"there’s no way to make a middle-class lifestyle sustainable, and if something can’t be made sustainable, it won’t be sustained. That doesn’t mean that we’re all going to move into cozy lifeboat ecovillages or any of the other green-painted Levittowns that fill so much space in so many environmental fantasies today. It means, rather, that in the decades ahead of us, something like half the US population, and smaller but still significant fractions of the popula- tion in other industrial nations, will wind up living in shantytowns without grid electricity, running water, or sewers; they will be caught up in a scramble for survival that many will inevitably lose. It means that most of the others will likely face a reduction in their standards of living to levels not too different from the one that the poorest in the industrial world experience today. It also means that
Why It Matters • 225
the rich of that time, if they’re smart, ruthless, and lucky, may be able to scrape together some of the luxuries a middle-class family can count on today, and may even be able to hold onto them for a while. Does the picture I’ve painted seem unbelievable? It’s simply the equivalent of saying that the world’s industrial nations will undergo the usual pattern of severe economic contraction that’s a normal part of the decline and fall of a civilization. What all this implies, in turn, is that those people who make the shift to a low-energy lifestyle in advance, before the sheer pressure of circumstances forces them to do so, will have options that are closed to those who cling to the unsustainable until it’s dragged out of their grip. Those who downshift hard, fast, and soon, cutting their dependence on fossil fuels and the goods and services that fossil fuels make avail- able, will have a much less difficult time paying off debts, finding the money to learn new skills, and navigating the challenging eco- nomic conditions of life in a near-bankrupt society. These are the kinds of steps that leave people in possession of a home, a garden, a career doing something people need or want badly enough to pay for even in a depression, and other desiderata of hard economic times. These are also the kinds of steps that make it easier for people to offer help to their families, friends, and neighbors, to teach vital skills to those who are willing to learn them, and preserve precious cultural legacies through the crises of the present to they can be handed on to the future."
From "Green Wizardry" by John Michael Greer
Why It Matters • 225
the rich of that time, if they’re smart, ruthless, and lucky, may be able to scrape together some of the luxuries a middle-class family can count on today, and may even be able to hold onto them for a while. Does the picture I’ve painted seem unbelievable? It’s simply the equivalent of saying that the world’s industrial nations will undergo the usual pattern of severe economic contraction that’s a normal part of the decline and fall of a civilization. What all this implies, in turn, is that those people who make the shift to a low-energy lifestyle in advance, before the sheer pressure of circumstances forces them to do so, will have options that are closed to those who cling to the unsustainable until it’s dragged out of their grip. Those who downshift hard, fast, and soon, cutting their dependence on fossil fuels and the goods and services that fossil fuels make avail- able, will have a much less difficult time paying off debts, finding the money to learn new skills, and navigating the challenging eco- nomic conditions of life in a near-bankrupt society. These are the kinds of steps that leave people in possession of a home, a garden, a career doing something people need or want badly enough to pay for even in a depression, and other desiderata of hard economic times. These are also the kinds of steps that make it easier for people to offer help to their families, friends, and neighbors, to teach vital skills to those who are willing to learn them, and preserve precious cultural legacies through the crises of the present to they can be handed on to the future."
From "Green Wizardry" by John Michael Greer
@Andrii
Well now that I'm thoroughly depressed about the future for my grandchildren and theirs, I'm gonna have a beer and eat some BBQ on the balcony and appreciate what I have now. Sheesh! 😜
@marathon0 why be depressed? The current society is broken, with people leading meaningless lives and self mutilating themselves as part of "woke" culture.
