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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You cannot make this up. One of her 20 books is “A field guide to getting lost”. She obviously used her field guide for this article. Definitely got lost.
I’d like her and everyone else preaching the “climate crisis” bullshit to “get lost.”
Preferably on the north side of the border between the two Koreas.
Money in the banks and goods in the closet do not in any way exclude joy, beauty, friendship, community, nature, and good food produced without abuse of labor because we have big diesel powered combines.
Not only that it is much more likely that wealth, as it is conventionally understood is more conducive to joy etc. than is the lack of wealth.
I wonder if Bezos who owns the newspaper that has printed this drivel is aware that she is arguing for the destruction of the source of his fortune which is a business that sells to horrible goods to people.
Rebecca is just one of those who never have seen hardship let alone experienced it.
And Rebecca purports to be a writer or is a monk called something else in Green Land?
Monastic: She knows this dude that sits alone in his momma’s basement, naked and high on soap, dedicated to avoiding selling his soul for money like a common wage slave, reciting snippets of Hillary Clinton’s biography, interspersed with devotional mumblerap rhymes in honour of saint Gretha.
He’s not a monk, he just strives to live like one, hence, monastic?
Or maybe, just possibly, on the outside bet, she was hired for her rainbow credentials, instead of boring old ability?
From what I’ve seen, such people have very little contact with soap…
Perhaps Cilo meant bath salts?
What if she were to get help?
if i ever get rich enuf i promise to give it all up to live simply in a small house by the ocean . i’m thinking martha’s vineyard would be nice . and i’ll only get around on my solar powered e- bike and grow my own ( legal) weed ) . with only an occasional trip to costa rica or africa to be surrounded by primal nature . i don’t need to own things .
“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?”
No money? Then just who rations out what you need to live?
Those who’s job is so important that need a larger ration than you?
Abuse of labour? It is sinful to employ someone? Or is farming now reserved for international corporations that can afford robots to do all the work?
Or are we to let nature “flourish” where we once grew food?
Either way, there is not much place for humans in this libtarded girl’s world.
She probably thinks she’ll be one of the deserving survivors, poor little deluded darling…
I planted oats in a part of my garden Natural fertiliser, zero pesticides. The oats grew up nicely, but the bindweed fireweed dandelion and rats tails grew just as well. Net yield one plate of porridge.
Anyone who spouts the minimalist crap of Ms Solnit should try it. Mind you we do fairly well with Potatoes and runner beans and loads of tomatoes and cucumbers in the green house but its a middle class hobby and not a survival strategy. Our artichokes and wild garlic do just great too
Left to the resources of our quarter acre we would starve
OK crass consumerism is a bit of a folly that my parents would certainly have disapproved of.
There are higher values and we can all choose our path to happiness. But I am buggared if I will let crass green sneering hypocritical elites and aristocracies and high archbishops of the Church of Green dictate how I will achieve my Nirvana.
Anyway for all that monastical smugness the very survival of the monkish ascetes depended on some other bugger to fight off the Vikings who would otherwise pillage and rape the ascetic cloisters of holiness.
Ha, just beautiful, so very very beautiful.
Why: I don’t really need to say, just point out the obvious
It’s one of those things that is sooooo huge no-one can see it – yet its written all through the comments (30 so far) and so nicely demonstrated by the little black and white photo in the article itself.
Why its sooo big is that what we’re discussing is the story by Ms Solnit and what she’s proposing is very lovely and is a system that served us well for a very long time.
What’s she’s effectively saying is to ‘dis-invent money’
Fine. All work on a barter system and in some places that works to this day.
Where Ms Solnit doesn’t see is that she has entirely obviated the need for her profession and also for Government.
Is that OK hun, is that what you’re planning.
Fine by me and most fos round here, Government has now gotten Far Too Big.
Anyhow, A barter system requires that everyone produces something tangible, useful/valuable on a real day-to-day existence and, considering the perishable nature of food, over short distances.
