Depletion and Abundance, Life on the New Home Front by Sharon Astyk
First off, I must apologise: this is probably one of the latest reviews of a ‘new’ book that you will ever read — although in the world of publishing, all reviews are probably welcome. In my defence, I was going to read Sharon Astyk’s latest, Independence Days first, but then realised that Depletion and Abundance : Life on the New Home Front had to come first, being Sharon’s first solo published venture and, as I would later come to realise, a book which neatly outlines her entire philosophy on sustainable living. As much a personal tale of change and achievement as a manual for sustainable living for the average civilized person, the author’s humble, often self-effacing nature washes over the pages of the book. Many authors would shun such an approach, possibly to avoid accusations of mawkishness; but not Sharon Astyk, who manages to take us into her world, introduce us to her family, invite us to feed her goats and show us her cupboards, all in the name of sheer practicality. There is not a hint of smugness in sight.
On the other hand, such homely tales of family life misrepresent the intensity of Depletion and Abundance: it is not a book to take lightly, nor is it possible to take it lightly, such is the density of Sharon’s writing style and the flood of ideas that pours from every chapter. No surprise then, that it took me far longer to read than almost every other book of a similar ilk I have read. In the early chapters, which talk at great depth of the situation we are in and how the domestic structures we ignore at our peril are being broken down by a system that only values profit and power, there really is no let-up: so while it is an educational, fulfilling and inspiring read, it is also pretty hard work, which might discourage some from reading on.
I implore you to keep reading.
Like all the best scripts — as I say, this is more story than polemic — Depletion and Abundance is eminently quotable, and lends itself perfectly to précis; such as this passage, essentially summing up the reason for the book’s existence:
The simple truth is that I want people who read this book to think seriously about whether they have a viable backup plan for a crisis in the near future. Why? Not because I think the whole world is likely to collapse at once, but because I think any crisis will come in stages and segments.
For me it might be tomorrow; my husband could lose his job because of rising energy costs, for example. For you, it might wait a while — or it might not. We don’t know; we’re playing the odds. And if, like me, you have loved ones you don’t want to risk by playing the odds, the choice becomes clear. Begin now. Begin thinking and preparing for a difficult future today.
From the beginning through to the end, Depletion and Abundance makes the assumption that the reader is ready to make a change of no little significance to their lives. On its own, the passage above may be enough to convince a nascent ’simplifier’ to move away from the trappings of Industrial Civilization and towards a more survivable way of life; but it must always be borne in mind that the vast majority of people are too brainwashed by the consumer culture to think of any other way. I suspect, even, that Sharon herself doesn’t quite see Industrial Civilization as something to get angry with and wish the end of, more as something that can potentially be manipulated for good:
A good education, up to and including college doesn’t have to cost 30K a year. Basic public medical care including vaccinations, preventative medicine, midwifery, simple palliative care for the dying, many basic medications, birth control and some hospital care doesn’t have to cost us what it does. Neither do libraries, public services and support programs for the poor.
Which is all very desirable but not, I think, feasible without most of the other — more destructive — aspects of civilized society; particularly currency: we are hardly likely to be able to pay for hospital treatment with a bushel of carrots or an offer to repair the roof. Something has to give in a collapsing society, and it will ultimately be the public infrastructures that most people depend upon. It’s a very fine balance, and even writers like Richard Heinberg, whom Sharon quotes from in the book, haven’t really got to grips with this difficult conundrum (I am still reeling from his suggestion that the “Beauty of the built environment” is something to savour!)
One other minor criticism: for most people in the civilized world, reading Sharon’s heartfelt tales of home life may be counter-productive — a first step too far perhaps, especially when she ‘guilt trips’ over her kids eating the odd ice lolly. I just can’t compete with this level of self-flagellation, and perhaps she needs to give herself a break from time to time. No one is perfect, and it is our imperfections that make us individual.
