Recent Articles

The Kindness of Strangers (Conscious Choice)  - It's easy to say we love the planet, we respect humanity, and we embrace equality. Those are all great liberal platitudes that feel good when they roll off the tongue. But to really extend ourselves to a stranger is the ultimate sacrifice.

The Death Of Stillness (SLN)  - What's wrong with being busy? Plenty. Americans have become the most anxious, time-stressed people in the world, thanks in part to all the high-tech devices at our fingertips that are meant to make life easier.

Need An Environmental Holiday? Try A Conservation Celebrations (Conscious Choice)  - It's so easy and admittedly fun to get caught up in the consumerism of the holiday season. But often our wish lists include wanting to give family and friends gifts that touch their hearts and respect our environment.

More Delivers Us Much Less (SHM)  - It's time we woke up to the contradiction at the heart of individualistic capitalism

Finding The Higher Things (CSM)  - Of course, that luxury stereo or car or purse looks better. But will it really enhance our lives? In our search for the high end, are we finding a higher expression - or merely feeding an overconsuming appetite?

What's Under Your Sink? (ENN)  - If you can't stand the smell, don't clean your house with it.

Affluence Threshold (Resurgence)  - It is time to examine the relationship between economic growth and social well-being.

A Disposable Society? (CBS)  - In the United States, there are more of us who throw things away than there are people who save things. We live in a throw-away society.

Practical Rules, Strategies, And Tactics For Building A Civilization Of Life And Love (Just Peace)  - How to build a just and sustainable society within the shell of the collapsing ruins.

The Dubious Rewards Of Consugmption (New Renaissance)  - The avarice of mankind is insatiable," wrote Aristotle 23 centuries ago, describing the way that as each desire is satisfied, a new one seems to appear in its place.

The Lure Of Data: Is It Addictive?  -  We all suffer a kind of A.D.D," he said. "It's a bit of a joke, but it's true. We are easily bored. We have lots of things going on at the same time."

They Call Me The Frugal Zealot (In Context)  -  Before the saving fever gripped me, I had a very normal and healthy love for spending.

The Problem Is The Solution (Hope Dance)  -  “Your only limitation is the size and quality of your vision and the vision of your ability.”

Culture Of Consumptions  (CSM) -  Part of the consumer revolution required businesses to convince Depression-wary consumers that spending was not entirely selfish. 

Living Well, Living Deeply (Natural Life)  -  We suffer from a dichotomy of desires: a good life and a healthy environment. So, we can, for example, support a local clean air initiative, yet still own two cars, drive 100 miles a day and live in houses that leak energy like sieves.

A Necessary Simplicity (Resurgence)  -  The present rationale is that the common good is best achieved through prosperity based upon an ever-increasing consumption of products and services.

The Parenting Trap (AlterNet)  -  Hectored by experts, bullied by the media, and disdained by their own children, American parents have it pretty rough these days.

If Technology Becomes A Tyrant, She Ousts It (CSM) -  Nicols Fox urges Americans to rethink whether machines are useful or a burden.

A Shopper's Experiment: Can She Really 'Eat Locally'? (CSM) -  At the same time, however, I discovered that eating locally wasn't as simple as I thought it was going to be.

The Spit And The Polish (CBS) -  Some basic household items will do the same job as many commercial cleaning products.

What Thoreau Knew  - Walden and the meaning of voluntary simplicity.

Consumer Culture Is No Accident (ENN) -  Not long ago, frugality was a virtue. But today two-thirds of our economy is built on consumption. This didn't happen by accident.

Buying Instead of Being (Simple Living Collection) - How often do I buy things because my needs for love, friendship, celebration, job satisfaction, personal recognition, or cultural identity are not being met?

Fractal Gardens (Simple Living)  - "Ritual is a principal means by which society grows and moves into the future."

Security Begins At Home (Simple Living) - Providing real security is about meeting our needs well right here at home, in more humane, more sustainable, less vulnerable ways.

