Essay by Eric Worrall
h/t ethical voter, David Pentland; “… What if we imagined “wealth” consisting not of the money we stuff into banks or the fossil fuel-derived goods we pile up, but of joy, beauty, friendship, community, closeness … “
Opinion What if climate change meant not doom — but abundance?
By Rebecca Solnit
March 15, 2023 at 6:00 a.m. EDTRebecca Solnit, a writer and historian, is the author of more than 20 books and co-editor of the anthology “Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story From Despair to Possibility,” publishing in April.
A monastic once told me renunciation can be great if it means giving up things that make you miserable.
This vision, I think, is what has been missing when we talk about the climate crisis — and how we should respond to it.
Much of the reluctance to do what climate change requires comes from the assumption that it means trading abundance for austerity, and trading all our stuff and conveniences for less stuff, less convenience. But what if it meant giving up things we’re well rid of, from deadly emissions to nagging feelings of doom and complicity in destruction? What if the austerity is how we live now — and the abundance could be what is to come?
…
What if we imagined “wealth” consisting not of the money we stuff into banks or the fossil fuel-derived goods we pile up, but of joy, beauty, friendship, community, closeness to flourishing nature, to good food produced without abuse of labor? What if we were to think of wealth as security in our environments and societies, and as confidence in a viable future?
…
For so many of us, being busy with work has leached away our capacity to pursue true riches. What if we were to prioritize reclaiming our time— to fret less about getting and spending — and instead “spend” this precious resource on creative pursuits, on adventure and learning, on building stronger societies and being better citizens, on caring for the people (and other species and places) we love, on taking care of ourselves?
…
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/03/15/rebecca-solnit-climate-change-wealth-abundance/
Anyone who bothers to open a history book already knows what time wealth without money wealth looks like.
There is nothing romantic about trying to grow your own food with hand tools, without the assistance of modern fossil fuel powered technology, sprays and fertilisers.
The horror of 9/11 shocked the entire world. It also has a very personal impact on me, my business went into deep freeze for an entire year.
In 2002 I planted a large vegetable garden, to try to stretch my savings.
I had lots of “time wealth”, but very little money wealth.
My efforts with the vegetable garden made a difference. Those veggies I grew in 2002 saved my family from financial ruin, they helped us stretch our savings just enough, to bridge the year long post 9/11 gap in our income.
But after the economy started thawing, I was very glad to get back to making money, instead of enjoying that endless “time wealth” of growing vegetables by hand.
I’m not dissing people who enjoy growing their own food. I enjoy growing food, every year I make bottles of delicious lime cordial from my own garden. But if my fruit trees fail to produce, as they do some years, money wealth means I can buy limes and mandarins and whatever else I need from the supermarket. Money wealth is food security and peace of mind.
So my answer to anyone who tries to romanticise being close to nature is try it out – not for a day or two, or a weekend camping trip with nylon tents and airbeds and tinned food and bug spray and propane cookers and heaters. Try living that way for a year.
Anyone who makes the attempt to live the lifestyle green romantics like Rebecca Solnit advocate, will learn very quickly that nature is a harsh place full of biting, stinging insects, and snails and slugs and caterpillars and grubs which try to eat all your crops. They will also come to appreciate why thousands of generations of our ancestors devoted their lives to leaving future generations a better world than the primitive subsistence world they inherited.
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Let them eat bugs.
For the most part, those who support socialism have been unsuccessful in life. It’s hardly surprising that they now want to change the definition of success in order to hide this fact from themselves.
Men who espouse Socialism are almost always low-testosterone beta males. It assuages their feelings of inadequacy.
Subsistence living…hmmm. Not as romantic as it sounds. Nature is a cruel mistress.
But you will be happier.
And if you aren’t happier, then you will have a talk with your assigned political officer.
Actually, suppressing normal energy supplies does not reduce one to subsistence, but to non-subsistence … ie starving in the dark. The people who are most hurt by expensive. limited supply energy are the poorest among us who cannot afford to put a roof over their head, food on the table, educate their children.
