Back To The 1800s

Transportation in New York 1800s style.

Experts say that if we were ever to lose our electrical grid, even if "only" for a year, our standard of living would soon resemble that of the 1800s. That sounds like an adventure one should be prepared for ahead of time.

I take that scenario as approximating living conditions as we make the transition to a drastically lower energy/renewable future.

Curious to see just what conditions were like back then, I did a search. 

"What could we be in store for?", I wanted to know as I entered "living conditions 1800s".

This is how one of the first links I looked at summed the period up:

"Living was hard work. It lasted from sunrise to sunset. Daily life was so difficult that when it came time to die, many felt relief."

At first I laughed, unsure if the author's purpose was to entertain with an overly dramatic exaggerated story, or inform us of actual facts of the time.

Then I was sobered by the thought that it basically did a good job of describing conditions for many people in 2019 already.

On the other hand, cheap, plentiful energy has made life very easy for a small portion of the world's population. Shielded from the realities of their low energy counterparts, making changes could be particularly difficult for them. 

Or is it "us"?

I do think that life in the coming decades will be more difficult, but I also believe it will ultimately be an improvement over the days of thinking that everybody could have everything if we just let selfish capitalism do its thing unhindered and unregulated.

We can see that dream is now in its death throes, and that it was a lie from the start. 

What they didn't tell us is that we would need several more planets to destroy to make their selfish dream happen, and that even then there would be many left out and waiting for the ultimate relief of death.

Now, at this late stage, we will be lucky if we only have to wind things down to the energy level of the 1800s, and not the Stone Age. 

“We still have the possibility to redesign our societies for a huge decrease in energy use. It will upset some people, of course, but the window is still open.”

- Raul Ilargi Meijer

Earth Overshoot Day

We are approaching the day of the year at which human consumption exceeds the capacity of nature to regenerate, a sad moment dubbed "Earth Overshoot Day". Unsurprisingly, this day has been coming sooner and sooner since the 1970s.

The 70s was the decade that the globe moved from a sustainable level of consumption into overshoot. From that point on we have been drawing our resources from our Bank of Nature account, which is getting drawn down faster than it can be replenished. 

When is your country's Earth Overshoot Day? It is an embarrassing May 8 for Canada,
much sooner than the global average of August 1st. 
Find out more about your country here.

Our resource account is also getting drawn down faster and faster each year.


Past Earth Overshoot Dates


1970 - December 29

1980 - November 3

1990 - October 11

2000 - September 23

2010 - August 8

2018 - August 1


Since the 1970s we have gone from one planet living to 1.7 planet living. While this issue unfolds right before our eyes, we choose to not to see. Not only that, the precipice that we will plunge over is just ahead, and some world "leaders" are stepping on the gas pedal. 

We should fight this dangerous trend with all our might. Things will not change until we do. Our passivity is their advantage.

What is your personal Earth Overshoot Day? Find out by clicking on this image.

Regardless of how often we are told to keep calm, and carry on with our recreational shopping, driving, flying, meat eating, and producing waste like there is no tomorrow, we will not escape the repercussions of degrading our planet. 

Solutions

There are many doable right now solutions that could be implemented personally, at the community level, nationally, and globally. For now, the majority of high consuming nations and their citizens have chosen to ignore them. 

But how long can that continue before the people choose to see, decide to do something about it, and change the way we do things? Our planet has limits that can not be ignored forever.

That doesn't mean we are powerless - we can do a lot as individuals.

