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September 25, 2008 at 11:46:34
Promoted to Headline (H2) on 9/25/08: by Lisa Wise (Posted by Rady Ananda) Page 1 of 1 page(s) |
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By Lisa Wise for The Women’s Media Center Certainly, there isn’t any golden or even silver lining to losing your job, your savings, your home. But for those of us not hit with catastrophic losses, an economic downturn might force us into painful, but ultimately useful, adjustments to our priorities. Should we be fortunate enough to hold onto both nest and nest egg though the storm, we might eventually come out the other side with clearer skies and a clear sense of what’s important. Our economy in recent decades has been propped up by an alarming degree by profligate consumer spending and wasting of resources prompted by an avaricious credit industry. Even before the crisis, it was obvious that the traditional American Dream of comfort and security had been displaced by a “more is better” focus that promotes not quality of life, but rather the unbridled production and consumption of stuff. There was never any chance that could continue indefinitely. Recently, the Global Footprint Network issued a report stating that by September 23rd this week, humanity had consumed all the new resources the planet will produce for the year. For the rest of 2008, we are in the ecological equivalent of deficit spending, drawing down our resource stocks—in essence, borrowing from the future. Sound familiar? We can’t hope to keep to our economic budget if we can’t keep to our ecological budget. 
Some years ago—just as the Bush Administration was settling into office and, as it has turned out, contemplating how best to thwart any meaningful efforts to address climate change—my organization, New American Dream, commissioned two globe-trotting amateur videographers to document how American consumer demands affected the lives of people in parts of the globe American consumers are unlikely ever to see. The short films came back to us filled with images of environmental and social ills stemming in large part from a global trade system designed to shield end consumers from seeing the true consequences of consumer choices.
The filmmakers visited coffee farmers, banana pickers, and lobster divers. Factory workers in so-called “free trade zones” told stories of how free trade wasn’t working out so well for them. Along the coasts of Central and South America, shrimp pens displaced local fishing communities and obliterated natural mangrove forests. In the Amazon, logging trucks rumbled through roads carved into formerly pristine rainforests.
Several of the films touched also on U.S. energy policy—specifically, how our thirst for oil affects local communities both in places where oil is extracted and places where greenhouse gas emissions contribute to altering the local climate. In Ecuador, the filmmakers met indigenous Huaorani people whose health and way of life have been severely compromised by oil drilling on their lands. In sub-Saharan Africa, they documented what happens to once-thriving farming communities when the rain doesn’t fall.
Those films addressing climate change most clearly highlighted the special burden faced by women. One video showed women and girls making 5 to 10 kilometer treks to gather firewood for use as cooking fuel. It showed how, during the dry months, women arose at four in the morning to wait in long lines around depleted community wells for basins of sandy water. Water rationing was so intense during those times that most clothes washing is suspended until the first rainfall.
The “more is better” version of the American dream is unsustainable environmentally, fueling a level of resource consumption that the planet cannot keep up with. It is personally unsustainable, drawing American families into a work-and-spend treadmill that depletes savings and clutters lives. And now we see it is unsustainable economically, as well.
Whatever economy emerges from this crisis will need to put less emphasis on “more” stuff and greater emphasis on more of what matters—like healthy communities, a healthy planet and a higher quality of life. In righting the economic ship, the end game shouldn’t be to plug up a broken vessel, but to move to something more seaworthy—one that sails within both personal and ecological limits.
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Lisa Wise is the executive director of the Center for a New American Dream, a nonprofit organization in Washington, D.C. that promotes sustainable consumer choices. For over a decade, she has used both traditional community-based outreach and cutting-edge social networking techniques to galvanize participation in political and social movements.In addition to her work on health and environmental issues, Wise is co-founder of Pan Left Productions, a not-for-profit media company in Tucson, Arizona designed to give members of the community access to media-making technology. She is a participant of the WMC’s Progressive Women’s Voices program and was featured on Forbes.com as one of the country’s “leading environmentalists” on the subject of what ordinary people can do to help save the environment.This article was originally posted at The Women's Media Center and is reposted with permission.
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.
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The Story of Stuff
On the Main OpEd page there is a display Ad which takes you to www.storyofstuff.com Read my OpEd first.... "Give Us the ANWAR and Keep Shopping"-They Found They Can't Have Both by Robert Singer (31 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 138 comments [4 recommended, 1 rejected]) on Thursday, Sep 25, 2008 at 12:57:51 PM  (0+)
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Reply: link to your article?
Story of stuff is good.. i've seen it a couple times now. but help us out - give us the link to your article! by Rady Ananda (182 articles, 374 quicklinks, 49 diaries, 1718 comments [201 recommended, 2 rejected]) on Thursday, Sep 25, 2008 at 5:45:53 PM (0+)
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Partnerism is the new course
Rady, You're so right....there's not much point in propping up the old system anymore. its time for a new system. The old Capitalism--growth at all costs consumption patterns are unsustainable and yet--its all anyone can imagine. But while others were thinking this is the only system possible, Riane Eisler (and others) were envisioning a new economy. She writes about this in her book, Real Wealth of Nations...creating a caring economy. Partnerism is the new term for this full spectrum economy. Right now we measure only a small portion of economic activity, Partnerism moves us beyond the current measurements to include the household, volunteer and natural sectors in a more true cost accounting economy. www.partnershipway.org http://www.partnershipway.org Here's a short video that discusses it a little bit. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDC4hrcBM3c Considering that 70% of our economy is in consumption, change will be a huge endeavor. But here's the good news--the value of the new sectors that we currently don't include in our economic measurements have been valued by the UN at over $11 trillion dollars a year! So, not only is a new economic system possible--its vibrant! by Ann Kramer (21 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 62 comments) on Thursday, Sep 25, 2008 at 1:02:43 PM (0+)
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Reply: the brilliant essay belongs to Lisa Wise
when it crossed my mailbox, I was so impressed I immediately posted it to OpEdNews. I started reading Riane Eisler just this year - (little embarassed to admit that)... fantastic stuff. And I love the concept of partnerism. The book I own is "The Real Wealth of Nations." Funny tho - I came upon her when researching for a piece about sexism within the ranks... only later stumbled on her economic theory. Thank you, Ann, for the links... maybe you oughta do an article about her theory for the more economically challenged among us... ;-) by Rady Ananda (182 articles, 374 quicklinks, 49 diaries, 1718 comments [201 recommended, 2 rejected]) on Thursday, Sep 25, 2008 at 5:59:09 PM (0+)
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Stop Hyperinflation First, Don't Exacerbate it with Bailout
by Matoska (22 articles, 1 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 33 comments) on Thursday, Sep 25, 2008 at 1:46:48 PM (0+)
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Reply: your ideas sound good to me
lifting the penalties from early withdrawl, especially... by Rady Ananda (182 articles, 374 quicklinks, 49 diaries, 1718 comments [201 recommended, 2 rejected]) on Thursday, Sep 25, 2008 at 6:00:47 PM (0+)
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