Is it too late? How can we overcome our addictions to over-consumption?
Image by David Spender
The most famous of Hagia Sophia’s Byzantine mosaics is this 13th-century Deësis Mosaic, depicting Christ Pantrocrator flanked by the Virgin Mary and St. John the Baptist.
Christ holds a closed Book of Gospels in his left hand and raises his right in benediction. His gentle expression is that of the "Palaeologan Christ," who reveals God’s compassion for humanity. On either side, the Virgin and St. John the Baptist are turned towards Christ in attitude of worship.
This mosaic dates from shortly after the Restoration of Constantinople (1261) and was probably commissioned to express gratitude for the victory of Michael VIII Palaeologus (1261-1282), which put an end to Crusader occupation.
Question by zootriotus: Is it too late? How can we overcome our addictions to over-consumption?
It is obvious that people and particularly Americans have dug themselves into a deep pit when it comes to their environment. Green house gases are raising the temperature of the world at alarming rates. Aquifers are low. Oil is becoming more expensive because peak consumption is on the horizon. Will the investment in our superfluous lifestyles be too difficult to restrain? Are you willing to give up these luxuries to stem the tide of our global destruction? And I don’t mean destroying the world (we don’t have that capability) but destroying the world for us to live in.
Add your own answer in the comments!
7 Responses to Is it too late? How can we overcome our addictions to over-consumption?
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Not in one generation, or possibly even two. I believe it will be cold turkey for a depleted society.
There is a theory I heard that environmental depletion is the origins of the great plains and the North american indians’ ecologically sound culture. I believe there is a fine future for humanity, but not in the terms a consumerist society may recognise
You may be interested in ‘permaculture’ it may see us through any transition stage and beyond. I find it the most concise and well founded set of eco principles around. It should be worth a google.
John Sol
June 17, 2013 at 2:42 pm
Choose quality over quantity. It isn’t the person with the most toys that wins, it’s the person with the best toys.
grizzbr1
June 17, 2013 at 2:44 pm
We have grown so reliant on oil, that few of us can even start to imagine what life may be like without it. It is important to consider that there are still vast reserves of coal, tar sands, oil shales and oil from coal. These could be used and would last hundreds of years. IF there was not a problem with carbon emissions.
However, these reserves will take a lot more energy to process and a lot more effort to do so. This will be a limiting factor to over consumption in the Western World; COST.
Alongside this there are advances and investments in sustainable technology, not enough still, but these these are all part of the solution.
Permaculture can offers some solutions particularly on a personal/individual level, where the ideology is to become as auto sufficient as possible. Urban Permaculture can certainly be used in town and cities where it would help redesign the urban landscape to to facilitate food and fuel production; timber. In the countryside people often wholeheartedly embrace the energy efficient techniques of Permaculture.
In my opinion, rising prices for fuel, consumer goods and food will change the suburban landscape, the priority would again be to have cottage gardens, producing food and timber with orchards where there was space. So imagine lawns disappearing, an abundance of wildlife and food production becoming much more the responsibility of individuals than for some time.
Cuba is one of the best examples of a nation that had to take action due to the problems associated with Peak Oil and well worth a look at the links below. Public spaces were planted with crops and the whole nation’s ideology shifted.
I don’t think Permaculture can answer all the questions though, particularly when it comes to commercially producing food. Some techniques may be used from Permaculture but it is not a magic bullet. Certainly there will still be a massive demand for ‘commercially’ produced food, home crops fail, people are ill/old/too young. It is here where I really see the problems. The Agriculture business relies on heavy power use. Without oil, or another equivalent, how are we going to produce enough food on a large scale without using the energy we produce to fuel the machines we need to produce it?
The second problem of course is that we are still not taking this problem seriously enough. We should be preparing now, even if we take global warming out of the picture, and look at sustainability only. If we do not start using the ‘energy/oil’ now to set up and develop systems NOW, whilst we still have oil then it will be much, much, harder to do without it. Taking something as simple as making contours, chinampas or terracing in Permaculture. It is a half a day job with a digger, without the fuel? Weeks and weeks of hard labour by hand.
Instead people are allowed to waste this precious resource with the belief it is not going to happen in their lifetime.
So What is Permaculture?:
Permaculture is to live ethically and sustainably so we have to understand eco systems and how the natural world works. The key is to understand that we are a single system; not separate. Whatever we do locally affects other people and the environment globally. Local solutions provide the best answers, we have different climates, soils, flora and fauna. Different needs, wants, tradition and cultures. But by acting locally we must keep an eye on the Horizon by limiting the damage on the environment and people globally. For example Global Warming affects us all.
