What Consumers Want vs. What Earth Can Provide

This is what consumers want.

Terrafugia flying car (not yet available).

Cost: $300,000

Purpose: To get from point A to point B.

This is what consumers can get. 

Tesla model S electric car. 

Cost: $80,000

Purpose: To get from point A to point B.

This is what the planet can sustainably provide.

Hammacher Schlemmer solar powered golf cart.

Cost: $9000

Purpose: To get from point A to point B.

This is what will allow the planet to replenish its overdrawn resources and return to health. 

Pedego Electric Assist Tandem Bicycle.

Cost: $4000

Purpose: To get from point A to point B. 

 Using these will heal the Earth more quickly.

Zamberlan Hiking Boots (leg power)

Cost: $400.00

Purpose: To get from point A to point B.

Population Control - Cash Payment For Childless Women At Menopause?

Over 100 years (between 1950 and 2050), the world’s population will have nearly quadrupled (from 2.5 billion to around 9.5 billion). How do we diffuse this population bomb? Or do we really need to?

When I was growing up there was a thing called the "Population Explosion". These days we don't hear too much about overpopulation, I assume because capitalist bosses want as many babies as can be cranked out. More consumers! 

It is not good for business to discourage the births of yet more victims, so full speed ahead. And don't forget, governments love having more tax slaves.

While some have encouraged voluntary efforts to cut family size, others have proposed more coercive methods, like China's One Child Policy (changed to a 2 child policy in 2016). 

Cutting subsidies for having more children is another proposed way to reduce population growth. Another idea is paying childless women a bonus when they reach menopause. A one time payment of $50,000 dollars has been proposed by some researchers.

Now I see that Hungary is going the other direction - they are paying Hungarian women to have more babies, ostensibly in order to outpace Third World immigration. 

Any Hungarian mom that has 4 or more children will be exempted from paying income tax. For life. 

They can also apply for a $35,000 dollar loan which will be forgiven if the woman has more children. Interest-free loans will also be available for the family to buy a house and car. It seems outrageous, but it is possible that it may not work anyway.

Birth rates are already dropping in many countries. In parts of Europe and Asia, birth rates are below replacement levels. Germany, Japan, Russia, and Taiwan are a few examples of countries not having enough babies to keep the population stable, whether there is a "cash for babies" program or not.

Canada also has a "baby bonus", but it is intended to reduce child poverty, not stimulate birth rates.

So is there a population explosion, or not? Will we level off at around 8 billion, or will we see an increase, in a worst case scenario, all the way up to 26 billion? 

Some say it doesn't really matter, because we don't have a population problem - we have an overconsumption problem.

The more people on Earth, the less each of us has as our fair share of the resources available. That means as population goes up, all of us will need to live more and more simply.

When it comes down to it, neither big business nor governments will solve this issue. The power to do that lies with one group, and one group only - the women of the world. 

Women ultimately decide how many babies are born, because women are not simply "hosts", and they are not birthing pods. Increasingly, they are choosing to have fewer babies.

The rest of us can do our part by consuming less so that each baby born has enough for a good life, regardless of where it comes into the world.

Actually, we might be better off if we offered incentives to consume less. Imagine that happening!

Frugal Flipper: Fail Or Fab?

My frugal challenge: How could I re-purpose this broken kitchen flipper?

Sometimes in my desire to be economical, I go too far and experience what I call a frugal fail. It's all good, as long as no one gets hurt, and waste is eliminated.

However, in one case, I did get hurt. It happened when my kitchen flipper broke and the handle came off. 

I decided to keep using it. 

In dangerously hot pans. 

It reflects my dedication to the cause. Or brain damage.

After a few skin contacts with hot frying pans, I decided that there was a good reason flippers had long handles. In this case, acquiring a flipper with a handle was warranted.

When it comes to pushing the limits of frugality, if you don't know how far is too far, then how do you know how far you can take it? Because I want to take it as far as I possibly can. Preferably without hurting myself in the process. 

