Customer Reviews

Radical Simplicity: Small Footprints on a Finite Earth

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

"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.

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

I would give five stars to the first 5 or so chapters without question. Merkel provides a very inspiring background to his topic and some great examples. The thing I didn't like about the book was that once you get into the more technical aspects, it loses its energizing quality a bit and gets slightly confusing. I would have enjoyed the book better if the beginning was expanded to provide more examples and maybe the rest of it was offered as a seperate workbook. However, even if you read only the beginning, this is a great book to get you started on living more sustainably

I read the story in my local paper about the awakening of the military engineer and how he now lives comfortably on $5,000 a year. Intrigued, I bought the book eager to find out how he did it, and some color commentary about his trials and tribulations. However, that is not what this book is about!

This book is a top-level commentary about how evil middle class Westerners are, an endorsement of carbon footprinting, a view of the world as a zero-sum game, and, of course, the placement of the "nobel savage" on a lofty pedestal.

I am interested in downsizing, but not because of a guilty conscience.

I read "your money or your life" a few years ago, and found it much more helpful. Oddly, "Radical Simplicity" summarizes the earlier book in one chapter, and uses "your money..." as 1/3 of the book "how-to" content! The author should divulge that a large portion of the book is a summary of a previous work.

On the plus side, I really enjoyed the story about the Kerala area of India, where people are able to sustain a very comfortable society on very little money.

I found this book very interesting and full of great information and inspiration. It is a perfect start if you want to become more aware of your impact on the world and begin doing something about it. I absorbed the material in a day, and am now doing the exercises and spreadsheets to determine exactly where I'm at, where I want to be, and how to get there!

I would have given it 5-stars, but:

1) I felt that the author criticized an entire practice as ecologically unsound rather than the conventional methods being unsound. For example: he practically vilifies livestock ranching and eating animal products, but totally disregards (that for humans) lb-for-lb the bio-availability of nutrients in animal sources is higher than most produce. It's the way we've gone about keeping and using the animals that is ecologically irresponsible, not keeping and eating the animal itself.

2) There is not enough information about the reduction of global footprint when you are using recycled materials (i.e. polar fleece clothing made from recycled plastic bottles). Perhaps this is a flaw/oversight in the EF Calculator, but the calculations all seem to be skewed toward the impacts of using virgin materials. It would seem to me that we are getting an eco-ding for original production/purchase, recycling, and purchasing recycled products which doesn't make complete sense to me to be as high as calculated because this is a full-circle cycle... there has to be a benefit in there somewhere.

3) I didn't find any mention about the EF impact of "hard" building materials such as concrete, ceramics and stone... building a strawbale house is not feasible where I will be living, but I won't be using 100% conventional building materials and techniques either. There is no information in this book to help me calculate the offset of taking the "middle ground" or using recycled or previous wasted products (SIP, ICF, etc).

4) The author makes a basic assumption that all acres of bio-productive land are equal. While this might be appropriate for rough calculations and theory discussions, the reality is that not all land and climate is created equal. An acre in Alaska or Iceland with a growing season of 3 months and several months of frigid near-total darkness is not going to have the same yield as a temperate acre in sunny California or the Mediterranean, or a near-desert acre in Arizona or Morocco. At some point, the reality that much of the BP land is not within the concentrated population band and it is infeasible (& possibly equally irresponsible) to transport the goods or people to and from those unpopulated BP acres needs to be taken into account.

All-in-all a very good book with lots of useful information and inspiration... just watch out for a few of the more blatant and idealistic agendas ;)

It's encouraging to read a book so full of personal integrity and hope. So many people are unwilling to face the facts of the future before us. Very few people will read this book, but for those that do it will be a godsend to know that there are others that feel the same level of empathetic responsiblity. There are not enough books of this type, and fewer authors qualified to write them. The only other work I have recently encountered that is of the same level of accountability as well as offering a real means of living benignly is Jerome Fitzgeralds "Sea-steading." I recommend this as well.

Merkel provides a solid description of the necessary techniques of lifestyle changes 'individuals' need to make if we want to live an ecologically benign life. However I believe that individual incidents of lifestyle change will be inadequate to halt the death march global capitalist society is on. We are all on the same boat and we all end up in the same place unless the boat changes course - no matter how environmentally benign our individual lives are.

Merkel importantly points out the futility of 'green consumption'. Reducing, reusing and recycling will do nothing if we maintain our current Western standards of living. Simply spending less and putting it in the bank does nothing; the bank lends that money to others who use consume on credit. Reusing and recycling goods is fine, but at the scale of current consumption rates has a minuscule impact on our collective ecological footprints.

