Comments on: Why Not Change?

By: Toni

Toni — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 16:49:50 +0000

Hi Sharon. I’m trying to recall whether I told you about “The Fourth Turning” by William Strauss and Neil Howe. It’s an excellent description tracing a repetitive four-stage historical cycle of events (beginning a couple centuries ago) always starting on a high and ending in hardship – where it looks like we are now. Encouraging because it’s a reminder that events are cyclical and we have always come out of hard times.

Also want to let you know of the Huffington Post’s suggestion about how to ‘throw the rascals out’ (my term): http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/move-your-money-a-new-yea_b_406022.html

By: Ciaran Mundy

Ciaran Mundy — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:08:02 +0000

I agree with Sharon’s analysis up to a point, but both miss a critical aspect – the impact of commercial messaging in maintaining the status quo.

The paper seems a little naive in its understanding of how to frame messages that are credible and commensurate with the scary truth, but however perfect a suit of messages and stories the environmental movement might devise, most of us are receiving 1000 fold those messages through advertising of commercial products, many of which should barely be legal if we were serious about climate change. Not only that but the manner in which they are advertised constantly hampers our ability to normalise collective behaviour and elicit a widespread “I will, if you will” response.

e.g. http://adsoftheworld.com/media/print/lexus_jealous?size=_original

While we give thanks and respect to individuals already living sustainable lives, we dont want personal martyrs, feeling ostracised from their friends and family. We want to people to feel that acting collectively is the fairest and most powerful way to effect change.

As long as the daily tsunami of much commercial advertising is out there, promoting self interest and materialism as normal, cool and even aspirational, it is very hard to see how any countervailing message will get through and foster widespread rapid change we all need.

So let us start with a ban on any advertising that promotes self over the community/survival of mankind. It’s a no brainer . . . .

By: dewey

dewey — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:54:26 +0000

Good suggestions. We can’t afford them as stated, but the idea of setting a fixed winter utility sum and spending the leftover on something good in spring might be a good motivator; I’ll suggest it tonight. Right now, natural gas is significantly cheaper than last year, so (at least in St. Louis) you can get more heating for less. I’m not entirely happy about that; I think we should be steadily adapting to less usage, which rising prices would encourage, not coasting along happily thinking that the party will never end.

By: Sharon

Sharon — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:45:24 +0000

But I think the reality is that the marginal money is sufficient to break the system – that is, if we withhold our contributions, the subsidies won’t hold them up. The problem is that they feed us and clothe us and take us places and employ us. It isn’t an easy situation – my own feeling is that the best way to change the system is to take it down by withdrawing funding.

Dewey, that’s a tough one – can you turn the tables? Would he care if you let him win but let him also know how painful it was to you?

What about asking to switch who pays for the heat? Or setting a flat budget for heating and telling him he can have the rest for pay tv if he keeps it down?

Would the attractions of ummm….resolving chilliness by more time in bed under the covers work? I realize it might be a sacrifice, but think “Lysistrata Corps” .

Sharon

By: vera

vera — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 02:27:30 +0000

I agree, Sharon. But a lot of the money the biggest villains get is not from honest business, from us. It’s from all sorts of subsidies and special deals.

The whole shebang needs to go… the only cure for all those ills is that the system must go bust. And how many of us have the guts to walk away?

By: TLE

TLE — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:39:26 +0000

I think people have a lot of emotional investment in money/security etc that they’re not aware of – and yes, a lot of fear. My grandparents grew up in the depression & were quite frugal – as were my hippy graduate student parents in the ’70s. There was no sense of deprivation or poverty in our family though – we were solidly middle-class, but with our ‘value’ was derived from cultural/intellectual capital, not cash.

If you are raised in a family where you are very poor, or you have money, but your sense of personal value & status is primarily measured by cash/material possessions, the sense of loss that comes with frugality/powering down must be terribly painful & frightening. I’m not sure what the answer is.

By: Susan in NJ

Susan in NJ — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:25:27 +0000

Dewey — your DH and my partner seem to be on the same wavelength. My partner has his own variation on the “kick the bucket” line and recently complained in public (he said he was just kidding) about “being on restriction” and his “restricted diet.” As best I can figure out these restrictions involve not buying lunchmeat, white bread, and eating seasonal. He could of course go shopping for his own height of civilization delicacies.

By: AnneT

AnneT — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:02:45 +0000

Re: cooking. This year I found myself preserving the stuff I needed to make cooking easy the rest of the summer: tomato sauce I can pour out of my own reusable jar for pizza and pasta, wholly made-up spaghetti sauce, curried simmer sauces for crock pot cooking, wholly made-up green chile stew, chile meat base for crock pot chili, tomato stock and mixed preserved veggies/herbs for soups. A lot of these things are good for two meals. None of them have ingredients I can’t pronounce nor have any idea where they came from.

I started the preserving kick while I was working full time. The first couple of years I made the mistake of making a lot of sweet preserves we didn’t use while not making the condiments that are integral to how we like to eat and that we’ve usually spent a fair amount of money on.

Now we eat better, have a lot less food waste, and spend a lot less at the big grocery stores (we still get fresh produce at the farmers’ market). We still use a lot of fossil fuel for our road trips, but our food doesn’t travel much and our house is becoming much tighter so it’ll be more comfortable at lower temperatures and lower fuel use. None of it was done overnight.

I did grow up a dairy farm though, with 9 brothers and sister, and my mother had a big garden and lots of preserving. So I have the background I could draw on. This stuff wasn’t “foreign” to me. The one thing I found over the years is that stuff from a jar is rarely as good as the advertising makes it out to be. I remember milk from before growth hormones were used all the time, eggs from chickens that scratched up real dirt, and beef from when it grew on grass. Fortunately I live in an area where I can get that stuff again (I live in town and can’t do much in livestock).

Remember: any journey begins with the first step.

By: dewey

dewey — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:43:12 +0000

He is intellectually willing to accept the possibility of decline, but his preferred adaptation to it is “Kick the bucket before things get really bad.” I’m not kidding. It’s hard to deal with this as an argument — “Okay, let’s imagine your luck is bad and you live to a ripe old age…”

By: homebrewlibrarian

homebrewlibrarian — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:07:59 +0000

Dewey,

Your DH sounds scared. Scared at what, I can’t say for sure but perhaps his version of what is Right With The World is starting to fray. That can be awfully frightening to people because it threatens not only their sense of rightness but also their identity.

I’m not a counselor (nor do I play one on tv ) so I can’t advise you as to how to converse better. If you have friends who feel as you do, even if only a little, that he trusts, I’d ask them to help out.

Good luck and stay patient, as best you can.

Kerri in AK