Back to the really good stuff, and I can’t help but notice the number of times I had written “good” or “excellent” in the margins of my review copy. Her treatments of home economy and raising children in a consumer society are second-to-none. Here is a passage from the chapter ‘Making Ends Meet’, which I had commented as being “Great advice to give people in the [debt] trap”:
Are you starting to feel the pinch already? Well cut back some more. Sell the computer, and give up the Internet — go to the library instead. Find a carpool and give up your car, or get on a bike. Dump the tae kwon do lessons for the kids, and teach them to cook from scratch and play pick up soccer with the neighbor kids instead. Go vegetarian, and eat more whole foods. Give up luxuries like coffee and beer. Make your fun at home — play games instead of going out.
For a typical suburban, American parent, this would sound like torture — how could anyone suggest I change my lifestyle! And, of course, it does run counter to the way of life we have been repeatedly told we deserve, like a L’Oreal advert running on constant loop. And, of course, it’s only by thinking the way Sharon suggests, that people will ever be able to ease themselves away from the society that destroys everything it touches.
Where Sharon really excels in, though, is lists: lists of things we should do every day; lists of handy tips for survival (many of which I must admit to not seeing in the sidebars, due to the gravitas of much of the surrounding text); lists of things she does in a typical day — that was my favourite bit, because it really brought home the fact that an ordinary family, albeit one with the guts and determination to survive for the long-term, can change in extraordinary ways, and come out of it with a richer, far more fulfilling life than they could ever have experienced in the dumbed-down world most Westerners take for granted.
Depletion and Abundance is not a book to solve the energy crisis, the climate crisis or the economic crisis (long may it continue): it is a book of ideas and inspiration for those of us who already care enough to change. If you are one of those people, then I throughly recommend it.
Depletion and Abundance : Life on the New Home Front by Sharon Astyk, is published by New Society.
Keith Farnish is author of “Time’s Up! An Uncivilized Solution To A Global Crisis“. He also writes The Earth Blog and The Unsuitablog.
Sacred Demise by Carolyn Baker – A Review
I’m staring at a bit of a dog-eared wreck, to be honest; but it’s the words that matter, providing I can still read them. The thing is, my copy of Carolyn Baker’s Sacred Demise has followed me around on walks, road journeys, train trips, in the rain, in the sun, under trees, over hills and in dirty streets littered with Coke cans and paper. I had to finish it, despite it not being an obvious thing of beauty; despite it being a book that I learnt to fear as much as embrace with love and empathy – some things are just necessary, like hugging your children and eating your greens.
Sacred Demise is not an easy book to read; for sure, Carolyn’s words trip across the page, often with a delightful spring in their step, but then without warning they cross your path and send you flying into the nearest ditch, leaving you wondering how you ended up there. The idea of accepting the end of civilization as inevitable can be approached pragmatically, in the style of Dmitry Orlov, which is ideal for those who are mentally prepared; but for the vast majority of us who still identify – deep down – with the culture we were born into, you don’t only need rope and handholds to descend the Dark Mountain: you need the will to get you through the journey.
This is not a book to read quickly. Do it right and for the most part you will be reflecting on and writing about what you have just read. Each chapter ends with a set of questions that take into account the previous text, and which ask you to consider your feelings and physical situation – in effect, how ready are you? From a technical point of view, Sacred Demise could have been laid out in a manner that emphasises the importance of this self-reflection process better: perhaps a separate workbook, larger pages for journaling – but to give Carolyn her due, she does provide note space, and the book is, to all intents and purposes, self published (yes, I was rather surprised too).
One thing that Carolyn Baker does do very well is express complex and emotive ideas in an easy to understand way, far better – if I may be so bold – than some of the writers that she quotes from. She does have an occasional tendency to present ideas of faith as fact, for instance in quoting Eckhart Tolle, she states: “While it is true that we are more than our bodies,” which is a fine topic for discussion, but not something that would be welcome on the table of many modern philosophers. There is also an element of parochialism in some of the text, as though the civilized world consists of America and nothing else – more of an irritant than a major flaw, being English myself, but nevertheless something that could alienate non-American readers.
But these are minor flaws in a superb book. Sacred Demise is little short of seminal; the start, perhaps, of a way of writing and speaking that is paramount at the end of the Age of Empire. There are far too many lucid and memorable moments to quote them all, but if I had to choose a passage that sums up what Sacred Demise means to me, it would be this, from the cathartic chapter, “Hospice as Holy Ground”:
Had civilization not spent the last five thousand years attempting to murder the indigenous self inherent in all humans, we would not have to be told, as native peoples and the more-than-human world do not, that most of the time, life on this planet is challenging, painful, scary, sad, and sometimes enraging. What our indigenous ancestors had and still have to sustain them through the dark times was ritual and community. Our work is to embrace and refine both instead of intractably clinging to a “positive attitude” in the face of out-of-control, incalculable abuse and devastation.