As it turns out, because I still wasn't ready to dispose of my handle-less flipper, I did find a use for my broken kitchen implement. 

This fraction of a flipper is quite perfect re-purposed as a dough cutter, and I use it every time I bake bread.

I guess I turned my frugal fail into frugal fabulous. And it only hurt a little bit.

Buy Nothing Day: Nature vs Materialism

When was the last time you went a whole day without buying anything? It is harder than you think. But it is possible to go a for a day (or more) without shopping for things we don't really need.

In this day and age, it is very hard for the majority of us to not buy anything at all for a twenty four hour period. Supporters of ‘Buy Nothing Day’ in 65 nations across the globe want people to spend a moment thinking about that today.

A growing global community of simple living advocates think it is high time that we take a step back and look at ourselves, our behaviour, and contemplate the meaning of life in the consumer age. Take  a step back and contemplate what exactly is promoted on days like Black Friday... and the other 364 days of the year.

While there are things like rent, mortgage, food and utilities that most of us must purchase year round, there is still a lot of room to reduce the amount of extra shopping that we conduct. Today we can have some fun thinking about the consequences of all that commerce.

Ted Dave, who came up with the idea for Buy Nothing Day in 1992, states that the day “isn’t just about changing your habits for one day” but “about starting a lasting lifestyle commitment to consuming less and producing less waste.”

It is about choosing sides.

On which side will you stand? That of materialism and over consumption, or the side of Nature? It is time to decide. Today we think about the importance of changing to gentler, simpler, and more authentic lower consumption lifestyles, and how all will benefit.

However, resistance, even at this late stage of the game, persists. Some claim this day is meaningless (and Black Friday is meaningful?), as observers simply buy more at other times.

Either way, there’s no doubt that trying to go without buying anything for an entire day is quite a challenge, and will hopefully serve to make everyone think about what life is really about, and what we really need.

Turtle Troubles Part Of Larger Problem

There goes the neighbourhood - many creatures called this home before resource extraction happened here.

There are many reasons not to engage in the planet-destroying excesses of consumer society. One of the most important for me is the preservation of non-human species. They are nice to behold, and we can learn valuable lessons from them. Most importantly, we can not exist without them.

We already know that life for this planet's human infestation, I mean 'population', is bound to be rough without the likes of ocean phytoplankton which produces 50% of the oxygen in the atmosphere.

Einstein knew a lot about the nature of things, including the importance of our enormously stressed bees. He said, "“If the bee disappeared off the face of the Earth, humans would only have four years left to live.”

It is not so much about "saving the whales", or the bees, or saving this or that, or even "saving the environment". What it really is, when you get right down to it, is "saving ourselves". We are inextricably linked to everything else. If consuming too much is the problem, then cutting consumption is the solution.

The overconsumption of the past few decades has decimated wilderness and wildlife. Habitat loss is occurring just about everywhere as we extract resources at an ever-increasing rate.

Snapping turtle surveying what has happened to her home.

Every other living thing we share this planet with deserves to live just as much as we do. They deserve any and all efforts to reduce our impact on conditions around us so that they may live. That includes the snapping turtle here in Nova Scotia, which were listed as "a species at risk" in 2013. I found this out doing research after meeting a snapping turtle while I was biking in the woods.

Snapping turtles are the province's largest fresh water turtle, reaching a size of up to 50cm (almost 2 ft). While they spend most of the year in water, towards the end of June and into July these creatures leave the water to lay their eggs in soft soil or sand.

Looking amidst the logging debris and destruction for somewhere to lay her eggs.

These prehistoric-looking amphibians can live to be over 100 years old. The one I saw looked 1000 years old, or older. Its wrinkly wrinkledness had to have been a million years old. I don't know how old it was, but it looked older than time itself. Turtles in other parts of the world can live to be hundreds of years old... if they are lucky and avoid contact with their main predator - us.