It’s the feudal model. Starving serfs feeding the nobility while living short, nasty lives.
“and instead “spend” this precious resource on creative pursuits, on adventure and learning,”
I think this naive woke servant is on the threshold of a much greater awakening in a year or two’s time! Ordinary folk in UK, Germany and France are getting the drift of what has been planned for them. The likes of this Wapo reporter will be the last to get it.
“What if climate change meant not doom — but abundance?’’
It probably does!!!
probably???
A warmer world is a greener world. On the other hand, “climate change” can mean anything and always means something bad.
And is always the fault of humans.
The way they mean it, “climate change” has many meanings, most of them in direct contradiction of others, and all of which in their fever dreams are “bad” and caused by the secular “sins” of using fossil fuels, the “apple that tempted Eve” in their “religion.”
More atmospheric CO2 and a further slight rise in global temperatures..
YES ! the world will become more abundant !
(so long as leftist anti-CO2 policies don’t destroy it first)
“veggies I grew in 2002 saved my family from financial ruin, they helped us stretch our savings just enough, to bridge the year long post 9/11 gap in our income.”
Quoted excerpt is an example of how one special person’s situation might allow events that don’t apply to other people. I would need a backhoe to clear blacktop for a veggie garden.
Expected response: You could if… [lah] … like I did.
Prebaked counter response: That’s my whole point.
When I grow veggies I do it to have good veggies.
I know it costs more in time & money to grow my own than it does to buy at the store.
That wasn’t my experience. Packets of seeds, a few pieces of bamboo, a roll of cotton string, some cheap chemical fertiliser pellets and a couple of bottles of bug spray are cheaper than spending £30 / week on vegetables. I was unemployed so I had plenty of time.
I raised a large family on a 45 acre mixed farm- sizeable market garden, dairy cow (and calves), sheep, few pigs, chickens, ducks, geese, to feed them and supplement other earnings.
“supplement other earnings”
I think these are the operable words in your post.
Definitely more time, generally not more money, especially if you grow from seed.
You CAN spend a lot but it’s not necessary if you have ground you can plant in. If you don’t then it gets difficult.
Appreciating and finding joy in the beauty of nature is only possible when your stomach is full and your home is warm and comfortable. In other words, when you have enough wealth, the kind comes from a fossil fueled economy. And you can bet that Rebecca Solnit herself won’t be a part of the “poor but happy” throng, the elite always excuse themselves from the utopia they plan for the common folk.
Good for you and your vegetable garden, Eric. When we moved to Oregon, my twin brother and I as 6 year olds, our father started a large vegetable garden, as a hedge against a bad economy. Each of us 3 kids were assigned a sector of the garden and given help to choose some seeds and plant them. The real bonus of this was twofold: the lesson about being prepared has stuck with me to this day, and the deer that tried to eat the vegetables provided great venison.
Were the vegetables click bait?
I bet she has no solar panels on her roof, the usual hypocrite climate alarmist.
I bet she still has a connection to grid power, central heating, and an automobile. Solar panels or no, still the usual hypocrite climate alarmist.
Chinese proverb (modified): No food on table… ONE big problem.
Plenty food on table… many little problems.
“Anyone who makes the attempt to live the lifestyle green romantics like Rebecca Solnit advocate, will learn very quickly that nature is a harsh place full of biting, stinging insects, and snails and slugs and caterpillars and grubs which try to eat all your crops.”
Don’t forget the hail storms that take out *everything*. Don’t forget the rainstorms that wash out half of what you have planted. Don’t forget the month of no rain before harvest leaving nothing to harvest. Don’t forget the raccoons and deer that come in and break over each and every corn stalk just to eat a couple of bites out of each ear the week before you were going to pick the corn! Don’t forget the irrigation costs, especially if so many start doing this that the government will restrict your usage and you have to haul purchased water in a large tank (do you have a pickup or wagon to carry a 300 gal water tank?)