Had I read this at the beginning of the book, then I may have given up there and then, but the aim of Sacred Demise is not a quick grab-you-by-the-arms and haul you up into the safety of the tree canopy; instead, it is a journey, and a damn hard one at that if you are not prepared to open up and accept the fate of civilization. This means that this book is perhaps not the first thing you should read when approaching the subject of ecological collapse and your place in the future; on the other hand, if you don’t read Sacred Demise then you had better be ready for the shock of your life when the collapse comes.
Keith Farnish, author of “Time’s Up! An Incivilized Solution to a Global Crisis“
Review: Terra Composter
A couple weeks ago Garden Supermarket sent me a Algreen Products 45 Gallon Terra Composter to try out. The composter arrived in the mail and I was happy to see that it had the bare minimum packaging on it, I like it when companies do this. Why waste all that paper and plastic when it is just going to be thrown away?
Composting is a pretty simple operation, you throw organic stuff into a pile, introduce a bit of bacteria, some worms, maybe a couple bugs, a dash of water and Whala! compost. However in our urban society most people do not find it convenient or desirable to have a pile of rotting stuff in the yard (although when done correctly a compost pile will not smell, and basically looks like a pile of dirt). So the Terra Composter with it’s pleasing lines, and Terracotta-esq appearance (it is plastic), make it an attractive addition to the yard.
I have composted before, serious business composting with big piles of yard and food waste, the kind of composting where you need shovels, and wheel barrows, and pitch forks…the Terra Composter is not that kind of compost bin. The Terra is suited for a single family city home, it is simply not big enough to handle bags and bags of yard waste and the results of a restaurant kitchen, and that’s OK. I live in a tiny urban home, with a tiny urban home lawn, and have a roomate, this compost bin is perfect for us.
My roommate and I are both vegetarians, so we produce a fair amount of plant food waste. With the Terra, and our normal recycling we are now down to one garbage bag of actual “throw away” garbage every three weeks. It feels good to create such a small amount of waste, and it has been nice getting back into composting again. Overall I have been really happy with the look feel and ease of use of this product. I do have a couple of small things I don’t like about it (it’s hard to get the compost out when it is ‘done’, it can get a bit top heavy when you have it full) but for the most part I really like it and would recommend it to someone who has a smallish amount of yard and food waste to compost.
So if you are looking to get into composting here are a couple quick tips.
You don’t need to buy anything! You can make a compost bin out of anything, you can even just throw stuff in a pile in the back if you have the space and don’t mind the mess, old wood pallets work well for this.
You need to keep a healthy mix of “green” and “brown” in your compost pile. Green things are stuff like coffee grounds, egg shells, fruit and veggie peels, grass clippings, fresh leaves, fresh weeds, etc. Brown things are stuff like, corncob stalks, paper, pine needles, sawdust or wood shavings, straw, dry leaves, etc. You need to keep a good mix of both to keep your bacteria happy too much greens and it will get stinky, too much brown and it will compost very slowly.
You will need to water your compost once in a while, if the compost gets dry toss a little water in with it, if you have a lot of green stuff you wont need to do this as much.
Keep your compost warm, put it in the sun, it will help it break down faster.
Don’t be afraid of bugs and worms! They help break down stuff faster.
Your bacteria need oxygen, be sure to turn or rotate your compost once in a while, the Terra compost comes with little holes on the side that they encourage you to poke a stick into and wiggle, this will keep the bacteria happy.