• become politically active: make phone calls, write letters, texts, tweets and emails, vote, run for office, support a rational, pro-environment candidate that thinks for themselves and wants to serve the people and the planet.
• the most rational and straightforward personal action would be to simplify a multi-planet lifestyle to the point of single-planet living. A challenge, to be sure, but entirely doable, not to mention, necessary if we are to survive.
• support your local economy
• eat a plant based diet, or if you can't give up meat, eat less of it (vegetarian foods are just as tasty, satisfying, and nutritious).
• drive, fly, and travel less often.
• use public transportation.
• limit the use of plastic.
• talk to others about Earth Overshoot Day.
• share what you are doing to respond to a clear and present danger to human survival.
• reduce desires and unrealistically high expectations
• find joy in simplicity
• plant a garden

I calculated the Overshoot Day for Linda and I (see image above), and came up with March 14, 2019. The Global Footprint Network told me: 

"Hurray! If everyone lived like you, there would be no Overshoot Day! We would only need 0.8 Earths." 

I dearly hope that is accurate. Even if it is, there is always more that we can do to reduce our impact on the Earth and all its inhabitants. 

I envision a time when there is no Overshoot Day, like not so long ago in the 70s. I believe it can be done. But will we do it in time? Start now, and avoid the rush.

Lower, Lower, Lower

Here is how to get by in our crowded, chaotic world - lower your expectations. It has been shown to be the key to happiness.

Next step? Lower your expectations some more. OK. Now - lower, lower, lower.

Case in point. I am running out of dish rags, so I went to my stash of old rags in the rag bag. These are all bits and pieces I decided long ago were no longer suitable for service as originally intended.

As I looked through the bag I found a few old dish rags. Today, when I am in need of a few, they looked perfectly fine. They didn't even have holes in them! I guess I have lowered my expectations since they made their way to the rag bag, because they look just fine now.

I took the old dish rags out and have started using them at my kitchen sink, amazed that even after years and years of living simply I am still finding ways to simplify even more. And I am buying even less. No amount of shopping could be as satisfying as that.

I have, and continue, to lower my expectations. But only materially.

While my life is materially sparse, it has plenty of opportunity to be mentally, socially, and spiritually rich. And that is what really counts. We should expect more from life than perpetually spending money buying stuff and always expecting more.

Lower your expectations. Be happy.

#OccupyXmas Starts Today

Now that OWS camps are being dismantled around North America, people are asking what direction the movement might go next. Michael Moore has proposed a few ideas worth looking at here. Adbusters, the Canadian anti-consumerism magazine that launched the September 17th march on Wall Street, also has a proposal.

Adbusters is reaching out to anyone concerned about corporate greed, inequality, personal debt, and the environment, when they propose the following on their website:

"Occupy gave the world a new way of thinking about the fat cats and financial pirates on Wall Street. Now lets give them a new way of thinking about the holidays, about our own consumption habits. 

Let's use today, the 20th annual Buy Nothing Day, to launch an all-out offensive to unseat the corporate kings on the holiday throne.

This year’s Black Friday will be the first campaign of the holiday season where we set the tone for a new type of holiday culminating with #OCCUPYXMAS. As the global protests of the 99% against corporate greed and casino capitalism continues, let's take the opportunity to hit the empire where it really hurts…the wallet.


On Nov 25/26th we escape the mayhem and unease of the biggest shopping day in North America and put the breaks on rabid consumerism for 24 hours. Flash mobs, consumer fasts, mall sit-ins, community events, credit card-ups, whirly-marts and jams, jams, jams!

We don’t camp on the sidewalk for a reduced price tag on a flat screen TV or psycho-killer video game. Instead, we occupy the very paradigm that is fueling our eco, social and political decline.

Buy Nothing Day is about fasting from hyper consumerism – taking a break from the cash register, and reflecting on how dependent we really are on conspicuous consumption."

What do you think? Are you game to not buy anything this holiday season in order to send a message to those who would enslave you with debt, siphon wealth to the top, and destroy the environment in the process?

Take this opportunity to use the time you would have spent making a list, driving, shopping, shopping, shopping, driving, wrapping, unwrapping, driving, and returning, to do more personal, soul-satisfying things.

Are you ready to take back the holidays and have a quieter, calmer, less expensive, more authentic Christmas? Occupy Xmas starts today.

