You may remember this Shaker song, "Simple Gifts", written in 1848:
'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,
'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gain'd,
To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come round right.
I find myself wondering how we got ourselves into the situation where "going Green" can be viewed as being difficult, or where the idea of "going Green" is needed in the first place. And what it would actually take to lessen the overall impact of human's daily lives on the resources of the Earth and what techniques, technological or otherwise, can do that successfully.
Granted, ever since we moved from hunter gatherers to a less nomadic life, and our population increased to cover the globe, everywhere humans have settled over a period of time has been robbed of its resources. But I think we did learn how to work with it once we saw what was happening. At any rate, I have seen some great examples of land stewardship in folks who have lived in the same place, literally on the same property, for generations.
Those who do it successfully seem to always keep an eye on the future. They cut enough timber, graze enough cattle, farm enough land, to support them comfortably for the year and no more. And they leave enough timber and fallow fields to support them in years to come. Rotating crops, spreading manure, changing pastures, working with the seasons.
And then you see others move into a place and, with an eye on immediate prosperity, use it all up in a few short years. Overgrazing, monoculture and overlogging, reaping as many monetary benefits as possible in the short term and finding, at the end, that it is time to move on as the resource has run dry.
So here we are, the family of man, living on the earth and faced with the possibility that it may be starting to look like time to move on - and there's nowhere to go.
Before technology in the form of fast transportation, refrigeration, and fancy packaging made it possible for everything the heart desired (and the pocketbook could afford) to be available practically everywhere, all the time, there was very little waste. There were maxims like "waste not, want not" and a favorite of mine "use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without". Being wasteful of food, clothes, tools, ANYTHING, was frowned upon.
Anymore, the opposite is true. Stores constantly must discard old and outdated food. Clothes, cars, accessories of all sorts - even telephones (oops - make that cellphones) go out of style. Even before they break or wear out things are deemed obsolete and relegated to the trash heap. And those aren't even things that were meant to be instantly disposable - disposable napkins, mops, diapers, towels, pens, plates, lighters, you name it... we are now a society raised on a need to always get more.
Who does this benefit? Often when investigators approach a situation they follow the money trail. I think that is the trail that leads to the answer here. The benefit in a disposable society goes to the folks who are selling (and selling, and selling again) the disposable commodities. The rest of us are just spending more money and sending more stuff to the dump.
The energy that has the least impact on the environment is our own personal physical energy. What it entails to get past a disposable life is often the expenditure of our own energy. If you use real towels or mop, you have to clean them. Rinse them out or throw them in the laundry, this really isn't that tough.
We now see what see what the high cost of energy does to food. Fuel for machinery and transportation, petroleum derived fertilizers added to production and packaging and the futures market on top of that. As the cost of food goes up, so does the cost of waste for the shopkeeper. Perishables are called perishables for a reason, and that cost has to be paid by someone. Either the consumer (us) pays even more or maybe the store will have to carry less products to reduce the risk of loss. Hmmmmm...
Meanwhile, it pays us to think about what the important basics are in our life.
We did that some years ago with our business, and now focus on personal daily care basics for a healthy, clean body. Great results can be achieved with a minimum of fancy additives, and it is healthier for you as well.
See our site for these body care products and tools, and see "The Story of Stuff" for a great description that connects the dots of how we became such a consumer oriented society.
'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gain'd,
To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come round right.
I find myself wondering how we got ourselves into the situation where "going Green" can be viewed as being difficult, or where the idea of "going Green" is needed in the first place. And what it would actually take to lessen the overall impact of human's daily lives on the resources of the Earth and what techniques, technological or otherwise, can do that successfully.
Granted, ever since we moved from hunter gatherers to a less nomadic life, and our population increased to cover the globe, everywhere humans have settled over a period of time has been robbed of its resources. But I think we did learn how to work with it once we saw what was happening. At any rate, I have seen some great examples of land stewardship in folks who have lived in the same place, literally on the same property, for generations.
Those who do it successfully seem to always keep an eye on the future. They cut enough timber, graze enough cattle, farm enough land, to support them comfortably for the year and no more. And they leave enough timber and fallow fields to support them in years to come. Rotating crops, spreading manure, changing pastures, working with the seasons.
And then you see others move into a place and, with an eye on immediate prosperity, use it all up in a few short years. Overgrazing, monoculture and overlogging, reaping as many monetary benefits as possible in the short term and finding, at the end, that it is time to move on as the resource has run dry.
So here we are, the family of man, living on the earth and faced with the possibility that it may be starting to look like time to move on - and there's nowhere to go.
Before technology in the form of fast transportation, refrigeration, and fancy packaging made it possible for everything the heart desired (and the pocketbook could afford) to be available practically everywhere, all the time, there was very little waste. There were maxims like "waste not, want not" and a favorite of mine "use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without". Being wasteful of food, clothes, tools, ANYTHING, was frowned upon.
Anymore, the opposite is true. Stores constantly must discard old and outdated food. Clothes, cars, accessories of all sorts - even telephones (oops - make that cellphones) go out of style. Even before they break or wear out things are deemed obsolete and relegated to the trash heap. And those aren't even things that were meant to be instantly disposable - disposable napkins, mops, diapers, towels, pens, plates, lighters, you name it... we are now a society raised on a need to always get more.
Who does this benefit? Often when investigators approach a situation they follow the money trail. I think that is the trail that leads to the answer here. The benefit in a disposable society goes to the folks who are selling (and selling, and selling again) the disposable commodities. The rest of us are just spending more money and sending more stuff to the dump.
The energy that has the least impact on the environment is our own personal physical energy. What it entails to get past a disposable life is often the expenditure of our own energy. If you use real towels or mop, you have to clean them. Rinse them out or throw them in the laundry, this really isn't that tough.
We now see what see what the high cost of energy does to food. Fuel for machinery and transportation, petroleum derived fertilizers added to production and packaging and the futures market on top of that. As the cost of food goes up, so does the cost of waste for the shopkeeper. Perishables are called perishables for a reason, and that cost has to be paid by someone. Either the consumer (us) pays even more or maybe the store will have to carry less products to reduce the risk of loss. Hmmmmm...
Meanwhile, it pays us to think about what the important basics are in our life.
We did that some years ago with our business, and now focus on personal daily care basics for a healthy, clean body. Great results can be achieved with a minimum of fancy additives, and it is healthier for you as well.
See our site for these body care products and tools, and see "The Story of Stuff" for a great description that connects the dots of how we became such a consumer oriented society.
1 comment:
Ooh, the tune popped right in my head when I read that song!
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