12.06.07

How to Say When

So I'm back from an extended Thanksgiving holiday and I've been thinking about overconsuming.  The percentage of my wardrobe that I can wear without feeling as though it's an act of mortification seems to be decreasing at an alarming rate, but that's just the beginning.

My self-loathing has metastasized to include all of the implications of my over-consumption.  I've been thinking about how much energy those of us occupying space on the streets and highways of First World nations (or what The World Bank would term "high income countries") use.

How much energy does this life of mine relative to, say, a fellow on the streets Ethiopia, use?    Turns out, more - a lot more - and not just around the holidays.  Each year my lifestyle demands about 531 times as much energy as that "for-perspective-average-developing-nation-citizen" I just referenced.

While I can summon mountains of regret about my expanding waistline, I feel (mostly) capable of changing the behavior that leads to this (high income economy) problem. When it comes to figuring out how to live a less energy intensive lifestyle, my dilemma seems deeper than Chicago-style pizza (sidenote: it's neither Chicagoan nor pizza, but that's another story).  

Whence all the reflection and self-loathing?  Truth be told, it's sort of a pastime for me, but this most recent detour into my dark places was borne out of thinking deeply about our economy.  Well, to be honest, I just finished reading Bill McKibben's at once rueful and hopeful book DEEP ECONOMY.  It's an accessible look inside the way we consume all manner of things (energy, food, et al) and how many of our notions of efficiency aren't so.  That is to say, the contemporary mantra of economic growth and its beneficial effects on health, happiness, and the creation of wealth is a little one note.  

McKibben investigates the modes of our free markets (a misnomer, but again, another story) and how they work at making us wealthier in ways that don't seem so "durable" (the word he uses in the stead of sustainable) when one takes into account things economists often ignore with the word "externality."

What we've chosen is an (often ludicrously) energy intensive economy that in its race to grow wealth leaves a lot of people without time to grow up (and by not growing up I mean dying).

McKibben does a great job of explicating the ways that we aren't getting it right, but I confess - as lovely as his farm co-op stories are - I am not moved to think that he offers up so many pragmatic solutions for those of us that don't live in his rural Vermont community.  You see, as of May 23 of this year, most of us live in urban areas.

So what can I do to consume less so that there might be more (i.e., enough) for everyone?  That's the question that seems to be behind my somatization of this First World self-loathing.  Of course we've heard about hybrid cars and compact fluorescent lightbulbs, but are those the deckchairs on our sinking (Space)ship Earth?  Let's hear some of your ideas and over the next few entries I'll mention some of mine.

Tags: economy, energy, holidays, sustainability

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