Stop Shopping … or the Planet Will Go Pop

[Pharaoh]

I think capitalism is patently unable to go on growing the size of the consumer economy for any more people in the world today because levels of consumption are already undermining life support systems on which we depend - so if we do it for any more people, the planet will go pop,’ Porritt told The Observer. ‘So in a way we don’t have a choice about this: we’ve got to rethink the basic premise behind capitalism to make it deliver the goods. In the long run, when you really look at what happens on a planet with nine billion people and really serious constraints on the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that we can emit, it’s almost inevitable we will learn to have more elegant, satisfying lives, consuming less. I can’t see any way out of that in the long run.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/08/387/

:dem: :dem: :dem:

[Kolesar]

1. We need to find meaning in our lives without careless consumption

Hanging with some cool people, cranking some tunes, yeah baby!

[Double T]

2. Live small and prosper

[Dhalgren]

3. That is a slogan I could get behind.

"Stop Shopping!" Do not buy anything that is not a necessity. Put the breaks on this stupidity we call our "economy" and start having a life - not a lifestyle. I think that it was Horace who said, "A bowl for your soup, a cup for your wine, and a bench beside the fire." We need to take back our lives; the Matrix is not just a silly Keanu Reeves movie, there is actually a message there...

[RedEarth]

4. I agree.........

Consumerism is out of control in the US and I would guess in some other industrialized countries as well. Bigger houses, bigger closets, bigger bath rooms, bigger cars, more appliances, bigger TVs, more this, more that, more stuff. In fact so much stuff, people have to rent mini-storage units just to put their stuff in.

[The2ndWheel]

6. So we broke the cycle?

We could've gone with max-storage.

Mini-storage, but it's technically more space, but we don't call it that, since if we did, we'd just have a little more space to fill, but all we're doing is creating more space in the house for more stuff, but at least we have a little more space somewhere outside the house for the stuff that we're trying to create more space in the house for.

[bryant69]

5. More elegant satisfying lives?

That is putting a good face on "Look you are going to have to get used to having a lot less than previous generations. Less space, less food, less privacy, less individuality, less of everything."

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[lectrobyte]

7. That's a noble thought, but I don't think anything will change until

we're forced to change, whether by peak oil, peak water, environmental collapse, or some other force.