Getting Back to Basics

It doesn’t matter whether you believe climate change is man-made or natural. It doesn’t even matter if you think the whole climate change/global warming issue is a hoax. There is evidence from every part of the world that serious changes are taking place, much of it in places that we never hear about. From the Himalayas, where unprecedented melting of the snow pack has been reported for well over a decade by the native inhabitants, to the disappearance of plant species at Walden Pond, something is happening that has nothing to do with politics or conspiracies.

Plants are on the move to more favorable areas as their environment becomes too hot or dry. Flowers are blooming earlier in response to unusual warmth. Animals are changing their mating and migration patterns. Species of amphibians are in danger of extinction from diseases that are flourishing with the change of climate. These are not just single events, but trends that are being carefully tracked over years and decades.

In hundreds of ways, environmental disaster is creeping in on us in the background, and sooner or later the financial concerns and environmental concerns will merge. The problems that the average person is dealing with on a daily basis already have more to do with the environment than with the financial meltdown. The rising prices of food and other commodities are a function of the costs of energy (transportation), of drought, and of climate shifts that are decimating growing areas and species.

Small changes taking place over time add up. We have to think beyond whether global change is real or whether we can stop it by our actions. Garbage is garbage, whether it’s in landfills, floating in the ocean, or contaminating our food and air, or high in the atmosphere. We each contribute to it, and we can each reduce the accumulation and its impact on our lives and on the earth.

Polar bears have become a recognizable symbol of climate change, but polar bears don’t live in our backyards, and don’t really convey the message that we are also being affected by climate change. Polar bears are merely a symptom; for the causes, we need to look in our own backyards.

Shoppers are flocking to thrift stores, families with teens are learning how to say “no,” to requests for the latest and shiniest toys, and drivers are discovering the (sometimes dubious) joys of public transportation. But will all this economizing last? Is frugality just another temporary necessity that people will gladly give up when (and if) things return to normal?

The environmental movement isn’t much of a presence these days, even though green living is a buzzword that’s often in the news. When financial survival is a priority, there’s going to be more concern for financial than environmental solutions. This means that green living and frugality aren’t translating into the environmental consciousness of the 70s and 80s. Saving the earth seems far less important than saving ourselves. For the average person, just getting through this economic crisis is about all they can deal with.

On a larger stage, though, this can be a short-sighted mistake that will have eventually have serious consequences. A news report in Wired indicates that investment in green projects is slowing down because money is so tight. “’The general economic slowdown is taking everybody’s eyes off what was an increasing momentum around concerns of climate change and the cost of energy,’ said Paul Maeder, a general partner with venture capital firm Highland Capital Partners.”

The current drop in the cost of oil (which is probably temporary) is also contributing to decreasing interest in long-term energy projects. The danger is that, companies that are developing these projects may well go out of business, just when they are badly needed. It’s happened before, and is one of the reasons why technological advances in energy production have been few and far between over the last few decades.

Taking care of today’s problems may be the top priority, but we also need to keep an eye on the consequences of ignoring long-term problems and solutions. It’s difficult to absorb the idea that, in the long run, saving the earth is a requirement for saving ourselves, but it’s just as important for individuals as it is for corporations, governments, and investors.

Behind the headlines about banks and bailouts are the doings of the ordinary people who are most affected by tight money. Cutting back is a rock that ripples throughout the pond, and the ripples are beginning to make the news.

Thrift stores doing well and worrying

A New York Times article about boom times for thrift stores reveals that while more people are shopping at thrifts, the new frugality is also a problem. “…the same economic woes that are sending buyers their way are causing donors to hand over fewer items, so that many stores are running low on inventory.” Long-time thrift store patrons probably never imagined a day when their favorite shopping spots might run out of stock. But thrift stores depend on donations, and when too many people have second thoughts about giving away perfectly good clothing, the shelves and racks are going to empty out.

Where do the clothes go if they’re not going to the Salvation Army, Goodwill, and other thrifts? They’re either staying in the closet a bit longer, or replenishing thin wallets when they’re sold on eBay and Craigslist. Don’t wait too long to do your thrift store Christmas shopping.

What’s the matter with kids today?

Instead of putting beans in their ears, they’re more likely to have their fingers in their ears, refusing to listen to parents say “no” to their requests for the latest toys or most popular brands of clothes. According to another New York Times article , the more affluent the family, the bigger the shock when teens find that they’re included in the family retrenching.

