Discuss: 50 Simple Ways to Get Off

I don’t know grizzley; can people making poorly supported arguments only respond defensively when others point out that their objections have already been answered?

grizzley,

I address your point by directly quoting the article connected to this comment thread, and you say I protest too much? Puh-leeze yourself. I’d actually like to know what you think about “something vs nothing”. Please stop the “presumed experts” crap.

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Daniel,

Thank you for writing that so clearly. I would like to know what grizzley’s thinking about this, but I really am confused.

Further up the list of comments, ysmad has a good point. When we say “this is what I do best” might we not be saying “this is what I’m comfortable with and what nobody I know is challenging me to think beyond”, and not necessarily “this is the absolute best way I can think of using all the different gifts and motivations and experience I have in defense and support of the planet I live on and the particular landbase I am a part of.” I already practice and am comfortable with buying most of my food from local producers, not driving much, and looking for work that in some way supports the living communities around me. This is all good, but no part of that puts me out of my comfort zone. What gifts and motivations do I have that are being ignored or suppressed by the way I think about my options for action? How might I match, on a level appropriate to my own abilities, the boldness, if I may, of people who are turning the planet into a wasteland to make a buck?

“As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.”

Thoreau still works for me, as does the premise of your article. I have been fighting the good fight, and will never, ever, give up.  Simplify down to that thing or things that “gets you off”.  And then Do Something. 
Take control of something that moves you and help protect it, expand it, preserve it, grow it, nurture it, live it.
I have noticed that in life, there are those that do and those that do nothing.  Choose to do.
Great article!  Thanks for doing something

The emphasis on decolonizing one’s psyche is a crucial point. I am glad to see Jensen addressing a lot of the misfired critiques that have come his way.
Thoughts need to be dangerous, in that they challenge and provoke for positive change. However, his lines:

“and I want you to dig in and defend your beloved with your life, and, if necessary, with your death. I want for your actions to positively contribute to the health and defense of the planet. I want for you to figure out how to make it so the world—the real, physical world—is a better place because you were born, and because you lived here.”

sound far too reminiscent of how American soldiers have rationalized killing innocents in the middle east, all under the guise of ‘fighting for what you love, for the defense of your country…etc’. Calling people to fight to the death for what they believe in is the heart of fundamentalism. I understand what Jensen is saying, but he needs to be very very careful with those terms.

Anyway. I’d die for a blue whale.

I would love to do something; I’m more concerned about climate change than anything else.  But I have no idea what to do about it except to read, study about it and run my mouth to friends and kin… nothing does any good!

Whatever you do, don’t listen to the mainstream environmental groups - and I’m not just talking about WWF and Sierra Club; 350.org are culpable in this mess for telling people that “our political leaders” are the key to any solutions. The key is ourselves, and what we do to bring down the whole mess in as tidy a way as possible.

There is SO much anyone can do and no time to waste.  Stop buying, stop driving, take the bus, use your bike, (how many of us drive to workout?), downsize, turn off lights, think before you purchase, make your own, share with neighbors, plant a garden, write letters to the editor, do without, do with less, volunteer to rehab ecosystems, plant trees, volunteer in schools, teach children about nature, create collectives or cooperatives, share tools, make your own bread, invest in your community not wall street, insulate, buy used, STUDY PERMACULTURE and practice it.  Do everything you can think of, whatever you can think of, whenever you can - find folks to support you, keep doing it, don’t give up, join protests and marches and talk to your city council members, vote, learn conflict mediation and non-violent communication, sponsor films, attend films, help out in every way you can.  There are a million things to do every day and no excuse to get going.

Well said, Kelly!