Cold Water Flats

New York Cold water flats, Will Eisner

"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,
angel-headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats..."

So begins Allen Ginsberg's epic poem Howl, his wild poetic record of the military/industrial complex steamrolling over everyone, and everything in its path. But it is also an ode to freedom and happiness, and the sacrifices that must be made to realize them. Sacrifices like going without toilet paper, or new shoes, or living in a flat without unlimited running hot water.

Ever since reading Howl I have been taken by the idea of cold-water flats. It is difficult for most of us in developed nations to imagine living in a home that does not have full time running hot water, and where the bathroom is a small closet with just a toilet in it. Not only do today's huge homes have ample supplies of hot, running water, but they also often have a separate full bathroom for every person in the family.

In most industrialized countries, cold water flats are (officially) illegal. Along with their passing went a whole way of living frugally and appreciating the little things in life. I am not romanticizing the 'good old days' - life in a cold water flat would be challenging at times. However, it is entirely possible to live in such simple surroundings and still be happy.

An ex-tenant of a cold water flat remembered his experience fondly:

"My mom bathed us once a week whether we needed it or not. Because we were small kids, my two sisters would bathe at the same time, and then I would be bathed in the same water because it was still warm. We tried to use as little gas as possible with the water heater....anyway, my sisters didn't get very dirty in those days.

We had an ice box and bought ice from the ice man for 15 cents or so.  The ice lasted a couple of days.  When we got holes in our shoes my mom would line the inside of our shoe with cardboard to cover the hole until she saved enough money from her tight budget to buy a new pair for us. We never considered ourselves poor." - source

Perhaps we were happier in cold water flats than we are today in 3500 sq. ft. designer homes. Back then 'sacrifice' was not necessarily seen as a bad thing. It was good, character-building stuff to "give up, abandon, relinquish, let go, do without, renounce, forfeit, and forgo" certain decadent luxuries. How things have changed.

People no longer have an appreciation for the simple things. That has been replaced with high expectations, pampered entitlements, and an acquisitiveness formerly only seen in insane monarchs with delusions of grandeur.

Only a few decades ago we experienced more happiness with less stuff. We must achieve that state again, and soon. Currently it is a race between epidemic levels of depression and environmental/financial/social collapse, as to what our ultimate demise will be.

We need to get our bloated expectations in check, and relearn the lean-living, frugal ways of our grandparents and great-grandparents. We may find we are happier in the end.

Give me a cold water flat over a mini-mansion any day.

Butting Into The Buffet Line

Author and simple living advocate Jim Merkel has been living on $10,000 a year since 2005. Before that he lived on $5000 dollars per year for 16 years. Through his writing and activism, he is inviting us to be radical - to think about all of humanity, and nature, and what our fair share is. He is inviting us to live simply as a logical and enjoyable response to living on a finite planet.

When people think of 'radical simplicity' they may think of living without cable, or one car instead of two. In our increasingly complicated world, any effort toward simplicity seems radical. And no personal action is too insignificant to make.

The form of simplicity Jim Merkel proposes, however, in Radical Simplicity: Small Footprints on a Finite Earth, is what most would consider truly drastic or extreme. But it is probably the only thing that will save us. He thinks we should all learn to live on our fair share.

Merkel is an ex-engineer, so the processes he outlines in his book are as exacting as he could get them. He shows through a variety of means, including his own life, how we can live better, more sustainable lives, and how we can measure our progress along the way. I found some of the methods exhausting, however.

For example, I am not going to weigh everything I own to calculate my ecological footprint. I am satisfied with estimating where I am at. But if you are looking for a more regimented, scientific approach to a simple living make-over, this would be the book to read.