Permaculture seeks to design ways of meeting man’s needs by creating permanent high-yielding agricultural ecosystems. It is a solution aimed at how people can live on the smallest amount of land possible. The natural landscape (the rest, the wilderness is then not used by man) it is then left alone to heal and so it functions holistically.
Local responsibility ensures that people become as auto sufficient as possible both individually and as trading communities. Man is responsible for meeting his own needs for fuel, food and dealing with his own outputs and wastes.
Timber is grown on site in mixed native woodlands. This enriches the local ecosystem but its basis is the opposition of meeting man’s needs by deforestation of the remaining natural and ancient forests/woodlands. Permaculture is a system of observation and least possible intervention both in terms of the home and the wilderness. It’s leading principle is that eco-systems will naturally re-balance if left alone.
Hence the desire to create high yielding ‘homesteads’ to meet man’s needs as efficiently as possible. By creating our own mini high yielding systems for our own use we use the least amount of everything possible. The Ethics of Permaculture are: Earth Care this is simply working with nature not against it. Limiting consumption and self limiting family size so there is less demand on natural systems/finite resources/finite land.
People Care
By being as self reliant as possible we do not exploit others, nor the land. Permaculture seeks to provide Permanent Agriculture. For example trees that are planted today on the ‘homestead’ will be inheritance for your grandchildren’s generation. Mixed woodlands of native trees on the homestead are managed so they provide food and fuel but the key principle is PERMANENT culture. You are investing in the future but having your needs met as ethically as possible whilst providing a legacy for future generations.
Fair Shares
One earth it is socially just to share with everyone, all other living things and with future generations. By limiting our consumption of everything including family size it supports the needs of everyone throughout the world to have access to clean water, clean air, food, shelter, fair and living wage, community etc.
It is not too late …………. YET!
Links not all are ‘pure’ Permaculture, but the links at the end are essential knowledge as the ideas are used in Permaculture.
Permaculture bella
June 17, 2013 at 3:27 pm
This is such a deep question that I would bet you don’t even know the scope of the problems. Americans and most other developed nations have invested so much in the pursuits of comfort and entertainment that we do not even recognize the difference between “need” and “want” most of the time. We “need” shelter, food, water, employment and relationships.
Compare those basic needs to McMansions, $ 200 dinners at the Space Needle, $ 3.00 per bottle imported water, Red Cross executives that get paid a million or more per year to work for a charity, and alimony payments of $ 5,000 or more a month.
All of this on top of the fact that even in Americia, not everyone has safe shelter, nutritious food or even access to clean water, let alone employment and companionship.
There are currently 7.5 Million Millionaires in America. There are currently 3.5 million homeless in America. How can those 7.5 million people justify their lives while allowing another 3.5 million to live on the streets? It is because the rich always think they “NEED” more and cannot afford to share–let them switch places with the 3.5 million homeless and discover true “need”–that might actually start to change things.
Personally I would like to see the following things disappear to help the global warming issue:
1) Petroleum based motor sports. Make these sports based on alcohol fuels or get rid of them altogether. Why? Most modern gas engines are engineered on race cars. By making the motor sports industry focus on alcohol fuels we will tap into terrific innovations in making alcohol fuels, cleaner burning engines, and greater performance.
2) Corn based food products such as High-fructose corn syrup and corn oil. Why? These products are generally unhealthy and fattening for humans and should be taken out of the public diet and diverted into domestic fuel production. Since 1966, the US has used an increasing share of the corn crop to make High-fructose corn syrup and since 1966 the average American has gained 60 pounds. The best thing we can possibly do with this product is get it out of the diet and into the fuel tank. Or, even better would be to replace all corn with lower input grasses such as Sweet Sorgum or switchgrass and then turn these crops into fuel. Soda drinks alone make up about 9% of the average diet and replacing that 9 % with a zero calorie alternative would amount to a weight loss of about 20 pounds for each American in just the first year.
3) Strawberries in January. Why? The luxury of having food out of season is out of reason compared to the environmental damage associated with transporting the specialty food long distances to market. Most produce grown for this purpose must be hybrid to survive transport, sprayed with many different chemicals to retard spoilage, and shipped in refrigerated containers that use even more energy to maintain the food. This practice is expensive and globally evil considering the total energy input required to get peaches to Safeway in February. This practice needs to be stopped completely and countries need to return to the practice of growing the foods their own people need locally.