Cropping Our Possessions (Living Gently) - I have often used the technique of cropping a picture to focus on the central point or theme of the photograph, to eliminate the extraneous and distracting elements. I had no idea that the technique could be applied to one s possessions with similar success.

Bloated (Simple Planet) - My cords are trying to tell me something. How about yours?

Rage Against The Machine (Salon) - Neo-Luddite author Nicols Fox's pious embrace of the simple life makes technological utopianism look good.

10 Ways You Mindlessly Waste Money (MSNBC) - Do you ever feel like there’s a leak in your bank account? It’s like the sound of water dripping, a tiny crack through which a slow stream of money is draining away.

Saving Money On Clothing (Simple Living) - The amount you spend on clothes. Do you know how much that is? One hundred, two hundred, maybe even three hundred a month? 

Life's Seasons: 10 Ways to Slow Down (Living Gently) - Winter time is the perfect time to lay back, collect our thoughts and enjoy the bounty of the harvest season.

Fuzzy Math: Cook the Planet, Cook the Books, Call it Growth (NewDream) - What's going on here? How could we feel better when the experts say we should feel worse, and worse when they say we should feel better? Could it be that economists don't know up from down to begin with?

To Worship Winning (Resurgence) -By its heroes may you know a culture. What are the ingredients of contemporary heroism?

Is There Time To Slow Down? (CSM) - As the world speeds up, how cultures define time may affect environmental health.

Designing Livelihood (Life) - An increasing number of people from all walks of life are finding their true passion and integrating it into their lives – and integrating their lives and their work.

Buy Nothing This Year! (AlterNet) - While Buy Nothing Day is primarily about getting people to think about the impacts of their conspicuous consumption, it's also a holiday celebrating personal liberation.

Living Simply Can Be Simply Fabulous (MSNBC) - It pays to go from the plush life to living within your means.

Tyranny of Toys (Resurgence) - Modern toys limit imagination, breed aggression and turn children into avid consumers.

Recycled XMas (Speak Easy) - One family's revolution against the shopping mall.

International Buy Nothing Day (About.com) - Hitting materialism where it hurts.

To Worship Winning (Resurgence) - Modern sporting achievement has its roots in aggression.

Immaterial World (ABC News) - Economic woes prompt some to re-evaluate their attitude toward materialism.

Consumerism Consumes (Resurgence) - THOSE WHO "KNOW that enough is enough", goes the Chinese proverb, "will always have enough."

Taking Back Time (Living Gently) - We seem to have a life-long, running battle with time, always trying to make more time for something in our lives.

Taking Back Your Home (Wash Post) - De cluttering your home.

A Fruitful Approach to Food Waste (Living Gently) - It's about time we declare war on food waste — and none too soon, if you ask me.. remember what Grandma always said:" "Waste not, want not."

Taking Charge (Simple Life) - We live in an age of mass consumerism, greed and the almighty dollar.

Contentment Robbers (Simple Life) - Sometimes living within your means can be frustrating if you find it difficult to be content with what you have.

Too Many Buttons (Suite 101) - Our modern society provides many simple solutions. This trade for simplicity and convenience, however, sometimes removes us from the “real” world.

Land Of Milk And Honey (Tom Paine) - Somewhere between Eden and Disneyworld lies the materialistic perfection of the American Dream. Like most dreams, it tends to fade when you wake up.

The Real Wilderness  (This Mag) - Anybody can survive in the wild with a little bit of training. But for David Armstrong, the toughest test was when he left the woods for the urban jungle.

Wind Up Wonder  (Utne) -  How old-fashioned low-technology saves lives in the developing world.

Less Is More  (Natural Life) - Taming the power of possession.

The Virtues of Caution  (Resurgence) - A call to awaken our aesthetic responses.

Chickens Becoming Popular Urban Pets (Rense) - While some immigrants have long recognized the benefits of keeping chickens in urban lots, the concept appears to have taken flight, so to speak.

