Your delightful day - Ted Trainer

Discussion in 'News from around the damp planet' started by eco4560, Mar 4, 2013.

  1. eco4560

    eco4560 New Member

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    Your delightful day

    Looks like a good read. (PDF)
     
  2. ecodharmamark

    ecodharmamark Junior Member

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    It is, eco, pure gold! Thanks ever so much for sharing it. Dr Ted is one of Australia's greatest intellectual assets. Sections 6 & 7 of this, his latest work, should prove to be most beneficial to the Politics of Social Ecology study group. Writing of which, Chapter 1 of Biehl's work is freely available here.
     
  3. purplepear

    purplepear Junior Member

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    I have loved Teds work for some time now. I shared lunch with Ted at the Wooton sustainability fair some years back and though he left me for dead with intelict I was impressed by his drive and passion. He is one of those people - like David Suzuki and Stuart Hill, that continue with their message with such resolve year after year.
     
  4. CraigMackintosh

    CraigMackintosh *****

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  5. Ludi

    Ludi Junior Member

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    What do people living the Simpler Way these days do for health insurance? Or do none of them live in the US?

    It's these little details that I would like to find out more about.
     
  6. Unmutual

    Unmutual Junior Member

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    Lol, I was just wondering about that sort of thing myself while I was potting up some rosemary cuttings this morning. I'd think that a long term transitioning mentality would work better for that sort of thing. Get a part time job to pay for private health insurance(preferably working from home) and get a physical every year so you can catch problems quickly(and theoretically cheaper). Health costs won't be reduced until most of the people have to live simpler, which may or may not be any time soon. I'd assume that bad diet will be a bigger factor in keeping health care costs up, until it finally sinks in that eating well boosts your overall health(I know this and I still eat badly, it's weird and I can't really explain why I do it).

    There's also home owner's insurance, flood insurance, and until towns are better planned, car insurance too.Luckily, there are plenty of work-from-home jobs: Nursery(native plants, perennial vegetables, trees, etc.), holding classes about various things, guided tours, selling veggies/eggs/milk/meat(though the rules for that can be quite daunting), garden/property design, making crafts(bird houses, lawn ornaments, bee hives, plant pots with designs, wooden frame for raised garden bed), honey, cut herbs, etc. The only problem with permaculture when it comes to providing food/herbs for sale is that we don't monocrop, so everything is limited supply. Then of course there are the many products that bees give us, along with beauty creams and such. Add to that tinctures and other herbal remedies.
     
  7. Ludi

    Ludi Junior Member

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    I already work at home (self-employed) but unfortunately I don't qualify for low-cost health insurance because of pre-existing conditions. I'm really interested in what other people are actually doing, not what they might do, but what they actually do. :)
     
  8. purplepear

    purplepear Junior Member

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    I can not say for the USA Ludi but I do not carry any medical insurance and have not been to a doctor in 25 years. We have the minium other insurances paid for by farm production. My health insurance is eating good food and working hard. It seems to keep me healthy. The scary thing is that you need to be aware of the consequences and accept them if they arive. So if the house burns down, for instance, we live in a tent or erect from scrounged materials. That is the way it is when you live simply.
    A big difference may be our health system which allowed me an operation a few years back at no cost to me.
     
  9. Ludi

    Ludi Junior Member

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    Thank you for sharing your experience, purple. :)
     
  10. ecodharmamark

    ecodharmamark Junior Member

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    Good question, Ludi. Living 'the simpler way' does not necessarily mean eschewing all of the technological services that we have come to rely upon and expect. It does mean, however, that we need to plan for and develop better, more sustainable ways of incorporating those same services into our daily lives. Take for example 'health insurance': subsequent posters to your question are quite correct when they suggest that if we ate better, more wholesome and unadulterated food, and at the same time exercised more - i.e. lived more simple lives - then rates of obesity, heart, liver and kidney disease, and maybe all forms of cancer would lessen, and ultimately the need to rely on 'health insurance' would lessen too.

    But, of course, and as others have likewise subsequently pointed out, prevention in terms of needing health insurance is only one part of the plan toward living the simpler way. Imagine, for example, if we all lived in locations that allowed us to walk or cycle to and from our daily places of work, study, civic engagement, recreation, worship, etc. Nearly all of the single occupant vehicle commuter traffic - accounting for the majority of cars on roads, and approximately one third of the urban footprint taken up in road and carparking space - would be gone. Penultimately, this would mean the majority of that reclaimed land could once again be used for growing and raising food very near to where we live. Ultimately, people would once again be able to walk to their local food grower/producer in order to acquire their daily food stuffs. Rates of obesity would be lessened, so too the need to access health insurance, and on and on the cycle goes...

    Living a simpler way means living a more conscious, integrated, informed and holistic way. It means that we need to develop community - i.e. form alliances with people that have the knowledge, skills and abilities to help us maintain healthy, safe, fulfilling and happy lives - and live within boundaries that are defined not by how far a jetliner can fly without refuelling, but by the amount of food we can grow in order to sustain our respective communities, e.g. bioregionalism. Living the simpler way means that we need to develop smarter ways of living. How we organise ourselves in order to do this is being studied and discussed here. I do hope that you can join us.
     

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