Sunday, October 9, 2011

How do you do all this and still conduct a “normal” life?

That’s exactly the point: You don’t. At some time within the next few months or years, circumstances will be such that you will relinquish the feeble attempts to hang onto that gluttonous consumption, compete-with-the-Jones’s (or “keep the kids competitive” with the Jones’s kids), go-go-go life rhythm. You’ll begin to get real.

Remember, green-casting a five-planets-worth-of-consumption life isn’t enough to prepare for the crises ahead. Peak oil + climate change + economic contraction demand that we make truly radical change.

The five-planets-worth-of-consumption world labels many of the suggestions on this list as “alternative.” That is a derogatory term; it implies that there is normal, and then there is alternative.

Change your language and hold these changes in their proper light: These are forward-thinking, cutting-edge, the patterns and habits of the new future.

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