The unchecked striving for more, for endless growth, is a dysfunction and a disease. It is the same dysfunction the cancerous cell manifests, whose only goal is to multiply itself, unaware that it is bringing about its own destruction by destroying the organism of which it is a part.

I say that’s not sustainable. How could it be? How can we possibly expect infinite growth?

But aside from growth being unsustainable in the long run, this mindset can have negative short-term effects.

For example, look at baby formula.  Formula is a good thing when it’s used as originally intended. Without modern baby formulas, babies who can’t breastfeed, for whatever reason, might die or grow up significantly less healthy.

However, baby formula companies haven’t been content to just provide the formula as a resource for those who need it.  From a business point of view, the companies think they need to get more and more people to buy formula, so that their businesses will grow.

As a result, formula is marketed to people who may not really need it.  In the U.S., we now have disclaimers on formula ads saying that “breastfeeding is best.” But in many less wealthy countries, women are still led to believe that formula will somehow be better for their babies, and so they don’t breastfeed, and the babies don’t get the benefits of breastfeeding. And sometimes they use contaminated water to mix formula, and babies die. Or they over-dilute the formula to save money, and babies end up malnourished.

Is there a better way? I wish corporations could be counted on to just do the right thing.  Perhaps shareholders could put some pressure on the formula companies and let them know that constant growth really isn’t necessary in those products.

But meanwhile, you can also donate to organizations that promote breastfeeding around the world:

MercyCorps originally drew my attention to this topic with an appearance on Live at 7, in which they talked about promoting breastfeeding in Indonesia. They’re not currently offering a breastfeeding Mercy Kit, but they’d be a great target for donations.

The International Baby Food Action Network “consists of public interest groups working around the world to reduce infant and young child morbidity and mortality,” and breastfeeding is a big part of that. IBFAN is one of the core partners in the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action.

UNICEF works through its Infant and Young Child Feeding programme area to promote breastfeeding at national, health system, and community levels.

That’s highly debatable. It could be that it’s really not working. It could be that the federal stimulus is keeping things from being much, much worse. I’m not sure how you’d measure that.

Regardless of this argument, what is clear to me is that we have to start looking beyond the paradigm of jobs and consumerism. Our current economic system is not sustainable. It’s based on people making more money and buying more stuff, and given our limited resources, that can’t go on forever.

It’s also obviously not working, when the top one percent of earners in the U.S. are receiving 20 percent of all income, controlling 33 percent of the country’s wealth, and paying a smaller percentage of their income in taxes than many in the middle class.

So what’s going to happen? Although I think taking care of people without jobs is the right idea, having the government pour more money into it may not be the right answer.

My husband likes to give a radical answer: Abolish money, and everyone will be forced to take care of each other. Simple and drastic, but I don’t see it happening.

I think that’s part of it, though. Here’s what I think we need:

1. Downshift. Realize that we don’t need so much stuff, and that we can’t base our economy on the stuff. We have to lower our expectations of how we should live and simplify.

2. Community. Yes, we do need to take care of each other, and it’s probably best done on the local level. We can share in making sure everyone has food, clothing, shelter and more — companionship, entertainment, education, etc.

3. Get off the fossil fuels. Not sustainable. Enough said.

This isn’t going to be easy. We will have to either deliberately make sacrifices and change the way we live, or be forced into it by our own actions. Either way will be difficult, and perhaps dangerous. The old ways and old jobs will continue to disappear, and this will hurt. But if we dedicate ourselves to taking care of each other, it will work out. Our lives just won’t be the same as they are today.

President George H.W. Bush once said “The American way of life is not negotiable.”  Well, Mr. Bush, it turns out that the American way of life is not sustainable. It’s time to negotiate for our lives.

RESOURCES

Co-op Villages: The Next Evolution (free PDF book download)

The Simple Living Network

Appropedia: The Sustainability Wiki

Xtracycle

Bicycle-related posts on TechnoEarthMama

Sustainability-related posts on TechnoEarthmama

I also know of several negative issues that lead me not to shop at Wal-Mart. Some of my reasons are personal, and some are more global.

Wal-Mart isn’t very close to where I live. The closest one is 5.3 miles away by car or bike. That’s further than I normally go to shop. I tend to stay within a mile or two of home.

Being inside a Wal-Mart store makes me crazy. They’re crowded, the shelves and excess merchandise tower over you, and the merchandise is often misplaced.  The noise level is high, and the lines are long — even in the express lanes.

Wal-Mart doesn’t pay employees enough. There’s some controversy about this. People in some positions say they are getting paid enough. Others think it’s OK, because these jobs are often filled by students, retirees, and other part-timers anyway.  I do think people deserve to be paid a living wage, but I’m not sure any more how to judge Wal-Mart in this area.  Wal-Mart’s average hourly wage for U.S. workers in 2008 was $10.86.

