Infinite growth on a finite world

Having just returned from SolarFest 2008 I am again energized on doing everything I can to save this planet. For those who don’t know, SolarFest is a green energy/green living conference held every year up in Tinmonth Vermont, and my wife and I have attended the two day event three times now, and come away motivated to take action every year.

This year we focused our time in classes on gardening and the future of the some of the current technologies (i.e. PV and Hybrid/electric cars), but the most inspiring lecture we attended was on simplifying your life and lightening your footprint on the Earth. A very inspirational speaker by the name of Jim Merkel gave this talk, and told us of his experiences of how he is currently living lightly, what motivated him to do this, and what he continues to do to lighten his footprint on the planet. My wife and I are currently reading his book, Radical Simplicity in which he is explaining the reasons why our society is in for a crash if we don’t change our ways and start consuming a lot less. As we work our way through his book, we will share our thoughts, but I am already inspired to share one point that was brought up early on in his book and lecture.

A basic principle of our society, economy, and most businesses is that every year we must grow, and the more growth the better. The whole point of the stock market is that we are all betting on the fact that companies will continue to make more money and grow more profitable year after year. We as individuals expect our wages and salaries to increase to offset the higher cost of goods caused by the higher cost of wages (can you see the vicious cycle here?). This has been going on for decades, but to what end? Can we truly expect infinite growth? How would that be possible? We live on a planet that has a multitude of resources but the resources are truly not infinite. We as humans are surely smart enough to have figured that out, but for some reason we keep plodding on, year after year, expecting things to never change, and our economy and paychecks to always continue to grow. And at what cost are we getting this continual growth? We are running out of oil, we are chopping down all our forests, driving plants and animals that we don’t find productive at the present time extinct and starting wars over what is left. This is what our lust for continual growth has given us, but yet we as a society continue to want it.

So what can we do about it since it is such a part of our every day lives? Well, one way is to stop being an unnecessary consumer. Most of live in nice houses or apartments and have filled them with tons and tons of items that we rarely use. For example, most people have very nice TV sets some with the ability to play movies in near movie theater quality, but yet instead of staying home and watching a movie on this once highly desired purchased item, we go out to the movies instead while our $1000+ TV system sits idol and pushes your electricity bill higher and higher. It really is that simple to start; use what you already own and instead of waiting for that raise, watch your saving account grow by not having spent money on unneeded things.

Changes like this start by each individual taking small actions that eventually turning into societal change. Together we can change and make this world a livable place forever, not just for us, but for all generations to come. Then again, this is just life according to Troy.