Here is a small confession : I don't consider myself to be normal. I wish I was. I strive to save energy, reduce the damage I do to the planet and work hard to think of solutions to our environmental crisis. That is not normal. If it was, then I could probably carry on living with few cares in the world - except maybe what will happen to my children when they become teenagers!

Not being normal doesn't make me better than anyone else though, at least not in the eyes of the majority of people in the highly industrialised society I live in. In the UK, this is what normal looks like:

· There are 26.3 million cars in the UK, that is 0.6 cars for every single adult. Each person travels 6600km (4000 miles) every year by car.
· 25.4 million tonnes of household waste (excluding sewerage) is produced every year. That is 423kg for every human in the UK, every single year.
· In total, each person in the UK consumes 11 barrels of oil, 1600 cubic metres of natural gas and 1100kg of coal every year.

If you are in the USA, you too can be normal!

All you have to do is:

· Drive 23700km (14800 miles) per year.
· Produce 843kg of domestic waste per year.
· Consume 25 barrels of oil, 2100 cubic metres of natural gas, and 3680kg of coal, every year.

A normal person in the USA consumes at least twice as much energy and materials, and drives over 3 times as far as a normal person in the United Kingdom. Figures for most of western Europe are about the same as for the UK; figures for Canada and Australia are about the same as those for the USA. So, depending on where you live, how normal do you feel now?

And don’t forget we all live on planet Earth, along with about 6.5 billion others. We are all human, and a normal human being consumes just 4.6 barrels of oil, 433 cubic metres of natural gas, and 900kg of coal.

In fact, based on the energy output of these three fuels, a normal member of the human race consumes just one fifth the fossil fuel energy of the normal USA citizen. Now do you feel normal?

The problem with being normal is that we just don't realise how much impact that "normal" state is having on the planet. If everyone on Earth were a normal American we would need  more than 9 planets to sustain us. As it is we are already exceeding the capacity of the Earth to support us - because normal is just too much.

But who am I to tell you that you are wrong in the way that you live? Surely the definition of "wrong" revolves around what is not normal behaviour to the majority of a society. Whatever part of the world you live in, the normal person is surely behaving in a morally acceptable way for that part of the world. I cannot tell you that you are doing wrong, simply because my views don't tally with those of most other people in my small part of the world.

But I can ask you to look at this on a global scale, where it is clear that the high-intensity consumer is still very much the exception on this planet of rapidly dwindling natural riches. Riches that are dwindling because of all the people that are told, day after day, that it is perfectly normal to be driving an SUV to the convenience store rather than walking (the irony of that word "convenience"), leaving televisions and computers consuming fossil fuels while no-one is using them, and filling our faces and our houses with the biggest, latest and most exciting of everything.

It's time to rethink the meaning of "normal" and see ourselves as gross consumers that have gone too far. Abnormally so, in fact.

 

The Earth Blog’s “The Problem With…” articles are short opinion pieces that take an uncompromising look at key things that affect the global environment.

 

Where's my Big 3 R&D, $1.5B tax downpaid for, 1995-promised #ITMFA* ELECTRIC CAR? By now, it should have had an "optional" electricity-generating, battery-charging solar skin, AS WELL!

Loved this reflection on collective societal impact on the planet. It is absolutely mind boggeling when we pause and think of "what if we changed all the light bulbs....what if we unplugged items when not in use" The greater boggeler in my mind though is what initiative would be needed to have it come about. In a class I sat in on recently, it was mentioned about educational campaigns with reflecting on the effects of the last world war and saving scraps, being thrifty. However, then realizing that of course we would be in a much different place if those were not forced upon people due to a country in hard times but slowly developed as the "norm". I wonder if there is a generation up and coming that will be more concious of such things. I think until all those "normal" people realize the benefits of slowing their lives down just a little, maybe some of this "waste" can be eliminated.

