Simple Prosperity Read online

  At EPA where I worked, I studied America’s response to the alarming issues that reverberated one after another, like undead zombies in some grade C movie. Now, as the American mind continues to piece the concepts of ecology together, the stakes have gotten so much higher. The “I” variable in the I = PAT equation has become a hulking, feverish monster in a sequel movie, and the public is beginning to comprehend very complex, disturbing concepts at high school Earth Science levels. Our children learn how major planetary cycles are being disrupted by human activities. They begin to understand (we hope) that life-essential nutrients like nitrogen, sulfur, carbon, and phosphorus have all gone hyperactive, far surpassing the natural cycle-rates familiar to life on Earth for eons. And of course, we’ve all learned the lessons of global warming: too many carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels too fast and the world’s glaciers begin to melt.

  The point is, in a single booming generation, environmental challenges have grown from the nuisance of McDonald’s wrappers on the street to the potential loss of real estate like Florida, Bangladesh, and Holland due to rising sea levels. Now, we begin to see all too clearly how overconsumption of resources has resulted in strip mines the size of counties, played-out oil wells too depleted to pump economically; aquifers that are reduced to dry, echoing caverns; and amber fields of grain whose nutrients were “refined,” reassembled into Hot Pockets and Doritos, and exported to all shores on the planet.

  To my own amusement and horror, I became a salesperson for sustainability—a product not exactly in high demand in the 1980s. It was the perfect get-rich-quick scheme, in slow motion. But really, money wasn’t the game I was playing, or I suppose I could have struck a more convincing pose. I constantly thought, talked, and wrote about how we can deliberately slow down and focus our attention on qualities like fairness in the market and durability in our products; on health and wellness rather than just wealth and “hellness.” I wanted to help create a world where people pay attention to how things are really going, and where we have time to take care of living things like children and Bristlecone pine trees that sprouted even before superheroes like Jesus, Buddha, and Muhammad walked their dusty paths. If we changed the direction of our economy, from extraction/disposal to preservation/restoration, we’d have the same number of jobs (or more, because many of the new jobs will require more direct human involvement) and they’d be better jobs because they’d be part of a new, purposeful national mission to meet needs without endless detours and side effects.

  I realized that the fatal flaw in our culture (as in so many before ours) was to assume that everything was going fine on the farms, grasslands, and construction sites; that everything was fine in the fisheries, factories, and mines. We assumed everything was growing back; that mine tailings were tucked neatly back into the ground and reseeded; that synthetic fertilizers somehow replaced all the nutrients extracted when crops are harvested; that pop cans and milk jugs were all migrating like salmon back to the factories as raw material. Pollution and resource depletion were okay within certain limits because we were making so much money. We could see the GDP rising and the smiles on each other’s faces; and we just assumed that what was good for the economy was good for life on Earth. Whenever scientists or economists cautioned that we were drawing down the principle (nature’s abundance and stability) rather than wisely spending just the interest, they were either ignored or lampooned as “party poopers.” We left it to the experts, unaware of how little they actually knew about biology, systems thinking, or human needs.

  Swimming Against a Virtual Current

  I got stung, professionally, by America’s naive optimism. I’d chosen to write books and make films about environmental and social solutions, mostly for the general public. For eight books, twenty videos and TV programs, and hundreds of articles, I traveled to America’s best farms, factories, and sustainable communities, examining intelligent ways of living, growing, eating, and buying. But if the public took refuge in optimism, they wouldn’t be receptive to solutions that in their opinion “rocked the boat.” What they wanted was quick and easy “tips” that would let them continue the pursuit of happiness-by-consumption with just a few little twists. I was frustrated that many people didn’t seem to realize that many environmental and economic problems originate in our minds, designs, economic assumptions, and value systems—the way we view and interact with the world. These huge challenges can’t just be tweaked with tips, because the paradigm of overproduction and overconsumption just keeps pumping.

  We’re living a Catch-22 lifestyle: we aren’t sure we can make fundamental changes in our personal lives because the mainstream American lifestyle eats up our time, focus, and human energy. Yet, we can’t create more time until we make adjustments in our lifestyle. And we won’t do that until we collectively grasp the benefits of changing; until we see that we have far more to gain than lose by adopting a more moderate way of life.

  In a career focused on change, I’ve tiptoed through many a book or video, trying to present information in a way that doesn’t overwhelm or estrange readers and viewers: “Excuse me, I’m not trying to alarm you or make you feel bad, I just want to tell you about many great ideas and innovations that are out there. Choices we can make based on what people really value and what nature actually needs.” It felt like I was sitting in the reader’s living room asking—as if casually—if they’d noticed that bear hibernating behind the sofa, which could kill the baby.

  Being a risk-taker, I decided to parachute from the mainstream a decade ago and focus on what really matters—what life is really about at its core—to see if my observations might be satisfying to me and useful to others. In 1996, at the age of forty-seven, I left the forty-hour workweek, the world of people-with-paychecks, to try my luck as a freelancer. By surviving, even thriving, on about half the income I’d made before, and giving myself more discretionary time, I found some of the treasure I was looking for—in the kindness, art, and energy of remarkable people; the richness of organic garden soil; and the realization that life, after all, is not for sale. That’s what brought me to this book.