See why money is needed: It ‘travels well’
That would work if there was plenty stuff to be had and as a lot of comments allude and the photo shows,:
That plenty stuff is: Food
I’ll let you fill in the gaps but in a nutshell:
Money HAD to be invented as it is a way of ‘escaping’ Soil Erosion
(soil erosion being effectively = a dearth of sufficient food both in quality as well as quantity)
So many comments about food (so far) = you all ‘know’ Soil Erosion but you don’t know it.
or do you and are denying it?
Soil Erosion is the monster coming over the hill and its cold breath is already being felt in 2 especial ways
So, Ms Solnit’s plan could work and in small little islands of population it still does work but for the whole planet, you have to stop then fix/repair soil erosion.
iow: You have to work out what’s causing things like this and this and then how to stop them happening
And stopping emitting carbon dioxide is actually a very significant start but:
Not From chimneys, flues and exhausts.
Those places are not where most of the CO2 came from and reducing (conventional) emissions is completely the wrong thing to do.
So Ms Solnit and before you go, pass the message along:
Stop. Burning. Soil.
See, it’s not about emissions or the climate, is it? Give up your worldly goods. Surrender to the visions of your rightful rulers.
Rebecca,
“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?”
Imagine John Lennon’s ghost slapping you on the side of your head and telling you to stop with the ‘imagine’ rip-off’.
Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can;
No need for greed or hunger, a brotherhood of man.
Imagine all the people sharing all the world.
I notice that of all the things Rebecca imagines herself doing, none of them involve actually producing anything. In her world, do people just give her things because she is such a wonderful person?
WHAT IF people like Rebecca Solnit could just live as they advocate and leave the rest of us alone? If it’s truly wonderful, they won’t have to coerce anybody.
I have to wonder if she burns her paycheck every week?
“Don’t worry. Be Happy!”
The problem is that in order to live in this wonderful world she imagines, she needs out of sight serfs to provide he with the things she needs to live, while perfecting herself.
Progressives will never ‘leave us alone’ since the productive would quickly flee from jurisdictions where the worst of their policies were implemented, while at the same time those same policies would attract the most unproductive elements from elsewhere. Hence, to avoid the immediate collapse of their regimes, full-blown progressivism, i.e., socialism, requires ‘all-in’ participation. Besides, based on recent history, they’re absolutely certain that they are winning.
What if climate was still a relative term that implicitly referred to differences experienced between adjacent arbitrary regions, instead of redistribution of wealth through authoritarian rule at the expense of the environment and genocide of the extreme poor?
“Impoverished communities, unaware of the errant, harmful ways in which they use natural resources, such as forest wood and soil, are continuing the destructive cycle that spirals the environment further downward.“.
From How Poverty Impacts the Environment
Basically she advocates the whole world to mimic the great environmental success of Haiti.
It’s really ironic that socialism is held out as some kind of savior for “the environment.” It always makes me recall the story i heard from a broker in my industry about being somewhere in Eastern Europe after the “Iron Curtain” came down, where the river going through the city had a head of foam on it a foot thick and the locals told him there hadn’t been fish in the river in 40 years.
That epitomizes the “environmental” record of socialist nations. They destroy wealth, in the absence of which nobody has the resources (pardon the pun) to give a shit about “the environment.”
In terms of useless luxuries, we would be far better served by getting rid of the Washington Post. It serves no useful purpose except as the mouthpiece of multi-billionaire Jeff Bezos.
Wealth means being isolated from the consequences of your decisions.
relative to Bill Gates wife … Bill apparently was not wealthy.
(wealth means freedom … freedom means nuthin left to lose … having stuff allows wealth)
So, Solnits headline was just click bait. Her idea of wealth is shallow as could be. I have had the benefit of creating wealth from scratch and have given much thought to the subject. My notion of wealth is this. part money, part health, part freedom, part knowledge and all choice. The aforementioned parts facilitate choice. The most choice = the most wealth. The most important part, in my view, is knowledge because this can be grown through education and is the main driver of the other parts. Also knowledge is a bottomless well.