Merkel uses three main tools to guide the reader. Along the way he gives many justified reasons as to why we may want to pursue these goals which will be difficult - but worthy - to achieve. The scaffolding of the book is basically:

1. Your Money or Your Life - Concepts from this classic book, by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin, are used to show how to get out of debt, save money, and come to terms with your work and values.
2. Ideas from Mathis Wackernagel and Bill Rees, regarding Ecological Footprint. Readers can measure how much nature is needed to supply all they consume, and absorb their waste.
3. Spending time alone in nature. The book encourages readers to consider another reality with humans as only one species among many in a system where everything is connected, and diversity is the key. Having forgotten where we come from, reconnecting with nature allows us to heal. It allows us to value and respect the planet's gifts.

An early part of the book particularly resonated with me. In it, Merkel compared our planet to a giant buffet table. The way he described it, and the questions he asked, were eye openers.

Merkel writes, "Imagine you are first in line at a potluck buffet. The spread includes not just food and water, but all the materials needed for shelter, clothing, health care, and education. How do you know how much to take? How much is enough to leave for your neighbors behind you -- not just the six billion people, but the wildlife, and the as-yet-unborn?"

By our own accounts we are taking too much. We are not leaving enough behind for those who will follow us. Too often we are butting into the buffet line for seconds and thirds when those behind us go hungry. While reading, this alone was enough to convince me that a small footprint, sustainable lifestyle was a worthy, and necessary, goal.

Butting into line is not nice, and Radical Simplicity brought to my attention all that is waiting patiently behind me. Thankfully, it also generates creative and liberating responses to this inequity.

Living In A Hole In The Ground

Our excessive consumption and sense of entitlement these days makes me wonder if I am even on the same planet I was born on. It was with a sense of curiosity, then, that I read here of a family in Colorado that lived in a hole in the ground.

It reminded me of the Monty Python skit where a group of old men are reminiscing about their childhood poverty - "A hole in the ground? Luxury! We used to dream of living in a hole in the ground. We lived in a cardboard box in the middle of the freeway... all five of us." Except that the Colorado family really did live in a hole in the ground.

The unusual basement house was built in Colorado Springs in 1947 by Raymond Baskett. He intended on building the main floor of the house when the family could afford it. They never did get around to it. Mr. Baskett's wife lived in the house for 50 years until her death in 2002. The hole in the ground house is still being used, and is still in the Baskett family.

Mr. and Mrs. Baskett raised two children in this unconventional house that for a time had no indoor bathroom. The kitchen sink drained into a bucket. The family raised chickens and rabbits for food. But rather than memories of hardship, the children, Marvin and Esther, remember the simple underground abode with fondness. "We have nothing but good memories," they remarked.

Wow. That is a far cry from McMansions with marble counter tops, industrial kitchens and triple garages. Which makes me wonder - why build the whole house when just the basement will do? Why buy a car when a bike will do? Why buy anything that does not make us truly happy? Who are we trying to impress? Certainly not the Baskett family.

How many people today could live happily in a hole in the ground?

The Great Recession Generation To Learn Value Of Frugality

It's not the Greater Depression. It isn't even a minor depression. But it is the Great Recession - the biggest, baddest, meanest recession of the last 70 years. Some are predicting that the current generation may not get more stuff than their parents, the first time this has happened in decades. A whole generation is being introduced to the thrifty, efficient ways of their ancestors.

What the simple living and environmental movements couldn't achieve in decades the Great Recession has managed to do over the course of a couple of years. We are going back to less wasteful, more sensible times. Bigger is no longer better, and excess no longer means success.

In good times super-sized trucks, TVs, and houses signal to others that you have achieved the American Dream. George Carlin observed that it's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it. Sure enough, we have woken up and the 'good life' fantasy is dissipating into thin air. Turns out a lot of the dream was bought on credit, and the banks want it back.

Excess does not look the same through our recession-coloured glasses. It looks like what it has always been - waste. It has taken the biggest financial kick in the ass in seventy years to make us realize that we must adhere to nature's limits, and nature is frugal. Nature does not waste.

