Importing Our Inflated Amerikan Lifestyles

There is a lot of talk about how Amerika is “exporting jobs” to foreign countries; what is of greater concern is how we are “importing our inflated lifestyles” from foreign countries…

“An ‘ecological footprint’ is the amount of land and water area a person or a human population would need to provide the resources required to sustainably support itself and to absorb its wastes, given prevailing technology. It is a way of determining relative consumption for the purpose of educating people about their resource use and, sometimes, triggering them to change how they consume” (Wikipedia).

For example, in 2005, Iraq had a per capita ecological footprint of 2.5 acres; China 4.0 acres, India 1.7 acres, Nigeria 3.0 acres, Russia 10.9 acres, UK 13.8 acres, Japan 10.6 acres, world average 5.4 acres—Amerika 24.0 acres! (Global Footprint Network)

This means that it requires, on average, approximately 24 acres of planet earth’s surface area to create the goods and services consumed by every Amerikan and to dispose of the waste created by every Amerikan each year.

Interestingly, Amerika’s “bio-capacity”, our domestic surface area available to produce goods and services and to dispose of waste, is only 11.6 acres per capita—leaving an “ecological deficit” of 12.4 acres per capita. This means that at least half of Amerika’s current consumption and waste disposal is being enabled outside of the US; that is, by using resources located in foreign countries.

This scenario is obviously not sustainable...

As developing nations, those who are currently subsidizing our excessive consumption by “exporting” their “surplus” bio-capacity to Amerika, continue to develop, they will want to retain their resources in order to improve their own living standards. The result: “surplus” bio-capacity will no longer be available for export to Amerika.

As the bio-capacity available for Amerikan “import” decreases, we will be faced with some difficult choices: forcibly appropriate resources from foreign countries (Middle East), keep foreign countries poor in order to diminish their demand for their own resources (Africa), or terminate our addiction to excessive consumption and learn to live within our means—at less than half of our current living standard (No way; we’re Amerikans; we’re entitled!!).

As a global reference point, the combined ecological footprint of the entire world’s population is currently 23% greater than the planet can regenerate (Global Footprint Network)—a condition called “overshoot”. We maintain this position—temporarily—by depleting earth’s finite environmental resource reserves. Talk about unsustainable…

(See www.wakeupamerika.com for proposed solutions; I welcome yours as well.)

The End of the Amerikan Dream

The message that nobody wants to hear…

The American Dream, the Amerikan mantra, is characterized by perpetual growth, perpetual progress, perpetual prosperity, perpetual entitlement—the next generation will always “have it better” than the last. For generations we have lived the American Dream and experienced ever-improving living standards and material wellbeing, yet most of us have never thought about how it all came to be—we have just assumed that it will never end.

Unfortunately, the American Dream must come to an end, because it is, and always has been, unsustainable. Unfortunately, too, awakening from the American Dream and returning to reality will be unpleasant, especially for future generations—living the American Dream has come at a tremendous price.

Why?

We have paid for the American Dream by living beyond our means—supplementing the consumption level enabled by our earned incomes at any point in time with “incremental” income generated by depleting our economic and environmental reserves and with “incremental” income generated by incurring economic and environmental obligations against our future. In the process of perpetuating our inflated Amerikan lifestyles, we have taken, but we have not replenished; we have borrowed, but we have not repaid.

Over time, we have vastly depleted our critical economic and environmental resource reserves, and we have incurred economic and environmental obligations against our future that are both excessive and of questionable quality. We are rapidly approaching limits in both areas; finite resources ultimately run out and accumulated obligations must ultimately be discharged. When we reach one or more of these limits, the American Dream will end.

While the end of the American Dream is inevitable, the circumstances under which it will end are still within our control to some degree. We can dream on, reach one or more economic or environmental limits, and experience a catastrophic awakening; or we can take action now to mitigate the adverse effects associated with our awakening by voluntarily choosing to live within our means. (See www.wakeupamerika.com for proposed solutions; I welcome your solutions as well.)

In retrospect, the American Dream will be viewed as more of a society-wide junkie high, which it is, than a dream. The American Dream has been a multi-generational distorted reality characterized by unsustainable excess, during which we, as Amerikans, have enjoyed inflated lifestyles enabled by consumption at unsustainable levels—excessive consumption.

The issue at hand is whether we have the courage to voluntarily awaken from the American Dream, terminate our addiction to excessive consumption, and face reality—discharge our accumulated obligations and live sustainably within our means from this point forward. The alternative is a rude awakening from which many of us will not survive.