Review: Fuji EnviroMAX “Eco-Friendly” Battery
The new Fuji EnviroMAX (note the capital MAX!) batteries are pretty awesome. They don’t contain cadmium, mercury, or PVC. They are made in factories that meet strict ISO regulations for waste management, don’t use ozone depleting compounds in the manufacturing process, and are packaged with recycled paper and PET plastic. Hell they even won the National Parenting Center Seal of Approval, for it’s “Impressive Performance” (note that all of the caps were not my doing). The EnviroMAX offers “MAXIMUM POWER Minimum Impact” the packaging even has grass growing on it. Fuji claims they are “landfill safe” and that they have “unsurpassed extreme temperature performance” because being safe to throw out, and being extreme (!!) are important features. They even come in at about the same price as other batteries. In short this is the one of the greenest one time use batteries to hit the market.
I was sent two packages of them by a Fuji person to test out. I put them into my digital camera and my bike light. They performed very well, providing about the same number of pictures and same amount of light as the rechargeable batteries I use currently. They did exactly what you expect a battery to do. That point I believe is their biggest selling point. You do not need heavy metals, wasteful factories, and non-recycled packaging to make batteries. You can create the exact same product people have been buying for ages, only you can make it with less waste, no heavy metals, and in a way that is more gentle on the planet. It is an inspiration to other companies that have been using wasteful techniques and bad materials.
But therein lies this products glaring and ultimately insurmountable fault. These are the same old batteries that you always see. Sure they have been greened up, but once my digital camera ate through them, guess what, they are headed for the lanfill. I can’t recharge them. I can’t reuse them, and the fact that they are “landfill safe” is going to keep most people from even bothering to recycle them. In short this product is a disaster. Not because it is bad for the earth, but because it doesn’t represent a real change in thinking. Fuji marketing people (or if I am less cynical perhaps they had a real desire to be greener) thought that green would sell, so they greened up the process of making the SAME THING they used to make. Business as usual thinking is what got us into this problem.
“Eco-friendly” one time use batteries (even ones made in factories with no ozone depleting chemicals, and packaged in recycled cardboard) fall into the same category as “clean coal“, or bio-diesel made from factory farmed chicken fat. They are all just more of the same head down thinking that caused the current climate crisis. If Fuji was truly interested in being eco-friendly they would stop making one time use batteries all together. They would then work diligently to improve the performance, life span, and recycling infrastructure for their rechargeable batteries. Perhaps even creating innovative ways to recharge said batteries without using electricity from the grid (solar, wind up, bicycle attachments, etc). They would design a system (perhaps like netflix?) in which the batteries you buy have a built in recycling pouch that you use to send them back to be recycled when they are done. Every battery would be built from the ground up with reuse in mind. The entire system from cradle to grave of the product would be thought out in detail. Things like landfills would not entire into the equation until the materials had been used many many times.
To be clear I do not think this is a “green wash” (whereby a company hypes up the ‘greenness’ of a product without actually making it a better product), I think this is an actual improvement over sub-standard (aka: normal) one time use batteries. But I do think it is disingenuous for Fuji to claim that this product is better for the planet than other one time use batteries. The reason why being that the EnviroMAX battery simply changes the bandage, without addressing the cause of the wound.
I applaud Fuji for making a battery that is greener than the rest, but ultimately have to recommend that you don’t buy this (or any one time use battery) product. Simply because a battery has no mercury in it doesn’t mean that it should be purchased if doing so would perpetuate a consumer model built on one time use, waste, and the idea that you can fix the earths problems by simply making a little change to a product, and not the behavior that necessitates that problem.
The Coming Insurrection: A Tiny Book That Could Change The World
There is such a thing as “word exhaustion”, the feeling of weariness that comes over a reader when they feel that a piece of text has outstayed its welcome and the author should probably learn at what point the reader is likely to lose interest. I have a two volume version of “The World As Will And Representation” by Schopenhauer on my bookcase, which runs to 1200 pages — I barely made my way through the explanation of what The Will entails before giving up; The Coming Insurrection is ninety pages long, and is sufficient to start a world-changing revolution.
