# Quick quiz on your ecological effect.



## Mady

http://www.myfootprint.org

Everyone post what they get!
I got 5 footprints, 1.2 planets.


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## bananathrash

8 footprints.

i know the house is what burned me.


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## Mady

Dont worry, the average for Americans is 24!!


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## reXfeReL

10- housing got me as well


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## Bendixontherails

i got a 9, and 1.9 planets. my food got me, since I eat anything. But it's 90% TRASH!!! I don't pay for hardly anything I eat. they didn't ask that.


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## Mady

Well dumpsters would imply that you don't PAY for meat or diary, i would count that as a vegan lifestyle. And if you eat prepackaged food, but don't pay for it, i wouldn't count it either.


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## ImSter

i got 8 footprints
1.8 planets
quiz is kinda genral though


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## solo

1.8 planets. Like others, the house is what got me, but if pitching a tent on public land was legal and free/no worries about getting woken up by cops, I'd do it. Essentially we are coerced into abusing the earth, especially in the US. 

I would consider dumpstering meat even better for the planet than buying vegan, since you're pretty much squatting in someone elses (rather large) footprint instead of in that instance creating your own footprint by giving money/labor to put some extra amount of land in production for you.

But the dumpsters are more and more locked up. Might as well at least create an FNB front group and go through the front door. Also I would love to plant the city with edible perennials, especially fruit trees that are lower maintenance. But pretty much everyone I know is thinking day to day, instead of 5 or 10 years down the road.


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## Bendixontherails

*Mady Klepto wrote:*


> Well dumpsters would imply that you don't PAY for meat or diary, i would count that as a vegan lifestyle. And if you eat prepackaged food, but don't pay for it, i wouldn't count it either.



I never buy meat, and only RARELY buy dairy. both are easy to dive. people are all so sketchy about expiration dates... sheep. I try to stay away from most prepackaged foods ( heat & eat crap) cause that stuff is just plain poison. slow acting poison, but poison nonetheless.

hmmm... I never considered myself a vegan or a vegetarian, since I will eat about anything, but I guess if you think of the political side, then if I don't monetarily support it... food for thought. 

I have been hearing the term 'freegan' lately, and thought that it applied to me. it's just refusing to pay for food, based on the view that enough is thrown away to survive on right?


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## solo

> I have been hearing the term 'freegan' lately, and thought that it applied to me. it's just refusing to pay for food, based on the view that enough is thrown away to survive on right?



Freegan is the combination of free +vegan. Freegans don't buy animal products (like vegans), but may eat animal products if they would otherwise be thrown away. The main point here is not monetarily supporting animal industries.


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## Mady

I have heard 2 different definitions of freegan, one being a vegan that will eat dumpstered dairy products the second being someone who believes all products destroy the environment and consumerism in general is bad. I take the second route  Dumpstering meat/eating roadkill is vegan, and i would consider doing it. Never buy anything, never worry!


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## AntiProduct

can you get any diseases from eating roadkill?


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## Kendall

12 footprints and 2.7 planets, I think that riding with people shit and the car thing got me. I don't own one, but getting rides is pretty much essential to my getting around besides walking, because my bike got RAN THE FUCK OVER a few days ago. *simmer*

The Earthfirst kids take classes in college/teach each other how to be able to determine weather roadkill is diseased or not before eating it. Gotta be educated about that shit before you try it, or else you'll fucking kill yourself. I'd do that shit in a heartbeat though. Getting back to the primal and feral.

Post edited by: Kendall, at: 2007/03/21 07:35


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## Mady

Usually its pretty safe, especially if you witness it get pwned, its all about how long it was sitting there. I generally try to never eat meat though, it makes me nervous.


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## FrumpyWatkins

Sorry to piss all the Vegans and the like off, but as humans we were meant to be omnivores. We are the top predator on planet earth, and yes we should protect our habitat but this idea of eating limited types of food is totally unhealthy. To lead a truly successful life, a balanced diet needs to be achieved. I know you can get the necessaries from things other then meat but humans were designed to get energy from meat. When you are born your primal instincts tell you "meat", however your mind might think otherwise and choose alternate routes. (It is the same thing with homosexuality, humans were meant to be heterosexual, it is how we procreate and nature's way of keeping our species alive. However this does not mean I have any type of problem with homosexuals or vegetarians nor are these practices wrong.) I do however disagree with the way meat is gathered and meat products are produced. I try to eat as little meat as possible and when I do, it is free range organic. But against my point, when we have high populations of humans and they all eat meat, this screws up the food chain because so much transferred energy is wasted, so a balanced healthy diet. Fast food and processed food are the downfall of our current society hunger/niche wise.

The fact I'm in winter quarters destroyed my grade.


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## reXfeReL

while being a strict vegetarian i can say that if you don't like the smell of burning meat, then get the fuck off the planet.-immortal technique- Simply dietary choice, nothing more. People that say they do it for politcal reasoning are ignorant to the facts.


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## bakerdoo

I got 10 footprints and 2.3 planets. Dang its tough to get down there


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## Mady

A healthy balanced diet can be achieved in veganism, in fact it adds an average of 5 years to your life, lowers your heart rate and so on. Not to mention meat and dairy products are full of chemicals and poisons. The Humyn body actually has to struggle to process meat, all the benefits it gives you can be gotten else where. Not to mention that forcing another thing to suffer is wrong, and goes against humyn nature. In modern times people have to desensitize themselves to seeing animal murdered in order to think its ok, or just have someone else do it. Its wrong and immoral to kill things that feel pain when you dont need to. Period. WAYYY off topic though.

