In 2019, I returned to the United States after teaching abroad for many years. I wanted to help address climate change at its greatest source: my home country.
The situation was worse than I thought.
The typical U.S. lifestyle emits double the greenhouse gas of a Western European or Japanese lifestyle. That doesn’t count the emissions from foreign countries producing our consumer goods. Those emissions are said to belong to China, Mexico, or Vietnam.
Yet we are reluctant to change. We seem willing to address climate change only if our lives can remain how they are now.
To bring our emissions in line with other industrial nations, we must cut our consumption by half. Government policy alone cannot do this for us. Adding solar panels to consumerism won’t solve climate change; it will just create solar-powered consumerism. True change means deep change.
The goal of this book is not to label people bad for consuming, but to pose a simple question that might help us care for ourselves and for the Earth:
Introduction
Finding Enough
by Jeff Wagner with layinggroundwork.org
In the United States, we work very hard to increase consumption every year.
Adjusted for inflation, U.S. GDP per capita (the standard metric for defining
our success as a society) today is double what it was in 1977 and more than
six times what it was in 1929, when the industrial revolution’s economic boom
peaked.
We have so much GDP, but what does that really mean for us? Is life in the U.S.
twice as good as it was in 1977? Are we six times happier than in the Roaring
Twenties?
Is our food better tasting or more nutritious? Are we more at ease? Do we
smile more? Are our lives sweeter or more full of love?
What are We Working Towards?
We all want to prioritize the important things that help us feel enoughness-the
feeling that we have enough. Cooking a meal for family. Spending a beautiful day
outside. Treating a lover with the reverence they deserve. Supporting a community.
Watching a sunset. Stargazing.
Too often, today’s world feels tensioned to its limits, without enough space for the
important things. We feel as though we can’t prioritize them. There’s no slack in the
system.
In our culture of consumerism, we quickly gobble up any extra slack with a busier
schedule, more screen time, or the next new purchase. We have trained ourselves
to pursue happiness in the most stressful ways.
The Important Things