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Radical Simplicity: Small Footprints on a Finite Earth

by Jim Merkel Jim Merkel

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ISBN-13:

9781550923360

Publisher: New Society Publishers
Publication date: 09/01/2003
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 288
File size: 3 MB

Jim Merkel quit his job as a military engineer following the Exxon Valdez disaster and has since worked to develop tools for personal and societal sustainability. He founded the Global Living Project to further this work and conducts workshops around North America on this topic.

	Foreword	xi
	Introduction	xvii
Part I	Journey to simplicity	1
Chapter 1	Building the Case for Global Living	2
	Inside Ourselves	6
	Outside Ourselves	6
	We Have No Other Choice	9
Chapter 2	A Culture of Global Living	11
	Material	12
	Non-material	13
	Three Sacred Cows	13
	Lovable Limits	16
Chapter 3	Sustainability in Action	17
	Learning from the Chumash	20
	The Muir Trail	22
	Learning from Kerala	26
	Theories	33
	Experiences	35
	Practical Lessons	36
	The Kani	39
	Leaving Kerala	41
	The Global Living Project	44
	The Findings	45
Part II	Three Tools	51
Chapter 4	Sharing the Earth	52
	Living Equitably	54
	Inter-species Equity	54
	Inter-human Equity	58
	Inter-generational Equity	62
Chapter 5	Getting Started	66
	The Sustainability Sweatshop	67
Part 1	Simple Goal Setting	67
Part 2	Tough, Sweaty Goal Setting	68
Part 3	Cool-down and Visualization	71
	Three Tools	72
	Ecological Footprinting	72
	Your Money Or Your Life	72
	Learning From Nature	72
	Whole Systems	73
Chapter 6	The First Tool--Ecological Footprinting	75
	Footprinting Science	76
	What's In a Footprint?	77
	Calculating Footprints	81
	How Big is My Footprint?	83
	How Big is My Paycheck?	83
	Quick Footprint Quiz	86
	The Footprinting Calculator	94
	Footprinting Language	95
	Using the Calculator	96
	Fine-tuning the Calculator	98
	Making Comparisons	98
	Footprinting	110
	What You'll Need	110
	A Few Questions	111
Step 1	Flows	112
Step 2	Taking Stock	113
Step 3	Determining Your Footprint	122
Chapter 7	The Second Tool--Your Money or Your Life	123
	The Nine Steps of YMOYL	124
	The Family of Fulfillment Curves	124
	Four Qualities and Six Realities of "Enoughness"	125
	Why is this Tool so Timely?	127
	The Making of a Movement	128
	Success Stories	130
	Ways to Use This Tool	131
	Financial Independence	131
	Periodic Financial Independence	131
	Flexible Work	132
	A Job You Truly Believe In?	132
	Restorative Employment	132
	The First Five Steps	132
Step 1	Making Peace with the Past	133
Step 2	Being in the Present	134
Step 3	Where is it All Going?	134
Step 4	Three Questions that will Transform Your Life	135
Step 5	Making Life Energy Visible	136
Chapter 8	The Third Tool--Learning From Nature	138
	Courting the Wild	138
	Fear of Nature	139
	Being in Nature	140
	Secret Spot	140
	Walking Meditation	141
	Owl Walk	141
	Vision Quest	141
	Doing in Nature	142
	Day Walks	142
	Tracking	142
	Overnights	142
	Human-powered Activity	143
	Harvesting Wild Foods and Medicines	143
	Harvesting Fuel and Fiber	143
	Harvesting Fertility	144
	Vegetable Gardening	144
	Studying Nature	144
	Watersheds	144
	Identification and Behavior	145
	Ecology	145
	Biomimicry	146
	At Home in Nature	146
Part III	Integration	149
Chapter 9	Applying the Tools	150
	Getting Strategic	151
	Big-ticket Items	151
	Low-hanging Fruit	152
	The Triple Bottom Line Test	154
	Improving Energy Efficiency	156
	Efficiency's Caution	158
	Guiding Principles	158
	Good Old-fashioned Principles	158
	Permaculture Principles	159
	Spiritual Principles	162
Chapter 10	The Wiseacre Challenge	164
	Who Lives on One Wiseacre?	166
	Experiencing Poverty	167
	Wiseacre Scenarios	168
	Wiseacre Food	169
	Wiseacre Housing	173
	Wiseacre Transportation	176
	Wiseacre Goods and Services	178
	Wiseacre Stocks	179
	Wiseacre Wastes	180
Chapter 11	The One-hundred-year Plan	182
	Freely Choosing to Have Fewer Children	184
	The One-hundred-year Plan	185
	Who Is Having Small Families	186
	Making it Personal--The Options	188
	Simplified Population Model	189
	One-child Families	189
	Two-child Families	189
	Three-child Families	190
	Family Size Versus Wild Space	190
	Sustainability and Family Size	191
Chapter 12	Toward a Sustainable Future	193
	Endnotes	197
Appendix A	Footprint Factors	203
Appendix B	Footprinting Worksheets	211
Appendix C	YMOYL Worksheets	223
Appendix D	Wiseacre Worksheets	234
	Index	241
	About the Author	249

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Imagine you are first in line at a potluck buffet. The spread includes not just food and water, but all the materials needed for shelter, clothing, healthcare, and education. How do you know how much to take? How much is enough to leave for your neighbors behind you—not just the six billion people, but the wildlife, and the as-yet-unborn?

In the face of looming ecological disaster, many people feel the need to change their own lifestyles as a tangible way of transforming our unsustainable culture. Radical Simplicity is the first book that guides the reader to a personal sustainability goal, then offers a process to monitor progress to a lifestyle that is equitable amongst all people, species, and generations. It employs three tools to help readers begin their customized journey to simplicity:

>It builds on steps from Your Money or Your Life so readers can design their own personal economics to save money, get free of debt, and align their work with their values.
It uses refined tools from Our Ecological Footprint so readers can measure how much nature is needed to supply all they consume and absorb their waste.
Combining lyrical narrative, compassionate advocacy, and absorbing science, Radical Simplicity is a practical, personal answer to twenty-first century challenges that will appeal as much to Cultural Creatives and students as to spiritual seekers, policy makers, and sustainability professionals.

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Radical Simplicity: Small Footprints on a Finite Earth

eBook

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Radical Simplicity: Small Footprints on a Finite Earth

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