A policy in our home is to not replace anything till it is worn out or broken beyond repair. It is not only about saving money. It is also about honouring the earth by using its resources as economically as possible. Many things we buy would serve us faithfully for decades, if not a lifetime. A cast iron frying pan will last several generations.

In spite of what a New York author said in her 2006 book (with a title similar to this blog) about her year-long experiment with the simple life, you can't really wear out a sweater in a few months. A beggar in India with no arms and no legs might wear out a sweater in a year.

All the things that we buy, and used to cherish till worn or broke, have become 'starter' items on an endless evolution of upgrades. The Ikea student furniture for the dorm is the gateway drug to the crack of leather sectionals in granite and stainless steel starter homes.

I could see that we were at the nadir of our obsession with acquiring new things when I spotted a particularly blatant commercial on TV. A car manufacturer showed an entire family, small kids included, pushing their new-ish, perfectly good mini-van over a cliff so they could go buy a new one.

Do we really fall for such blatant, disorienting propaganda promoting endless waste? It is easier to fall prey to such manipulation when we are flush with cash or cheap credit.

In this new era of perpetual recession we will find that we can do without the propaganda, and a great deal of what it promised. The acquisitive part of the American Dream was always an unattainable illusion. Our desperate attempts to achieve it has slain the earth, and made us fat, slow, and vulnerable.

Some say that the Recession Generation will be traumatized, but I say they will be unfettered. Saved from mindless toil and constant lifestyle upgrades, this generation will make frugality and common sense mainstream. They will be free and the healing will begin.

Lower Your Expectations

Could you be happy with less? Content with a reasonable amount of nutritious food, a warm, dry, secure place to dwell, a small set of clothes, and supportive relationships in your immediate community? Would a simple life be enough?

If developed nations could get a handle on their desires the world would be a better place. We do not need any technological solution to lower our expectations. It costs no money. It saves money and resources. Money and resources that other parts of the world sorely need.

Thousands of children die every day due to not having enough. A fairly recent historical development is that now we also have thousands of people that die as a result of having too much. Obesity, cardiovascular disease, and stress-related illnesses all plague our cushy lifestyles of excess.

A leading causes of teen death in Africa is pregnancy and childbirth. The leading cause of death for North American teens is traffic accidents, while drunk or otherwise. For these teens, suicide is a leading cause of death as well. When we wanted our kids to have better lives than we had, this is not what we had in mind.

Developed nations suffer from a corporate-induced sickness that causes us to always want more. To get more we are driven to move faster, and to make more sacrifices, personally and environmentally.

We want more square feet, more stainless steel, more cars, more toys, more trips to Mexico, more fast food, more clothes, more booze, more, more, more. But the only answer now is to want less. The "more" thing is dead, buried in its own massive pile of putrid refuse.

In my own life lowering my expectations has freed me. I am free to live life at a slow, peaceful pace. I am free to appreciate the simple things in my life. My mind is becoming free of the corporate world's agenda, along with their slick visuals and sound bites. In the wreckage of capitalism all of that has lost its lustre.

More is the buzzword of those who live in a world of infinite resources. Less is the lesson for those of us who don't.

Making do with less in developed nations will allow those in third-world nations to have enough. Today we are constantly told that the only way out of our troubles is to spend more. More credit, more stuff. Never do you hear about more debt, more work, more cardiovascular disease, more stress, more death by too much. Will life with less really wreck our economy?

If the only way to save our economy is by constant spending and growth, and the wrecking of all natural systems life depends on, than let us let it fail. The sooner the better. Let us put the nails in the coffin and inter this burdensome, deadly plague once and for all.

We will experience benefits in all ways as soon as we give up our endless desire and replace it with lowered material expectations. We live in a finite system, and should operate on that truth.

This may be the first generation in North America that would benefit from having less. Our children should not be condemned to die from having too much, just as children in the third world should not be condemned to die from a lack of basic human needs.

Free yourself, heal your planet, help your 4 billion brothers and sisters that struggle to meet basic needs.

Lower your expectations.