excessive, consumption, environment, "voluntary simplicity", "sustainable living", population, elite, rich, oppression, poor, reduce, "too-simple economics", over-consumption, extinction, "rain forest", civilised, civilization, "end of the world", apocalypse, cars, meat, "food supplies", grain, minimum, "food intake", diet, vegetarian, vegan, no-cook, inequity, disparity, OECD, O.E.C.D., IMF, I.M.F., "structural adjustment", exploit, exploitation, "poverty line", "dropping out" "The net worth of the 358 richest people in the world now equals the combined income of the poorest 2.3 billion, who comprise 45 percent of the world's population." (UNDP Choices)

my World View:

my Personal Actions:

__ I believe the human race passed a comfortably sustainable population in about 1950, at 2.5 Bn, but now there's twice as many of us, and three times as many in very few decades, with a most influential minority using FAR too much. The middle- class and rich have the wrong goals (largely induced by advertis- ing), if the world is to remain as civilised as it was between ' 55 and ' 77 (not incl. Stalin/Amin).
____ The >1 Bn car-using, meat- eating destructive people (CuMeDs) will need to drastically reduce both their consumption and what they do! Doing too much, while there are too many people, should be reduced since this is the origin of most of our excess consumption. Job- and- income- sharing would be a major step in the right direction.

__ I have reduced my demands on the Earth to a bare minimum by spending US$850 p.a. TOTAL; including no more than US$450 a year, or $8.65 per week, on food (all of it bought at the super- market). I pay for my share of the rates on our mortgage- free house, and I walk or (occasionally) take the bus, e.g. to buy the groceries. I walk barefoot year- round (@ lat. 37, maritime), wearing thongs/jandals if the road is rough or my pack is heavy. I haven't thrown out clothes for a couple of decades, and I'm now gradually using up that capital investment.
____ I am now free, from the boss's pressure to produce more and from "keeping up with the Jones's"! It's not exactly a religious decision, but it's based on some of the same basic impulses.

I'm not recommending others do this, though I am saying it's possible.

Want a more authoritative opinion than the above?

Click here for a real expert's view of the future (Donella Meadows).

Our local paper Front Paged me, in 1992. Check it out?

Click, for article on the Environmental Backlash

Click here for minimum healthy eating (at under US$9/wk).

(Done, now, I think!)

Click BELOW for larger version
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The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at James Cook University, Townsville, Australia is acknowleged for receiving and processing the images. Permission from the Japanese Meteorological Agency is required and they are to be acknowleged for providing the raw data. (JMA Fax +81 3 3212 2453)

Click here for Green Co-Leader's maiden speech in the New Zealand Parliament.

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Please visit:

The Worldwatch Institute. Worldwatch is dedicated to fostering the evolution of an environmentally sustainable society, one in which human needs are met in ways that do not threaten the health of the natural environment or the prospects of future generations.

For an extract from a recent WorldWatch book, click Here

the Universal Basic Income is an idea whose time has come. See recent European developments, reported by Keith Rankin: an economic historian. [49 kB]

(last modified: Sun. 22^nd.June 1997. )