Living with yourself

Wherever you are in the world you may have scratched your head once or twice and tried to figure out what infinity means. Then when you'd given up on this you may even have reflected that we live in a world of finite resources. Fossil fuels are a great example. They are the reverse of infinite. That's finite to you and me. Once our selfish and greedy generation have used them up (like the fossil crack whores we are) there will none left for our kids. (Cue handing over responsibility to the scientists who make iPods we can put into blenders to show how clever we are, and will ultimately invent some mythical power that the kids can then forgive our first-come, first-served mentality)

We tend to fight wars over them, set geopolitical policy around them, have a century of the cheapest energy ever, and believe it or not make all things plastic out of oil before we throw them away in the contented illusion that what is OUT OF SIGHT IS OUT OF MIND. Other than that we like to fill up our gas guzzling SUV's from pipes at petrol stations and get scared if someone does it with a cigarette in their hand, because that would mess up our Christmas plans. Ah yes Christmas, where we go on another consumer spending bender topped off with orgies of indulgence before nipping into the vomitorium to make way for some more mince pies, Chrimbo pudding, presents and more cake while studiously avoiding any mention of the birth of Jesus Christ who I can assure you took frugality very seriously. Its time to make frugal a word to worship again. It may just save our skins.

So how can we do this while encouraging people to spend, spend, spend while achieving those growth growth growth (ugh) targets that make the world so tickety boo? Easy if you really think about it but it will take a rewiring of our economies, some sort of managed population decline and building businesses around recycling, sustainability, community and wait for this making money out of value not money out of stuff as Russell pointed out over here.

Anyway, just in case this is popping your amygdala out of its neocortex because your marketing and advertising acumen pays the mortage and the thought of saving the world really gives you a migraine then relax, because one of the worlds best thinkers on the subject John Grant has just published his book The Green Marketing Manifesto. You should stop sodding about and buy it immediately. As John puts it so eloquently in his book. If environmental issues are a moral question, then not doing the right thing is immoral. I say this is more important than reading the newspaper and casting judgement on others. Change the world. Change yourself.