He also makes a powerful case that we need to think seriously about how our lifestyles effect the rest of the planet, people and ecosphere. He challenges us to put a number on the annual income we should strive toward in order to give the rest of the planet breathing space to thrive and recover from our industrial society.

What I find wanting in this analysis is the claim that 'individual' action premised upon altruistic personal ethics are sufficient to spark a global shift toward an ecologically benign civilization.

There are many causes to our current ecological and social disasters. The primary one being, as Merkel acknowledges, our growing, and unequal distribution of global gross domestic product. What is missing from this assertion however is the cause of this fact: a comittment among the world's capitalist managerial classes (i.e. state and corporate leaders) to capital accumulation(i.e. GDP). In short, these crises are perpetuated by the greed and power lust of a minority elite, under a system called capitalism. Capitalism as a system has growth written into its rulebook; to participate in the game one has two choices: grow or get out of the way. The system continues in so far as we, the public working classes, give them, the capital managers license to do so. Our collective fear to abandon capitalism due to the disastrous 'socialist' project in the Soviet Union is a fear based out of lack of imaginative solutions and a life of privelege attained through capitalism at the cost of human lives and environmental health.

Personal ethics must change; in this I agree with Merkel. However to suggest that such change is sufficient is short sighted. What is needed is a cooperative (non-violent) allignment of all anti-capitalist struggles (environmental, human rights, indigenous) to return the economy into the control of the public in the interests of society and the environment - not the profit of an elite. We have given the capitalist class ample chance to provide solutions to our crises; we have waited for the wealth to trickle down to the poor; we have waited for affluence to provide time and resources to shift toward ecological harmony - with zero proof of any serious willingness or capity to change (e.g. Rio, Kyoto, Copenhagen, Clinton, Obama, Cancun). Now is the time to take personal responsibility yes, but more importantly: now is the time for international political solidarity and revolution against a morally bankrupt an inept ruling class.

This book is incredible. I saw Jim Merkel speak in highschool and read this book senior year. It truly revolutionized my thinking. Jim Merkel does not only consider his life and the lives of his immediate family, he extends his concern for the entire planet and reveals how to cut costs, live simply and fruitfully, care for others, care for the earth, and truly improve the quality of one's life. I love this book, and wish I could adopt more of his suggestions (unfortunately, going to college hampers that desire). I recommend this to anyone interested in how to "get back to basics" in a world dominated by the religion of consumerism, media, and noise. Jim Merkel is an intelligent, educated man who is making a difference in not only the lives of people who care for the environment, but the people we do not know across the globe in factories, cities, suburbs, and rural areas.

As a Christian I loved his message of environmental stewardship and his acknowledgement of the need for a spirituality. Though I disagree with his theology (or lack thereof) I celebrate such an educated environmentalist embracing faith. Caring for the world, and by doing so caring for those in the world, is a basic value of loving neighbors. This book has increased my desire to care for more of God's creation than only the people and environment directly impacting me.

I came at this book as an academic teacher and researcher (in the field of Civil & Environmental Engineering at Cornell) who is working in the energy area and wanted to connect the big picture of solving the global energy problem with practical personal steps for improving the sustainability of one's personal lifestyle. (You can learn more about my background from my energy systems book Energy Systems Engineering: Evaluation and Implementation, coauthored with Lou Albright.) I read the book from cover to cover.

As Merkel puts it on p.11, "For societal solutions to succeed, individuals must have first-hand experience in sustainable living", and that is very much the focus of the book. There are numerous suggestions, ranging from dietary choices to travel patterns to money management, many or most of which are tested by Merkel himself. Also, the book provides ways of measuring personal impact and then monitoring one's effort to reduce them, at different levels of detail -- a simpler 'quiz' level for those who want to start at a basic level, and a more advanced, comprehensive system for the more ambitious. You might not choose to do everything suggested exactly to the letter, but there are many practical suggestions, and almost any reader would be able to adopt at least some of them.

My one concern is that the book seems to underestimate the impact that expansion of renewable energy supplies might have on the ability to consume energy without degrading the planet. The basis for calculating the footprint of energy consumption is very restrictive, forcing a person who wants to live within a sustainable footprint (measured in equivalent acres) to consume energy (and other resources as well) very modestly -- for example, at one level of footprint reduction, you are only allowed one airplane flight every ten years! However, the amount of energy that society might someday get from large resources like solar and wind energy is very large, and would potentially change the math on many of the numbers. The book does not seem to recognize this possibility.