Voluntary Simplicity

Author unknown

Published by Energy Resource, February 5, 2008

There’s urgency in Duane Elgin’s words as the well-known author of books on spiritual growth and environmental consciousness balances his innate optimism with the cold, hard facts of climate change.

Double-parked on the horizon, Elgin advises, is “the perfect storm of a world systems crisis.” He’s not talking about the impact of climate change just on the Earth’s ecological systems, but on everything that those systems are intimately connected with – humankind and its creations, from society and economics to war and peace.

“I think the situation is far more serious than we know and that it will occur much more quickly than we anticipate,” Elgin says, and adds, “It’s time to get real”: Climate change is the seminal, one-time event in our collective global history – and how we respond is the crucial question. What kind of beings are we? Now is the time to look at the nature of the universe and our position in it, and ask ourselves, can we, will we, meet the challenge?”

A former senior social scientist at SRI International, the Stanford University-born research institute, Elgin has studied, lectured, and written about the Earth and humankind’s role on it for the past 30 years. Perhaps best known for his 1981 book, “Voluntary Simplicity,” in which he challenges readers to look inward for personal richness, he also authored “Awakening Earth,” published in 1993, which embraces what Elgin continues to believe today – that we have the mettle to accept what the climate challenge requires: living simpler, more conscientious lives.

Stretched Thin

Elgin uses a rubber band as his analogy of how far our systems are being stretched towards the so-called climate-change tipping point – the threshold beyond which there may be no turning back. “We’re at the point of tension when that band is ready to pop,” he says. “I’m not being alarm-ist. It is a serious situation that will be in our face by 2020 – not 30 or 40 years from now, but 10 to 12. We have maybe 10 years to make a radical turn or we’re in deep trouble.”

Trouble, as Elgin sees it, goes beyond a climate in tatters: As oil reserves drain, economies weaken – not only does oil fuel transportation, but petroleum is used in everything from plastics to fertilizer. He cites predictions that by 2020, 40 percent of the people living in developing na-tions – basically the bulk of humankind – “will not have access to enough water to grow their own food,” driving desperate climate refugees into Europe, Canada, and the United States, even as those regions deal with their own crises.”Food, water, land: We’re setting up the conditions for deep civil unrest,” says Elgin.

Carbon Footprint Challenge

In his talks and his books, particularly “Promise Ahead” published in 2000, Elgin stresses what he terms a new “lifeway” – one that embraces living a simpler, less materialistic life. “Living simpler lives shouldn’t be looked at as sacrifice,” he advises, “but as a life lived in harmony.”

It’s also likely that choosing to live lighter won’t be an option. Scientists, including those who make up the 2,500-member, Nobel Peace Prize-winning U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), report that CO2 levels in the atmosphere are increasing faster than antici-pated, in tune with global economic and population growth. The average person in the United States produces 22 tons of CO2 each year – three times more than the Earth and its resources can support, according to Elgin.

“We have to bring that CO2 figure down to six to eight tons a year,” he says, to make any meaningful impact on climate change. To do so entails “reconfiguring our entire lives to an extraordinary degree.” Using less energy, recycling, supporting local farmers, all are important first steps. Addition-ally, Elgin supports zoning laws that allow for planned, sustainable “eco-villages” and for co-housing communities, like the one in Cotati where he and his wife, Coleen, lived before returning to Marin County, an affluent community located in the San Francisco Bay Area. Far from communes, these communities – located also in Sebastopol, Berkeley, and Davis – offer private residences structured around collaboration and shared resources, like gardens and woodshops.

Looking for Mature Adults

“We’ve got really big challenges to face; we need to make radical changes,” says Elgin, who repeatedly assures that choosing to live less large is only “drudgery” if that’s how it’s perceived. Elgin also advises that a primary prerequisite for change is to move out of the stage he believes we’re stuck in – adolescence – and become mature adults who view the Earth with the same values that grown-ups tend to hold dear: family, the future, meaningful work and lives. Can we make the grade? “I’m not optimistic, but I’m hopeful,” Elgin answers, adding slyly, “I wouldn’t bet money on it, but I would bet my life.”