I would eat something thats already dead, but I would never murder to eat unless I was starving to death.


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## Poking Victim

I didn't like this survey. Many of the questions I couldn't truthfully answer with the options given.



> Not to mention that forcing another thing to suffer is wrong, and goes against humyn nature.



Desire is human nature, therefore suffering is human nature. But fuck human nature, transcend that shit.

Post edited by: Poking Victim, at: 2007/03/22 04:26


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## FrumpyWatkins

*Mady Klepto wrote:*


> I would eat something thats already dead, but I would never murder to eat unless I was starving to death.



Well you must be constantly starving, plants are alive.


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## Mady

Plants dont comprehend their existence, and have no central nervous system. Plants can be eaten at sustainable rates with no bloodshed. Plants are also in a separate kingdom, which is why i dont understand people constantly saying that. Eating animals is ecologically unsustainable in capitalism, and immoral without it. Don't cause unnecessary suffering.


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## FrumpyWatkins

But plants are still living creatures, no matter how you classify it. You're saying that if they can't feel anything it is OK to take advantage of it. The only way to eat without killing is gleaning, but then you kill the microscopic organisms with your stomach acids. I'm not discussing this anymore. I didn't bring this up to start an argument, I was just sharing my opinion.


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## Kendall

Gaia's gonna fuck all of you up, hahaha.


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## Mady

Thats ok i dont need to argue why its ok to eat an onion and not a bird. Anyone with 2 eyes and a heart knows that.


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## trangus

i think that eating anything is ok, if u appreciate the life u r sharing. cant take anything because everything in the universe is conscious of life and even moves. if u dont believe me watch a plant move its branches to catch more light. just be thankful. death is part of life. just dont buy food.
food not bombs, cuz food should be free!


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## Bendixontherails

amen, trangus. I eat whatever I find. I don't pay for meat, dairy, or eggs, so I don't feel I help to perpetuate the system.j


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## FrumpyWatkins

Excellent trangus, that was very well put.


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## Mady

I eat whatever i find as well, i simply dont kill to get it. I dont eat dumpstered meat for health reasons. Road kill is fine. If you can survive without causing suffering, why not do it?


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## Code Name Mary

I got 8 footprints or 1.8 planets. It was the food that got me, I think because I eat meat almost every day due to it's Iron content, but it is locally raised. ( I am currently anemic and nursing)so hopefully once this anemia BS goes away I can erase a foot print or so.


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## Code Name Mary

*trangus wrote:*


> i think that eating anything is ok, if u appreciate the life u r sharing. cant take anything because everything in the universe is conscious of life and even moves. if u dont believe me watch a plant move its branches to catch more light. just be thankful. death is part of life. just dont buy food.
> food not bombs, cuz food should be free!



word


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## Mady

“What about plants?”

There is currently no reason to believe that plants experience pain because they are devoid of central nervous systems, nerve endings, and brains. It is theorized that animals are able to feel pain so that they can use it for self-protection purposes. For example, if you touch something hot and feel pain, you will learn from the pain that you should not touch that item in the future. Since plants cannot move from place to place and do not need to learn to avoid certain things, this sensation would be superfluous. From a physiological standpoint, plants are completely different from mammals. Unlike animals’ body parts, many perennial plants, fruits, and vegetables can be harvested over and over again without dying.

If you are concerned about the impact of vegetable agriculture on the environment, you should know that a vegetarian diet is better for the environment than a meat-based one, since the vast majority of grains and legumes raised today are used as feed for cattle. Rather than eating animals, such as cows, who must consume 16 pounds of vegetation in order to convert them into 1 pound of flesh, you can save many more plants’ lives (and destroy less land) by eating vegetables directly.



So thats why, and if you want more specifics listen to a few of these...
http://www.myspace.com/veganisminanutshell


Any person who is concerned with
A. Their own health
B. The Environment
C. Alleviating suffering
or D. Humyn rights 
at least take the things discussed on that site into consideration.
Sorry for the delayed response i didnt see someone posted after me. I am a freegan as well, and as long as your not buying into the system that creates that kind of opression I think its fine. Unhealthy, but fine.

Post edited by: Mady, at: 2007/05/20 21:53

Post edited by: Mady, at: 2007/05/20 21:54


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## Grace

Eh, I feel like that's justification. Part of living a vegan lifestyle, if you're doing it because of principles, is that you don't consume animals or animal byproducts. I understand that trashed food is wasted food, but by diet alone, it doens't make you a vegan. It makes you an omnivore. But that's cool, because I eat cheesesteaks at least once a week, and I know for a fact I wouldn't be able to murder a cow myself given the chance. So we're all hypocrites really.


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## Bathtub666

*FrumpyWatkins wrote:*


> Sorry to piss all the Vegans and the like off, but as humans we were meant to be omnivores. We are the top predator on planet earth, and yes we should protect our habitat but this idea of eating limited types of food is totally unhealthy. To lead a truly successful life, a balanced diet needs to be achieved. I know you can get the necessaries from things other then meat but humans were designed to get energy from meat. When you are born your primal instincts tell you "meat", however your mind might think otherwise and choose alternate routes. (It is the same thing with homosexuality, humans were meant to be heterosexual, it is how we procreate and nature's way of keeping our species alive. However this does not mean I have any type of problem with homosexuals or vegetarians nor are these practices wrong.) I do however disagree with the way meat is gathered and meat products are produced. I try to eat as little meat as possible and when I do, it is free range organic. But against my point, when we have high populations of humans and they all eat meat, this screws up the food chain because so much transferred energy is wasted, so a balanced healthy diet. Fast food and processed food are the downfall of our current society hunger/niche wise.



