Discuss: The Gospel of Consumption

A very nice article.  I forwarded it onto my pastor, as he had inspired us several years ago with his Simplicity 101 sermon series.

The Kellogg example was new and interesting.

Keep it up!

The situation in America looks bleak especially when you factor in race, class and cultural differences.  The question is how to get everyone on the same page?  America no longer produces tangible items since most of our manafacturing industry has been outsource abroad. We produce information and services which in my opinion, don’t require longer work weeks especially in this age of computer technology.  We should be working from home!

My solution to this problem
we are having right now is for
all people to stop wasting resources.
I say a national energy emergency
needs to be declared period.

That would reduce the demand
and the cost would have to drop.

All these electronic gadgets
need to be disconnected.
All this cable stuff needs to be
shut down.

We have way to many people who
are greedy,and are just gluttons
when it comes to energy usage.
Poor people of all races don’t have
enough as it is.
So there is no way they are unable
to keep up with the people who
have more resources $$$ than
them.
Look what happen when katrina hit ?
The people who had more money and
resources left town in hurry.
The poor people got left behind.
It’s time to stop the madness
I think.
That is just one area that needs
some major adjustment now.
Peace

e48ovD hi! hice site!

Dear Wayne,

You report,

“Vaclav Havel never did choose to stand up and pull the ’stop’ cord on the train!”

But, Wayne, the colossal train is adding cars and accelerating its speed as it proceeds down the track. There is no engineer on the train. Everyone has gone below to stoke the furnace so that the train goes faster and faster. Where it will stop, or how, nobody knows. Conventional wisdom indicates the track is clear ahead and without an endpoint. Widely shared and consensually validated thinking assures everyone on board this train that we can add more and more cars to the train and continuously stoke its furnace with fossil fuels so that the train can keep going at an increasing speed as long as we have fuel to keep the train going. There are no limits to the speed the train can achieve, no limits to the number of cars the engine can pull, and no end to the railroad track. Everything is going as planned and will continue without interruption indefinitely.

Wayne, if this train is a metaphor for the ever manmade global political economy, could you help us understand how magical thinking, arrogance, pyramid-type schemes and greed are governing the seemingly endless growth of the global economy and how the unbridled increase of the leviathan-like global economy cannot be sustained much longer by a relatively small, evidently finite, noticeably frangible planet with the size and make-up of Earth?

And what of the ’stop’ cord on the train, Wayne? I can see it, but cannot yet see how pulling it will do any good because there is no engineer in control. Do you think Vaclav Havel could see that the engine room must have been empty for a long time?

Sincerely,

Steve

Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population, established 2001

Excellent article whose message needs to be continually heard. wonder sometimes how consumers who butt against logic (buying gas guzzlers like large SUVs at a time when global warming is devastating our earth and United States) can be so narrow minded about the obvious disaster.

Dan http://www.supergassavers.net

It is a strange experience to realize (again and again and again) that our society’s misfortunes can be attributed to the greed of a few and how far-reaching a handful of events, conversations, meetings, etc. can be in establishing a widespread, mostly-unquestioned paradigm. Kudos to the author for presenting this information in an approachable manner that will hopefully encourage a few of us hamsters to question the wheel and, perhaps, begin devising a way to step outside of the cage.

I think now is the time to destuff
as much as possible and reduce
your carbon footprint as much
as possible.
It would help in the long run