I was never that much of a shopper. It's a healthy habit of thought I inherited from my mother (although her reasons, formed in a poorer place and time, were more about thrift than reduced consumption). So compacting for me has been more about discovery - there's an organic food shop near my home; you can get a suit for $15 on Ebay, and make yoghurt out of milk and ...old yoghurt.
But there are some things I'm finding hard to let go, philosophically.
- stuff that helps reduce consumption elsewhere. I've bought cloth nappies, a cheap sewing machine and a Keeper. And an extra worm farm. None of which I attempted to get second hand.
- books. Not airport novels or celebrity cookbooks, but books nevertheless. And I still get my New Yorker subscription (though I wish they'd do an international version without the 50 pages of dead trees on gigs around Tribeca and the strange advertising for bejewelled garden benches and such. Who am I kidding. I have to give it up). I've tried the library. Perhaps everyone has exactly the same taste in reading as me so the books were out. Or perhaps our library caters to different taste in reading and they never had those books on the shelf. Either way, not there.
- art. It doesn't seem right that I wouldn't buy it - art, music, literature, ideas aren't about consumption, but something more deeply human. I don't know that it's right to give it up.
On the other hand, the marketing machine knows about these deeply held values (there's that word again), and isn't shy of calling a kitchen appliance "a work of art" or implying you'll "never buy another watch" (this one ...boom boom... being timeless).
Monday, 30 April 2007
What gives?
No Impact Man posed an interesting question some time ago about what, in the final analysis, we're willing to give up in the interests of sustainability: What is the balance to be maintained between preserving our “way of life” and our efforts to keep the planet healthy? How healthy do we want the planet to be and what are we willing to sacrifice for it?
I think the "way of life" phrase is a US thing - I'm sure I've heard it from Dubbya - but it raised some interesting questions about what gives (or what gives first).
Jared Diamond's book "Collapse" (gee I wish I could figure out formatting in this blog!) devotes Chapter 14 to discussing reasons some societies make decisions that cause their failure. The book covers societies ranging from the ancient Maya to contemporary Haiti and his analysis is in IMHO pretty thoroughgoing.
Diamond identifies a number of causes for societal collapse: From failure to anticipate (eg the British idea that releasing rabbits in Australia was a solid idea) through failure to perceive (typically slow trends like climate changes, or ones no individual is able to perceive, like expanding global population) and through to the idea that some problems have no solution, even when they are well understood.
But the scariest cause he postulates is "values" and other failures of rationality (like psychological denial). Almost by definition, we would not recognise them in ourselves. He describes the Greenland Norse, facing environmental extremes and a very marginal existence, seeing themselves as fundamentally Christian, European, farmers - meaning they directed their meagre resources towards church ornaments and not tools, to hunting walrus ivory to trade with Europe instead of haymaking during their 3 precious months of sunshine each year, and towards farming and not fishing, even when things got to starvation point (and despite plentiful fisheries). He also points out that the Greenland Norse, though they died out in 500 years, survived there longer than western patterns of settlement and agriculture have survived anywhere in the New World.
Call me a radical, but "our way of life" is the very first things I'd like to question. So over to you dear readers (if you're out there...anyone) many of us are tackling the consumption culture (compact) challenge - what else could we happily leave behind?
I think the "way of life" phrase is a US thing - I'm sure I've heard it from Dubbya - but it raised some interesting questions about what gives (or what gives first).
Jared Diamond's book "Collapse" (gee I wish I could figure out formatting in this blog!) devotes Chapter 14 to discussing reasons some societies make decisions that cause their failure. The book covers societies ranging from the ancient Maya to contemporary Haiti and his analysis is in IMHO pretty thoroughgoing.
Diamond identifies a number of causes for societal collapse: From failure to anticipate (eg the British idea that releasing rabbits in Australia was a solid idea) through failure to perceive (typically slow trends like climate changes, or ones no individual is able to perceive, like expanding global population) and through to the idea that some problems have no solution, even when they are well understood.
But the scariest cause he postulates is "values" and other failures of rationality (like psychological denial). Almost by definition, we would not recognise them in ourselves. He describes the Greenland Norse, facing environmental extremes and a very marginal existence, seeing themselves as fundamentally Christian, European, farmers - meaning they directed their meagre resources towards church ornaments and not tools, to hunting walrus ivory to trade with Europe instead of haymaking during their 3 precious months of sunshine each year, and towards farming and not fishing, even when things got to starvation point (and despite plentiful fisheries). He also points out that the Greenland Norse, though they died out in 500 years, survived there longer than western patterns of settlement and agriculture have survived anywhere in the New World.
Call me a radical, but "our way of life" is the very first things I'd like to question. So over to you dear readers (if you're out there...anyone) many of us are tackling the consumption culture (compact) challenge - what else could we happily leave behind?
Sunday, 29 April 2007
viscious [spin] cycle
Some weeks ago we ran out of dishwasher powder and I dreaded a return to sharehouse days when bowls could be piled more than a foot high (and none left to use) before anyone did the washing up by hand.
It didn't happen. We do some handwashing almost daily anyway (wine glasses, some pots, knives and chopping boards) so it wasn't much harder to include a couple more items.
More importantly, we used less! The kids refilled the same water cups all day, I rinsed out my teacup with boiling water (which I do anyway, to heat the cup up) and sandwich plates did double duty with fruit for a 2nd course. It was no big deal.
Which is how I came to realise that
a) dishwashers make us use more than we need to (perhaps an unconcious wish to avoid the stiff sitting in there for three days and going mouldy
b) using more than we need to means we *have* more than we need to (as you need enough to use while the other stuff is in the dishwasher)
c) having more than we need to means we need more room to store it all, and more storage space in the kitchen (not to mention the space taken up by the diswasher itself) and therefore a bigger kitchen than we would otherwise need.