I don't really agree with this. If we, as humyns, were designed to be omnivorous then why do we incur so many health problems from meat (i.e. cholesterol)? And why does meat need to be cooked for us to digest? Sure, no one knows knows exactly the genesis of human evolution, but speaking as an athiest I do not believe we fell out of the sky with fire in our hands and a how-to-guide on grilling. If you really believe that we are natural omnivours, then the next time you feel hungry you can get your knife, track and catch a pig and see if your teeth can tear through the skin, or if your digestive system can even process the meat raw. I am not a militant vegetarian, and I do indulge in milk and eggs and whatnot, but to go as far as to say that nature designed us to be omnivorous is simply not the case. The facts are simply against you.


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## FrumpyWatkins

*Bathtub666 wrote:*


> *FrumpyWatkins wrote:*
> Sorry to piss all the Vegans and th... the case. The facts are simply against you.
> 
> What is so hard to understand that we are predators? Thousands creatures eat meat and we happen to be one of them, deal with it! Also the only reason we cook meat is cause the Apes that we evolved from ate raw meat as did early bipedal homo like species. Once fire was discovered, meat was able to be cooked making it easier for humans to eat and overtime became the way of eating meat. If other animals could harness fire they would cook meat too. Sticking to a non meat diet is simply preposterous, without meat it's almost impossible to gain weight for building muscle mass unless you're taking insane amounts of protein. Cholesterol is the stupidest thing I've ever heard, DON'T EAT MEAT AT EVERY MEAL! It's all about balanced diets. Also I am totally against the practices currently in use for butchering meat, I choose to eat free range products.
> 
> BALANCED DIET
> BALANCED DIET
> BALANCED DIET


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## jamessheaj

8 foot prints 1.9 planets


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## Grace

Not to open up the whole discussion on meat eating or anything but...

If our meat wasn't packaged, and came much fresher, we would probably be able to digest it raw. In Switzerland, they eat raw beef all the damn time without cooking it and its disgusting. 

Meat is a wonderful source of protein, but there are many other ways to get the same amount of protein (if not the same kind) not using the same methods. 

What we should really be pissed off about is the fact that synthetic growth hormones are in almost all the meat that we eat, and that our anthropogenic impact on the planet has made it such that being a person not relying on natural processing is healthier. That is, to say, being a vegetarian who eats nothing but locally grown grains, vegetables and fruit is less likely to injest unwanted, yucky yucky chemicals.


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## Dillinger

being a vegan for a long time i decided i finnally wanted a burger but didnt want to support anything like massacering innocent animals so i decided to eat one of my paralized friends' legs while he was sleeping. i justifyed it saying he couldnt feel it (or say anything so long as i wasn't seen). he never knew and i continued being a vegan, eating living things that can't feel or say anything about what you're doing. . . life is good.
=)


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## katiehabits

i got 10.56 but for canada the average is 89.25 and my lifestyle would use .67 earths....
i don't get this.


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## finn

That quiz doesn't really make sense with permacampers. I have no electricity, gas, or running water, and I don't have much clue with what kind of mileage I rack up either. Dumpstered meat really depends on if you have a good nose- I keep telling people to smell everything they eat, because your nose will figure out what makes you sick... but I still don't know about raw meat. I guess Swiss people are gross.


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## wartomods

i would need 1.86 earths, yay


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## Angela

finn said:


> That quiz doesn't really make sense with permacampers. I have no electricity, gas, or running water, and I don't have much clue with what kind of mileage I rack up either. Dumpstered meat really depends on if you have a good nose- I keep telling people to smell everything they eat, because your nose will figure out what makes you sick... but I still don't know about raw meat. I guess Swiss people are gross.



Yeah don't feel bad Finn, the quiz doesn't really make sense for most people on this site. It should tell people something when the lowest income option they have for a household in the US is $29,000 a year.  I'm just guessing but I would think that for quite a few of us that's more than many of us make and consume in five years or more. These kind of things are for yuppies or hipsters that want to feel like their not destroying the environment around them while consuming far too much, none of the questions even have options that account for our existence. I had a professor years ago in school that assigned a quiz similar to that one in a "sustainable development" course(which are pretty much also designed to make people that consume/waste too much feel like their not that destructive), I've been very disillusioned with those kind of "quizes" ever since.


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## Mouse

I don't currently have control over most fo these factors because I live with other people. I rent a room at my brothers house. so.. I don't like this quiz. that and I have no idea how much I really travel in a car.. I drive a scooter for fucks sake. and I get rides from people now and then. there's no option for anything less than a small car.


