The New Normal: An Agenda for Responsible Living

by David Wann

Overview

In Simple Prosperity, Dave Wann showed readers how to have an abundant, sustainable life. In The New Normal, he challenges us to do some heavy lifting and transform our non-sustainable culture by transforming ourselves. For Wann, our current "old normal" lifestyle - buying water in disposable bottles, allowing the government to ignore global warming - will not preserve the planet. To nurture our world, he challenges us to rethink our lives, stand up for a healthy planet and move towards a "new normal" lifestyle in an agenda that includes:

- Initiating local business alliances that actively lobby for local buying.

- Creating an investment strategy that values the balance of nature.

- Supporting the design, manufacture, and use of products made with natural chemicals.

- Publicly advocating a more efficient use of water by placing a higher cultural value on wetlands, streams, rivers, and lakes.

The New Normal is Dave Wann's way forward, a blueprint for a better life that preserves our world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780312575434
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	01/04/2011
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

DAVID WANN is the author of many books including "Simple Prosperity: Finding Real Wealth in a Sustainable Lifestyle" and the bestselling "Affluenza", which he co-authored. He lives in Golden, Colorado.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Preface ix

Introduction: Once Upon a Paradigm, When Growth Was King 1

1 The Software of Civilization 17

2 Why Not a Nonprofit Economy? 36

3 Overfed but Undernourished 86

4 Getting Carbon Out of Our Systems 121

5 Living Wealth: Restoring the Economies of Nature 149

6 Where We Live to Consume, or Where We Come to Life? 188

7 Revolt of the Munchkins: Value, Not Volume, in the Market 216

8 Social Alchemy: Creating a New Normal 239

Notes 251

Recommended Readings 261

Index 263

Editorial Reviews

"Citing personal accounts of both success and devastation, startling statistics, and press cuttings, the author presents a rational and surprisingly optimistic set of solutions to a distressing issue." —Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

A practical guide to moderating wasteful modern lifestyles to benefit the larger global community.

Wann (Simple Prosperity: Finding Real Wealth in a Sustainable Lifestyle, 2007, etc.) argues that changes in such variables as climate, population and resource availability are forcing consumer cultures to dispense with "the throwaway mind[set]." The author seeks "to evaluate and guide decisions that can steer us clear of both personal and planetary bankruptcy." Toward that end, Wann first examines the contexts—historical, social, economic—and the attendant value systems that have made "having more, and having it faster" the central mission of Western societies. The Industrial Revolution fostered a mentality that celebrated the pursuit of profit, regardless of human and environmental costs. In a world now threatened by overpopulation and resource depletion, however, that way of thinking is not only unsustainable, but also dangerous. According to Wann, three barriers exist to fully bringing about a saner, more holistic way of life for everyone: "cultural crisis, hyperindividuality and overproductivity." Rather than simply critiquing the problems that plague modern capitalist societies, the author offers a detailed 33-point "new normal agenda" built on convincing statistical and anecdotal information. The plan emphasizes informed activist approaches to problem-solving and focuses on such timely issues as decentralizing and localizing economic structures, reducing carbon emissions, promoting urban organic agriculture and restoring environmental integrity. While Wann's message is urgent, it is never strident and offers hope in an age of pessimism and scarcity. If humanity can understand that "the overall theme of nature is not bloodthirsty competition, but functional, celebratory interdependence and cooperation" writes the author, then individuals and groups can create lives that, though materially leaner, are healthier and more fulfilling.

Powerful, grounded reading for the challenges of 21st-century living.

Kirkus Reviews