Isn’t it extremely difficult to live simply these days, because while the price of food and most other goods has decreased relative to incomes, the price of housing has increased?

This is because many voters who already own homes (especially in marginal constituencies) want house prices to be high (Mark Wadsworth coined the term “Home-Owner-Ists” for such people), and have sought to ensure this by obstructing the construction of new homes, even in the face of mass immigration.

Another factor may also be the fact that MPs can buy second homes for themselves with taxpayers’ money, giving them a vested interest in high house prices.

Ironically, the Home-Owner-Ists often excuse their greedy NIMBYism on the pretext of “protecting the Green Belt”.

Perhaps an attack on Home-Owner-Ism (through the building of lots more council houses, or through the introduction of a Land Value Tax and reduction of other taxes to compensate) could allow people to work less and restore some of the lost sense of community.

My wife saw a pair of models. She grew up amid real poverty.

I am reminded of the satirical blog, Stuff White People Like and their take on such mobilization tools:

An interesting fact about white people is that they firmly believe that all of the world’s problems can be solved through “awareness.” Meaning the process of making other people aware of problems, and then magically someone else like the government will fix it.

Popular things to be aware of: The Environment, Diseases like Cancer and AIDS, Africa, Poverty, Anorexia, Homophobia, Midde School Field Hockey/Lacrosse teams, Drug Rehab, and political prisoners.

Obviously the “White people” reffered to here are not the entire race, but the more specific youngish, liberal, multiculturalist types that are the lifeblood of the environmental movement.

~T. Greer, noting that SWPL also has a funny post on recycling as well.

In the previous thread, Talisker referred to an article on opendemocracy.net which attacked people’s materialistic values, and the need to replace these with something more “caring”.

I think this is why it is so difficult to talk to environmentalists about “sustainability”. If we could demonstrate that resources are not running out, we would still be rejected because we would be implying that it is OK to keep consuming. The typical environmentalists want us to change and give up the materialistic lifestyle, they want us to change and become people who are more interested in other things, like human harmony.

I’ve talked to my enviro friends, and at the end of the discussion, when we’ve got to the point where we can all agree that we are NOT running out of resources, I get the reply, “yes but can’t we just all slow down anyway, to a simpler quieter life of community?”

And my reply is, that’s fine for you dear, if that’s the life you’d like. Go ahead and arrange your own life so that you can have that lifestyle now. Nobody is asking you to be a fatcat businessman, instead find something that suits you, like you could go become a counsellor and work with relationships and care.

But let’s not assume that future generations are all going to feel the same way as you; many of them will be just as interested in acquiring materialistic stuff and technologies–an NMR medical scanner in every clinic, being able to travel round the world at Mach 8, access to and use of 10 times the amount of energy we use today, sophisticated robotics tech in every home–and it is not our call to say they should not have that. How would we have liked it if previous generations had decided that the internet consumed too much power and we should stick with a simpler, slower, quieter pace ? Letters delivered by bicycle?

As Westerners, we’ve done our intensive materialist pursuit for a few centuries, and created reasonably comfortable lives for ourselves. So it is easy to say, well, let’s slow down, let’s look after the trees more, let’s improve the air. The rest of the world has yet gain materialistic satisfaction, and as we see with India, they will not sacrifice development for climate change.