Good on you Paul. I just don't 'get' the whole shopping therapy consumerism thing.

Sustainability is a personal choice - 'lifestyle' if you like. How sadly this term has been hijacked by the shysters (both political and business) to convince the brainless to by crap they don't need with money they haven't got.

Is this what THE ECONOMY is all about?

Products are made to last a certain time. How can we get manufacturers to make products that last longer when their profits are reduced if they do so?

We did not go shopping for a new refrigeration or washing machine on impulse. The old one's simply wore out. Replacement parts are often not made for older appliances. Some products such as automobiles are made so that it is cheaper to replace an entire component than to repair it. There is built in waste.

I attend to an Apartment complex and have to remove Tons of junk mail per year. When I pass by a bakery at about 5pm, and I see shelves of loaves disappear into black plastic bags; when I take the bus and often am alone in this moving thirteen Tons car for miles and miles; when I see Council trucks chopping, by fueled machines, that fuel that in my childhood cooked meals; when the water company warns me that they will have to change my meter because it is impossible that a person can use as little of the stuff as I do and I cannot tell them (I haven’t yet learned the talk of bureaucrats) that in my old fishing village there was only one spring and it was one quarter of a mile away and there I had to learn the value of a drink and that of a wash; and when I am told that in some, many, parts of this mad world there are people who do not have even what graced my youth, I feel not very confident in the future of humanity

One way to start this is that everytime you buy you must give away twice or three times as much. Clear out the garage, the cupboards, the shelves. It makes you think about the value of what you have, the need for something new and encourages a spirit of giving rather than taking.

Ultimately it comes down to personal responsibiity. We can all make a difference by not overspending, living within our means, growing some of our food to reduce personal debt. Our grandparents made all their own clothes, cooked most of their food, had vegies and chooks and went out little. We have total control and power to reduce our own debt if we reduce our own greed.

You can choose not to keep up with the Jones's.

Overconsumption and rampant consumerism is bad for the planet - do the math. Consumerism only has 'merit' in terms of the system we have set up for ourselves - we have the dragon by the tail and don't know how to let go.

It will take some radical and creative thinking outside the confined economic square we have imprisoned ourselves within to come up with a better way (maybe the Third Way is a start). A system that meets the needs of people in terms of hierarchy of needs (not wants) that will also preserve the planet for future generations. Sustainability does not have to be austere or living in caves as the doomsayers would have you believe.

Marcus Aurelius is credited to have said "That which is not good for the bee-hive cannot be good for the bees."

Pelican, why don't you simply live at a much lower standard of living? To start with, you could stop communicating to us your opinions.

I can't imagine that your *want* to type your opinions onto the world wide web comes anywhere near the justifiable standard of resource-use for human *needs* that you yourself stipulate?

Also, you do realise, don't you, that growing your own vegetables, raising your own chickens etc. uses *more*, not less resources per unit produced?

We have chooks at my place and it must be the most expensive way to get eggs. Then when they reach the age at which they no longer produce eggs, I presume "the planet" requires that we chop off their heads so they are not using up precious resources? But I didn't - they got the prerogative of mercy. Will this be counted against me? Should I go outside and kill them right now? Does the planet depend on it? Do but tell me and I'll sharpen up that ole meat cleaver.