"We Have to Consume Less": Scientists Call For Radical Economic Overhaul to Avert Climate Crisis

[hunter]

15. I think about half my recent journal entries are anti-productivity.

We need a new measure of "economic productivity" because what we currently call "productivity" is destroying both the human spirit and the natural environment supporting us.

Christmas may be a good time to think about this... I don't want to be a "consumer." I'd like to live very lightly upon our Earth. A smile and simple friendly words are gifts to me. Otherwise I have a safe place to sleep, good food to eat, my clothes are not rags, and my doctor continues to see me even though I frequently owe him money. I like to think I'm entertaining... what surprise will Hunter bring to our office today?! We've known one another more than two decades. Before that my childhood pediatrician went out of his way and last saw me in my early twenties, before I moved away from him. Relationships matter.

Don't "give" me anything from a big box store. I'll see it as a burden and give it to someone who needs or wants it.

It's too easy here in North America to burn a lot of fossil fuels and fuck up the Earth even further. I'll never atone for all the gasoline I burned as a young adult making ten bucks an hour when gasoline was less than a dollar a gallon. I drove, and occasionally flew, all over the place, pretending I was some kind of environmentalist because I could sleep outside or on someone's floor, as if the gallons of oil I burned getting there and back, from anti-nuclear rallies or explorations of the deserts, didn't matter.

Too much climate change is mine.