Resource extraction and increased access to the deep woods means that many snapping turtles are run over on roads, leading to a precarious drop in numbers. How exciting to see one for myself - it was an encounter I will never forget.

Could she be crying? Or are you of the opinion that non-human animals don't have feelings?

When Gandhi said, "Live simply so that others may simply live", I am sure he wasn't just talking about other humans. The planet is so much more than that. There is a need for us all to live simply so that everything else may simply live. Everything. Trees, turtles, phytoplankton, bees. Everything.

If we continue to show such blatant disregard for other species, it won't be long before we are headed for extinction ourselves.

Or are we already headed in that direction? I am not sure, but I can say that it was an amazing encounter when I got lost looking into the deep, dark, teary eyes of my neighbour the snapping turtle. I am glad we met, and I hope that future generations will have this same opportunity, perhaps with this exact same turtle.

I happily cut my personal consumption to make sure that everything can live. No sacrifice is too much to handle if it means snapping turtles and other living things may thrive together along with us on our beautiful, shared planet.

Library of Things

Sacramento Public Library's "Library of Things" section. They buy it, store it, maintain it, and share it.

We teach our kids to share. Sharing is nice. People who want you to buy their stuff don't like it. They tell us everyone can, and should, have their own stuff. Millennials, and many others, don't care, and the sharing economy is starting to emerge in a big way.

The Sacramento Public Library recently started a “Library of Things”, allowing patrons to check out, among other things, sewing machines and other items that they may find useful, but don’t need to own long-term.

As libraries increasingly go bookless, facilitating the sharing of things other than books is an exciting innovation for the libraries of the post-consumer future.

Essentially a Library of Things is a space where you can borrow useful items like DIY tools, gardening things, art supplies, musical instrument, cooking supplies, and whatever else the community decides is important. There is also the opportunity to learn how to use items in 1-to-1 sessions and workshops, and meet neighbours.

These innovative undertakings can be part of public libraries, but also as part of a cooperative, or structured as non-profits. There is no reason why a neighbourhood or community couldn't do the same thing for the benefit of all.

We can thank the Millennial stuff-light stance toward consumerism for driving this sharing trend. They want access, not ownership. We have all known since childhood that sharing is good, but this generation is continuing to practise it as grown ups.

When we share, fewer items need to be made, and fewer resources need to be torn from the good earth. I can think of a few things that I could use, but don't need to or want to own. I am sure we all can. Watch for a Library of Things coming to a neighbourhood near you in the near future.

Imagine how much money you could save by sharing rather than buying. Imagine how Zen your garage would look.

Minimalist Window Coverings

Minimalist window covering made from inside window screen, fabric, and safety pins.

We had an opportunity to practice not buying anything minimalism when thinking about window coverings for our new home. We wanted something that was simple, and preferably didn't require the buying of anything.

Windows, even the new double paned variety, don't offer much in the way of insulation. When it is cold uncovered windows can suck heat out of a room making it uncomfortable and more expensive to heat.

We researched conventional coverings to fit our windows and found the selections not that sensible and very expensive. All required the added complication of having to drill holes in things.

As the temperatures started to drop this winter we thought we would see what we could do with what we had on hand to cover our windows and hopefully lower the heating bill a bit.

Window covering installed.

First we looked at the resources we had available. Our windows have easily-removed inside screens and I pondered how they might be used as a frame.

We also had several pieces of fabric that we brought from British Columbia when we moved this past summer. Chunks of fabric, like giant bandannas, have 1001 uses so are a useful resource that didn't take up much room in our van.

I wondered if we could use this fabric and the screens to create a minimalist window covering. I used a few safety pins to pin fabric wrapped around the screens. They fit snuggly into their spot without any alterations.

While the overall insulation factor is minimal, it is better, and feels more comfortable. I am already working on ways to use other resources on hand to make improvements, such as a window solar furnace made from egg cartons.