The American Dream is history. It is time to Wake Up Amerika! and face reality!

The Wake Up Amerika! Message

The Wake Up Amerika! message is one that everyone in our country must hear, until we get it…

While it is becoming increasingly clear that we are confronted by an unprecedented array of impending economic and environmental disasters that threaten our living standards, health, and national security; most Amerikans are unaware of the fundamental problem underlying these impending disasters.

Part one of the Wake Up Amerika! message is that we, as individual Amerikans, are responsible for the impending economic and environmental disasters that currently confront us. In our unrelenting efforts to maintain our addiction to excessive consumption—live beyond our means, economically and environmentally, in order to perpetuate our inflated lifestyles—we continue to commit, both individually and through our political and economic representatives, the economic and environmental indiscretions that have put us on the road to impending disaster.

We are the problem…

Unfortunately, neither our dysfunctional behavior, nor our addiction to excessive consumption and our resulting inflated lifestyles are sustainable.

Part two of the Wake Up Amerika! message is that we, as addicts, must take decisive action to terminate our addiction to excessive consumption, and we must insist that our political and economic representatives do the same; that the unpleasant withdrawal symptoms associated with terminating our addiction will be societal disruptions, living standard degradation, and population reduction; that the longer we wait, the more severe these withdrawal symptoms will be; and that the price for inaction is reaching our day of reckoning, a societal apocalypse in which the disruptions to our lifestyles and society are likely to be catastrophic and permanent.

We must be the solution…

Achieving permanent solutions to our pressing economic and environmental problems involves nothing less than a cultural revolution, the American Cultural Revolution, during which we must terminate our addiction to excessive consumption and choose to live within our means, both individually and societally.

Or many of us will not survive...

Wake Up Amerika! seeks to create broad public awareness of our addiction to excessive consumption and its inevitable consequences, to promote open public discussion regarding permanent solutions to our addiction, and to encourage Amerikans to take decisive action to terminate our addiction NOW—thereby regaining control over our individual and national destinies and establishing a solid foundation for future generations.

(See www.wakeupamerika.com for proposed solutions; I welcome your solutions as well.)

The Case for Cautious Optimism

My motivation for founding Wake Up Amerika!

Amerikans seem to believe either that the alleged impending economic and environmental disasters currently confronting us are a ruse, or that we are past the point of no return and there are no viable solutions to these impending disasters.

I take, for lack of a better description, the middle position: the impending economic and environmental disasters confronting us are very real; and only through drastic, sweeping, and immediate action can they be averted, or at least mitigated.

I take this position for four reasons:

1. To my knowledge, the fundamental problem underlying our impending economic and environmental disasters has never been clearly communicated to mainstream Amerika. There is much discussion about the impending disasters themselves, but their root cause, our addiction to excessive consumption, is seldom mentioned. It is therefore possible that most Amerikans are merely unaware of the fact that our impending economic and environmental disasters are rooted in our addiction to excessive consumption—living beyond our means in order to perpetuate our inflated lifestyles; and that when we become aware of the fact that our addiction is simply unsustainable, we will take the appropriate actions to terminate it.

2. The Wake Up Amerika! solution to our addiction to excessive consumption, voluntarily terminating our addiction NOW, is far superior to experiencing the devastating societal disruptions, living standard degradation, and population reduction that will inevitably result in the event that we choose to remain addicted and reach our day of reckoning. Because voluntarily termination of our addiction is a superior solution, I believe that it must be offered for consideration.

3. I stand to benefit personally in the event that we become aware of our addiction to excessive consumption and choose to terminate it voluntarily. Both the probability of my long term survival and the probability that I will enjoy a “tolerable” future standard of living are enhanced relative to the case in which we choose to remain addicted and experience a societal apocalypse.

4. I have four children, ranging in age from 13 to 24. While I realize that our addiction to excessive consumption has doomed them to living standards inferior to those which I have enjoyed, irrespective of the actions we take from this point forward, I would prefer not to see them die like animals, or worse, to grow up and live like animals…

The window of opportunity during which we can take meaningful action to avert our impending economic and environmental disasters or to mitigate their impact is limited; that much is known. Precisely when the window will close is not known. If the window closes tomorrow and a catastrophic disaster occurs without warning, it won’t matter; most of us are ill-prepared to survive such a disaster over the long term.

