How would you feel about purely secular “mumbo jumbo” ceremonies meant to encourage care for the environment? Like, for example, an organized moment of silence before or after a cleanup (to stop and think about the natural area you’re cleaning up, listen to the birds/bugs/water, whatever)?
Green roofs do need more support. But think of it by percentages. A one-story house is going to need significantly more structural stability than a normal house if it wants to support a green roof. If your building is already built to support 10-20 stories, the additional weight (and cost) of the green roof and the reinforcement underneath is not as big a concern.
Personally, I would prefer solar panels on roofs and green spaces on the ground where the public can enjoy their benefits. But more green is better than less.
The form factor is the problem. We carry a propaganda faucet slash ad delivery service with us 24-7-365, we check it obsessively for a quick dopamine fix throughout the day, and we have convinced ourselves this is good for us.
Thank you for reading it!
Taking away a billionaire’s private jet, as cool as that would be, won’t cut your electric bill. Shitty Euro bakery curtains will 😆
I agree. Biden’s presidency was the biggest lost opportunity of my lifetime for exactly that reason.
FDR responded to a similar global challenge - the Great Depression - by transforming the American government to serve the needs of struggling Americans - and the American people rewarded his courage and vision with overwhelming support when he ran for his second term.
Biden? Barely tried to improve America. And everything he tried failed. He couldn’t even reduce student loan payments. And when Harris had the opportunity to break with him and fight for her own vision of what America could be, she either had no vision of her own or was too afraid to fight for it.
The American “left” is terrified to promote anything more than a return to the Obama-era status quo. But if they don’t find their vision and courage the United States is guaranteed one party Republican rule for another generation.
I cannot say I agree, and I think I recall that some indicators currently suggest we’d need about 3 planets to keep going at the same pace.
The back of the envelope calculation says if everybody on Earth lived like an average American we’d need the resources of about four Earths to cover it:
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33133712
That being said, from the same source, if everyone on Earth lived like an average Indian we’d only use half the Earth’s resources and could support twice as many people.
So it’s not about the number of people - it’s about the standard of living those people have and the resources they use.
I think the most effective way forward is more efficient and sustainable lifeways - if the richest countries learn to consume less, if people around the world get access to better technology and better institutions to raise their standard of living without raising their resource consumption.
And it’s interesting to note, the better off people are, the fewer children they tend to have. If we improve people’s lives worldwide, a steadily declining population will be a natural side effect.
An incredibly difficult goal, of course, but worth pursuing.
In addition, I find it rather hilarious that someone seriously thinks humans procreate because of long term thinking 😅
I mean, kids are a lifetime investment. Most people think about whether they can afford to feed and educate their kids over the next few decades, and what kind of life the kids will have after that. In countries without social safety nets, children are often the only retirement plan. I think the decision to have kids (or not) is the longest term planning the average person will ever do.
I’m not saying it’s necessarily good planning, but it’s certainly thinking long term.
With that being said, I think this article isn’t claiming not having kids is a problem in itself. It’s a symptom of the real problem - despair for the future.
People choosing not to have kids for positive reasons? Because they have a vision of the future with a lower population and choose to live their values? Great! No problem there.
But when people choose not to have kids because they think the world is collapsing around them, that they can’t give children a good life, that there’s no hope for the future and it would be immoral to expose a child to the coming tribulations - those decisions are made because people give up on the future.
The despair is the problem - the decisions made out of despair are just the symptoms.
And it’s hard to motivate people to work for a better world now when they have no hope for a better world in the future. If we’re all doomed anyway, why not burn all the oil you want and let the fascists take over?
It’s like the Hobbit taught us: traveling is good, but coming home is better.
Yeah, that’s definitely a camping/survivalist/prepping question and outside my expertise. I suspect it’ll take you a long time to learn to be “comfortable” living that way, though 😆
poVoq linked an article from Low Tech Magazine, which is a great resource for low energy sustainable living. I wanted to highlight this older article from them, too:
https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2016/05/how-to-get-your-apartment-off-the-grid/
It’s not clear to me, from your post, if you’re thinking about making a home/apartment “off grid”, and limiting your powered appliances to what solar power can cover to prepare for future disruptions to the power grid, or about living outside a fixed dwelling and using portable solar to power a few accessories like a portable induction stove. This matters because solar panels are bulky and batteries are heavy - charging a laptop and phone is trivial with a man-portable setup, but a solar generator capable of boiling water and cooking is not going to fit in a reasonably sized backpack 😆
If you’re thinking about “bugging out” or “going off the grid” in the survivalist sense, living with only the equipment you take with you, you might get better answers on equipment from camping and survivalist forums.
On the one hand, yes, it does.
On the other hand, I don’t want to hear it from an AI content farm.
In this particular article, I think, the author is advocating for rural communes as a solution to the American housing crisis - and, in general, as one potential form of sustainable living - that’s both cheaper and more sustainable than what the United States has been trying for decades.
The author does believe Western urban society is unsustainable due to fundamental resource constraints, but you don’t have to agree on that to think about “Hobbit villages” as one possible sustainable community model.
Let a thousand flowers bloom, right?
You’re not a poser. You’re starting somewhere. And starting anywhere is better than not starting at all.
To supplement what you’re already doing: I strongly believe the most important thing you can do to create change is talk about it.
https://www.talkingclimate.ca/p/the-most-impactful-climate-actions?triedRedirect=true
So when you grow a native lawn, you could let people know what you’re growing and why - talk to your neighbors, put up signs next to your flowers with QR codes linking to species identification, etc. If you’re deciding what to buy based on packaging, tell friends and family why you buy what you buy - you could even write to companies thanking them for using less/no plastic or whatever, you’d be surprised how few people contact companies and how big an impact a single letter can have. Etc.
Your individual action may not have much of an impact, but collective action starts with individual action - with one person inspiring another, and then they go on to inspire more, and more, and more. Be the change you want to see in the world 😆
I imagine dead trees were flammable, even back then. And oxygen levels were 15% higher. Can you imagine the forest fires?
Why not try to do both?
Because the black roof lobby has spent a ton of money to keep roofs black.
Not kidding.