But the thing I like the best is that I didn't have to buy anything.

Money Matters Monday

The Giving Tree, Daniel W. Zettwoch

If there is no such thing as a free lunch, then how come the robins on my lawn aren't being charged cold hard cash for the worms they are pulling from the lawn? Because nature does give freely to all. Humans take this generosity and charge others for access. In most cases if you don't have money you will die.

We have all been forced into a situation where money tends to be our main concern. How else can one live when the establishment has figured out how to charge us for absolutely everything except for breathing?

Considering the almighty importance of money, we spend precious little time actually thinking about what it means. Mostly we are busy thinking about how little we have, and how to get more.

But there are vitally important money matters that need to be pondered. This applies to each of us individually, as well as to our global family that is 100% related and interconnected whether we like to admit it or not.


Money Matters


1. How did you get it? Did it involve the depletion of the Earth's gifts? Did it involve injustice, cheating, stealing, trickery, manipulation, or oppression of others?

2. What have you had to sacrifice to get it? Are there more valuable things that you are missing while making money, like family, health, friendships? Expression of creativity? Freedom?

3. What are you doing with it? Are you hoarding it? (The wealth of the 1% richest people in the world amounts to $110 trillion.) Are you using your money to exploit others? Do you waste it on needless luxuries?

4. What is it doing to you? Is your integrity intact and conscience clear? Does your relationship with money reflect your core values? Are you more content? Happier?


At a time when only 85 people in the world own as much money as the poorest 3 billion, it is high time to do some serious thinking about money, what it means, how we make it, and how we are using it.

"Tell Them To Live Simply"

Consumer capitalism has far reaching effects, as the Hopi and Navajo
have discovered on their resource rich lands.

In the book Radical Simplicity Jim Merkel describes the forced relocation of 12,000 Dineh (Navajo) people from the area known as Big Mountain, Arizona. Their ancestral homeland was too resource rich to 'allow' the people to stay.

Unfortunately for them, their land contains some of the largest coal deposits in the US, and in the 1960s  the Peabody Coal Company was determined to get their hands on the black gold. It is estimated that there are 21 billion tons of coal, valued at $100 billion dollars lying just underground. Even worse, uranium is also found in the area.

The people were offered new land as compensation for leaving their sheep, corn, medicinal plants, and the bones of their ancestors. They were being forced to leave the land they had continuously occupied for 9,000 years. There was no word for "relocation" in their native language.

The new land offered to the people was the site of a major spill of millions of gallons of radioactive waste by United Nuclear. The 1979 disaster contaminated 68 miles of the Rio Puerco River. Relocating the Dineh (starting in 1974) was the largest forced removal of Native Americans since the 1880s.

By 1990 the Dineh that remained were desperate and under siege by rapacious resource companies. Merkel was becoming interested in sustainable living, and visited the people to see what he could learn, and how he could help.

He spoke to a woman who told him of the crazy capitalists trying to seize their land and destroy their ancient way of life.

"For seventeen years they slaughtered our sheep and put cement in our wells. If we fix our roof or fence, they drag us into court. Here, look at these papers they give us. 

Now they blast Mother Earth apart. Look at the cracks in my home. They drop a bomb on the Japanese people with uranium from our mountain. We are a peaceful people. 

They pump the aquifer to slurry coal. Now the plants are dying. Who is this Peabody Coal Company anyway? They make some marks on a piece of paper and come out here and push us around. 

This is our altar - we will never leave."

The people were forced off the land and the coal and uranium industries took over. Merkel saw what was happening as a "silent genocide".

He asked the woman he was interviewing, "What can I do to help?"

She responded by saying,

"Go back to your people and tell them to live simply. Then they wouldn't be out here digging up Mother Earth for coal and uranium." 

We can reduce the impact of the negative, and often unintended, side effects of our lifestyle choices by learning to live with less and be satisfied with an outwardly simple, but inwardly rich life. Perhaps we will find that we enjoy this way of life more than our past consumer-oriented focus.

