The Story of Stuff - Annie Leonard [169]
The whole pace of life is more relaxed: “slow and low(-impact)” is the new mantra. Incomes are lower but we are rich in something that many of us had never experienced before: time. There is far more leisure time. Levels of obesity, depression, suicide, and cancer are down. Library and civic memberships are up, as are basketball, soccer, and bocce clubs. While people spend less time working and watching TV alone, they spend far more time engaged in civic activities. People are voting in record numbers, as well as volunteering and campaigning for the things they care about. Citizens, not big corporations, have the greatest influence. Now that government is accessible, inviting, and responsive, there are nearly infinite possibilities for ways to make life even better. A sense of optimism and hope prevails.
Change And Hope
System change is inevitable. The question is not if we will change, but how. Will we be forward thinking enough to change by design, or will we wait until we’re forced to change by default? If we change by design, it’s going to require hard work, some hardship, but more gain. If we dig our heels in and maintain, as George Bush the First said (or Dick Cheney, it’s attributed to both), that the American way of life is not negotiable, and we refuse to budge on our resource use as though we had a second planet on reserve, then there’s going to be a lot more violence, suffering, and injustice than need be. Even in that scenario, change is still going to happen. Faced with serious, life-threatening resource scarcity as the planet runs out of things like clean water, productive farmland, and fossil fuels, the people around the world with the least access—those with no water, no fish, no shelter—will eventually not tolerate the vast inequity in resource use. When this happens, we will hit not only physical limits of the planet’s capacity, but also social and moral limits. At that point, change will be forced upon us.
People ask me all the time how I remain hopeful, given the seeming intractability of the dysfunctional take-make-waste system and the grimness of statistics regarding climate chaos and the loss of natural resources. The thing is, I really believe there’s hope for us yet. My unshakable optimism stems both from the knowledge that alternatives systems exist and the belief that if enough people want change, together we can chart a very different path. Four-fifths of Americans favor mandatory controls on greenhouse gases; nine-tenths of us want higher fuel efficiency standards; and three-quarters want cleaner energy, even if they have to pay a little more for it.22 More Americans are relearning how to live within their means and save for the future—since 2008 the personal savings rate has been climbing for the first time in nearly a decade.23 More of our voting-age population turned out for the federal elections of 2008 (nearly 57 percent) than in any year since 1968.24 These are good signs. Eco-visionary Paul Hawken recently said, “If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse.”25
I constantly meet with people from all over the planet who are working to restore the