Most teens have little concept of where their family’s money comes from, or where it goes. They just know that they can usually have whatever they ask for. Worst of all, most of them have never worked and don’t know how to manage the money they’re given or the credit and debit cards they’ve been using so freely.

The family dramas are tough on both parents and children, and the battles are going on all over the country. Welcome to the real world, kids.

On the road

Finally, we learn that the sky-high cost of gas last summer had benefits and costs. According to MarketWatch , Americans drove 15 billion fewer miles in August than they did in August of 2007. And now that prices have dropped, they’re still hopping onto public transportation in record numbers. That’s a huge savings in gasoline consumption, and it probably reduced air pollution in urban areas, but there’s also a downside. Highway and bridge projects depend on gasoline taxes, and when people are driving less, there’s less income for those projects. Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters says that’s a problem, but she’s also aware that gas taxes aren’t necessarily to best way to fund anything. ” ‘We pay for transit the same way we pay for road and bridge projects — with federal gas taxes,’ she said. ‘Relying on the gas tax is like relying on cardboard to keep the rain out — the longer you use it the less it works.’ “

If you grow up in a family with very limited financial resources, there are two ways you can go as an adult: you will make the getting and spending of money the center of your life, and base your self-esteem and self-valuation on how much of it you have. Or you will have learned to appreciate its value so that you can use it to enrich your life rather than let it control you. Two very different relationships to money, and two very different interpretations of “learning the value of money.”

It’s possible that those two different approaches can also be true for people who’ve grown up with so much money that they take it for granted. But being able to take something completely for granted usually means that you fail to appreciate it or understand its true value. It’s a simple fact of human psychology that we place more value on what we’ve worked for than on what we’re simply handed, almost as a matter of right. Money that you’ve worked for represents your skills and the investment of your time. Money that is handed to you represents the work of others. It has little value aside from what you can spend it on.

If you’ve grown up poor and you work for your money, you understand its importance; you understand the fear of its loss and the possibility of sliding into real poverty. You understand what it means to others like yourself and you can empathize with them, and try to work for a society in which no one needs to fear going hungry or losing their home. If your money is handed to you, what you fear is having less to spend on the luxuries that you feel are your right. You have no understanding of what it means not to have enough for the most basic needs.

The real value of money is what it tells us about ourselves if we have the courage to listen.

Today’s post is a follow up to Building Solid Foundations

Sticking to the job of paying down your debts is as much psychological as financial. When you can see your debt load shrinking at a satisfying rate, it may encourage you to scrimp a bit more and find extra dollars to speed up the process. Even if you don’t want to cut back every month, the progress you’re making can give you a great motivation for looking more closely at your expenditures and finding things that you can eliminate without any real suffering.

Most people don’t realize that a lot of our outgo is based on nothing more than habit. You get used to having something on a regular basis and can’t imagine doing without it. It’s true that there are some things you really can’t do without. In addition, if you eliminate everything that enriches your life, the loss will merely contribute to your sense of impoverishment and your unhappiness. But if you can adjust your vision and see that “used to” isn’t the same as “have to have,” then cutting out or cutting back isn’t such a deprivation.

Take the time to think about what your life was like before a particular “used to.” And then take a close look at it. Has it improved your life in any significant way? Is it doing something for you, or allowing you to do something, that really can’t be done, almost as easily, in some other way? What would you really be missing, and for how long, if you gave it up? Remember, “getting used to” works both ways. Giving up something starts a process of getting used to being without it. Eventually, you wonder why it seemed so important, and why you thought you couldn’t live without it.

The process can be made easier if you can find substitutes, or find real reasons to cut back. Buying your favorite brand of coffee by the pound and brewing your own instead of paying through the nose for the single cups at the coffee bar allows you to continue your enjoyment at lower cost. And maybe the process of making that change will jog your brain, and you’ll realize that you’re really drinking way too much coffee. Now your jangled nerves and your overall health give you some additional motivation.

When necessary changes have a positive impact on your life they are easier to deal with than when they’re based solely on dollars and cents. That can make a big difference in how you view “used to” and “can’t do without.”

Every so often I take a look at Seth Godin’s marketing blog. Marketing isn’t a subject I’m wildly interested in, but Godin always places his posts squarely in a context that makes them meaningful even for those of us who have nothing to sell. If you’re not familiar with him, he’s a respected marketing guru and the founder of Squidoo, a content site which was roundly booed by many analysts at its inception. In spite of all the predictions of its certain failure, it’s been incredibly successful.