We won't know until we try.

Bottled Water Is A Watery Waste

Boycott Bottled Water

One of my favourite descriptions of the human species comes from an alien on a popular TV show. The reason I like it so much is because it highlights the importance of good old H2O.

The non-humanoid creature on the show called us, "Ugly bags of mostly water."

The 'ugly' bit is subjective, but the alien was bang on about the water part of our composition. We are mostly water, the amount varying with our age.

Unsurprisingly, we dry out as we get older, destined to shrivel up and blow away in the very end.

Babies are about 75% H2O, essentially wiggly, less ugly bags of mostly water. While the amount of water contained within us varies, by old age it is somewhere between 45% and 60%.

In order to maintain peak physical and mental health we need large amounts of clean water (which is, in most places, amply provided by nature). But fresh water is under attack on all fronts.

In spite of the vital importance of this precious resource (we will not survive more than a few days without water), there are some that believe that fresh water should be privatized and commodified.

The CEO of Nestle recently said, now famously, that access to water should not be a public right, and every drop of fresh water should be owned by corporations like his. Now there is an ugly bag that should be denied water for a while.

Nestle makes billions of dollars in profit every year from bottled water alone, and depletes or destroys pristine water sources in the process.

In Canada, Nestle has been given the go-ahead to draw water from one Ontario town's public water source even during droughts when the rest of the town adheres to strict water restrictions.

In the process, the company draws water that they pay three dollars and seventy-one cents for every million litres, puts it into single use plastic bottles, and sells it back to the people for up to $2,000,000. Like most bottled water, it is essentially the same as the stuff that comes out of your tap (except that it costs 240 to 10,000 times more).

To this we can add the tidal wave of empty plastic water bottles that are landfilled, incinerated, or end up littering the planet. Only 14% of the billions of bottles are recycled.

Just as Monsanto is trying to corner the market on our food staples, the water commodification industry wishes to monopolize our access to fresh water.

If I were an ugly bag of mostly sand I wouldn't worry too much. However, 60% of my body's composition is at serious risk if we allow the corporate control of all of Earth's remaining clean, fresh water.

What You Can Do 

• drink tap water
• use a personal or home filter
• use a stainless steel water bottle
• sign petitions against water privatization
• boycott Nestle 
• lobby governments to protect our public water sources
• resist the corporate takeover of everything everywhere
• live simply

Save An Ancient Forest - Cut Your Consumption

I captured this photo on a recent hike in a protected forest near my home on Vancouver Island

Scientist figure that if all the trees died, people would die. You can't overestimate the value and importance of our global ancient forests, and yet we afford these magical places no respect at all.

80% of global ancient forests have already been destroyed. It is time we protected the rest. Everywhere. Now.

While working toward legislation to halt the logging of remaining old growth locally and globally, let us also consider how our individual consumption patterns affect forest depletion.

Through consumer demand we cause original forests to be levelled on our behalf. Whether we buy Brazilian beef raised on former primal tropical rain forest lands, or planks of thousand year old ancient cedars from the Pacific temperate rainforest for our back yard decks, we are connected to the continued carnage.

Clear cut industrial logging ruthlessly disrespects and destroys ecosystems that take hundreds of years to develop. In doing so, it also destroys the forest's capacity to provide important 'services' that we, and other living things, can not live without.

Things like clean, breathable air, and pure potable water.

Forest Facts
I adapted the following forest facts from the Jane Goodall Roots and Shoots Canada Forest Campaign website found here.

"Deforestation and forest degradation are serious issues that are negatively impacting life on earth."

