The holiday season approaches, a time of festive good will. Or is it “goods” will make them festive? Let the shopping spree begin. But how, when the economic meltdown and job loss have drained pockets? The current answer is print more greenbacks to infuse billions in bailouts to mismanaged banks so they can loan money to us paupers, so we can spend, spend, spend our way to happy holidays and a bright future ahead. Tis the season, don’t worry, be happy.
We’re hooked on credit, spending, oil, subsidized food and it feels good. But prescribing consumption as the cure to our economic malady is like encouraging a lush to drink or a drug addict to mainline heroin. It feels good…temporarily. Affluenza is the recommended remedy to our social and economic ills. A quick fix, but in reality affluenza is a painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety, and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more. Consumption used to refer to tuberculosis, a deadly disease, but affluenza is much more sinister as it has accelerated global warming and tremendous rifts between the haves (dying of cancer and obesity) and the have-nots (dying of starvation and infectious disease) in the world. Come on, this is the holiday season, lighten up!
Need a great holiday gift idea? Think green, not greenbacks. Teach someone how to make compost for a small backyard garden. Start an indoor worm ranch for castings to stimulate springtime gardens. Prepare holiday meals featuring local foods. Go sledding, snow-shoeing, or cross-country skiing in your neighborhood in Wisconsin (or biking, roller-blading, or hiking in less fortunate climes). Take public transit. Erect an indoor clothesline to dry clothes. Knit wool socks, hats, mittens, scarfs (or purchase fair-trade or recycled clothing). From your local library, read E.F. Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful or Vine Deloria, Jr.’s Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto (always a holiday favorite) with your family or neighborhood learning circle.
You get the idea—re-connect with family, friends, neighbors to build community at the local level. Perhaps the new administration in Washington DC will have some great new green ideas, too. In the meantime, let’s re-define traditional holiday colors from Green-backs and Red-ink to forest Green, OK?
Happy Holidays!
GEM Education Center Blog 