Much head-nodding from me reading this opening of the always interesting Dense Discovery Newsletter Currently, the dominant narrative behind mitigating climate change is one based on economic opportunity: more, but greener. While it may lower carbon emissions eventually, this narrative doesn’t offer solutions for – or even acknowledge – the many other planetary boundaries we’re already exceeding.  Advocating for genuine sustainability must therefore include an admission that hardly any political or corporate leader is willing to make: that ‘the green future’ is a future of less instead of a fut... www.patrickrhone.net

@patrickrhone Agreed.

@patrickrhone agree with this a lot. Another thing that ruffles my feathers is that all this talk of “green”, and action for it, seems to weigh on the shoulders of us common folks — where it should be the big corporations & governments that need to be pushed and do the heavy lifting. Difficult problem…

@patrickrhone Yup - as a friend would say, "What we believe in."

@patrickrhone Very much agree. Using the shutdowns and “reductions” during the pandemic as a guide, we’re not going to be able to do this as a whole.

@vincent Agree completely.

@timapple Agreed. As you know, I've been saying this for a long time

@crossingthethreshold Indeed.

@patrickrhone What's interesting is that I think this type of shift does not happen obviously or in any sort-of dramatic "big event" fashion. Rather, as with all good things humans do, it happens gradually and then appears to change all at once.

I believe this specific change has already been happening in this way; it's just not easy to see unless you're literally surrounded by the younger generations. I think some of the quotes you share from Beatrix are proof of this.

@SimonWoods I tend to agree with you on this.

I've actually been drafting something related. Here's a small piece if it:

Climate change can be stopped by each of us — every you — deciding to change how we live. How you work, how you play, how you get around, what you eat, what you buy, and what you value, what you will not abide, and what you stand for.

@patrickrhone In my opinion the root issue is the insistence of unrestrained capitalism. Capitalism is fundamentally about more and it is fundamentally about one group of people having more than everyone else because it centers around scarcity. So far the only solutions allowed are the ones acceptable within unrestrained capitalism. Any solution that puts constraints on capitalism is fought and prohibited by the people toward the top of the pyramid. It's a systemic problem that cannot be fixed by individual solutions.

@frankm Yet, we as individuals willingly make choices that participate/perpetuate that system. If every individual decided not to, that system would change. The system is made of people.

@frankm (I know that it's not that easy but it is that simple)

@patrickrhone “My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?” - Cloud Atlas

@JMaxB Yep.

@JMaxB “There’s only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.” — Aldous Huxley - Time Must Have a Stop (1944)

@patrickrhone This is cool! I watched that film a few years ago but I didn’t know you at the time. Rewatching now. 😄

@patrickrhone Lots of agreement here, but I'd suggest adding that "less instead of more is okay, and may even be more humanly gratifying." (And when I point that out, there's three fingers pointed back at me.)

@timapple It felt like a minor victory the other day when I realized that my beat-up, unsightly computer lap desk still met the design spec: hold comfortably and securely on my lap a small computer.

@vincent @patrickrhone This is the problem in a nutshell. Corporations — especially fossil fuel ones — have far too much geopolitical sway through lobbying and power over globally elected officials. Meanwhile, they’re not only the biggest offenders for carbon emissions, but also vehemently opposed to green anything. That would cut into their profit margins and bottom line. Ignoring carbon emissions entirely, Patrick’s spot-on point about the future of less would drastically threaten their capitalistic stranglehold on the economy, and our livelihoods.

@timapple I miss the days when things were actually built to last a lifetime. Most everything new these days is simply not, and that’s exactly what the capitalists want.

@patrickrhone I’d very much like to read this.

@timapple If only those things were a bit more expensive in Canada… ;)

@timapple Is this really true with “white goods” items, like washers and refrigerators? Most all of these things are no considered disposable now.