  I hope you enjoy reading about all the tools and talents we have—as individuals and as a culture—to help us alter the course of history. We are a very clever species, and right about now is when we’ll begin to come back into blossom. May it be so.

  Be well!

  You can never get enough of what you don’t need to make you happy.

  —Eric Hoffer

  If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.

  —Cicero

  For fast-acting relief, try slowing down.

  —Lily Tomlin

  Humankind has so much become one family that we cannot ensure our own security unless we ensure the security of all others.

  —Bertrand Russell

  Since the Earth is finite, and we will have to stop expanding sometime, should we do it before or after nature’s diversity is gone?

  —Donella Meadows

  To climb these coming crests, one word to you and your children:

  Stay together. Learn the flowers. Go light.

  —Gary Snyder

  We are the leaders that we have been waiting for. We are the social innovators and entrepreneurs that we have been seeking.

  —Duane Elgin

  Creating the world we want is a much more subtle but more powerful mode of operation than destroying the one we don’t want.

  —Marianne Williamson

  When the wind is strong, the seed-feather will be ready.

  —David Wann

  Hope is the thing with feathers—that perches in the soul.

  —Emily Dickinson

  Introduction

  The central premise of this book is that significant changes are now occurring in the way we live our lives, with many more changes on the way. As in a huge game of gin rummy, we are deciding which cards are not worth keeping and which ones would make a great hand. We’re reevaluating many aspe
cts of daily life, including what we eat, where we live, how well we take care of each other, how much and how far we travel, what kind of work we do, and how much free time we have. We’re starting to imagine what a more moderate, efficient, compassionate lifestyle will look like, and feel like.

  Frankly, the main impetus for these changes is not enlightenment but discomfort; it’s become more painful to stay here than it is to move, en masse, to a new era. Our current way of life is not meeting our needs, and is destroying the place we call home. Although mainstream America has resisted change (as mainstreams usually do), it’s become apparent to many people that a decrease in the flow of fossil fuel energy and consumer products is not only inevitable but actually desirable, if other aspects of our lives become richer. That’s what this book is about—the deliberate substitution of “real wealth” for overconsumption. The fact that our excessive lifestyle can’t and won’t continue is not just a moralistic guilt trip or the opinion of a pack of nature nuts; it’s the scientific conclusion of some of the world’s most brilliant minds. The global economy is moving too fast for natural systems (including us) to keep up. Current rates of consumption are impossible with so many people consuming so much energy and so many products, so fast.

  It’s time for a new way of valuing the world and our place in it. The good news is that curing the pandemic of overconsumption at both the personal and cultural scale is not about giving up the good life but getting it back. If the United States and other wayward nations are wise enough to substitute moderation for excess, our world can come back into balance, maybe just in time. What will we give up? Mostly unwanted side effects like rising sea levels, debt, depression, waste, war, and inflation. Which would you rather have—a moderate, joyful lifestyle with fewer of these side effects, or the same old blowout with an even more miserable hangover?

  Despite a quadrupling of average income since 1960, surveys show that Americans are no happier now than we were back then. We live on a huge life-support system, passively dependent on the economy for our survival needs; sometimes this feels more like insanity than convenience (mental patients, too, are incapable of meeting their own needs). Furthermore, if we examine the way our needs are actually being met, we see that profits are the typical priority, while needs are really only secondary. In fact, sometimes needs are deliberately unmet to ensure future sales. For example, American carmakers have rarely given priority to vital qualities like durability, safety, and efficiency, instead going with features that move cars off the lot, such as size, speed, and sexiness. Meanwhile, Swedish and Japanese manufacturers are meeting and surpassing one socially valuable benchmark after another. For example, a 1989 Saab 900 recently crossed the million-mile marker before being retired to a museum. The superefficient Toyota Prius is steadily rolling toward its millionth sale, and Toyota’s prototype plug-in hybrids already get more than 100 miles per gallon.

  Supply and Demand: Double Trouble

  It’s easy enough to point the finger at companies whose CEOs make more in a hour than we make in a year, yet we consumers are far from innocent, since we’ve been more than willing to let consumption be the centerpiece of our lives. Shell-shocked by the shrapnel of advertising and bloated from way too much sitting, we can still regain our sense of pride and dignity if we look at value in a different way, and begin to meet our needs more directly. For example, is it really huge houses that we need, or a sense that we’ve accomplished something in our lives; that we’ve expressed who we are, and that our lives are large enough to include the people we love? There are more direct ways of meeting these needs. Is it a string of exotic vacations we need, or the realization that life is an adventure no matter where we are? We don’t all have to be millionaires, but we do need creative challenges and a sense of purpose.

  Inconceivable amounts of money and effort are spent to fill every consumer moment with a product, leaving little time for healthy food, great relationships, or learning new skills. Because the real wealth makes us feel content, the marketers have learned how to ridicule it and portray it as “boring.” You don’t see a lot of ads for small, well-designed houses, backpacking adventures, potluck dinners, or other experiences and products that reduce the GDP yet elevate our gladness to be alive.