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## bote

that is funny Dillinger, I myself was cmfortable not eating anything with a face until I started thinking about scallops amd oysters and such that I don`t eat, but whom admitedly don`t have much of anything resembling a face, and wondering if I`m being prejudiced against them- is it my moral obligation to eat these guys now that I`ve recognized that they don`t fit the criteria? And Now, a poem by Leonard Coen (from memory so don`t tell me if I get it wron:

Those who eat meet want to sink their teeth into something
Those who do not eat meat want to sink their teeth into something else
If either of these thoughts interests you for even a moment, you are lost

2.75, but the quiz doesn`t really accomodate the homeless


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## Calea Spots

cool quiz.

annnnnnd not sure what all these "if it can't suffer you can eat it" arguments are all about. supposedly lethal injection is painless... doesn't make it acceptable. 

but back to meat. if you treat it with respect you can eat it. if you raise and eat a goat who has grazed on wild oregano its whole life your goat burger will taste GODLY. if you buy and eat a pig who has never seen the sun, never moved more than a few feet, never tasted anything but slop, never spent a day free of fear... all that stress is still in the meat when you cook your bacon and will treat your body accordingly.


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## bote

Treating an animal with respect doesn´t include killing it. I´d rather be treated terribly than get deaded, call it anthropomorphism, but I assume other living things feel the same. Glad your goat burger tastes good, but the goat could give a shit. I´m not advocating vegetarianism btw, just arguing your logic


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## macks

dont you all feel too bad about these numbers. if everyone did all of these saving the world list things, the industry would still destroy everything at practically the same rate. changing your light bulbs isn't going to save the world - we need a massive cultural shift or collapse and the decision may already be made for us.

and in response to the veganism thing I agree with respect when taking life to sustain your own. someone once said to me that veganism is a response to a culturally toxic situation, which is more or less my view. i've seen a lot of friends get and stay very sick from strict raw vegan or vegan diets. not to knock on their ideals because i share a lot of the same sentiments, but it sucks watching your friends waste away and have to go to the hospital. im not a nutritional expert so im not going to say what we're 'supposed' to eat, but yes we did evolve from raw meat-eating ancestors, but thats not all they ate. and they sure as hell didnt feed them a bunch of narsty chemicals before they ate them!


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## veggieguy12

We could each work on lessening our own footprints, or we could think big and lessen everybody's footprints.
And that only takes a few people doing enough, instead of each of us.


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## hassysmacker

Forget Shorter Showers: Why Personal Change Does Not Equal Political Change

by Derrick Jensen

Would any sane person think dumpster diving would have stopped Hitler, or that composting would have ended slavery or brought about the eight-hour workday, or that chopping wood and carrying water would have gotten people out of Tsarist prisons, or that dancing naked around a fire would have helped put in place the Voting Rights Act of 1957 or the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Then why now, with all the world at stake, do so many people retreat into these entirely personal “solutions”?

Part of the problem is that we’ve been victims of a campaign of systematic misdirection. Consumer culture and the capitalist mindset have taught us to substitute acts of personal consumption (or enlightenment) for organized political resistance. An Inconvenient Truth helped raise consciousness about global warming. But did you notice that all of the solutions presented had to do with personal consumption—changing light bulbs, inflating tires, driving half as much—and had nothing to do with shifting power away from corporations, or stopping the growth economy that is destroying the planet? Even if every person in the United States did everything the movie suggested, U.S. carbon emissions would fall by only 22 percent. Scientific consensus is that emissions must be reduced by at least 75 percent worldwide.

Or let’s talk water. We so often hear that the world is running out of water. People are dying from lack of water. Rivers are dewatered from lack of water. Because of this we need to take shorter showers. See the disconnect? Because I take showers, I’m responsible for drawing down aquifers? Well, no. More than 90 percent of the water used by humans is used by agriculture and industry. The remaining 10 percent is split between municipalities and actual living breathing individual humans. Collectively, municipal golf courses use as much water as municipal human beings. People (both human people and fish people) aren’t dying because the world is running out of water. They’re dying because the water is being stolen.

Or let’s talk energy. Kirkpatrick Sale summarized it well: “For the past 15 years the story has been the same every year: individual consumption—residential, by private car, and so on—is never more than about a quarter of all consumption; the vast majority is commercial, industrial, corporate, by agribusiness and government [he forgot military]. So, even if we all took up cycling and wood stoves it would have a negligible impact on energy use, global warming and atmospheric pollution.”

Or let’s talk waste. In 2005, per-capita municipal waste production (basically everything that’s put out at the curb) in the U.S. was about 1,660 pounds. Let’s say you’re a die-hard simple-living activist, and you reduce this to zero. You recycle everything. You bring cloth bags shopping. You fix your toaster. Your toes poke out of old tennis shoes. You’re not done yet, though. Since municipal waste includes not just residential waste, but also waste from government offices and businesses, you march to those offices, waste reduction pamphlets in hand, and convince them to cut down on their waste enough to eliminate your share of it. Uh, I’ve got some bad news. Municipal waste accounts for only 3 percent of total waste production in the United States.

I want to be clear. I’m not saying we shouldn’t live simply. I live reasonably simply myself, but I don’t pretend that not buying much (or not driving much, or not having kids) is a powerful political act, or that it’s deeply revolutionary. It’s not. Personal change doesn’t equal social change.

