Yesterday I was listening to Bill McKibben on the radio talking about his recent book Deep Economy -- ironically while driving, by myself, in my not-so-fuel-efficient car -- and while he was not optimistic about how we as a nation and a planet are addressing global warming, he did make a compelling case that the changes we have to make could make us happier.
First off, let me acknowledge that because of Barack Obama as our Democratic nominee, I'm walking around with a pretty powerful case of hopefulness these days. So I'm intentionally looking on the bright side of things.
And secondly, I mean no insensitivity with my title to those folks in Iowa and Wisconsin and Indiana who are struggling to stay above water. Not that we can blame this particular deluge and flooding on global warming, but certainly global warming may be contributing to more severe weather patterns.
Join me after the jump.
McKibben acknowledged that some of his colleagues like Amory Lovins and Bill McDonough believe that we can curb global warming through better engineering, but he doesn't think that's enough. Of course, it's critical we do as much of that as we can, McKibben said -- design our cars and houses and refrigerators and manufacturing plants as efficiently as possible. But he asserts that we will also need to move beyond growth as the ideal and pull inward to some extent to create stronger local economies and communities.
The American dream, he said, has essentially been to live in big houses far away from other people. Maybe a bit of hyperbole, but more true than many would admit.
You live further away from others, you interact with them less.
Add the fact that most of us shop in big supermarkets today. He said that people who frequent farmers' markets have ten times as many social interactions as supermarket shoppers.
So we've paid a price for our affluence. Less human contact. Our standard of living is far higher than it was in the 1950s, but according to studies McKibben cited, more Americans said they were very happy back then than do today. And Americans have half as many friends on average today as we did a half century ago.
Certainly McKibben's not the first person to posit that money doesn't buy happiness, but I was encouraged by his assertion that we could gain as we make this important but potentially wrenching transition.
Addressing global warming means making a U-turn away from fossil fuels to renewables and efficiency, and coming to see that while less may not always be more, it can be. We may not be able to buy plums from Chile in January, but there are benefits from producing more of our own food and generating more of our own energy.
What we lose in luxury or privacy or convenience we can gain in community and connection.
That's generally been true for me. I live in a dense community (Berkeley, California), and I'm happy to say I know most of my neighbors. I take the bus to work almost every day, and I've made friends over the years. While I do get some pleasure from stuff, my greatest satisfaction comes from the richness of my connections with friends and family.
After Barack Obama becomes president, one of our top priorities is to pass legislation that will put a price on carbon, and limiting emissions by making burning coal and oil and natural gas more accurately reflect the burden imposed on our atmosphere.
And you can take to the bank the fact that Big Fossil is going to tell us how much that's going to hurt us in the pocketbook.
And it will, at least at first, especially for the poorest among us. But we need to remember not just that we'll pay a bigger price for not acting, but that the post-fossil fuel world could be a better one than we imagine.
(Before I say anymore, I have to buy and read McKibben's book so I might actually know what I'm talking about. I urge you to as well. You don't want to depend too much on what someone heard on the radio while he was driving.)