Author: Rainer Eidemiller
We live in a time when there might be ahead next very big changes. Much larger than a question of when “recession” is going to be over and when arrives a new nice boom.
Actually, we should have a clear choice to make. Do we really want everything to continue in a business-as-usual manner and stay on admiring GDP growth or can we understand that this development is not sustainable.
Sustainable lifetsyle’s simple summary could be: “less is more.” Current society can be compared to people from suffering compulsive overeating disorder.
The solution would be a healthy diet, which doesn’t only mean less eating, but to choose what to eat and free time should be spend with new and useful activities. It is a way of life which is manifested in very different projects throghout the world. For example, you can learn new things, go out with people, do something with your hands, build something fundamentally different from current consumer culture's inherent individualism. Less consumption does not lead to the fall of economy, it only undermines over-consumption threatening our welfare.
It can function not only as individual’s but also society’s level. Let’s take an example the so-called “degrowth” or “non-growth” movements, where towns and villages relocate agricultural and energy systems, establish communal and private gardens in order to develop local production, reduce the need for fossil fuels through new (actually old) vehicles' greater use, organize buy-nothing-days – or months –, go over to renewable energy, create parallel financial systems that does not depend on external world fluctuations, organize collecively jobs, invent lifestyles such as freeganism, WWFOOFing or even allowing young people to have fun in actions where volunteers stand in shopping malls with scissors and posters and bank credit cards are offered to cut in half.
In addition to State, politcians and current economic thinking, there is right to exist for parallely functioning free society, which does not oppose but cooperates.
We have to ask politicians what is their vision of communal, durable and local development. However, not to only ask and expect answers, but also to develop and implement this vision by ourselves. Paide community center has plans for some ventures which can help bring it all from words to actions.
We live in a time when there might be ahead next very big changes. Much larger than a question of when “recession” is going to be over and when arrives a new nice boom.
Actually, we should have a clear choice to make. Do we really want everything to continue in a business-as-usual manner and stay on admiring GDP growth or can we understand that this development is not sustainable.
Sustainable lifetsyle’s simple summary could be: “less is more.” Current society can be compared to people from suffering compulsive overeating disorder.
The solution would be a healthy diet, which doesn’t only mean less eating, but to choose what to eat and free time should be spend with new and useful activities. It is a way of life which is manifested in very different projects throghout the world. For example, you can learn new things, go out with people, do something with your hands, build something fundamentally different from current consumer culture's inherent individualism. Less consumption does not lead to the fall of economy, it only undermines over-consumption threatening our welfare.
It can function not only as individual’s but also society’s level. Let’s take an example the so-called “degrowth” or “non-growth” movements, where towns and villages relocate agricultural and energy systems, establish communal and private gardens in order to develop local production, reduce the need for fossil fuels through new (actually old) vehicles' greater use, organize buy-nothing-days – or months –, go over to renewable energy, create parallel financial systems that does not depend on external world fluctuations, organize collecively jobs, invent lifestyles such as freeganism, WWFOOFing or even allowing young people to have fun in actions where volunteers stand in shopping malls with scissors and posters and bank credit cards are offered to cut in half.
In addition to State, politcians and current economic thinking, there is right to exist for parallely functioning free society, which does not oppose but cooperates.
We have to ask politicians what is their vision of communal, durable and local development. However, not to only ask and expect answers, but also to develop and implement this vision by ourselves. Paide community center has plans for some ventures which can help bring it all from words to actions.
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