So how, then, and especially with all the world at stake, have we come to accept these utterly insufficient responses? I think part of it is that we’re in a double bind. A double bind is where you’re given multiple options, but no matter what option you choose, you lose, and withdrawal is not an option. At this point, it should be pretty easy to recognize that every action involving the industrial economy is destructive (and we shouldn’t pretend that solar photovoltaics, for example, exempt us from this: they still require mining and transportation infrastructures at every point in the production processes; the same can be said for every other so-called green technology). So if we choose option one—if we avidly participate in the industrial economy—we may in the short term think we win because we may accumulate wealth, the marker of “success” in this culture. But we lose, because in doing so we give up our empathy, our animal humanity. And we really lose because industrial civilization is killing the planet, which means everyone loses. If we choose the “alternative” option of living more simply, thus causing less harm, but still not stopping the industrial economy from killing the planet, we may in the short term think we win because we get to feel pure, and we didn’t even have to give up all of our empathy (just enough to justify not stopping the horrors), but once again we really lose because industrial civilization is still killing the planet, which means everyone still loses. The third option, acting decisively to stop the industrial economy, is very scary for a number of reasons, including but not restricted to the fact that we’d lose some of the luxuries (like electricity) to which we’ve grown accustomed, and the fact that those in power might try to kill us if we seriously impede their ability to exploit the world—none of which alters the fact that it’s a better option than a dead planet. Any option is a better option than a dead planet.

Besides being ineffective at causing the sorts of changes necessary to stop this culture from killing the planet, there are at least four other problems with perceiving simple living as a political act (as opposed to living simply because that’s what you want to do). The first is that it’s predicated on the flawed notion that humans inevitably harm their landbase. Simple living as a political act consists solely of harm reduction, ignoring the fact that humans can help the Earth as well as harm it. We can rehabilitate streams, we can get rid of noxious invasives, we can remove dams, we can disrupt a political system tilted toward the rich as well as an extractive economic system, we can destroy the industrial economy that is destroying the real, physical world.

The second problem—and this is another big one—is that it incorrectly assigns blame to the individual (and most especially to individuals who are particularly powerless) instead of to those who actually wield power in this system and to the system itself. Kirkpatrick Sale again: “The whole individualist what-you-can-do-to-save-the-earth guilt trip is a myth. We, as individuals, are not creating the crises, and we can’t solve them.”

The third problem is that it accepts capitalism’s redefinition of us from citizens to consumers. By accepting this redefinition, we reduce our potential forms of resistance to consuming and not consuming. Citizens have a much wider range of available resistance tactics, including voting, not voting, running for office, pamphleting, boycotting, organizing, lobbying, protesting, and, when a government becomes destructive of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, we have the right to alter or abolish it.

The fourth problem is that the endpoint of the logic behind simple living as a political act is suicide. If every act within an industrial economy is destructive, and if we want to stop this destruction, and if we are unwilling (or unable) to question (much less destroy) the intellectual, moral, economic, and physical infrastructures that cause every act within an industrial economy to be destructive, then we can easily come to believe that we will cause the least destruction possible if we are dead.

The good news is that there are other options. We can follow the examples of brave activists who lived through the difficult times I mentioned—Nazi Germany, Tsarist Russia, antebellum United States—who did far more than manifest a form of moral purity; they actively opposed the injustices that surrounded them. We can follow the example of those who remembered that the role of an activist is not to navigate systems of oppressive power with as much integrity as possible, but rather to confront and take down those systems. 
© 2009 Orion
Derrick Jensen is an activist and the author of many books, most recently What We Leave Behind and Songs of the Dead.


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## LovelyAcorns

Huh. I like that article hassy.


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## bote

I like it too, but I disagree with the premise that personal change is not political and that reducing or modifying one`s consumption of goods is futile, as far as affecting real ¨change¨ goes. 
For one thing, deciding not to swallow what is being fed you is inevitably a creative process, as it brings you to think about what you actually want and try to figure out ways of getting there. 
Any green or environmental initiative in today`s world is precluded by an act of freethinking, a willingness to diverge from the status quo, the status quo being materialism/capitalism, and therefore the aforementioned initiative(s) being precluded by divergence from materialism/capitalism, you see what I`m saying?
Furthermore, the suggestion that better ways of living can be created in a vacuum that is in no way a reaction to where we now are is trouble from the get go: to me it suggests a totalitarian approach where one person or group dictate life based solely on their own ideas/desires. This is a fine way for an individual to live, but when you talk about applying it to ¨politics¨ or a ¨political structure¨, what you have is more akin to the power structures in ¨Nazi Germany, Tsarist Russia¨ than to the people who fought them (Don`t see what antebellum united states has to do with anything, if you bothered reading all this and know the answer, please tell me).


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## LovelyAcorns

bote said:


> I like it too, but I disagree with the premise that personal change is not political and that reducing or modifying one`s consumption of goods is futile, as far as affecting real ¨change¨ goes.
> For one thing, deciding not to swallow what is being fed you is inevitably a creative process, as it brings you to think about what you actually want and try to figure out ways of getting there.
> Any green or environmental initiative in today`s world is precluded by an act of freethinking, a willingness to diverge from the status quo, the status quo being materialism/capitalism, and therefore the aforementioned initiative(s) being precluded by divergence from materialism/capitalism, you see what I`m saying?
> Furthermore, the suggestion that better ways of living can be created in a vacuum that is in no way a reaction to where we now are is trouble from the get go: to me it suggests a totalitarian approach where one person or group dictate life based solely on their own ideas/desires. This is a fine way for an individual to live, but when you talk about applying it to ¨politics¨ or a ¨political structure¨, what you have is more akin to the power structures in ¨Nazi Germany, Tsarist Russia¨ than to the people who fought them (Don`t see what antebellum united states has to do with anything, if you bothered reading all this and know the answer, please tell me).