TV Turn Off Diary  (AdBusters) - It's day one and I've already made a few interesting observations

Priceless  (New Dream) -  So we can agree with MasterCard: "There are some things money can't buy." And that's a good thing.

Fine Diving   (Salon) - Young anarchists with guts of steel raid dumpsters for edible "trash." The idea? Divert waste to end wastefulness.

Simplicity  (Orion) - Among do-gooders, it's bad form to be a pessimist, but I can't seem to get that extinction crisis out of my mind.

Buy Less! Drive Less! Feel Great!  (On Earth) -  Nine-step plan to help you cut stress and improve your life. (Did we mention saving the world?)

Fight Global Warming for $1 a Day  (New Dream) -  If we can make such big changes so quickly and for so little money, the rest of the world, when it finally makes up its mind, can do the same.

Spending Like There's No Tomorrow  (New Dream) - Why do Americans spend so much? How many of us are caught up with the "see, want, borrow, buy" mentality?

Reusing Clothes, Curtains and Materials (Green Nature) - Home recycling tips.

Enough is Enough (Resurgence) -  Practicing self-restraint and accepting our own mortality.

You are the One (Utne) -  Small steps can lead to big differences in the world.

A Strategy for Sustainability (Permaculture Mag) - There is only so much of land and physical resources, and history teaches us that people, if deprived of their fair share, sooner or later fight for it, trashing nature even more in the process.

Green Materialism and Psychological Pollution (Sustainable Village) - We could do less. We could learn to live a rich life in a simple and non-materialistic way. 

Living on a different wavelength (HomeWorking)  - The moment you change---rebel---and move off to do your own thing, you cause shock waves. "The Crowd" no longer feels comfortable with you. 

Guerilla Gardening (Utne) - Transform our blandscape by sowing the seeds of a green revolution.

Spring DeCluttering (Living Gently) - Did you ever feel, by winter's end, that the walls are closing in on you? That your rooms seem more claustrophobic?

Life without money? Well almost (ZenZibar)  - Is it possible to live comfortably in today’s American culture without money or a job?

Shop till you.. stop! (Common Dreams)  - In America, people just work way too hard. Why? To buy stuff. What for? Because the market system has us believing happiness will come from it.

Why are we devouring the earth? (Context)  - The systemic and psychological roots of our materialistic values.

The question of lifestyle (Context)  -  Why do we live the way we do? What things are important to us, and why? What is a "lifestyle," anyway?

The Peter Pan Syndrome (Tom Paine)  - The charge card mentality says that you can have it all now, then pay for it in some distant tomorrow.

Thirty ways to get sustainable at home (Context)  - It's easier than you think!

The conversion of the American dream (Context) - Waking up from the nightmare of robotic consumption into a more fulfilling, and more peace-making, way of life.

Getting past hawkers (Context) - How to keep advertising from running, and ruining, your life.

Simplicity for Sale (Conscious Choice) - By definition,  you can't buy simplicity -- simplicity comes from within. How much of your life are you giving up for things you can do without?

Perks for the Soul (Conscious Choice) - Practical deeds and philosophical ruminations that are good for us. Resources that can help us simplify our lives abound.

POLL (New Dream) - Americans looking deeper this holiday season in the aftermath of 9-11

Shopping less and enjoying life more (Alternet) - America’s growing obsession with acquisition is taking a heavy toll on the environment

Patriotic Shopping vs. Buy Nothing Day (Alternet) - Spend your money in a way that it will stimulate the local economy, not aggravate the global economy.

From city to soil (CSMonitor)  - Trading condos in the urban jungle for barns in the country, rural transplants hope to find a reprieve from city worries.      

Awakening our Senses (Conscious Choice) -  The Slow Food movement brings us back to the table.  

Small is still beautiful (Utne) - The real voyage of discovery, wrote Marcel Proust, "lies not in seeking new lands but in seeing with new eyes."

Technotopia (YES) - We must break our addiction to the technological system and free ourselves from the techno-cocoons.

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