(Or see my Web-Archived Geocities page on 26th Oct. 2009)
"The net worth of the 225* richest people in the world now equals the combined income of the poorest 2.6 billion, who comprise 47 percent of the world's population." (UNDP's 1998 Human Development Report) (* billionaires)
(Or see my Web-Archived Geocities page on 26th Oct. 2009)
My own opinions, starting mid-1990s. |
(if the "last modified" date near the bottom doesn't change, it means I'm prevented from uploading to this Tripod.com site, and you should join the LessIsMore group: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/LessIsMore/info to see what I've been into since 2002.) {Here's my 332-word autobiography, on Avaaz , archived - and: an outline of my life and philosophy, in 2002 } |
|
my World View: |
my Personal Actions: |
|
__ I believe the human race passed a comfortably
sustainable population in about 1950, at 2.5 Bn, but in 1987 there were
twice as many of us, and three times as many by 2018|^, with a most
influential minority using FAR too much. The middle-class and rich have
the wrong goals (largely induced by advertising), if the world is to
remain as civilised as it was between 1955 and 1977 (not including
Stalin & Amin). |
__ I have reduced my demands on the
Earth to a bare minimum by spending US$1,350 p.a.|˜ TOTAL; including no more
than US$450 a year, or $8.65 per week, on food (all of it bought at the
supermarket). I pay for my half of the rates on our mortgage-free
house, and I walk or (occasionally) take the bus, e.g. to buy the
groceries. I walk barefoot year-round (at lat. 37, maritime), wearing
thongs/jandals if the road is rough or my pack is heavy. I haven't thrown
out clothes for a couple of decades, and I'm now gradually using up that
capital investment. |
|
_|^"three times as many by 2018" |
|
| {My wife Bera died 21 July 2013; 1999 photo, age 58, is on her 1999 NZ Greens candidate page.} |
I'm not recommending others do the above, though I am saying it's possible. David MacClement |
By SIL on Kawau Island, Aug 2015
|
For more detail on how my wife and I were living from 2006 to 2013, on US$5,835/person/year (sharing household costs 50/50, at latitude 37), see my blog post for 16 July 2010, at: http://bit.ly/dCKYnV (in 783 «words» of 5.84 charac.), or: https://davd.tripod.com/DM/index.blog/2039397/ds-style-32-tweets-july-2010/ Our Kawau early-morning temperatures: https://davd.tripod.com/00-TempsEarlyAM-140719.html#up .
An old satellite photo of DM's and daughter_&_SIL's eco-house on Kawau Island NZ, & her keel sailboat (keeler) Autumn: http://is.gd/DMsDtr_nSILhousKawauIsl_Autumn
My Exercise regime; on Sat, 2 May 2015 07:44 +1200, I wrote to the LessIsMore list: "Trip to town after 10 weeks on Kawau Island. Unionised McDonald's drops zero-hours. Living on little" at:
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/LessIsMore/conversations/messages/41675 (login required) |
 |
Success by the Ontario Greens, and my response to their question.
On 7 June 2018, the Ontario Greens elected the first Green MP to the Ontario Parliament, Mike Schreiner; see:
https://gpo.ca/2018/06/07/schreiner-makes-history-in-guelph/ .
Then, on 11 July 2018 Ontario Greens wrote "We need your input: what do you want the the Green Party to champion at Queen's Park?" [the Ontario Legislature.]
My answers included:
"_ I'm David MacClement; I lived in and belonged to Ontario (I am a Canadian citizen) while getting my BSc, MSc and PhD (at UWO) from 1959 to 1980, working as electronic engineer, Physics teacher and lecturer, getting married and having three children.
_ But we have lived in New Zealand since then, Bera and I working hard for The Greens here as soon as they formed (in time for the 1990 election), so while my opinions should be discounted because I cannot vote for MPPs, I am proud to be Canadian and proud of what the GPO has done and is doing in Ontario." [GPO: Green Party of Ontario ]
| What sustainability is, in my view. | Visualising a better Future |
My description, March 1999, of what I think of my life ; (in a new browser window) |
and: our family travels in Malaysia and India in 1988; (what we learnt [new browser window] ) |
| ** On 27 July 2000, I took delivery
of nearly NZ$14,000 worth of alternative energy equipment for our
retirement house which will be entirely off the mains-power grid. It
comprised 10 Siemens 75 watt solar panels (SP75), a Victron 2000 inverter, a
C-40 Solar controller, a Link-10 Battery Monitor with RS232 digital data
connection, and 4 Espace AGM (gel 85Ah 12V) Batteries. Plus some very fat
wires and odds and ends. ** I have saved for more than 6 years to reach this point (at age 63); the gear (excepting the batteries) should last the rest of my life (~25 years).