Well, yeah. The article briefly talks about that (So if we choose option one—if we avidly participate in the industrial economy—we may in the short term think we win because we may accumulate wealth, the marker of “success” in this culture. But we lose, because in doing so we give up our empathy, our animal humanity.) but its not given much focus. My view is that their is a shitload of reasons to alter your lifestyle to limit your complicity, but lifestyle choices isn't going to create the changes needed.

I'm having a little trouble understanding your wording, but I'm assuming by the totalitarian approach you are referring to the whole "a small group changing the world" thing. Well, this has never actually happened, and unless some group steals GMO diseases or a nuke, its not. However, the social movement that could be considered "positive", even if they did end in weak liberal reform, have started with small groups fighting, which in turn has inspired others, creating a snowball effect. Propaganda of the deed combined with normal propaganda, basically. Usually the "negative" changes, for fairly obvious reasons, happen when people are not allowed to fight under their own terms. I know I'm doing a bad job explaining, but oh well.

P.S. You can't understand what the fight against slavery has to do with anything?


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## bote

not in the context it´s given no, where the author is talking about small groups opposing an overwhelming political structure, like in the other examples given (nazi germany, Stalinist Russia), as I understand the civil war and events leading up to it as being primarily about two established political entities vying for overall supremacy. It could make sense, but the term antebellum United States is a pretty nebulous way to allude to emancipation if that´s what being got at.

I don´t see the article briefly talking about the issues I discussed, I see the article being about those issues, as stated in the title, and as referenced repeatedly throughout the article.



LovelyAcorns said:


> the social movement that could be considered "positive" ... have started with small groups fighting, which in turn has inspired others, creating a snowball effect. Usually the "negative" change... happen when people are not allowed to fight under their own terms.



I don´t disagree with this at all, but my reading of the article is that the author is speaking directly against the importance of the small group/snowball effect, since the initial unit of movement in this scenario must be individual change, no? 
In other words, you and I are talking about somebody with an idea, doing something with that idea,other people become involved, said idea takes hold in an important way and real change is affected. 
Unless you believe that people´s actions are guided by the purely theoretical (I don´t), then people´s actions represent their ideals and values- in organizing the kind of snowball/social movements that go against the status quo, individuals are displaying exactly what the article is attempting to discredit: personal change, affirmation of personal values (since the values are different from what is around them, they must be personal, no?)


and the whole totalitarian regime thing, that is what I see this article offering as an alternative if you follow it´s logic, since political structure imagined as something other than a way of assessing and furthering individual values is really only a renaming and emphasizing of a particular value set- like Stalin, who believed that his ideas were beyond subjective opinion and somehow of a greater design.

I think this type of article strays too far from the actual action it seems to be advocating and gives armchair activists a reason to order Domino´s again.


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## LovelyAcorns

Really? When I think of pre-Civil War I think of the underground railroad, attempts to arm slaves, etc. But yeah, the war itself was a battle between two powerful entities, and I guess thats the way history portrays the lead up too. But on that point, how was the defeat of Nazi Germany any different?


I think, however, the rest of our debate has gone moot. If I'm understanding you correctly, we share the same view, but are interpreting the article differently. Useful to know - I was tempted to copy it and leave it around liberal places, guess I need to find a better article.



P.S. This quiz is just plain weird. Somehow, human consumption is taking 1.5 planets, yet while scoring less than average on every category I consume 2.4 planets? The hell.


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## bote

you might not want to use me to gauge the effect of this article on liberals, as I myself am not one and really like to argue. okay, I´ll drop it too


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## veggieguy12

LovelyAcorns said:


> ...you are referring to the whole "a small group changing the world" thing. Well, this has never actually happened...



How many Americans do you think conspired and executed JFK? RFK? MLK?
How many people do you think conspired to and did actually attack and destroy the World Trade Center buildings, along with the Pentagon?
How many people tunneled under the Berlin Wall?
How many people worked on the Manhattan Project which eventually destroyed two Japanese cities, evacuated and radiated islands, and began the Cold War which bankrupted the USSR?
How many Iraqis do you think are actively attacking occupation forces?
How many Nigerians do you think are fighting their government and foreign oil companies?
How many Venezuelans deposed the President in 2002, and how many people overturned the illegitimate govt. and brought Hugo Chavez back to office?
How many English agitated the colonial population of New England to rebel against King George's rule?
How many spies/informants saved Fidel Castro from some 800 US plots to kill him?
The answer to all these questions is, I think, very few indeed.

And, of course, very few people actually planned the US invasion of Iraq, very few Germans actually made the Third Reich and planned the death camps, very few Bolsheviks took over the interim government, and very few Chinese commies plotted the Great Leap Forward. Most of these things were the work of very few, but came to fruition through their power to influence or command others to actually do the work. That doesn't happen everywhere, certainly environmentalists aren't going to have armies to command, nor do I see them seizing any notable amount of power.
But with the first cases I listed as questions, these are examples of a small number of people doing things which had deep, and profound ripples in the 'world pond'.


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## LovelyAcorns

veggieguy12 said:


> How many Americans do you think conspired and executed JFK? RFK? MLK?


Honestly, I fail to see how their assinations changed much. People cried, then moved on. Leaders are replacable.


> How many people do you think conspired to and did actually attack and destroy the World Trade Center buildings, along with the Pentagon?