Wal-Mart sells things too cheaply. What? That’s a problem? But Wal-Mart is providing a service to the community by keeping their prices low.  NO. Sorry. There are several things wrong with this.  How do they get the prices so low? By underpaying employees, by squeezing their suppliers (who are then forced to cut their costs somehow), and by selling merchandise that’s made in other countries where manufacturing and labor are cheaper (even cheaper than Wal-Mart wages).

I’m not OK with getting lower prices on the backs of other people.  Also, people in the U.S. have now gotten the impression that we should always get the lowest possible prices on everything, and that we deserve to have things that are really luxury items at lower prices too.  Remember when some people couldn’t afford TV’s, VCR’s, and video game systems? These things are now almost considered a human right in the U.S.  Give us the lower prices, environment, salaries and human rights be damned! And meanwhile people wonder where all of the good manufacturing jobs have gone.

With all that said, I’m still shopping occasionally at Target (which is closer) for the things I need. Mostly little things, like contact lens solution and laundry detergent.  Because they’re cheaper at Target. I’m told that Target is possibly more unpleasant than Wal-Mart as an employer.  Hypocritical? Yeah. Alternative? I don’t know, is Fred Meyer any better?

SOURCES

Frugality should be a way of life, not something that we do only in case of emergency.  Oh, sure, there are times when we move to frugality extreme (dry beans and powdered milk all week because you had to pay the heating bill from the Snowpocalypse, anyone?  Or is that just me?).

But signs are pointing to this being more than just a recession.  Even if the economy does pick up a little due to governmental stimulus programs, the way we run the economy now just isn’t sustainable.  It’s all built on the ideas that growth is good, and that spending money on stuff is good.  It should be perfectly obvious to everyone that you can’t have infinite growth with a finite supply of resources, but we keep sticking our fingers in our ears and singing the consumerism song.

So I don’t want to hear about clipping coupons, making your own coffee, or keeping your tires inflated any more.  I want to hear about real change: about local economies that work, about communities where people are living, working and eating together, and about steady instead of growth.  I want to hear about people who are making lifestyle changes for good, not just until the economy picks up again.

The news yesterday and today says that Oregon has an $800 million shortfall in this year’s budget, which has to be balanced before the legislature can work on and approve the next budget.  Apparently the state says there will be cuts across the board, in every agency, but of course the cuts people are worried about come in education, law enforcement, and human services.

Some people are asking whether we can make cuts in other areas instead.  Maybe.  I have a hard time matching the budget information on the state’s website with what I’m hearing in the news, but it looks to me like 16-18 percent of the budget goes into administration.  Could that stand a few more cuts?  Maybe. What about natural resources and state parks, instead of schools?  Tough choice.

One result of these budget cuts could be a shorter school year in some districts.  Cutting the school year short by two weeks means that the district doesn’t have to pay employees for those two weeks, cutting a huge chunk of cash in one fell swoop.

This makes me think of Laura Ingalls Wilder.  If you’ve read her books, you’ll remember that she became a teacher at age 16.  Her first job lasted just two months, because a two months’ school was all the homeowners in that district could afford.

Is that where we find ourselves now?  We, the taxpayers, will just have to settle for what we can afford?  And remember, in Laura’s town they also didn’t have parks, or a rec center, and law enforcement was probably fairly minimal.  We’ve gotten used to having government provide many things that they didn’t have then.

It’s difficult to choose, but just like when we budget for our families, we have to budget for the essentials first.  The tricky part is figuring out what those essentials are.

DISCLOSURE: I work in a public school.  Our superintendent says our district should be OK for this year, but if the school year were cut, it would financially impact me and my family.

But gardening is part of our family’s food plan, and should be a big part of our society’s food plan.  Some people are calling for the return of the Victory Garden.  Whatever you call it, we need it.

One question often asked is “Is it worth it?”  After all, you can spend a lot of money gardening, not even taking your time into account.  Seeds, tools, raised beds, soil amendments, plant starts, and fertilizer can all cost money.  But really, many of these can be one time or once in a while expenses.  Once you get started, you can save your own seeds, make your own compost, and start your own seedlings in late winter.

And then you’ll spend time digging, planting, weeding, watering, and harvesting.  If you compare it all with grocery store prices, you may decide it’s not worth it.

But what if we value our home-grown and home-preserved food differently?  Here’s what Rick Saenz of Dry Creek Chronicles has to say:

If by that question I mean, “Was it cost effective?”, then the answer is No. Just no. I can buy one hundred eighty quarts of canned tomatoes at Sam’s for about one hundred and eighty dollars, and it would have been much easier and quicker to earn one hundred and eighty dollars than to can those tomatoes.

Oops.  That doesn’t sound very frugal in “time is money” terms.

Many people say that it’s worth it because the food is healthier.  You get better nutrition and fewer pesticides (assuming you garden organically).  You know what you’re feeding your household, because you grew it.  It’s also worth it as a personal achievement.  It feels good to produce something, and to be more self sufficient.

Saenz says it’s more than this.  He says that we need to move from a cash-based economy, where time is money, and we have to earn cash to pay for the things we need, to a subsistence-based economy, in which we can produce the things we need ourselves, either as a family or as a community.