Written in the aftermath of the 2005 Paris riots by a French group calling themselves The Invisible Committee, The Coming Insurrection really only has one aim: to prepare the burgeoning, but clearly disorientated, radical elements of urban society for a period of rapid social change. In the words of the “authors”:
It is no longer a matter of foretelling the collapse or depicting the possibilities of joy. Whether it comes sooner or later, the point is to prepare for it. It’s not a question of providing a schema for what an insurrection should be, but of taking the possibility of an uprising for what it never should have ceased being: a vital impulse of youth as much as a popular wisdom. If one knows how to move, the absence of a schema is not an obstacle but an opportunity. For the insurgents, it is the sole space that can guarantee the essential: keeping the initiative. What remains to be created, to be tended as one tends a fire, is a certain outlook, a certain tactical fever, which once it has emerged, even now, reveals itself as determinant – and a constant source of determination. Already certain questions have been revived that only yesterday may have seemed grotesque or outmoded; they need to be seized upon, not in order to respond to them definitively, but to make them live.
What is remarkable about this statement, from the introduction, is how self-limiting it appears to be: there are no policies, no agendas, there is no call for collective action or organisation; just a set of statements that declare what is and what must be in the barest, most stripped down manner. Yet, within this austere text is an energy and motivation entirely missing from any of the so-called “programs for change” that are published on an almost annual basis by the social and environmental mainstream. There is also a turn of phrase that is utterly poetic but somehow manages to remain far removed from the romantic visions of the French enlightenment.
Social change was never so clearly, and appetisingly stated.
And perhaps that is what prompted Glenn Beck of Fox News to decry the formerly low-key booklet as a “dangerous leftist book” and “a call to arms for violent revolution”. In his panicky opinion piece, Beck quotes a section from The Coming Insurrection thus:
Take up arms. Do everything possible to make their use unnecessary. There is no such thing as a peaceful insurrection. Weapons are necessary.
What he does not do is quote the rest of the paragraph, which is taken from a relatively small section near the end of the text concerning the need to defend against the almost inevitable militerisation of any government reaction to potential uprising. Had he done so, he would have had to have quoted as follows:
There is no such thing as a peaceful insurrection. Weapons are necessary: it’s a question of doing everything possible to make using them unnecessary. An insurrection is more about taking up arms and maintaining an “armed presence” than it is about armed struggle. We need to distinguish clearly between being armed and the use of arms. Weapons are a constant in revolutionary situations, but their use is infrequent and rarely decisive at key turning points: August 10th 1792, March 18th 1871, October 1917. When power is in the gutter, it’s enough to walk over it.
Because of the distance that separates us from them, weapons have taken on a kind of double character of fascination and disgust that can be overcome only by handling them. An authentic pacifism cannot mean refusing weapons, but only refusing to use them.
In other words: “Accept that weapons may be necessary, but only use them as a last resort.” This is not some mindless rant by gun-toting revolutionaries; it is a beautifully written, carefully thought out digest of a set of pertinent ideas in dire need of communication. French text is sublime at its best, although terrifically difficult to translate while still keeping its original meaning: what I find particularly heartening is the effort that has gone into the English language translation; it still feels French; you can almost smell the damp corners of the squats, and taste the bitter dregs of coffee at the bottom of the cups recently emptied by those people who are likely to have a hand in whatever comes afterwards in their parts of the city.
Of course there are problems, but these are few: uppermost is the bloody-minded determination to remain in the aforementioned squats and abandoned office buildings in order to remove the power base that has turned humanity into an apathetic mass of automata. Those who wish to take up the call in the cities will either be incredibly brave or incredibly foolish; but there are other ways, and this is perhaps the omission that will put many readers off. Those that have to stomach to face the system head-on are to be praised, but not at the expense of those who wish to persue other, less confrontational forms of rebellion.
Less critical, but nevertheless worth mentioning, is the term “Ecology” earlier in the text, which is met with scorn because it is seen to legitimise the separation between nature and humanity. This seems to be no more than a translation issue, for the term “L’Ecologie” in French has been usurped to have the same meaning as the English “Environmentalism”. In this sense the criticism is justified, for the modern environmental movement across the Industrial West has little to do with the ecology that humanity is utterly dependent upon.
Regardless of whether you disagree with the need for fundamental, self-imposed social change or not, The Coming Insurrection needs to be read to be fully understood; it will only take you a short while to read, but like it or not, it will affect you.
To buy the booklet, go to Amazon.com. Alternatively you can read the full text online, or download both the French and English text (in booklet form for printing) from the Support the Tarnac 9 website.
Keith Farnish is author of “Time’s Up! An Uncivilized Solution To A Global Crisis“
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