It's a viscious cycle.
Here's another one.
Sydney has had almost 7 days of constant rain (apparently only a couple of mm of this has fallen into the catchment). With only a small indoor clothes frame at my disposal (and no dryer) I've been economising on clothes, dressing my children in yesterday's t-shirt, trousers and even singlets - depending on how much clean stuff is left in the drawer. That economising mentality has probably added up to several fewer loads of laundry in the course of the week. If I always thought like that, it would mean we needed significantly fewer clothes (it's not like three-year-olds need evening or office wear!)
Why don't I always think that way? Who told me you needed new t-shirt every day regardless? Why did I try to "fake it" for preschool days (clothes from the weekend, but not worn yet at kindy) so other mums wouldn't know my children weren't in fresh clothes that day?
It didn't happen. We do some handwashing almost daily anyway (wine glasses, some pots, knives and chopping boards) so it wasn't much harder to include a couple more items.
More importantly, we used less! The kids refilled the same water cups all day, I rinsed out my teacup with boiling water (which I do anyway, to heat the cup up) and sandwich plates did double duty with fruit for a 2nd course. It was no big deal.
Which is how I came to realise that
a) dishwashers make us use more than we need to (perhaps an unconcious wish to avoid the stiff sitting in there for three days and going mouldy
b) using more than we need to means we *have* more than we need to (as you need enough to use while the other stuff is in the dishwasher)
c) having more than we need to means we need more room to store it all, and more storage space in the kitchen (not to mention the space taken up by the diswasher itself) and therefore a bigger kitchen than we would otherwise need.
It's a viscious cycle.
Here's another one.
Sydney has had almost 7 days of constant rain (apparently only a couple of mm of this has fallen into the catchment). With only a small indoor clothes frame at my disposal (and no dryer) I've been economising on clothes, dressing my children in yesterday's t-shirt, trousers and even singlets - depending on how much clean stuff is left in the drawer. That economising mentality has probably added up to several fewer loads of laundry in the course of the week. If I always thought like that, it would mean we needed significantly fewer clothes (it's not like three-year-olds need evening or office wear!)
Why don't I always think that way? Who told me you needed new t-shirt every day regardless? Why did I try to "fake it" for preschool days (clothes from the weekend, but not worn yet at kindy) so other mums wouldn't know my children weren't in fresh clothes that day?
Saturday, 28 April 2007
Kissing cousins
We've just returned from visiting cousins on the other side of town, and it was strange to feel our lives had so diverged. The kids entertained themselves in front of Foxtel, we ordered pizza, and they poured my little ones big glasses of Sprite.
I felt overprotective and paranoid, and although we loved seeing them, I couldn't wait to get away; our normality was seriously challenged by theirs.
This is the hard stuff. I can coax my boys into cloth nappies by calling them "astronaut undies". I can stay up late to cook & freeze so we don't rely on packaged additives on the days I'm not at home to cook. But how do I tell my 9 year old cousin, who has so generously demonstrated her entire jazz dancing repertoire, that I don't want my children watching the toxic TV show she's glued to (and that she and her sisters are singing the theme song for, solos and all).
Here's where I come to ask how.
I felt overprotective and paranoid, and although we loved seeing them, I couldn't wait to get away; our normality was seriously challenged by theirs.
This is the hard stuff. I can coax my boys into cloth nappies by calling them "astronaut undies". I can stay up late to cook & freeze so we don't rely on packaged additives on the days I'm not at home to cook. But how do I tell my 9 year old cousin, who has so generously demonstrated her entire jazz dancing repertoire, that I don't want my children watching the toxic TV show she's glued to (and that she and her sisters are singing the theme song for, solos and all).
Here's where I come to ask how.
What's white and can't climb trees?
Q. What's white and can't climb trees?
A. A yoghurt.
I've been told speeches should always begin with a joke. It's a pretty lame one, but it was the funniest thing I'd ever heard 25 years ago, when I first heard it.
I'm reminded of it because there's a questionable jar of something on our sunniest window ledge. I hope it's on its way to becoming yoghurt - but I'm not sure exactly what it is now (other than white, lumpy and kind of worrying).
What else is new? There's a worm farm in our bathroom, and organics in the fridge. I'm refashioning rather than buying a new suit I need for work. I have found reserves of domestic ingenuity that I never knew existed (and that I could never confess to in my workplace or normal social circles). Why is it that those feel like things to be ashamed of?
But there's a whole new kind of ... is it? ... yes it's pride ... in being more deliberate about how we live. And in making tentative, whispered connections with other people who are doing the same.
I find it endlessly exciting, energising, amplifying, to think this is part of something bigger.
It's a kind of magic. Like yoghurt.
Welcome to my blog.
A. A yoghurt.
I've been told speeches should always begin with a joke. It's a pretty lame one, but it was the funniest thing I'd ever heard 25 years ago, when I first heard it.
I'm reminded of it because there's a questionable jar of something on our sunniest window ledge. I hope it's on its way to becoming yoghurt - but I'm not sure exactly what it is now (other than white, lumpy and kind of worrying).
What else is new? There's a worm farm in our bathroom, and organics in the fridge. I'm refashioning rather than buying a new suit I need for work. I have found reserves of domestic ingenuity that I never knew existed (and that I could never confess to in my workplace or normal social circles). Why is it that those feel like things to be ashamed of?
But there's a whole new kind of ... is it? ... yes it's pride ... in being more deliberate about how we live. And in making tentative, whispered connections with other people who are doing the same.
I find it endlessly exciting, energising, amplifying, to think this is part of something bigger.
It's a kind of magic. Like yoghurt.
Welcome to my blog.
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