The thought “We’re dead ducks!” has been coming up more and more often for me as I and you are being hauled along toward the impending ecological disasters. I’ve said darkly, “I’m betting on our extinction!” Feelings of doom and appropriately guilty helplessness. Then at SolarFest in Vermont earlier this month, I met Jim Merkel. Listening to Jim for a couple hours, I recognized my helplessness as only cowardice. Not pretty.

Jim’s an engineer by training: he’s now an Eco-Engineer. His book, Radical Simplicity is a practical guide and toolkit to help me and you to begin our customized journey to simplicity, a blueprint outline for global living.

This talk comes directly from Jim’s work. You could put quotes around it.

Imagine you are at a potluck buffet and are the first in line. This spread includes not just food and water but also the materials needed for shelter, clothing healthcare and education. What will you heap on your plate? In our global economy, how much is enough to leave for your neighbors in line. The line includes six billion of the world’s people. Standing shoulder to shoulder, the line extends around the earth 180 times. Then there’s the other species: an estimated 7 to 25 million of them and the countless unborn generations.

There you are, plate in hand, first in that mega-line. You are determined to be fair as you look over the fabulous buffet which looks limitless. Which of the following voices whispers in your ear:

+ There is abundance in the universe, plenty for all, isn’t there?
+ If I don’t take it, someone else will.
+ It’s the corporate elite who take too much. It’s only “them.”
+ We all do the best we can.
+ Everything is this way for a reason.
+ I’ve worked really hard for my money.
+ If I didn’t do my part as a Consumer, everyone would be out of work.
+ Until everyone else takes less, it’s futile
+ We’re biologically programmed to Consume -- survival of the fittest.
+ I’m an exception. I need my (fill in the blank) because (fill in the blank).
+ It’s my karma to have so much -- otherwise there would be no have-nots.
+ What’s with all this guilt-tripping? Dig in and eat!

Here’s the question: ask yourself: “Am I in control of what I choose to put on my plate? If not, who is? Why do I have knee-jerk resistance to taming my appetites? Does it come from internal fears of not having enough? Or is it the product of pathological pressures generated externally? The more deeply I search the world’s drastic imbalances, the more I realize the full extent of the violence I have unknowingly supported. Children sick in China from my e-waste? Polynesia contaminated with toxins because of my fossil fuel dependence? My meat-eating destroying habitats in Brazil? My flick of a light switch contributing to the genocide of indigenous peoples in Arizona?

We have no choice but to avert the ecological catastrophe already in full swing. We have no choice but to radically reduce consumption, immediately stabilize population growth (you‘re a girl--you don‘t have to have children! Stop asking for grandchildren!), and rapidly make better use of technology. We have no choice but to stop damaging the Earth’s life support systems.

So let’s all DO IT! We can begin NOW. Merkel has given us an Eco-engineered Blueprint for global living. Now, here’s the worst case scenario: fritter our lives away and contribute to hell on earth.