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I had 2 children when the world population was about 3.5 billion (I'm in my 7th decade). Then I got myself "fixed". At that time, I was a member of the ZPG (zero population growth) movement. It seemed like the right thing to do. However, if I had to do it again with what I know now, I would have gotten fixed before I had the first one.
The ZPG had a mission and a lot of members, but Corporate America saw that as a threat to perpetual profit growth. After all one way to sell more widgets is to have more customers who want a widget.
Almost every TV show whether it was a sitcom, drama, advertisement, variety, late night, or whatever had a woman telling her man "My biological clock is ticking" meaning she had better get pregnant while she still had the chance. Anybody watching a couple of hours of TV per day heard that phrase dozens of times per week and by mass media repetition, sure enough, people started echoing the statement and having more and more children.
It's amazing how the media can control our minds. It's even convinced millions of people that the climate crisis is a hoax. My neighbor has a 2 ton pickup truck and the heaviest thing he hauls in it is his wife, 3 little kids and groceries.
All a mom&pop business needs is enough profit to pay the owners and employers a fair wage with the only income growth needed is that to keep up with inflation. Sure it's hoped to make more profit, but the business can exist for generations without perpetual growth. A small business is a way to make a living. (I own two mom&pop businesses)
A corporation is usually almost 50% by people who do not work for the company and have zero physical or mental input in that company. All they want is for their stock to grow and grow.
Many quarters of neither growth or loss can sustain a private business for generations, but in a corporation if there is no perpetual growth, the stockholders will sell and the corporation will go bankrupt.
The Earth is a closed system, perpetual growth is impossible, it will hit a ceiling like an algae bloom in a pond and die off. I don't know if it will happen while I'm alive, but humanity headed for that ceiling. It might be too late to stop it.
It's impossible to not deal with corporate America/world. But if there is a local private business option, I'll take my business there. Instead of McDonalds or Bonefish Grill there are a couple of family owned restaurants that I patronize. Instead of Guitar Center I get things at my mom&pop music store. I buy produce at a family owned fruit/veggie stand and fish from a mom&pop fish market that sells what the local fishermen catch. The beef I buy is 100% grass fed/finished grown in Florida (my home state). Some of which comes from a ranch west of town (the owners are committed environmentalists and have done a lot to help the area).
I minimize my use of plastics, and recycle what I have to use if possible. I drink water from my well and never-ever buy bottled beverages. I don't use the AC and I hang my clothes out to dry. We don't use paper napkins (we launder cloth ones), and never use disposable cups, cutlery, or plates. We wash dishes by hand.
I have a xeriscape half acre with no lawn -- I planted over a dozen Live Oak trees, 10 Sabal Palms, 4 Gumbo Limbo trees and 2 Sea Grape trees (all natives), plus the well established and zero care 3 Royal Poincianas and one Neem. Under the trees I planted ferns. The rest of the shrubbery is comprised of either natives or xeriscape plants that have been locally hardy and non-invasive her longer than I've been on the planet like Downy Jasmine, Ixora, Firebush, Firecracker, Carolina Jasmine, Acerola Cherry, Honeysuckle, Periwinkle, and Citronella grass clumps. Most of the plants feed wildlife. The leaf litter, ferns and compost feed the plants. Once established the plants need no more water other than what mother nature provides.
I've painted the roof white to reflect the heat back out, sweep up the leaves with a broom instead of using a leaf-blower. I put the swept up leaves under the trees with the ones that fall there to return to the earth. We compost everything we can except animal waste (and there is hardly any of that). If anything needs trimming I use hand tools (saw, pruner, clipper). We don't even create a square foot of garbage per week.
My minivan is a 2010 and I use it for work, driving it like I'm a driver in the defunct Mobil Economy Run to get 100 extra miles per tankful over the EPA rating. My vehicles usually eventually accumulate 200,000 miles before they become unreliable and need to be replaced.
In the future, if there is another choice I see that I can make to help the planet, it will be done.
Why? I'm past middle age and the world should last longer than I do. Because it's the right thing to do. I've never outgrown that hippie 'save the earth' mentality (actually the earth will be here when we are gone, at least until our sun dies - it's about saving humanity.)
So when I'm doing all I can, sometimes I get frustrated seeing so many others waste. I went to the eye-doctor for a checkup and that building must have been 60 degrees F inside. The employees were mostly wearing sweaters and jackets. The patients were too. I come once a year to get my eyes checked and was on the verge of shivering. It was a beautiful 79 and sunny outside. The waste irked me - and yes, I know I shouldn't let it get to me, and it usually doesn't, but sometimes I just have one of those days. I wish AC had never been invented. When I was a child, we did fine without it.
Bob
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