If you look at my website: http://www.garrettjones.talktalk.net
you will find two books which can both be had for free and which both have a lot to do with the kind of practical steps we can take to improve our global situation – if only our outworn ideas and prejudices can be overcome

It is us humans that need to think about our future – because there are six billion plus of us and we all want to have 4×4 cars and flush toilets, when many of us don’t have food and water at the moment. It is self-evident that if we all have some of the pie then our current use of resources is unsustainable and damaging.

Someone who really troubles me is Mr Gaia himself, Mr Lovelock. He has taken the credit for what we now know to be obvious, that the planet regulates itself over longer and shorter cycles. The environmental message was getting through (slowly), consumers were opposed to genetic engineering, nuclear power was dead and sustainable logging was becoming more popular (even if the other type of logging was too). Rivers were being cleaned up. Wind farms were springing up everywhere and there was a proper debate as to whether they were a good thing or not.

Then a few hot summers and it’s panic! Outright panic! It’s too late says Mr. Lovelock. We are all doomed! Stop all debate! We MUST have nuclear power NOW. We must tear up the forests and plant millions of acres of monocultural biofuels.

Now we ARE heading for disaster! Thank you Mr. Lovelock and all those who want to ’save the planet’ from imminent doom. Great work. In our haste, we will make the wrong decisions as we always do.

I believe this further splinters the environmental movement and weakens it. Personally, I think I’d rather go down shouting “full stop” at the ship’s captain, rather than go down singing a cheery song and being thrilled we hit the iceberg at half-speed, but at least everyone bought into the notion we should slow down.

Dave Gardner
Producer/Director
Hooked on Growth: Our Misguided Quest for Prosperity
http://www.growthbusters.com

i am not sure about your claim that handwashing dishes instead of using the dishwasher would shave 20 bucks off the water bill.

it depends on how efficient you are with water while you are hand washing, and also on how efficient the dish washer is with water and electricity, plus the value of the time it saves you.

the latest models of dishwasher here in japan claim to use a lot less water than hand washing.

[George writes: Light living. I go into this in Carbon Detox but hoped it would still be fairly obvious. We talk all the time about low-carbon living and sustainable living and ethical living. I wanted to find a new way of presenting it that had wider appeal and I thought that living 'light' sounded much better- free of that heavy carbon, that consumerist stress, fresh, healthy. You get my drift. Btw in England 'mad' means insane but I assume you mean that you are slightly heated! ]

Also, speaking from the point of view of the economically struggling, many people don’t realize the cost of their invisible power use. Poorer people could benefit greatly from knowing they could save 20 or more dollars a month by handwashing their dishes (most low income housing does boast dishwashers). 20 bucks may not seem like much to people with spare income, but I can tell you from personal experience, it can be the difference between feeding my kids Ramen noodles and being able to provide locally grown apples, pears, winter squash, sweet potatoes, and broccoli on a regular basis.

I suspect most folk intuitively know this, too, making the argument seem ridiculous.

Best,

D