“ reclaiming our time— to fret less about getting and spending”
Most of these greenies have *no* idea of what they are talking about. Getting your food will eat up *ALL* your time. You’ll have no time for … “ joy, beauty, friendship, community, closeness to flourishing nature, to good food produced without abuse of labor?”
My forefathers here on the Great Plains didn’t worry about “spending” or “wealth”. They worried about food for January and they lived short lives.
Seems like their ought to be a commune in Venezuela she can join..
Don’t forget the hail storms that take out *everything*. Don’t forget the rainstorms that wash out half of what you have planted.
That describes 2019 and 2020 for me. Hail in June 2019 killed over 80% of what I had planted, and 2020 I lost about as much to flooding.
So says the oligarch-owned media trumpeter.
I renounce wokism and climate alarmunism.
By Gum! It does make me feel better!
A monastic once told me renunciation can be great if it means giving up things that make you miserable.
I renounce freezing spring weather & embrace the idea of a potential for more warm mornings & tan feet.
(I don’t feel any better, because I’m pretty sure the only way I can be sure of climate change for the better (warmer) is to move south.)
That i pissing in teh chalice of green Good on Ya
This is a fine idea if done on a personal basis. The problems start when “others” start to tell you how and what you must do to achieve this nirvana. My comfort items may be abhorant to others. Stalemate.
What if the extra CO2 our emissions are producing was the greatest symbiotic gift humans ever gave nature? The greening of the planet attributed to those emissions are strong evidence in support of this idea.
Fossil fuels and innovation have produced more abundance of everything. This is not mutually exclusive to the values of “joy, beauty, friendship, community, closeness to flourishing nature, good food”
““joy, beauty, friendship, community, closeness to flourishing nature, good food””
All the things the far-left strives to destroy !
And where is the mention of “freedom” ?
The left hates freedom because they would have to think for themselves. Something they appear to be incapable of doing.
Yeah, just imagine life under Communism. Money is for the bourgeoisie.
What if we imagined “wealth” consisting not of the money we stuff into banks or the fossil fuel-derived goods we pile up, but of joy, beauty, friendship, community, closeness to flourishing nature, to good food produced without abuse of labor? What if we were to think of wealth as security in our environments and societies, and as confidence in a viable future?
What if ‘we’ decide, each for ourselves, what this ‘wealth’ stuff is, and how satisfied ‘we’ are with our achievements and possessions, our goals and strivings, our circles of friends and acquaintances, our local and distant governments, and all the self-appointed knowitalls who propose to usurp those definitions with glittering phrases of THEIR devising from their spectator seats?
“closeness to flourishing nature”?
Aren’t these the same people who want to cram everyone into mega cities?
…leaving the weeds to grow, sorry, nature to flourish, while humans retract into a Hive. Goodness knows who, what and how external resources will be gathered in the libtard dream.
Have you considered the probable theology of a hive?
Theology of a hive? Watch the movies Priest or Judge Dredd sometime. The religion is “The Law of the Jungle”. The strong survive, the rest get eaten.
Well, talking out of both sides of their mouths isn’t exactly a new thing.
Maybe that “closeness to nature” means what you can see from your high rise tenement window with binoculars./sarc
“But what if it meant giving up things we’re well rid of, from deadly emissions to nagging feelings of doom and complicity in destruction?”
What if someone tries to send me on a guilt trip? I don’t have to get on the bus. Keep those nagging feelings of doom to yourself, and LEAVE ME ALONE!
Relax Rebecca!
There ARE no “deadly emissions”; the CO2 from which you cower is a boom to the nature you treasure.
Thus “feelings of doom and complicity in destruction” are foolish fantasies!
First thought that popped into my mind when I read that twaddle.
Maybe she and everyone who thinks like her should shut up and stop breathing, since 20,000ppm of “deadly emissions” are spewing for from their respiratory systems with each word and breath.