And western civilization collapsed, just as planned, right? The deaths were tragic, but Patriotic America is who created the changes since then.


> How many people tunneled under the Berlin Wall?


I'll give you this one, kinda. 


> How many people worked on the Manhattan Project which eventually destroyed two Japanese cities, evacuated and radiated islands, and began the Cold War which bankrupted the USSR?


According to wikipedia, about 130,000. 



> How many Iraqis do you think are actively attacking occupation forces?


Last time I checked, they are still occupied.



> How many Nigerians do you think are fighting their government and foreign oil companies?


 Don't know, when their government and foreign oil companies are gone, we'll talk.



> How many Venezuelans deposed the President in 2002, and how many people overturned the illegitimate govt. and brought Hugo Chavez back to office?


Fine, small groups are able to create 47 hours of change before a return normalcy.


> How many English agitated the colonial population of New England to rebel against King George's rule?


."Most of these things were the work of very few, but came to fruition through their power to influence or command others to actually do the work. " Even ignoring that, zero. The colonial population was starting to revolt already,they just tried to save their own wealth.


> How many spies/informants saved Fidel Castro from some 800 US plots to kill him?


How many people does it take to keep a single person alive?


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## veggieguy12

LovelyAcorns, I'm pretty sure you're an intelligent fellow, so I have to sigh and think that you're intentionally being obtuse here, trying more to be oppositional than see the points I'm making. I'm not fighting to win an argument, work with me here.

Most of those examples I listed are of a 'Few Actors, Many (or Powerful) Backers' type.
The three assassinations created ripples of change, and without knowing you I am certain you could see how if you weren't instead just being contrary.

Again, with 9/11, you undoubtedly know how catalytic that was for the neocons (and Zionists) to get into Iraq/remove Saddam. If you buy the official story, some 30 people killed 3000 in the USA, and got the ball rolling on the US/NATO invasion of Afghanistan and the US military/corporate takeover of Iraq (and its conditional bankrupting of the US government).
The Berlin Wall being weak at stopping traffic because of a few German renegades is perhaps the weakest of my examples.
The Manhattan Project was the *work* of a handful of physicists, you should know. Of course there were 45 janitors in the facilities, but that's not my point, is it? They didn't split the atoms, nor did the Generals, nor probably even Oppenheimer.

Perhaps a better way to think of my question is, "How many people were essential to ____?" or "Who irreplacably made this happen?"

Yes, Iraq is still occupied - this fucking country is occupied, to my mind - but out of a nation of millions, a small percentage have cost and are costing the US millions of dollars and thousands of lives. At every level there are essential people, gathering the bullets, firing the guns, surveilling and reporting on targets, rigging IEDs, giving refuge to wanted people, donating money. The whole country isn't doing it all. Most of the people support the insurgency, as I understand it; but moral support is one thing - there are a relative few who are actually essential to sending Americans home in boxes and bags, and escalating our financial cost (and draining public support here).

Of course, the MEND has not expelled Shell or Chevron; for this you write them off as ineffective? Avalanches begin with a tumbling pebble. Do you instead expect that the Nigerian populace would spontaneously rise up armed? Or do you realize that the groundwork must be laid by a few in the beginning, and built-upon? Those few are not to be denied their credit (for what it's worth) in making change through their labors, simply because the most drastic changes come with many people assisting.

In Venezuela, a few people removed the popular President - that is changing the world. Within 48 hours, a larger group of less-powerful people - but still small, by numbers - ousted those people and reinstated their President. That too is changing their world, and your dismissive statements do not make it less true or diminish the impact those few people had on the world via their acts.

I don't believe that the overall population of the English colonies was ready to overthrow the King's rule; the "Americans" most affected by the British monarchy were the wealthy, and it was a very few of their class who stirred-up shit to persuade farmers and blacksmiths to risk their lives in fighting the redcoats. Why, it's _Common Sense_!

"How many people does it take to keep a single person alive?"
Gee, I don't know. But that's not really addressing my point, is it? To make it explicitly, the world would have been severely changed if any of those 800 plans had been successfully executed against the Cuban. And those plans were thwarted because of a small group of counter-intelligence and security personnel of a tiny piss-poor island staying on their toes against the biggest military and espionage budgets the world has ever known.
And you might not think much would be different, but then ask yourself why the US bothered to attack Cuba in '61, and why they wanted to make Castro croak.

A few people put together the 1982 assassination of elected fascist Bashir Gemayel. Ask some Lebanese, Palestinians, or Israelis if that didn't 'change the world'. I guess it depends what kind of change you're looking for. One incident that will stop an entire government, or something that erases a nation from the maps? Such standards would never be met in one single act, not by the largest or best armies of the world's history. 
Isolated actions done once and never followed-up don't have much sustained impact, obviously.
Small groups and individuals, however, *can* indeed change the world, if successful against the right targets.


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## hassysmacker

I feel the argument is that personal change is great and fantastic and important to fully discovering yourself, but at the rate of ecological devestation it simply isn't enough, and a more appropriate strategy would be an effective and tactical dismantling of the system, as we don't have the time or momentum to effect serious change by personal lifestylism change.

It's a liberal vs. radical thing.


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## finn

LovelyAcorns said:


> How many people does it take to keep a single person alive?