  Humans need a sense of autonomy, but the scale and power of big industry often strips that away. The health-care industry, for example, has become the arbiter of life and death; the final court of appeals. It feels like the only choice we have is to fork over the money to institutions that often pay more attention to graphs of profits than electronic graphs of vital signs. Yet, how many Americans are negligent about diet, exercise, strong relationships, and stress control—all factors that can prevent illness? A potential tidal wave of interest in preventive approaches is just over the horizon. Whole foods, yoga, herbal remedies, meditation, acupuncture, and exercise are coming into the mainstream, along with an empowering realization that we can meet many of our own health needs, for far less money. (See chapter 7 for sage advice from the centenarians.)

  Nutrition is another fundamental need that the U.S. food industry doesn’t even begin to meet, as discussed in chapters 7 and 14. But again, the responsibility lies on both the supply and demand sides of the plate. For example, consumers can just say no to soft drinks that are now the nation’s most widely consumed “food” in a society where obesity and diabetes are epidemic. The average American slurps 53 gallons of soda a year—equivalent in more ways than one to a drum of hazardous waste. Trans fat, for many years a standard ingredient in baked goods and fried foods, has recently been outlawed from all New York City restaurants because of its potentially lethal effects. (One out of every eight of that city’s residents now has diabetes.) Even wild monkeys have healthier diets than most Americans, according to anthropologist Katharine Milton. Again, in our money-mad world, the focus is on snackability, convenience, and shelf life rather than human life. Fossil-fueled food, it seems, is good for everyone except the eater; and though the word “companion” literally means “with bread,” today’s processed foods are perhaps better eaten alone.

  You Just Might Find You Get What You Need

  Humans need connections with other people, as the data in chapter 5 demonstrate. For example, cancer patients with social support have a much higher rate of survival than those without. Yet, a recent study by the National Science Foundation concluded that one-fourth of all Americans have no one to confide in. So, why have we just spent sixty years and trillions of dollars constructing a car-dependent, suburban universe that physically and socially isolates us from each other? Mostly because it was extremely profitable. Two-thirds of Americans would choose a small town over a large suburb, but there aren’t enough small towns left to go around. (We need to restructure the suburbs, as sustainable, interconnected small towns, as discussed in chapter 10.) We also need to be refreshed and renewed by daily contact with nature. In research studies discussed in chapter 8, when people view slides of nature, their blood pressure falls. Hospital patients go home much sooner if they have a view of trees and sky. But there are fewer and fewer places to access nature in a landscape so littered with instant, would-be castles made of dry wall, and chain stores made of money.

  Environmental protection is also crippled by affluenza. We look the other way when it comes to environmental impacts—toward the money. As in health care (and crime control) prevention receives much less emphasis than after-the-fact containment and treatment. For example, prevention of pollution is less appealing to the marketers of such products as pesticides. Organic growers may buy a single truckload of beneficial insects, but once the insects begin to reproduce, no further purchases are necessary—a great example of how nature and knowledge can replace the use of resources. Ingenious though it may be, some economists don’t like organic farming because it doesn’t boost the GDP the way conventional, soil-mining agribusiness does.

  At this turning point in history, U.S. policy continues to heavily subsidize oil and gas extracti
on, and every year, the average U.S. taxpayer contributes about $2,000 in support of automobile use (even if he doesn’t drive), according to the nonprofit group Redefining Progress. An average-salaried American also shoulders about $700 annually in advertising expenditures, payable at the cash register, and is subject to land use, wage, worker benefit and other policies that are often in synch with big business: more focused on economic growth than human welfare. Once again, consumers are partly to blame for the fact that the United States is 5 percent of the world’s population yet consumes a fourth of its energy. Until we take advantage of efficient lighting, appliances, and windows, and live in well-insulated homes with at least some natural lighting and passive solar heating, we can’t really chastise the power companies. Chapter 12 offers ideas on how to meet some of your own energy needs and finesse your utility bill.

  Many human needs are hard to see—they are in our psyches and our social interactions. Corporations don’t and can’t do a very good job meeting our need for freedom of expression, creativity, beauty, autonomy, acceptance, respect, and a sense of meaning and purpose; so we, the people, have to take charge of these needs ourselves. In fact, if we don’t meet these needs fully, we become victims of affluenza, hoping that, somehow, what we buy can heal our wounds.

  Renewable Resources of Real Wealth

  When Dr. Dean Ornish encouraged one of his patients to adopt a healthier lifestyle, the patient’s response was, “I have twenty friends in this pack of cigarettes that I can always depend on—what can you offer me that’s any better?” Similarly, if we make a heroic effort to break our widespread addiction to overconsumption, what will take its place? This book proposes that when we change a few key priorities, many of our material wants will cease to be obsessions. It’s not just that we won’t need the next generation of gadgets and clothes; we truly won’t even want them. Instead of perpetuating fidgety, addictive consumption, our lives will be filled with the real wealth of sanity, health, hope, caring, connection, participation, and purpose. All we have to do is unplug, and change our priorities.