If we are fortunate enough to have months or even years to avert impending disasters, or at least to mitigate their impact, then I believe we are acting irresponsibly both toward ourselves and our progeny if we fail to take advantage of that opportunity. We must use our remaining time to take action at the individual level and societal level to optimize both our future living standards and supportable population levels.

(See www.wakeupamerika.com for proposed solutions; I welcome yours as well.)

Gotta Revolution...

The prerequisite to solving Amerika’s “higher-level” economic and environmental problems is a cultural revolution, the American Cultural Revolution; here’s why…

The Amerikan Culture

The Amerikan Culture is characterized by a depletion/obligation orientation: we continuously supplement consumption enabled by the income we earn at a given point in time with consumption enabled by income generated by depleting our existing economic and environmental reserves, and with income generated by incurring economic and environmental obligations against our future.

We are thereby able to live beyond our means and perpetuate our inflated lifestyles—temporarily.

Specifically:

1. We continue to enable excessive current consumption by depleting our economic asset balances and our natural resource reserves.

· We are selling our economic assets—businesses, real estate, corporate stock—to foreign entities, some of whom are associated with adversarial regimes, at a far greater rate than the rate at which we are acquiring foreign assets. We are thereby living off our dwindling economic asset base, while simultaneously exposing ourselves to the risks inherent in foreign ownership.

· We are drawing down our natural resource reserves, in the absence of corresponding replenishment, replacement, or recycling. We are thereby living off our finite and dwindling natural resource base, while simultaneously exposing ourselves to the risks inherent in foreign natural resource dependence, and ultimately, to natural resource exhaustion.

2. We continue to enable excessive current consumption by incurring economic and environmental obligations against our future and the future of our children.

· We are incurring increasing levels of unsecured and questionably secured debt and unfunded financial obligations at the individual, corporate, and government levels. These obligations carry a high risk of default, and, in the case of our increasing financial dependence on foreign adversaries, a threat to US sovereignty:

o Individual Level Exposure: unsecured credit card debt and questionably secured home mortgages and consumer loans.
o Government Level Exposure: questionably secured federal deficits and debt, unfunded entitlement program obligations, and debt to foreign entities.
o Corporate Level Exposure: questionably secured pension fund obligations and retirement benefit obligations, labor contract obligations, and debt to foreign entities.

· We are polluting today, while deferring the costs associated with today’s pollution prevention, pollution clean up, and ecosystem rectification until some unspecified time in the future. These costs will have to be borne at some point, if we are to survive.

It is obvious that the Amerikan Culture and the fundamental premise upon which it is based—enabling excessive current consumption by depleting our natural and economic resource reserves and by incurring increasingly onerous economic and environmental obligations against our future—are not sustainable. They represent economic and environmental “drains” on Amerika that, if not terminated, will ultimately trigger our day of reckoning.

The American Culture

The American Culture is characterized by a replenishment/surplus orientation: we will consume at levels constrained by the income we earn at the time; we will replenish, replace, and/or recycle economic and natural resources at levels equal to or greater than the levels at which we consume them; and we will refrain from incurring unsecured or questionably secured economic or environmental obligations against our future in order to enable current consumption.

We will thereby live within our means, individually and societally, and abide by the laws of nature and economics:

· You can’t spend what you don’t have.
· Once an irreplaceable resource is gone, it’s gone.
· Whoever owns it, controls it.
· Pollution is cumulative; the earth is finite.

The essence of the American Culture is sustainability—sustainability of both the American Culture itself and of the individual sovereignty and national sovereignty required to preserve the context within which the American Culture exists.

American Cultural Revolution

The American Cultural Revolution (ACR) will foster the implementation of specific strategies and initiatives that will enable us to live sustainably within our means. Through eradicating our addiction to excessive consumption, the underlying problem upon which all of our higher level economic and environmental problems are based, the ACR will provide the context within which these problems can be resolved.

The primary goal associated with the ACR is to induce changes in Amerika’s behavior patterns from those associated with the Amerikan Culture, defying the laws of nature and economics, to those associated with the American Culture, complying with the laws of nature and economics. These behavioral changes will cause corresponding changes to our cultural orientation, from living beyond our means to living within our means.

The result: America will be stronger; we will stop increasing the strength of our adversaries at our expense; and we will render our planet habitable for future generations.

(See www.wakeupamerika.com for proposed solutions; I welcome yours as well.)