54 of 56 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A balm for painful truth, January 18, 2006
Merkel is a gentle soul whose moment of truth came when he saw the Exxon Valdez disaster on TV. Realizing his lifestyle contributed directly to this sort of environmental destruction and a host of other world problems, he set out to do something about it. Travels in Kerala (in India) and among the Chumash taught him how to live a simpler life with less waste, fewer things, and greater connections to the land and people. As he reduced the environmental stress that his life caused, he also found that his life became less stressed.
But he doesn't leave it at that. He's an engineer, and he gives you the analytical tools he used to evaluate the effects of his lifestyle on the world. First the bad news: if you make more than $10,000 a year or have more than one child, you're almost certainly using more than your share of Earth's resources (pages 70 and 84), which contributes to starvation and extinction. Now the good news: using tools borrowed from two other books (Your Money or Your Life and Our Ecological Footprint), Merkel shows how you can take charge of the flows of material in your life. He walks you through examples such as the environmental cost of e-mail vs. snail-mail (in his case, snail-mail had the smaller footprint; in my case, e-mail did).
Let's face it, the process of coming to terms with your own plunder of the world is stressful: a combination of accounting and soul-searching. But the end goal is a sustainable relationship with nature and a simpler, less stressful life. Radical simplicity provides the tools you need to get started.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
41 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Closer to the Bone, March 21, 2004
"The year 1978" says author Jim Merkel, "was a special year in both Earth's history and human history, and it passed without notice. It was the year humans claimed the entire sustainable yield of Earth." Since that time, the stakes have only risen. Humanity now gobbles up some 20 percent more than of the earth's bioproductivity. "Why, then, hasn't the system begun to collapse?" you ask.
The short answer is that it is, although the word collapse is a bit misleading. Over the last century, wars have claimed 175 million lives; and most, if not all, of those wars were fought to eliminate other humans, gain control land and resources, or maintain geopolitical and economic security. A third of the world's children suffer from malnutrition, of which tens of thousands die everyday, while, in the same amount of time, an estimated 100 to 1000 species vanish from the face of the planet. These are just a few symptoms of ecological collapse.
In order to talk about sustainability, says Merkel, we have to talk about ecological footprints. Your ecological footprint is the amount of bioproductive land and sea area in continuous production to supply all you use and to absorb all you waste. Global sustainability, then, is a combined ecological footprint of humanity that does not tax earth faster than it can regenerate. When humanity takes from the earth faster than it can replenish, things breakdown: fisheries collapse, soils erode, species vanish, aquifers run dry, etc. - things you might read about on page A-14 of the newspaper everyday.
"But how would I know if I am taking too much?" you ask. Ecological foot printing, says Merkel, is the best way to take the guesswork out of sustainability. "It allows us to measure our progress." But then, what is progress? To some, paving over the entire world and covering it with skyscrapers, channeling every brook and stream to flow through culverts, and relying on large multinational corporations to synthesize our food from genetically-modified seeds sounds appealing, perhaps even sustainable. To others, sustainability entails reverting to something like the Stone Age and hunting in the forest with blunt instruments for wild game.
Acknowledging a diversity of perspectives, Merkel merely asks us discover and then live according to our personal values. "What is your worldview?" he asks. The bottom line is that "there are 28.2 billion acres of bioproductive land on Earth - the total surface area minus the deep oceans, deserts, icecaps and built-up land. When divided between six billion people, each person gets a 4.7-acre share" - and no more. But this figure assumes humanity utilizes all of the earth for itself. So a better question would be, 'How much of my 4.7-acre share do I want to use for myself and how much do I want to leave for other life forms?'
After quizzing you about your preferred tax on the planet, desired world population, and level of equity with other human and nonhuman inhabitants, he then shows you how many acres of land you can utilize while keeping in line with your values. This is your "sustainability goal." For example, my desired sustainability goal was based on a two-child family and absolute equity among humans, leaving 90% of the earth as untouched wilderness, and leaving me personally with a mere 1.45794 acres. Radical simplicity, indeed! It looks like I'll have to ditch a kid or two.
The point, which should not be lost in the math, is to gain an objective picture of our individual impact on the biosphere. Once we have that, we can start simplifying our life - and, as it turns out, living 'closer to the bone' is a lot more carefree and fun than, say, the daily corporate grind. Merkel himself is an example of this. Although he has managed to live on an budget of merely 5,000 dollars a year - to avoid supporting the military industrial complex via taxation - for the last 20 years, his life has been full of adventure, relaxation, and a certain joy de vivre many of us have never known.
Along with the charts, mathematical formulas and statistics, this book is peppered with interesting anecdotes about those twenty years spent visiting indigenous cultures, biking foreign countries and backpacking in the woods. An amazing man, with a radical vision of environmental responsibility, Merkel is also living proof of just how enjoyable and fulfilling `simple living' can be.
j.w.k.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
66 of 71 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Let's Get Radical!, November 4, 2003
I have been waiting for this book for a long time. Seriously, there is a hole in western consciousness and in our publications about REALITY---the fact that western culture is ruining the planet, and how do we as individuals make a new way? With more calculaton tables than I liked, but interspersed with interesting, inspiring, thought-provoking world experience, philosophical musings and present-day challenges in carving a sustainable lifestyle, Merkel's book arrests the imagination of the reader. I think about this subject every day and I have Merkel to thank for pointing me toward concrete ways to `live as if life truly matters.' If you're looking for related hardcore simplicity (which isn't really so simple in this culture, is it?) check out www.myfootprint.org (more of Merkel's work) and Primal Conscious Living on the web---a couple in Georgia making sustainability real in their daily lives: http://geocities.com/newlibertyvillage/earthstar.htm
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