In Rebecca’s case, knowledge appears to be a very shallow pool, perhaps even a puddle.
You will own nothing and be happy, or else. Eat bugs, peasants.
For some reason there seems to be a fascination with primitive lifestyles, and this has been going on for some time. And not just a fascination, but the erroneous notion that said lifestyle is somehow noble and far better than the modern technological lifestyle. Primitive peoples living off the land = good. Industrialized peoples = bad. This false dichotomy can be seen in the first Avatar movie, and in other media.
But it is nothing more than romanticism, as the trials and tribulation of pre-industrial peoples are ignored or glossed over. People think the Native Americans lived in paradise until the evil Europeans came along. While it is true that the colonists (and their descendants) did some awful things to the Native Americans, their lives were far from perfect. Like all non-industrialized peoples, they suffered from and died of diseases that are easily cured or at least can be managed today. They waged wars upon other tribes, and no doubt went hungry or even starved in hard times.
IMO people like this WaPoo writer have seen too many movies and have no knowledge of history! Or reality….
You don’t have to look at pre-industrialized peoples. Just look at those on the frontier of the West in the 1800’s. Look at the people living during the Dust Bowl.
Those people scrabbled for a living, died young, and lost children and adults to disease. It’s one of the reason why they had big families – so *some* would survive (along with having enough labor to work the homesteads).
“IMO people like this WaPoo writer have seen too many movies and have no knowledge of history! Or reality….”
My guess is that none of them has ever had blistered hands from hoeing a corn field. Or churning butter. Or cleaning out a stall in a barn. Or collecting acorns and making flour. Or just about anything.
Well Ms Solnit, don’t just tell us about this lifestyle, please show us. My ancestors
were early day pioneer homesteaders in the west and midwest.
. Both of my parents were raised on farms and’ I have an appreciation of what it took to survive the great depression I took a history class where I learned to do research
at a historical society. I read hours of old newspaper micro film. It was amazing how
many men were killed while using horses for work and transportation. I live in an area
of early day mining and there are a lot of cabin remains where these men lived
and worked. A good number froze to death in the winter. Ponys were used to
pull the ore carts. Once a pony went into a mine it never came out alive, it was
worked till it died then was dragged out by it’s replacement..The good ol days? Ha..
I’ve done my share of hand to mouth living, gardening raising locker meat and
disagree with Ms Solnit’s view based on experience.
“Once a pony went into a mine it never came out alive, it was
worked till it died then was dragged out by it’s replacement.”
And was probably thenused to feed the miners!
They didn’t waste anything in those times.
. The Calvary fed the troops horse meat,
they didn’t have any beef only horse meat.
The book Morrisons Feed and Feeding is based on the data from that
era. You have to find an early edition to find the issue with the horse
data,. Pre 1929 ish.
The remount program was a very big deal in its time. 20K
head per month came out of Montana between 1900-1930
and went to Kansas or Nebraska mostly.
I hereby declare that anyone who has too much monetary wealth and wants to become happier without it can simply give it to me. I will bear the burden of such an unhappy existence for you.
I grew up off grid, that was a lifestyle I have no wish to return to. But we did have bottle gas and Piped spring water so not medieval.
Due to climate we grew a lot of vegetables, but not a great variety. A Mediterranean diet was out of the question. Root vegetables and some years blackcurrants. Perhaps that’s why I rarely eat potatoes and carrots these days, As they appeared in meals a lot but I still eat a lot of onions.
The Post writer is revealing her economic ignorance.
Money is not wealth. Money is not consumed, it is a means of transcending the limitations of direct barter. It is a floating system of accounting and enables the negotiation of prices for what we consume.
That depends. In some cases “I love to dive around in it like a porpoise, and burrow through it like a gopher, and toss it up and let it hit me on the head!”