That sounds like a viable future to me.

Even if we can’t grow everything we need at our own house, we can still find ways to be independent of cash.  Maybe I can’t have chickens, but I could grow some broccoli and trade for eggs.  Or maybe I could do some sewing in exchange.  I could even barter copy-writing for things that we need.

Some people don’t have land for growing food.  Community gardens and bartering can help with this, but apartment and condo-dwellers could also make arrangements to share someone else’s land — perhaps planting a garden in someone’s backyard, and in exchange, giving the homeowner a share of the produce (people in the UK are already doing this).

Once again, it’s all about getting local.  What can you do in your community to help these things happen?

No Impact Man wrote about “The Tom Sawyer Approach to Saving the World.”

To change people’s values, so the shrinks say, you change their behavior. You don’t barrage them with ideas and cause information overload. You don’t tell them their existing values are wrong and get their backs up.

What you do is you get them to change their behavior and, once you’ve done that, you let their ideas and values change all by themselves. “What a great idea we’ve come up with,” they’ll say.

Basically, you get them to join you in doing something, and then once they start doing it, they realize the value of it.  So, can you invite someone to join you on a food adventure?  Maybe you could invite just one person to share a meal with you, made from your own garden produce.  And maybe that would evolve into a weekly or monthly shared meal.  And maybe you could give them some of your started plants for their own garden.

And maybe later, you could each invite someone else to join you.  You might even end up with a co-op in your neighborhood!

What can you do?

My nine year old daughter enjoys basketball.  I’ve been thinking I ought to sign her up for something, too, but they don’t have a school team, and I haven’t found anything else that would work.

But for goodness’ sake, do I really need to sign them up for these things in order to be a good parent?

All too often, we think that’s the case.  Valerie Zercher-Weaver points out in Sojourners magazine that we think we have to spend money in order to be good parents (or at least that’s what advertisers want us to think).   It’s not just toys.  I don’t buy my kids a lot of toys (although somehow they still have plenty), but I do fall into the trap of thinking that if I don’t buy them classes and lessons and other experiences I’m not a good enough parent.

Maybe I should go about this differently.  Maybe I should spend time playing baseball and basketball with my kids, and make sure they have time and opportunity to play with friends.  Do they really need to be in structured programs, especially at a young age?

My nine year old says she doesn’t care about being on a team; she just likes playing basketball with her friends.  So that’s an easy decision.  I’m still not sure about the Little League.

I’m doing a bit of thrifty cooking this week.  I’m saving time and money, because I spent Monday, which was a holiday from work for me, cooking up several dishes for the week.  I had a roast in the crock pot and two pots of bean soup on the stove.  We ate roast that night, but it was even better then next night as roast beef hash.  As for the beans, family-size portions went into the freezer for later in the week, and single servings went into containers for my lunch.  I reheated one family-size container of soup for our dinner tonight.  No cooking for me!  I’m glad I planned ahead, because I am ready to hit the sheets now, and it’s not even 9:00 yet.

So it wasn’t a total surprise to read a column in the Atlantic suggesting that even the New York Times as we know it could disappear this year. Michael Hirschorn suggests that if this happened, a new, online version of the Times might look more like the Huffington Post, relying more on citizen-journalists/bloggers and news stories aggregated from other sources, and less on reporters employed by the Times. The problem with this, he says, is that it’s the traditional reporters who have the sources and reporting expertise, and it’s the traditional media who have the resources to send people around the world to report.

But what this really comes down to is trust. The sources are still out there, regardless of what happens to the newspapers and their reporters – but will those sources talk to journalists who aren’t attached to a major newspaper or television network? And will the public actually pay attention to and trust those journalists?

Trust will be essential to the future economy. We don’t have a lot of trust in our current economic system. We’ve seen companies and individuals lie, cheat and steal to make a profit, and we’ve seen the recent failures of banks and companies, both large and small.

The new question is, can we trust each other? In the media, can you trust your neighborhood blogger (and citizen journalists in other areas) to give you the news? In Seattle, neighborhood blogs like Capitol Hill Seattle, Central District News, and the West Seattle Blog are becoming primary news sources for many residents, even as the daily newspapers are declining. Justin Carder, owner of the Capitol Hill Seattle blog, has even put together a neighborhood blogging platform called Neighborlogs, which is currently in the beta-testing stage (disclaimer: I am one of the beta-testers). Carder sees Neighborlogs eventually being used in neighborhoods across the country.

Or, with food, can you trust your local farmer to provide safe, good-quality food for you and your family? Or do you feel you have to shop at a major supermarket?

In housing, can we trust each other enough to live together? Communal living is one way to provide safe, quality housing to more families and individuals.

And how can we develop this trust, so that we can work together to create a new world and a new economy?

ADDITION: Shefaly has an excellent blog post regarding trust as a social currency, and how trust is measured. I highly recommend reading it if you’re interested in the subject.