4) SUV’s, and pickup trucks. Why? No one in the United States should own any vehicle that gets less than 30 miles per gallon. If you need a pickup you should rent it buy the hour instead of driving one everyday “just in case” you might need it. Get things delivered instead of having the upkeep of a energy expensive gas hog. Many people drive an SUV because they think it is safer but The larger SUV’s have a completely different (and lower) standard for crash testing, crushing and airbag deployment. These were never designed to be the primary vehicle, therefore they do not have to meet the same requirements as a designated passenger vehicle.
5) Single-Use Plastic. Why? That is a good question…..why do we allow ANY plastic to be made that is not recyclable? Currently less that 5% of the plastics used in the US are types that are considered for recycling. Plastic is pretty much forever so if we had to keep the other 95% forever we would be pushed out of our homes by the mountain of single-use plastics that enter our lives each year. Luckily for us we can send it to the dump, but the time of being able to dump anything and everything is coming to an end. Currently the Pacific Ocean is sporting a brand new island known as the Pacific Garbage Patch- plastic wastes massing twice the size of the State of Texas. This is where a large portion of the previous 50 years worth of plastic has ended up.All plastics must be made “Cradle to Cradle” meaning they can be infinitely recycled and all plastic manufacturers must be held accountable for their products and take steps to insure that no more of it ends up in landfills or the ocean. Most plastics are made from petroleum–we do not allow used oil to be dumped into storm drains and we need to take steps to stop other petroleum products such as plastic from leaving the materials flow and being wasted in a dump site.
6) Travel. Why? Travel for pleasure is a tremendous waste of natural resources compared to vacationing in your own area. Travel for other than business is a waste that needs to be curtailed. 40 years ago our parents and grandparents saved up for their once-in-a-lifetime trip, today we charge the tickets on our credit card and jump to Hawaii for the weekend just because we can afford it. We never seem to think about what this is doing to our environment because the damage in out of sight. Stay home and invest that money in something that will help the planet because the earth cannot afford it anymore.
7) Public Venues. Why? Despite the amount of cash that is raised by concerts, sporting events, and other huge events, the truth is that these gatherings are terrible for the environment. Teams and performers need to travel to the events, people have to travel to the event, huge buildings are heated and cooled and tons of garbage are produced. Look at the aftermath of any parade and it is obvious that the mess is not worth it. The amounts of energy used to fuel 1 pro football game is staggering and the social benefit of such events are pretty much non-existent. With bird flu and other diseases on the horizon, large public assemblies need to be phased out for health and environmental concerns. Socially desirable programs can be televised to paying customers who wish to pay for the privilege. Others who prefer to opt out will enjoy the benefits of not having to get caught in the traffic snarls or having to put up with the trash dropped by attendees.
8) Bigger Anything. Why? In a period of uncertainty concerning the future, it is even more important to keep things in perspective. A moments thought will reveal the simple fact that bigger is definitely not better for the environment. Bigger TV’s, bigger houses, bigger computers, games, and just about everything else multiply the energy used per person. It is time to scale back….get smaller more efficient appliances, live smaller, travel smaller. It is kind of silly to buy a huge house, then have to buy a huge TV so you can see it from across the room when you could buy a smaller house and mount a tiny TV on the arm of the sofa.
9) Made in China. America’s dependence on cheap goods made around the world is second only to our dependence on foreign oil. The idea of a $ 1.00 toy being made in China and then shipped to a Dollar Store or Walmart in the US is sickening. The idea of disposable $ 49 DVD Players takes all social responsibility out of the equation. Buying items that we will throw away next year has got to stop and be replaced by durable goods that can be rebuilt or repaired. The first VCR that hit the market could be cleaned and repaired by a local craftsman. Nothing sold today is meant to be repaired at all so more waste builds up every year. How long can we continue this pattern? How much stuff can each of us throw away and replace with another cheap item before we are literally buried in junk?
newsgirlinos2
June 17, 2013 at 4:23 pm
its a wonder if we dont have to dig our own Oil Wells, & dig for water, Its getting worse.
CHICKY
June 17, 2013 at 5:13 pm
I have a green blog with many posts devoted to that very question. My answer is that it is a process. Becoming conscious is the first step. Then helping each other overcoming our habits is second. That is where the community can help. Below is the link to my blog, in case you want to dig deeper.
marguerite c
June 17, 2013 at 6:08 pm
We will have a crash lesson soon if peak oil is really happening. With Iran about to become a glass heap, I’d say fill up those gas tanks and buy some extra toilet paper.
thor
June 17, 2013 at 6:14 pm