• Forests worldwide cover 33 million square kilometres – over a quarter of the Earth’s land surface. The three most forest-rich countries are Russia, Brazil, and Canada.
• Net forest loss (the amount of forest we lose after considering new trees that grow) is estimated to be 20,000 hectares a day, or 7.3 million hectares per year. Tropical forests could disappear within a hundred years.
• Seventy-six countries have lost all of their original forest cover, and 11 more have less than 5%. Globally, approximately 80% of ancient forests have already been destroyed.
• There are several major causes of deforestation worldwide, which include logging, industrialization and urbanization, conversion of forests for agriculture and livestock production, and extractive industries (e.g. mining, oil and gas).
• In Canada, per capita consumption of paper almost doubled from 1983-2003. In 2003, the average Canadian used 91.4 kg of paper per year.
• Few countries have laws or measures to ensure that illegally harvested timber is not imported.
• Consumption of wood is expected to continue rising over the next 20 years (as it has in the past), especially with the focus on renewable energy making fuel wood more appealing.
• The average land required to produce beef is more than double the land required to produce pork and triple the amount for chicken.
• Oil production has a significant impact on forests, especially in Canada where oil sands production has destroyed hundreds of square kilometres of boreal forest. Rain forests in the Amazon have been found to recover especially slowly in areas used for small-scale gold mining.
• Deforestation has a huge impact on climate change and vice versa. 
• Old-growth forests provide ecosystem services that may be far more important to society than their use as a source of raw materials. Services include breathable air, pure water, carbon storage, regeneration of nutrients, maintenance of soils, pest control by insectivorous bats and insects, micro- and macro-climate control, and the maintenance of genetic diversity.

Solutions: 

Ban The Logging Of Old Growth Forests

Save an ancient forest. Contact your elected officials and tell them if countries like New Zealand, Thailand, Sir Lanka, Philippines and Finland have banned old growth logging, your country can, too.

Cut Your Consumption of Old Growth Forests

Save an ancient forest. Live a simple life and cut your consumption.

• Cut paper use - go digital and ask, "Do I really need to print this out?" We gave our printer away, and now in the rare event of needing a print out, go to the library and conduct our business at 25 cents per copy. You will save money.
• Treat things made of wood respectfully - they still retain the essential spirit of the tree they came from. Items respected will last longer and replacement will be delayed.
• Refuse, repurpose, reduce, recycle
• Ask questions about the source of lumber products, and do not buy anything sourced from old growth forests (unless harvested in a small scale, community-based, sustainable logging industry)
• Do not use single use paper products
• Do not patronize fast food outlets with over-packaged, take-out food
• Say no to excessive packaging by leaving it at the customer service desk when you buy stuff... if you buy stuff. Tell them why you are doing it, and make your purchase conditional on them receiving the unwanted, forest-depleting wrappings.
• Arrange to be taken off junk mail lists
• Say no to paper (and plastic) bags at the grocery store, and bring your own reusables.
• When building, before buying new check places that reuse materials, such as Habitat for Humanity Int'l ReStore resale outlets.

A Greener Way To Go

A traditional burial is expensive and resource-intensive - $10,000
A green burial is affordable and low-impact - $2,000
Image source: Nathan Butler

There is living more gently on the earth, and then there is dieing more gently on the earth. Monday's post here, that included coffins made out of recycled cardboard, elicited the following question from forward thinking NBA reader, Jen:

"Will government regulations let you be buried in a cardboard box in the woods? I like this idea, but am just curious if it runs afoul of any laws? I hope not, I dislike modern cemetaries, they are such a waste of space and have chemically treated lawns, etc."

It turns out that lots of people are asking similar questions in their quest to reduce the cost and environmental burden of being buried. Enter the green burial.

Traditional Burials

I used to think that a traditional burial was a fairly benign process. I was wrong. Check out the following funeral figures for the impacts of annual traditional burials in North America:

• 827,060 gallons of embalming fluid, including formaldehyde
• 180,544,000 pounds of steel, in caskets
• 5,400,000 pounds of copper and bronze, in caskets
• 30 million board feet of hardwoods, including tropical woods, in caskets
• 3,272,000,000 pounds of reinforced concrete for vaults
• 28,000,000 pounds of steel in vaults, (compiled by Mary Woodsen)

So much for a traditional burial. Then I decided being cremated was the low-impact way to go, with my ashes being spread somewhere nice (legal on public lands without a permit). It turns out that cremation is very energy intensive, and it releases toxins into the atmosphere. Argh - it isn't just living that is hard.