· A press release on 09/27/2000, having information I've wanted in the past, contained: ĜA ... solar panel generates nine times as much energy as is needed to create it. Calculations included process energy used in cell and module manufacturing, as well as the energy used in producing both direct and indirect raw materials. Sources included measured energy consumption and detailed bills of materials. The data was used to measure the amount of energy required to make photovoltaic (solar electric) panels, i.e. the "energy payback time."ĝ http://www.siemenssolar.com/Energy_paper_index.html
and summary in Solar Energy, Volume 71, Issue 3, 2001, Pages 165-172, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V50-439MD43-2&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=db18b025a880f5550c31450b0358233c Initial Empirical Results for the Energy Payback Time of Photovoltaic
Modules Energy Balances for Photovoltaic Modules: Status and Prospects An Empirical Perspective on the Energy Payback Time for Photovoltaic
Modules About Siemens Solar, year-2000 description: |
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The blue line, actual output, shows it is producing more than 11,300 MWh every month, on average…
So we feel our family isn't significantly adding to the excess greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, even now.
-=##=- -=##=- -=##=- -=##=- http://cli.gs/6TaAzg- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Here's an unofficial graph|¹ of that windfarm (Te Rere Hau)'s energy output, while there are 65 Windflow-500 turbines usually available (more are now being installed as they are manufactured):
_|*: "high-windspeed-capable"; the link has, on 31 August 2009:
"About 55 turbines installed and commissioned at Te Rere Hau (TRH) have been running in recent days (including today) in 25-30 m/s winds (90-108 km/hr, 56-67 mi/hr), when imported turbines have all shut down."
And in Sept-Oct 2010, two examples of normal windy operation (note my caveat|¹ on these numbers):
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
{added September 2011: (data just below have same column headings as in table above)}
| Date-&-time | Power (MW) | Energy (GWh) | Available number | Generating number | Av.Windspeed m/s_(km/hr) | WindDir (deg.) | Hi@Turb# | HiWindpeed m/s_(km/hr) | Av.kW /turb. | |
| 21/07/2011 04:47 NZST | 30.24 | over195 | 97 | 97 | 12.6 _(45.4) | 135.7 | TRH_T072 | 18.4 _ (66) | 312 |
Wind speed (metres per second)
Two good photos of Windflow 500 turbines on the Te Rere Hau windfarm (use full-screen and click-off any pop-up page):
https://davd.tripod.com/_1/coverPhotoWTL2009annReport.html#up
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
· The seven 250 Wp panels, made in China (by ReneSola, model JC250M-24/Bb_3510021549250_A, Polycrystalline Cell Type: Virtus II, and Panel Efficiency: 15.4 percent), are connected in series to produce 210 to 252 volts DC (depending on load), which is fed by inverter to our AC mains/grid, recorded by an import-export meter installed in mid-September.
· At 12:25 today, 16 October 2014, the peak power was 1.648 kW (through a small hole in thin overcast), and the linear regression gradient of the (cumulated energy) meter registers shows (since 27 Sept 2014):
import: 3.58 kWh per day
export: 5.66 kWh per day.
· That's a net export of 2.08 kWh per day, totaling 760 kWh per year if maintained.
· Meridian Energy, my electricity retailer, pays me $0.25 per kWh for my excess home-generated electricity, which means they'll pay me $190 for the 760 kWh of electricity I could export in a year.
Later:
· I now have 33 data points from 27 September to 22 November. Daily averages
are:
2.97 kWh (90 kWh per month) - our _consumption_ when there's too little
sun: I pay Meridian; and:
5.82 kWh (177 kWh per month)- my electricity _generation_: Meridian
pays me (as credit).
_ The straight-line fit which produces these numbers (a good fit: R2 =
0.993 and 0.999 respectively) should continue for a couple more months
before the shortening days and more cloud of autumn show up as reduced
generation.
· That 2.85 kWh per day (5.82-2.97) of electric energy I send to the grid for our neighbours to use, is below the 5.0 kWh per day where the rate I'm currently being paid drops, (and is a little less than it could be since our Greenhithe fridge is left on 24/7 these days to keep frozen a large amount of dogmeat with a lot of bones and fat, given to SIL by his brother, an on-your-own-farm butcher).
