Deep Economy
By Johnnie Chamberlin
Published: March 6, 2010
I just finished Bill McKibben’s, Deep Economy – The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future. For me, this is one of those rare books that is both easy and interesting to read, but will change how you view the world and likely how you live your life. Using examples from Vermont, Central America, Cuba, Brazil, India, Bhutan, Montana, China, New York, and elsewhere, McKibben explores what is wrong with many of our commonly held economic beliefs and examines ways to simultaneously build community, increase food production, boost employment, increase happiness, and protect and restore our environment. Michael Pollan, the author of The Omnivores Dilemma, a similarly thought provoking book, says “The cult of growth and globalization has seldom been so effectively challenged as by Bill McKibben in Deep Economy”. While I highly recommend taking the time to read this incredible book from front cover to back cover, here are a just a few thought provoking facts and interesting ideas from Deep Economy:
Remember these facts and quotes are stripped from their context. If you strongly disagree with any of them, I encourage you to get a copy of the book and read the in-depth research provided that backs each of these statements up.
“Growth, at least as we now create it, is producing more inequality than prosperity”
“Natural and created capital are fundamentally complements.
You can’t get richer, at least for long, by impoverishing the world around you.”
Growth is no longer making us in the developed world happy:
People born in advanced countries since 1955 are 3 times as likely as their grandparents to have suffered a serious bout of depression.
The average American child today reports higher levels of anxiety than the average child under psychiatric care in the 1950s.
We have more stuff and less happiness.
Money consistently buys happiness right up to about $10,000 per capita income, and then after that point the correlation disappears.
The average bite of American food has traveled 1,500 miles and changed hands 6 times before it reaches your mouth.
Californians, most of whom have high quality tap water from the Sierras, throw away 1.2 billion water bottles every year.
Water that was often shipped long distances using large amounts of fuel.
In terms of CO2 emissions, switching to local foods is the equivalent of cutting household energy use by 20 percent.
Smaller farms produce MUCH MORE food per acre than larger farms. And that is the USDA saying that!
You get more food per acre with smaller farms and more food per dollar with larger ones.
Sustainable agricultural practices lead to an increase in production per acre.
Farmers selling produce at the rapidly increasing number of Farmer’s Markets around the country get 100% of the money spent on food compared to 10% earned though the typical industrialized food system process.
The average new home size has doubled since 1970.
America ranks 51st in environmental sustainability.
And though it is 2nd in GDP per capita, the USA ranks 13th in quality of life.
“Between 1973 and 2000, the average American employee added 199 hours to his annual schedule.” Today’s Americans earn more, have more, and produce more, but have less time to enjoy the fruits of their labor when compared to Americans thirty or forty years ago.
DuPont, a major chemical company, found it surprisingly easy and economically beneficial to drastically cut CO2 emissions by 67%.
Only 22% of the energy contained in coal is effectively put to use. The rest is wasted at the power plant, through transmission, and by inefficient appliances.
Cleaner and more localized energy production would eliminate much of this waste. Think solar panels, solar water heaters, community wind turbines, small-scale natural gas plants that put “waste heat” to use heating nearby homes and businesses, etc.
Europeans live closer to their stores, parks, and schools and therefore walk or bike five times as often as Americans.
Our ideas of growth and development can’t involve the rest of the world (or even Americans) living like Americans.
If the Chinese ate meat like Americans, they’d use 2/3 of the world grain harvest.
If the Chinese owned cars like Americans, they’d use more than all the oil currently produced globally.
If the Chinese ate fish like the Japanese, they’d consume more than the current global harvest which is already not sustainable. Now think what if India, SE Asia, and Africa followed suit.
But why should the world want to live like Americans when:
Europeans have a higher quality of life, work fewer hours, and use half as much energy.
People in Kerala, India earn an average of a few dollars a day but have higher literacy and higher education rates and similar life expectancies as Americans.
Americans don’t rank in the Top 10 in Quality of Life or Average Happiness while European countries dominate both lists.
For many more interesting facts and some great (and fun) ideas on how to address many of the world’s problems, go grab a copy of Bill McKibben’s Deep Economy.
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