Like Jen and a growing number of green-minded individuals, I want to reduce my funerary footprint. Not just the embalming and materials used for body preparation and burial, but also the fossil fuels and nasty chemicals used in cemetery lawn maintenance.

Green or Natural Burials

The good news is that natural burials are increasingly easier to organize, and more people are initiating them.

Governments, along with the funeral industry, are responding to the demand by formulating guidelines, and space for this new, old way of going greener.

Europeans have a head start on North Americans, with the demand for green burials and land conservation working together to save natural areas, and provide tranquil green resting grounds. The first such project was in Wales in 1991, and has since become popular enough to spawn 225 more across the UK.

But North American demand is on the rise, and so are the natural eco-options.

Traditional cemeteries are beginning to offer separate grounds for green burials. Unlike the adjoining regular areas, in the special sections there is no need for embalming, metal liners, caskets, or concrete vaults (that are only to ensure that the ground does not sink making it easier to cut and maintain the grass).

In the green burial section of a cemetery one can go back to the earth in nothing more than a biodegradable shroud. Maintenance is also less in these areas, cutting down further on the environmental impact.

Individuals that are interested in interring a loved one in a more natural setting can contact landowners to arrange for green burials on private property. Permits can be obtained to transport, and bury a loved one in a total DIY eco-funeral.

Or, like in Europe, land preserves set aside to protect natural beauty and provide a place for low-impact, affordable burials, are being set up in Canada and the US. I could only find information on two locations in my own country, and one is right in my area on the west coast (the other is in Ontario).

A low-impact green burial is a great way to make a high-impact statement on one's way out. Initiate a search for 'green' or 'natural' burials for more information in your area.

I, for one, would be like to be remembered as a person that "Lived gently, and died gently."

Putting The "Free" in Freedom

Yesterday I was rummaging around various drawers and boxes in my tiny home. I was surprised at all the resources 586 sq.ft. could contain, and I am not talking about a double garage here. I am referring to my entire living space. Although I am no midnight pack rat stocking my home full of back alley and curb-side treasures, I do collect resources that may come in handy in the future. My place is not stuffed to the point of narrow junk corridors leading from room to room, but I do have some drawers that are threatening to explode. It's just that when you buy dill pickles you also get a perfectly good reusable glass jar with them. Something must be done with the jar. We are constantly surrounded by free valuable resources, especially if you are able to appreciate small gifts.

They say there is no such thing as a free lunch, but it sure would be easy in our over the top throw away society to furnish an entire apartment for free. Buck 65, Canadian rapper, did just that. He furnished his entire apartment with free resources, and can be seen in an episode of MTV's "Cribs". I hate to admit I have watched "Cribs", but the Buck 65 episode is by far the best I have seen. He makes the rest seem, well, quite wasteful with all their money.

Just take a look at the "free" section (found under "for sale") of Craigslist in your community or a community near you. As long as you had a truck to haul free loot, and a roof to stash it under, a person could drive into a community such as Vancouver or Victoria with nothing but the skin on your bones and after a few days have everything you needed. You would be benefiting the community at large because if you don't take that couch it is going to end up being shot full of holes up some logging road by a camouflage mini-skirted AK-47 toting back county Rambette (sad, but true. Her boyfriend posted a video of it on youtube). That perfectly good couch will look much better in your living room.

In my drawer and box rummage-fest I found I that I am "richer than I think" (can I use that or has it been trade marked? I will only use this phrase if it is free). Yes, I found luxurious socks that I have never worn before. I found a free pack of playing cards, still hermetically sealed in cellophane, that I acquired from a case of Pilsner beer back when I used to buy beer. I have books on the shelf I have never read, and clothes I have not worn since the last time the NDP formed the government of BC.

