Hmmmm, I thought I had already shared the following comment here on this blog, but maybe I didn’t. Well, if it ends up being a duplicate, please pardon the repetition!
It was a comment I posted in the Deep Adaptation group. In the original post, I had shared the new paper by Degrowth leader Jason Hickel. Title, “How much growth is required to achieve good lives for all?”
Several of the more academically oriented members began critiquing various aspects of the paper, and of other relevant works. And citing hard numbers regarding temperature and emissions and so on.
One of the more active members, who I feel very in tune with, observed sadly that despite all the brilliant academic critique, no-one is actually doing degrowth, simple living, just transition, deep adaptation, or whatever we call it — perfectly. But that that is OK with her, and she thinks we just each need to do what makes sense for us, and keep reading, and connecting, and amplifying positive helpful ideas and people.
To which I responded:
For your benefit I am copying pasting a comment that I posted somewhere else that you may or may not have seen because there are multiple threads right now in multiple groups.
This comment was meant to address people who are upset about the lack of hard data, etc.
And also meant to assure those of us who are feeling a bit overwhelmed because we don’t know anyone who is doing this perfectly.
Hope this helps:
In the meantime, there are some people who are very quietly, voluntarily living at 10% of the average USA citizen’s footprint.
We may not be achieving that 10% perfectly all the time, but sometimes we are, and we never stop aiming. We do daily experiments on a household and community level and we share them. When we achieve a reduction, we keep aiming for further reductions.
(That is totally separate from the huge majority of the planet’s population who are already living INvoluntarily at that 10% or less footprint.)
If you want to be a part of the voluntary movement (which will also help create a good standard of living to be accessible to people worldwide), please check out the Riot for Austerity group.
Nobody is doing it perfectly. In fact, the notion of doing it perfectly is a pernicious artifact of capitalist colonizer culture. And it just keeps us stuck. It’s sort of like this myth of the “perfect ideal ecovillage.” We need to stop, and just be right here where we are and do it.
I saw a meme once, to the effect of, the planet doesn’t need one or a few people doing it perfectly; it needs millions of us doing it imperfectly.
Think of it as a huge laboratory. All of us have valuable input. Don’t get hung up on this idea that nobody is doing it perfectly. There is no such thing.
(If you want to read the whole thread, join the Deep Adaptation group on Facebook, and then do a search on “New paper by Jason Hickel. (Author of the books Less Is More; and The Divide.)” )