: Ask governments to heavily tax single-use plastics. (Thanks for that idea Rebecca!) It would be more than appropriate to tax this junk, given the true costs, which are not only environmental but economic as well!

USA – plastic nation — is this who we want to be?

CREDIT: “Go Drastic On Plastic” is a campaign phrase and general rallying cry that was coined awhile back by DREAM GREEN VOLUSIA, an environmental organization in my bioregion that has worked tirelessly to raise public awareness, clean up the disgusting evidence of our plastic addiction that litters the beaches and waterways, preserve local ecosystems, and more. You can visit their website here (stand by, I’m checking to see if they have a website); and their Facebook group’s page here.

“Cut Back” on Excess Mowing!

Following is a letter I sent yesterday to some officials & citizens of our city & county. If any of this is helpful to you in communicating with your local officials, HOA, neighborhood group, etc., please feel free to copy-paste and adapt according to your needs.

Subject: Opportunity To Save Money and Fuel While Helping the Environment: “Cut Back” on Excess Mowing!

Esteemed Leaders and Citizens who care about our environment and our local natural beauty:

The other night in the Mayor’s Beachside Advisory Committee (a monthly Zoom meeting), some of us brought up the topic of excess mowing. These photos of the City-owned empty lot next to my house show what I mean.

Grass that was already very short and scalped-looking got mowed again today. So did the City-owned lot next to __‘s house.

They are on a 2-week schedule — it should be once a MONTH (or maybe even less) at this time of year, and once every 2 weeks only in summer wet season. We are wasting money, burning fossil fuels needlessly, and creating a desert. It is also very unsightly.

Meanwhile, community gardens, fruit trees, and native plant gardens have to depend on grants. This is the opposite of resilience!

Excess mowing, and lack of shrubs and trees, makes the ground very prone to erosion and stormwater runoff (dry sand is water-repellent to a large degree).

All over the USA and the world,
landscaping norms are shifting, as scientists, activists, and others have come to recognize the undesirable impact of our excessive preoccupation with neatness in the great outdoors. The news about the relationship between landscaping and pollinators, water quality, and so on has gotten widespread coverage in the mainstream press.

We here in Daytona Beach need to move with the times, and ease up on excess mowing and other outdated landscaping practices. Mother Nature is soft and curvy! And those “curves” serve many essential functions, such as stormwater mitigation, drought buffer, pollinator support … and not incidentally BEAUTY!

We need beautification not “tidy-fication”!

This letter is part of what I hope will be an ongoing conversation and actions to shift our landscaping emphasis from tidy-fication to heat mitigation, food-growing, biodiversity, soil-building, and other essential functions upon which human life on earth depends.

Thank you all for listening. Share your questions and thoughts anytime, and let’s make our bioregion great!!!

Jenny Nazak
Daytona Beach Permaculture Guild (Permaculture Daytona on Facebook)

Broken Things That Still Work

Starting a list of broken things that still work.

Category 1: Thanks that are broken but can still serve for their original intended purpose, even if in diminished capacity

Carabiner-style clips. Even if the spring mechanism goes kaput, the clips can still be used in many cases. I have one such clip that lives on a strap of my best canvas shopping bag; I use it to clip my reusable cup to the bag when going out to the minimart to get my coffee etc. I wouldn’t trust the “floppy” clip to secure my cup onto the back of a backpack if I were hiking long-distance, but it serves just fine where I can keep an eye on it and am not walking far.

Reusable water bottles. Even sturdy bottles (or their lids) can break. I’ve had a stainless-steel bottle rust through at one of the top seams. But that bottle is still fine for scooping water out of a rainbarrel. And, when the plastic lid of my very sturdy stainless-steel waterbottle split, I realized I could still use the bottle in situations where I could make sure it stayed upright. So, I can’t use it in my bicycle’s bottle-cage anymore, but I can still use it to carry water on train trips etc. (as long as I make sure the bottle is upright in my little suitcase, and my suitcase itself stays upright). My steadfast adherence to the old hitchhiker’s maxim of “keep luggage in view at all times” comes in handy here.

Our planet’s biosphere. Yeah, but let’s not keep testing that, and let’s not push it any further.

Category 2: Things that are broken but can serve a useful function other than their original intended purpose

Bicycle-tire innertubes. When a tube goes bad, I cut it into strips to make handy stretchy ties of whatever length and width I need. They are incredibly useful, right up there with duct-tape and baling-wire as a cohesive force in the universe.

As you can see, this is a very short list! If you’ve got any items you’d like to add to this list, please text or email me! And I wish you a fun thrifty creative day of not having to spend money or send things to landfill.

Gone Bananas

It’s just one silly person’s banana story, and not the whole reality. But, it would be wise to see the writing on the wall. I always think that, not just for bananas but for everything else as well.

This morning I walked down the street to the minimart to get my coffee (which I could brew at home but I get my little morning fix of news and convivial human company at the minimart), and my bananas (which they sell 2 for a buck, which is probably more expensive than the supermarket but the supermarket is a hard bicycle ride away, or a harder walk).

The coffee machine in the minimart was working, which is awesome because it is not always. My favorite goodhearted employee was there, and we talked about compassion and how to circumvent the political divides that are killing us all.

And, I went to grab my customary two bananas … only to find that the banana shelves were empty!

“What’s up, are you guys not selling bananas anymore?”

“We are, but for the past few days we haven’t had any shipments. There’s some bug that’s killing the bananas.”

When I got home from my beach walk I googled. Come to find out the worldwide banana crop is threatened. Actually I had heard this before, for some years, but never really had to pay attention. Now it has washed up to my shores.

I was surprised, but not. Supply-line things are happening all around us. And no matter what the supposed reason is, I think it all pretty much boils down to one thing: Our cushy reality is running out.

From the article: “At the moment the Cavendish bananas are grown on a vast monoculture, meaning not just TR4 but all diseases spread fast. During one growing season, bananas can be sprayed with fungicides from 40 to 80 times.”

In Ireland, a potato famine wreaked havoc and prompted a lot of Irish people to immigrate here in the early part of the last century. Supposedly they had started only growing one kind of potato.

Meanwhile in Peru and elsewhere, sensible people were growing thousands of different varieties of potato. They still are.

And so I say … Hey Florida Permies!!! What kind of bananas are you growing and how much would you sell them for? Or how much would you charge people and cities for classes in how to grow bananas in a sustainable way?

A couple of banana trees in my yard are putting out fruit for the first time ever. Two bunches of bananas. Green still. We’ll see what happens.

Cities have no trouble finding money in their budgets to grow ornamental turfgrass, and mow it and spray poisons. Fruit trees and other edible plants should be a solid item in the budget also — not something we have to beg grants for.

#WeGrowFood #FoodResilience

On a related note, I’ve been meaning to share with you this article by Umair Haque at Eudaemonia & Co: “It’s Not a Supply Chain Crisis — It’s a Failing Economy.” “One way of life — artificially cheap, easy, thoughtless, mindless consumption — is coming to an end. Maybe, though, you think I exaggerate. Let’s go through a small list of goods for which supply is now crashing. …”

And a final thought: Low-footprint living is a gift we give ourselves. A gift that keeps on giving. And it doesn’t get stuck on cargo ships!