I've Been Reading (About): Subtraction and Saving the World
cap.
For non-fiction I often make do with good, detailed reviews. Recently an essay and a recommendation from friends coalesced nicely.
The essay: Michelle Nijhuis writes of living (almost) off the grid for years: a couple of solar panels, a two room hand-built house, water from a cistern. She and her partner shopped only at thrift stores and yard sales. They loved it: plenty of creature comforts, spectacular views, and the freedom that comes from not needing much money. https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2022/06/09/must-we-grow-consumerism-michelle-nijhuis/
The couple came to realize, however, that whatever carbon emissions they avoided were more than offset by even one flight or road trip. More than individual effort is required.
Nijhuis uses her personal story to frame reviews of two books.
The Day the World Stops Shopping: How Ending Consumerism Saves the Environment and Ourselves https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-day-the-world-stops-shopping-jb-mackinnon/1137771864
Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less. https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250249869/subtract
The first book addresses practical possibilities: A sudden shift from consumerism would convulse the world’s economy, but a more gradual transition is possible.
The second book describes conceptual necessities: Learning, against our biology and our culture, that less is often more. Given the choice to improve something -- a recipe, a Lego tower, whatever -- most people will add to it rather than subtract.
That same week, friends suggested another book, also relevant
The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374157357/thedawnofeverything
This third book argues that substantial change is possible without massive suffering – because it has been done, often, in the past. New research challenges the assumption that all societies develop through the same stages (beginning with hunting and gathering, ending with cities). Instead societies have organized differently at different times, and have consciously chosen to change.
Other reading, though, dampens my hopes. The GOP continues its brilliant, insidious, infiltration of local governments, to protect fossil fuel industries.Â
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/05/climate/republican-treasurers-climate-change.html
And the industries work just as insidiously to protect themselves. See this interesting blog:
Now to figure out what to do less of today.
This complements my reading of The System, by Robert Reich. The subject is oligarchy. But I got to thinking about how our consumerism plays into oligarchy. We want more and we want it cheaply. Big business is willing to (create and) satisfy our demands. And then we complain that American manufacturing jobs are disappearing overseas. Profits rise, wages don't. We get what we think we want, but it is never enough, and it leaves a lot of people, and the planet, seriously hurting.