[MCN] Goal/prescription for a planet in trouble : "Cheerful frugality"

[Lance Olsen]

Excerpt: And that brings me to both the most devastating and the most encouraging point about sustainable living:  it will be forced on us eventually whether we want it to be or not.  And while this coming age of contraction will be painful in many ways, it does at least cure the neurosis of the lone revolutionary.  I experienced the sort of contraction I’m talking about during the many years I lived in Liberia and Kyrgyzstan, at least on a small scale, living simply by necessity.  I went without ziplock bags, private vehicles, air conditioning, and fast food because they just weren’t available, not because my conscience had wrestled with my appetites and won.  It was very relaxing.

The excesses, inequities, and exploitations that make up the modern Western lifestyle will come crashing down sooner or later.  When they do, selection will favor the people who can adapt and make do over those who can’t imagine life without luxuries.  Remember in the midst of your neurosis and discouragement as you consider the huge problems we face:  training ourselves and the upcoming generations to face life on earth with a cheerful frugality <https://www.resilience.org/what-is-community-resilience/> is advancing the revolution in its own slow way.

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2019-07-29/the-neurosis-of-the-lone-revolutionary/ <https://www.resilience.org/stories/2019-07-29/the-neurosis-of-the-lone-revolutionary/>



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“We have only one planet and the time has come to transform our present lifestyle and consumption patterns...”

From the Executive Summary, WWF:  China Ecological Footprint: Report 2012 : Consumption, production, and sustainability.
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"People should want more, make more, earn more, spend more -- ever more."

Donella Meadows. Just So Much And No More. Yes magazine June 30, 2001
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/reclaiming-the-commons/437
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“Conservationists are unquestionably useful people. And among the many useful services that they have rendered has been that of dramatizing the vast appetite the United States has developed for materials of all kinds.”

“But what of the appetite itself? Surely this is the ultimate source of the problem. If it continues its geometric course, will it not one day have to be restrained? Yet in the literature of the resource problem this is the forbidden question. Over it hangs a nearly total silence.”

John K. Galbraith. “How much should a country consume?”
In Jarrett, Henry (editor), Perspectives on Conservation. John Hopkins Press. 1958
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https://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/file_attachments/mb-extreme-carbon-inequality-021215-en.pdf







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