It is disgusting how we live and I'm a British Citizen, the Americans have been a greedy nation and now they must make changes which our politicians must make sure of. Of course we all need to make big changes but without the government making some tough decisions it won't even touch the sides will it? I fear the current government haven't got the balls to upset their own people let alone the real powers of this planet. Let us not forget about China being one of the biggest consumers/polluters if not the biggest now. The trouble is, money is power and all the enormous industries in the world will pass the buck and won't want to take responsability or lose any money let's face it! Unfortunately it will probably be left to organizations like Greenpeace to make any sort of statement to the world, and thats a shame. What we need is a strong leader to stand up for us and what is right no matter what, to not be afraid but then again they'd probably get assasinated by the powers that be just like Kennedy for standing on too many toes eh? It's a scary thought the people we allow to run our planet and it plainly shows they're just not up to the job.

Fantastic comments both Mouseydew and Ellie. I can see you are looking for an answer : part of this is in "4 Essential Ways To Save The Earth" (the basic ideas); part is in the the individual mobilization organisations like Green Seniors, People and Planet and countless others are doing; and part is in putting this into an easy to understand framework that everyone can fit into. The framework exists : It's called The Greenprint (http://www.thegreenprint.org).

Now that you've given us a breakdown of what the average lifestyle entails, it seems like 'normal' is just too much. Thanks for writing this eyeopening post.

I have noticed in the news paper recently that the government was planning to donate a large amount of money to fix the problems caused by global warming. That seems to be the only solution, fix the problem. I think it is time to spend all the money and time on trying to fix the cause of the problems. :(

The link between Mind and Social / Environmental-Issues.

The fast-paced, consumerist lifestyle of Industrial Society is causing exponential rise in psychological problems besides destroying the environment. All issues are interlinked. Our Minds cannot be peaceful when attention-spans are down to nanoseconds, microseconds and milliseconds. Our Minds cannot be peaceful if we destroy Nature.

Industrial Society Destroys Mind and Environment.

To read the complete article please follow either of these links :

PlanetSave

EarthNewsWire

Edit : I have compressed this comment for ease of reading. Thanks for the useful links Sushil.

Excellent article. AS an AMerican born living in the Netherlands I feel the need to make the comment that the US, Canada and Australia are major land masses which can require significant travel to get to anyone else. Where I live in the country in the Netherlands we are 17 km one way from schools and stores and libraries etc. We are next to a UNESCO world heritage site and have naturea all around but school and other responsibilities can require that one travel. My experience in the US is that insulation is often absent, fuel is cheap (relatively) telecom is immediate (in the NL one has to pay to watch and listen - just plugging in a tv does not give tv-- it does in the US.
The concept of the carbon trail is a new one- a logicval one for some of us who remeber the treaty of Rome but instead of just wagging fingers at countries with greater consumption-- which generally leads to more, presenting the info as this article does can do a lot to make people change on the inside and then change their behavior on the outside. Bravo Keith

Thanks Holly, very nice and pertinant comments. The message here is clearly that we cannot take transport for granted, as people do in industrialised countries - there is always a cost.

Keith

i found this blog from the sietch blog. he'd mentioned that part of our problem is that, as individuals, we have only so much latitude to change out lives. governments could help us reduce our impact on the environment by giving us easier acess to public transportation, mixing residential and commercial areas so that people can walk to the store, and making it easier for sustainable, local agriculture to flourish. the recent "green" movement has been more sucessful than those past because it has given individuals ideas for how to change their lives for the better, but a lot of our problem is how our communities are arranged. in many places a grocery store is not within "walking distance" (with groceries). there aren't even sidewalks. the heavy traffic and the crime rate make walking unattractive. these are not problems that individuals can fix. i can choose to take the bus, but only because i live in a large city with a bus route that goes to where i work. if i was in a less "green" city i couldn't feed myself unless i drove 30 miles to work.
in many ways the government tells us what normal is. in many ways we tell the government what normal is. as homogenous as we are we can't get along well enough to ride the same bus. i'm not sure many people would take the bus even if it were an option. the only people who ride the bus seem to be people without cars and if you don't have a car in this country (USA) it's because you can't afford one. a car is a symbol of wealth, identity, and independence. it's your rite of passage into adulthood. i can't see americans giving that up, i'm not sure we're that civilized.

sorry for the rant, this is something i've been thinking a lot about

Don't be sorry, China. We all need to have a good rant - it can be very creative, and what you have said may make a few others consider how they live, and how their government thinks they should live. Very well put.

Keith

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