‘What if we imagined “wealth” consisting not of the money we stuff into banks…’
Becky may be on verge of getting her wish granted because ‘modern’ fractional reserve banking is inherently unstable in a rising rate environment due to the duration mismatch between bank liabilities (very low duration deposits) and bank assets (much higher duration loans and government bonds). Governments and their central banks may be able to (literally) print their way out of the current crisis, but ultimately, a major collapse is inevitable.
The simple truth is, a stable monetary system can only exist where ‘claim’ and ‘credit’ transactions are separated: A bank engaged in claim transactions solely takes and safeguards deposits for a fee and issues claim certificates (e.g., banknotes) that can also be used as money by the depositor. Alternatively, a bank engaged in credit transactions solely arranges for fixed-term loans between savers and borrowers.
Unlike under the current system, deposit bankers who lose deposits by lending them out for interest can be prosecuted for fraud, while losses on bad loans are strictly incurred by, and limited to, the lenders themselves. As a result, the security and stability of both types of banking activity will be self-regulating via the careful attention of the depositors and lenders themselves.
On the ‘downside’, depositors may no longer receive free toasters for deposits, and borrowers will have to pay sufficient interest and/or offer sufficient collateral to attract lenders. However, on the ‘upside’, we can probably do away with a huge portion of the regulatory state, and can also finally begin to ignore idiots like Liz Warren. And therein lies the problem; the current system exists mainly to finance the expansion of government power.
the current system exists mainly to expand the power of finance in government.
There, fixed it for ya!
Fractional reserve banking and the State have a symbiotic relationship:
The banks are granted a monopoly on the creation of money, which they lend out at a profit (when they’re not blowing up). In turn, the State benefits from having a ready purchaser of its debt, which allows the State to expand beyond the limits of what it could achieve under either direct taxation or borrowing from non-bank entities.
Both are parasitic upon the real economy, which is why the system has to be maintained by force, e.g., legal tender laws, regulation, etc., to prevent it from collapsing, which will eventually happen when the currency is completely debased.
SVB’s major problem was investing in government bonds, especially long term ones. The government controls the value of those bonds and government doesn’t really care what the value of those bonds become. When big spenders like the Democrats cause major inflation, which in turn causes a rise in interest rates, the government bonds the bonds lose value big time. If those are assets banks use as “cash” they are in big trouble. That’s where we are today. We haven’t seen the end of this. It could take two years or more to work through this inflation, high interest rates, and low-value government bonds. Who knows how many banks are going to have problems during that period.
I suspect all of them.
We haven’t seen the end of the bailouts.
All true. Ironically, compared to the faux tipping points of the CAGW narrative, there actually are real ‘positive’ feedbacks in fractional reserve banking, e.g., big government, more spending, more regulation, more debt, more inflation, etc.
Once again the socialists have to change the meaning of words in order to hide the fact that they are making everyone poorer.
Beyond that, how does making everyone freeze in the dark, supposed to make them happy?
You will own nothing……… even the straw hat and the stalk of grain you place between your teeth will be shared. Paradise.
Rebecca is full of $hit.
Rebecca doesn’t live in the real world.
Imagine the power of “what if..”
An eighth grader could suggest any conclusion they desired if they postulate their favorite “what if..” as their premise.
But to feature such nonsense in a supposed “reputable” newspaper?!?
Hasn’t “reputable newspaper” pretty much become an oxymoron at this point?
It never ceases to amaze me how many different non scientific tangents the alarmists can come up with to ‘prove’ AGW is the devil reincarnate.
Hmm, I wonder what Bill Gates would say.
“Much of the reluctance to do what climate change requires comes from the assumption that it means trading abundance for austerity”
“Climate Change” does not (cannot) require anything. All reactions to it are optional. Some are prudent. The policies that try to fix it are based on error and are wasteful, harmful, and useless to accomplish their goal. If this author would recognize this fact, she would realize the best path to pursuit of her higher goals would be to ignore “Climate Change”.
You go first Rebecca and let us all know how your fantasy turned out.