Radical Simplicity By John Merkel
Radical Simplicity By John Merkel- www.radicalsimplicity.org/
www.radicalsimplicity.org/radical_simplicity_chapter_1.html
In Radical Simplicity, by Jim Merkel he talks about how we should be a society that takes into consideration how much it uses. He uses the analogy of being in a potluck buffet and you’re the first in line and hundreds behind you ready to eat. For most people they would be thinking that they should take just enough for them that way the people behind them will be able to get some food. He’s saying that people need to be thinking like this when it comes to the earth. From food to water to clothing be need to reevaluate our spending and determine if they’re wants of needs.
I found this reading to be very informative by raising stereotype of how Americas having all these advances with technologies and medicines, why can’t they learn to have a healthy sustainable society. He goes on to talk about how countries that are smaller than ours but have a bigger population can be more sustainable even though we have all these breakthroughs in technology? The reason being is that we do not use everything to its fullest potential. Merkel talked about how the Chumash people used everything to their fullest use or how they would utilize every resource from a tree without causing damage to the tree.
After reading the first chapter to Jim Merkel?s, Radical Simplicity, I agreed in his whole message about how much of our human society we waste, consume, and don’t think about the consequences of our actions to the earth. It’s amazing to see how much our society wastes and how societies such as the Chumash tribe has for 9,000 years used the land for only what they needed causing no irreparable damage to the Earth. I feel that, Yes, Americans are lazy and stuck with their cocky ego of how everyone wants to be more like us. It is time for use to learn from one another, Europe has had for year’s new methods for going greener and be more sustainable.
How do I try to do my part to be more sustainable? I usually ask myself how I can use something for more than just one reason, to see the multipurpose in ever resource that I or we use as a society. In class last week we discussed a “roof rising” where a gentleman installed a solar powered heating system. Its technology like this that can help make our society be more sustainable and it made me push towards making this a reality when it’s my turn after I graduate to promote this and hopefully have people jump onto the bandwagon.
My whole life my Father and Mother told me to respect people and to treat them the same way you would like to be treated. Why don’t we consider the Earth a human it gives life, takes care of us, and is our only home. We as a people need to realize this because like what Merkel says “Loving our limits can set the stage for our life. As we recognize that we only have one Earth-Which has finite capacity to support life-becoming comfortable with limits will open our minds and hearts for the work of taming the appetite” (Merkel, 16).
frog4444 said,
October 5, 2009 at 7:38 pm
Here is two websites that you might be interested in, http://greenlivingideas.com/ and http://365daysoftrash.blogspot.com/#
sbotelho2 said,
October 6, 2009 at 10:23 pm
This is interesting. The fact that we have all this technology but we haven’t found a way, or even tried, to use it to our green advantage. We spend so much research on developing a new cell phone that does everything or creating computers that are tiny, but what about the technology that can benefit our world. I’ve seen very little.
And the sad truth is we do waste so much! You ca easily create second, third and etc. uses of a product, but many people are too lazy to do so. Instead they throw things out because they feel that is easier.
You’re definitely right about us treating the earth like it’s a playground and not respecting it. Until we do respect it we can’t expect much back.
frog4444 said,
October 12, 2009 at 10:23 pm
I agree we have become a throw away society and so everything is manufactured to be used once and tossed without thinking of the conquences.
I can see within my life time how things have become disposable, when I was younger toys was made to be passed down again and again and now it breaks easily to spur our consumerism to buy more.
When I think of a cultural group that has always been sustainable, I always think of the native americans and the way they used every part of the buffalo for clothing, shelter, and food, and then we came along and slaughtered the buffalo just for the hides and sport and wasted the rest.
Sustainability is hard for the general population to comprehend because our industrialized world has brainwashed them into spending more whether they buy a product that last one month or ten years. A vicious cycle that will be hard to break.