Crossing Nebraska

I first wrote this post almost seven years ago after having a social media conversation with a climate communicator friend. Even then, I'd long been frustrated with messaging that I perceived as shallow, incomplete, and ultimately ineffectual at stopping us from marching headlong into the climate crisis that is now fully underway. My friend had posted a video by the well known Bill Nye the Science Guy that fairly closely followed the talking points many climate change realists use when speaking about climate change: 1. It’s real. 2. It’s man-made. 3. We can do something about it. You can still check out the video here if you’re so inclined.  On one hand, it’s a great video – engaging, educational, and hopeful. On the other hand, with the exception of Nye's mention of the potential for gains in efficiency resulting from electrification, the take-home message is fairly one-dimensional – vote. Without any actionable suggestions as to how to address rampant consu...

When you’ve lived in one place long enough you notice how it changes over time. You see the revitalization of some previously downtrodden neighborhoods even as others slip into decline. You see old farms paved over for the sake of car dealerships and strip malls, and vacated railroad rights-of-way transformed into linear parks or public transportation lines. Progress is like that, isn’t it? Some good things, some not so good things; it’s hard to say in balance where we’re headed (although climate change is a pretty good indicator). One thing is certain right here and now, however, wild places are disappearing and with them something that we don’t even yet know how to value. Every patch of woods that’s cut down in order to build up a subdivision of new homes is a loss of connection to the natural world. Every open space that’s filled up with some new development or other is a loss of spaciousness in our minds. The effect of this so-called “march of progress” has been like a wound...

We’re awash in stuff, very little of which is actually necessary for the enjoyment of life. Simply consider how the size of the average home has increased over the years, without a corresponding increase in our happiness, and yet we still find the need for off-site storage in which to house whatever won’t fit in our basements, attics, and garages. It would be nice if the only downside of this glut of stuff was that it clutters up our lives, but that’s not the case at all. The massive amounts of fossil fuel used to manufacture, ship, maintain, and ultimately dispose of all of this stuff has the earth’s atmosphere so laden with carbon dioxide that global climate change now jeopardizes our very survival and that of all living beings. Weathered front porch Where do we go from here? Your response to this question will depend on your worldview, your faith in the advancement of technology, and your assessment of the magnitude of the problem. Some people are still in denial regarding the reali...

Illustration by Ed Young Can what save the world? Wabi-sabi. You know…, that Japanese aesthetic sense kind of thing. Actually, I don’t believe I’d ever even heard of wabi-sabi until a couple of years ago when I was introduced to the concept by a children’s story about a cat named Wabi Sabi who was trying like the dickens to figure out the meaning of his name. Of course, the premise of the story relates precisely to the fact that the wabi-sabi aesthetic is quite difficult to define. We just sort of know it when we see it – as soon as we know what we’re looking for, that is! Ah, but are we going to let the difficulty of defining a concept stand in the way of us utilizing it to save the world? For the children, for the kittens, for Wabi Sabi’s sake we must try! Let’s begin with a few recent definitions put forth by various authors: “Wabi-sabi is the quintessential Japanese aesthetic. It is a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. It is a beauty of things mod...

Perhaps you’ve heard of voluntary simplicity: choosing to live a simpler and more intentional life for the sake of greater personal fulfillment, richer community, and a healthier environment. The voluntary simplicity movement was bolstered immensely by the 1981 publication of Duane Elgin’s groundbreaking book of the same name. Unfortunately, we’re now more than forty years down the road, and human civilization is more complex than ever. It’s no longer hyperbole to speak of our being just one economic shock, one viral pandemic, one-degree Celsius increase in average temperature, or one war away from chaotic global disruption. Given that so many of the world’s problems are either directly or indirectly tied to an excessively complex and materialistic human lifestyle, why hasn’t the embrace of simplicity taken hold and become the prevailing aesthetic? Our problems would be nowhere near as intractable if we could just be content with a simpler version of all that is materially available ...