Godin’s latest post, The Sad Truth About Marketing Shortcuts , is about building solid foundations vs going for the short-term money. Squidoo allows its lens masters to designate part or all of their profits for charities of their choice. Some people set up Squidoo lenses specifically to support charities, apparently quite successfully. The site eventually distributed $80,000.00, and Godin tells us how some of the charities responded.

“Do you know what they wanted to know? “When was the next time we can rally a lot of people to get more votes and donations?” Do you know what not one of them asked? “How can we get our supporters to actually lay some groundwork so we can make this sort of money every week?

“It made me sad that so many non-profits have precisely the same mantra. Rush to the easy money, then look for more and rush after that.” It’s the same mentality that helped bring down the American economy.

Godin goes on to talk about the thousands of Squidoo lenses that are started, most of them soon abandoned by their creators. “But,” he says, “a few stick it out and many earn $2,000 or more a month in their spare time (for themselves or for charity). The difference is clear but sad. The shortcut didn’t work right away, so they’re off to the next thing.”

When your life is in disarray and in danger of falling apart, the worst thing you can do is go rushing off in all directions, without any clear idea of what any one action is supposed to accomplish. There are always things that have to be taken care of immediately — the short-term goals — but to get your life under control, you need to distinguish between short-short solutions to problems, and long-term plans that will prevent those problems from recurring, or that will at least allow you to have some control over their impact if they do recur. You have to build a foundation that will support you and minimize the effects of economic fluctuations, including job loss. And the only way to do that is to know what your goals are and which ones are most important for the long run.

Getting back to basics in almost any area of life should be a fairly straightforward process. But it usually isn’t. Take something as relatively uncomplicated as switching from pre-cooked foods to homemade foods. Making the change means that you have to know how to cook. But when you have a couple of generations of people who’ve grown up heating food in the microwave, or adding a few ingredients to boxed mixes, cooking skills are in short supply. So cookbooks come into the picture. And food items that you have to learn how to use — spices and herbs, baking powder, oils, etc. Tools to cook with — pots, pans, measuring spoons. Where do you start? What are the basic essentials?

If getting back to something as simple as real cooking is so difficult, how do we retreat from a serious mess like the current wave of mortgage defaults? It’s easy to lay the blame at the feet of lenders, but we need to ask why they managed to get away with the tactics that led people into desperate financial binds. Should we transfer the blame to all those gullible people who believed that the interest on their variable-rate mortgages would either stay level or go down? Who believed that their income would always expand to meet expenses. Who didn’t understand their credit card statements well enough to see the warning signs that said “you’re overextended.”

We need to go much further back if we’re going to lay blame or, preferably, determine the causes for a population which can’t cook and which doesn’t know when they’re being financially bamboozled. We need to go back to the schools, which were charged with educating students for the real world. And then back to the system that educated the teachers.

Blame may make us feel good, but it doesn’t do anything to change the situation. We need to understand how we got where we are. Once we know that, we can start thinking about how to bring about the necessary changes.

When the economy is expanding, people have more discretionary income to spend, with two results: 1. They become accustomed to having items that were once considered luxuries, and those items slowly become necessities. 2. Product lines become more diversified, with pricier and more exotic choices being offered.

The diversification and expansion of product lines is both a response to and a cause of consumers’ desire for variety. But it also supports consumption as a social game, which makes me wonder why the once-popular term “conspicuous consumption” hasn’t been revived. The purchase (and display) of expensive items has always been one of the perks of wealth; now it’s accessible to anyone with the price of a chocolate bar or a fancy brand of tea or coffee.

The interesting question is: what will happen to people’s psyches and to the market as tightening budgets translate to tightening wallets? When you realize that the daily latte from Starbucks is costing you close to $100.00 a month, the decision to cut back and the pain of withdrawal can have both psychological and social effects. Walking into the office with a thermos of coffee brewed at home, rather than a tall cup of almond-mocha-licorice-mint latte from Starbucks can be either a statement of independence from gustatory fashion or a shamefull confession of financial difficulties.

The amount of shelf space devoted to unusual and expensive teas and coffees, and the aisles of organic foods, complete with a dozen varieties of tofu, will undoubtedly start shrinking. Purveyors of one-of-a-kind non-essentials will have to scramble to cope with a changing marketplace. And the very rich, whose difficulties consist of having to cut back on the size of their next boat purchase, will have the social prestige of mindless spending all to themselves again.