I realized that my modest patio garden all came to me gratis. The many containers were saved from the recycling area of our building. I got the soil from a slump down the beach that would have been eroded away by the next high tide. Actually, I saved some nice flowers from the slump as well, and took those home to relocate into my free containers.

The strawberry plant was given to me by a elderly guerrilla gardener that was busted by her condo strata board. I was hired to tear out her extensive (and illegal, apparently) hard work. We quickly became friends as she, too, recognized the riches that abound where ever we look. She pleaded with me to take all her plants rather than toss them on the compost heap. I filled the back of my truck with her entire guerrilla garden and used what I could at home. The rest I took to a friends acreage where he used up everything else. Right now the strawberry flowers and reddening berries on my patio are reminding me of Elizabeth and Her Fantastic Illegal Garden. And my friend, Michael, enjoyed Elizabeth's wonderful perennials in his front yard. Free.

How can I feel rich when I exist on less than most people pay on their mortgages? Lowering ones expectations helps. Separating wants from needs is beneficial. But the most fun for me is recognizing the power of free. Not wanting makes me free. Anyone want (need?) a deck of brand new playing cards? I am willing to share my wealth... free.

This Just In - The Rat Race Has Been Cancelled

For longer than I have been alive the pace of life in the west has been ramping up dramatically. "The Rat Race", it came to be known. We have been running faster and faster for fewer returns in terms of personal happiness.

At the same time Big Corp. took over, using enticing messages in the new media of radio and TV to lure us into their trap. Soon we were moving to the city in record numbers, giving up our self-sufficient, simple lives for massively complicated, dependent ones. We all willingly stepped onto the treadmill, and haven't looked back since.

We sold out to Big Corp. We work for them longer and harder than ever before. We buy their stuff, and sacrifice our lives for the privilege . The Rat Race is a pressure cooker of stress as shown by our collective ill health. After 50 or so years of work most of us, if we even live long enough to retire, are too tired and unhealthy to enjoy our freedom.

Surrounded by all our neat stuff, we have become sick and unhappy. At the same time Big Corp. has been paying CEO's thousands of times what the average worker made.

What if we limited ourselves to our fair share of the world's resources? How much would that cost in western countries? Would it let us gain our freedom sooner?

I figure that our fair share (whatever scary, tiny amount that may be) would cost in Canada roughly 8 - 18 thousand dollars per year. How long would the average person have to work to make that much? Assuming a wage of 20 dollars an hour (average for Canadian workers in 2008), it would take approximately 10 to 23 weeks per year to earn the small pile of the earth's resources allocated to you.

You would not have much stuff, but think of all the time off you would have. Think of how uncomplicated your life might be. How much time you would have to reconnect with friends and family. To get healthy. To eat better. To help out in your community. To do things that benefit you and those around you, such as healing the environment.

Besides, when we have passed laws to limit consumption what use will we have for huge amounts of extra money? Conspicuous consumption is on the way out. On a planet where 27 000 children die every day due to preventable diseases, it seems a crime for us to be living the lives of luxury and excess that we do.

Thinking only about "Me, and All My Great Stuff" will soon be as socially unacceptable as smoking in public places is becoming. Think Gandhi and his little box of simple possessions, not Imelda Marcos, the world's best known shoe-collector.

Since The Great Recession began in 2007 the Rat Race Treadmill has been slowing. Our rickety system has been grinding to a halt. My recommendation is that you bail while you can, because everyone is trying to crank it all up again, even though we know that if we continue business as usual we will kill ourselves and everything else on the planet.

We can all become winners once again by abandoning this doomed race and taking back our lives for ourselves, our local community, and the environment.

Jump! jump! jump! before they get this damned treadmill cranked again.