I looked at this and it gave me a thought. It doesn't take many people to keep someone alive, sometimes just one. Haven't you been in a situation where no one is doing something useful in a bad situation- where someone who is dead drunk is being taken advantage of, or maybe is in need of more medical attention than you can give- and you're the one who takes charge and does something useful? Or when people are being stupid on the subway and they need a voice to prevent them from being stupid- as in letting people get out before you try getting in?

Even a cynic can see that one small action can make a huge difference to a few lives. As for the global ecosystem, well, that small group needs to be proportionately bigger...


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## bote

hassysmacker said:


> It's a liberal vs. radical thing.



It`s funny you put it this way, because I agree, except I have a feeling we are at odds over which approach is which. I see not being subject to all social norms as the basis of radicalism, whereas articles like this where just made for the consensus taking, academically correct crowd. I just typed that, might as well submit...


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## hassysmacker

I feel articles like this WERE tailored towards the liberal crowd who seem to think that individual change is enough (liberalism being broadly defined as an outlook where the functional social unit is the individual vs. radicalism where the functional social unit is the group)

Derrick is without a question radical, but I think this article was in fact tailored towards a different crowd than his usual readers.

So that was a very long way to say i agree with you, bote!


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## LovelyAcorns

hassysmacker said:


> Derrick is without a question radical, but I think this article was in fact tailored towards a different crowd than his usual readers.


Actually, this statement helped me think bote is right. The crowd he aimed it at wouldn't know Derrick's politics. Knowing it, we can make assumptions about what he means;a liberal crowd wouldn't. Trying to look at it on its own, it does kind of come across as saying that a small group needs to take charge and fix everything- dangerous thing to tell liberals with their love of authority and vanguards.



veggieguy12 said:


> Of course, the MEND has not expelled Shell or Chevron; for this you write them off as ineffective? Avalanches begin with a tumbling pebble. Do you instead expect that the Nigerian populace would spontaneously rise up armed? Or do you realize that the groundwork must be laid by a few in the beginning, and built-upon? Those few are not to be denied their credit (for what it's worth) in making change through their labors, simply because the most drastic changes come with many people assisting.
> 
> ...
> 
> Isolated actions done once and never followed-up don't have much sustained impact, obviously.



This is actually exactly what I'm saying. Isn't your avalanche metaphor pretty much the same thing as the snowball effect? But how can you say those who assist or join in later aren't changing the world? Under that logic they have no incentive to join the fight and might as well remain spectators.


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## veggieguy12

LovelyAcorns said:


> ...how can you say those who assist or join in later aren't changing the world?



Not saying that, don't believe I wrote such a thing.
So we're in agreement, I guess.


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## connerR

Based on my 2008:

7.17 earths.

Footprint = 278.11

The 40,000 miles of driving I've done in the last few years and being a carnivore didn't help out too much, I don't think, nor did the big house I live in with my father. 



I do, however, feel that this quiz is too extreme in some cases.


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## veggieguy12

I don't agree with the notion of meat-eating being bad for the planet, and the converse implication that being vegetarian is good, or better.

Just don't think it's true; the Navajo were not vegetarian, and nobody with any knowledge is gonna assert that they were destroying the ecosystem they inhabited.


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## RnJ

1.88 earths.

Carbon: 3.5
Food: 19.6
Housing: 2.0
Goods and Services: 4.5
=====
Total: 29.58 - The food got me...though I find it extremely high. I've got a big stomach, but I didn't think it was THAT big.


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## connerR

I fear that this quiz is little more than green propaganda. I think it's far too ambiguous to adequately portray my "footprint".


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## macks

Agreed. We have been and are continuing to causing a mass extinction event, this is old news. What we need to start thinking about now is how to be prepared when shit hits the fan.


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## bote

veggieguy12 said:


> I don't agree with the notion of meat-eating being bad for the planet, and the converse implication that being vegetarian is good, or better.
> 
> Just don't think it's true; the Navajo were not vegetarian, and nobody with any knowledge is gonna assert that they were destroying the ecosystem they inhabited.




I don`t think that meat eating is bad for the planet either, however production methods and rates of consumption are pretty different today than for the Navajo, you know the whole beef cattle leading cause of deforestation worldwide thing. As for vegetarianism being better, I also don`t agree, to me diet seems to affect the environment only insofar as production methods are concerned, but that being said, see once again brazilian rainforest depletion etc.


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## hassysmacker

macks said:


> What we need to start thinking about now is how to be prepared when shit hits the fan.



...and how to dismantle the infrastructure that's pushing shit towards the fan, so when the shit hits the fan, which it INEVITABLY will, there's less splatter, and it's generally a less smelly situation for all those still living, though they will still be covered in shit.


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## IBRRHOBO

I guess I'm fucked! It couldn't find a number for me. Might have something to do with the use of styrofoam peanuts to start fires or using the freon cans for target practice? Surely not the DDT and diesel mixture I use to kill those pesky trees blocking all the sun here?


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## veggieguy12

Careful with the chemicals on the land your lil' hellspawn (on-the-way) will presumably be inhabiting!


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## IBRRHOBO

got that covered. we're gonna sell the land when he's born to an unsuspecting non profit group for community gardens and use the profit to buy more land. we'll use part of the land for a home and the other part to cash in on the illegal toxic waste storage business that is BOOMING out here! bah ha ha!

hey, you'll meet the hellspawn if ur around come march. when u heading this way? and call sometime! we could elevate both r blood pressures! bah ha ha!


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