Social and economic change means that old niches are constantly sliding into obsolescence. But new niches and opportunities open up at about the same rate, sometimes even faster, as entrepreneurs take advantage of technological advances. So, are the current economic upheavals a catastrophe in the making, or an opportunity for those who have the knowhow to stay ahead of the curve and are willing to take risks?

Both, depending on where you’re looking and the filters you use for viewing. Social change always has its costs, and the faster and more extreme the changes, the higher the costs. Everybody has to take some hits, but the poor are usually the ones who suffer most. There are ways to structure society that can minimize and alleviate the suffering, but that takes foresight, and the willingness to consider more than our own personal interests.

The speed at which change is now taking place, and the massive discontinuities that are part of it provide opportunities for unprecedented innovation and creativity in all areas of life. That includes the solutions to already-existing social problems. If we look at extreme departures from the norm as mostly destructive, we will cling to traditional ways of thinking with even more desperation as the speed of change increases. And that in itself will contribute to the problems. Whether this rigidity develops primarily in response to changes in everyday life or to changes in the society as a whole, it’s the surest way to guarantee that things will go from bad to worse. Panic and a blind faith in old ways are not reasoned responses, and will never produce the solutions we need.

During the big downsizing spree of the 90s, the evening news was full of human interest stories: the family struggling to make ends meet, the former middle manager living in his car, the job hunter sending out hundreds of resumes. I don’t watch television news any more, but I’m sure the same stories are running. It would certainly make a realistic counterpoint to the political hot air that consumes everyone’s attention these days.

One thing about the 90s stories that really fascinated me was the number that focused on people’s attempts to find new jobs after they had been downsized or outsourced out of their supposedly secure positions. They talked about the number of resumes they’d sent out, and how long they’d been at it, but one thread that ran through the stories was that they were looking for exactly the same kind of job they had lost. Somehow, it hadn’t penetrated their consciousness that if their particular type of work was proving to be something less than essential to the world’s business, it might be time to think about developing some new skills, some job qualifications that met changing demands. They kept running down the same track, wearing the ruts deeper, and never once considering the possibility of trying another track that wasn’t so worn.

And I wonder how many of today’s job refugees are repeating that pattern. “This is what I’ve learned to do to earn a living. This is what I have to do to earn a living. Surely, all the jobs can’t have gone away. I guess I’ll just have to keep trying. Send out more resumes tomorrow… and the next day… and the next day.”

Human beings don’t generally react well to sudden, extreme changes in their world. When the social and economic order begins to break down, there are several possible responses. The usual one is: do nothing; go about your everyday routines and pretend that nothing is happening. The second most frequent response is to place blame. The third response is panic.

The one thing that can be said about all three responses is that they do nothing to solve the problems that are causing the breakdown. Ignoring the situation guarantees that it will continue to get worse. Finding someone or something to blame seems to be a step toward finding solutions, but the chosen scapegoat rarely has anything to do with the root causes. Scapegoats merely create the illusion that something can now be done. Panic, the final reaction, not only contributes nothing to a solution, it makes the situation far worse. The only valid response is to acknowledge the reality of the problems early on and begin the search for the root causes and possible solutions.

At the heart of these responses is the problem of personal responsibility. As societies grow larger and more complex, responsibility for all but the most personal decisions is taken out of the hands of individuals and parceled out to faceless bureaucracies. We could almost say that the primary function of a civilization is to destroy the possibility of personal responsibility. The result is that whole populations are reduced to a state of what psychologists call learned helplessness. The sheer complexity of the problems, and the laws which surround and impede any possible actions make it obvious to every citizen that they have no power to create change and might just as well not bother to try.

What goes up must come down. Every beginning has an end. Those aren’t the ideas by which the world has been living for the last century or so. It’s been more like “Progress at all costs, and damn the torpedoes.” But sooner or later, at least one torpedo is bound to find its target and things will go “boom!” The big news right now is the economy, with stupid banking and dirty credit right at the center, but even with governments stepping in and providing crutches for the self-inflicted cripples, all will not be well, and we will not live happily ever after.

Bank failures and mortgage defaults are just the obvious face of the problem, the big splash in the water that takes everybody’s attention. Always lurking in the background, soon to become foreground, is the costs of climate change and of the generalized environmental havoc that we’ve been happily contributing to.

What those costs will be and how we will deal with them has barely entered the public conversation. We need to get down to basics, and that means much more than going green and living frugally. It means rethinking the whole basis for our civilization: where it’s going, why things have gone so wrong, and what we can do to heal the damage and create a sustainable world for everyone.