· To get an appreciation of the scale at which my small (7 panel) 1.75 kW solar installation is producing, that 2.85 kWh per day is a rate which, if it could be continued through autumn and winter, would be 1,040 kWh a year, 46 percent of the 2,260 kWh a year that my wife and I used to use. But 2.85 kWh a day is the production rate for the sunnier half of the year only - we'll have to see what a whole year actually produces, now I am living full-time on Kawau Island and only 3.2 days a month in Greenhithe (though my daughter and SIL spend a small amount of time there as well).
· When considering my Return On Investment (ROI), the other, larger, factor is my cost-saving, the reduction in what I would otherwise pay Meridian if I'd continued to import all the electricity I use, rather than (now) using my own (free) energy in the sunny part of the day for supplying my water heater, electric kettle, fridge, washing machine, this computer and the water pump.
· These are my baseline numbers when I was living here half the time but the 100%-electric water-heater and fridge-freezer were left switched ON 24/7 (for the younger family-members to use):
(Paid on: )
17 Jun 2014 _~_ _~_ $61.05
14 July 2014 _~_ _~_ $50.97
12 Aug 2014 _~_ _~_ $56.83
22 Sep 2014 _~_ _~_ $47.64
average per month: _ $54.12
uncertainty (σ):~_~_ _ $5
range (± σ): _~_ _~_ $49 to $59
· At this very early stage I make the wild guess that my roof's solar energy would save half that or:
$27 per month, if I was to continue living here as I used to; that is:
$325 per year, not taxable.
$190 is my pre-tax monetary income from electricity generation. So:
$515 is my current guesstimate of my return on investment (ROI), or 8 percent per year.
· There are numerous factors likely to change these numbers:
· Here's confirmation that the midday sun near equinox would hit at near-normal-incidence (straight-on) on solar panels on my roof if it was facing directly North. I wrote to my Less-is-More email list:
{Some more recent data, also available on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/Davd-Edu-162475567191124/ :· The credit built up during the summer was used up by May when I had to start paying for electricity again. A major reason it lasted that long was that the house was only intermittently occupied, mostly March onward when daughter and SIL were sorting, throwing out, refurbishing and otherwise preparing the house to be rented-out (with them as paid managers) - a process taking many months.
Earlier: https://davd.tripod.com/WhoAmI0128.html#up was:-
At 14:41 10/03/98 -0700, Cheryl Day wrote:
> My husband and I are both 40, and recently retired. We live in western
>Colorado, in an earth-bermed passive solar house we designed ourselves.
>We were self-employed, and worked as sub-contractors in the construction
>industry. Lousy job, but we made more money in construction. We both
>agreed even before we were married that we didn't want to work the rest
>of our lives. So we always lived on a small portion ...
>We now have a small income, sufficient for our needs, from our investments.
> ... some health problems, so our main concern in life is
>resting, eating well, and trying to regain some of our health back.
> ... for right now, we are kicking back, taking it easy, and enjoying life!
[David: ]
** I wasn't going to put in my response to Jan's "Who are you"
because I started my most recent cutting-back in a fit of stubbornness near the
beginning of five years of depression|+, and people on a list like this want to
read about things where they can say to themselves: "I could do that
too!"; I ask that no one try what I've done.
After I had raised all three of our children to the stage where they could
take total responsibility for their own lives and it was no longer mine;
( I'm leaving my wife out of this description: I've gone my own way and
supported myself even while living with the family, so I'm giving my own slant
on this; see details in: https://davd.tripod.com/davdsviewhowliv.html
),
I felt I was free at last to "become a ghost: seen and
recognised, but having no effect" on those around me or on the earth: my
way of dealing with my depression.
I wanted also to see what was the absolute minimum spending needed by a city-dweller for subsistence; economic theory ( and that's all it is, in the macroscopic arena; it's useful in a controlled, bounded micro area like a corporation, but it's far over-simplified in relation to a complex network like a society); as I say: economics and the market assume that all "players" have the 'zero option' available all the time: not to buy, or not to sell. So if it's to have any application to people outside of a corporation, they have to have a guarantee of being supplied the minimum necessities for life: food, shelter (at the higher latitudes), and some clothing. The answer isn't 42, it's US$1,350|³, while sharing living in a paid-for cheap-to-run house and the rates.
The third thread in my life has been my awakening in 1972 to the increasing concern for the future of the world caused by the product (a mathematical term) of the number of people and their individual consumption. I realised while back-packing one of my sons twenty years ago [~1975] when we were living in London Canada, (i) that there was a large excess of people in the world, so for an increasing number of individuals there is at least one other person able to do what that one was doing (leaving practicalities out of it), so no ordinary person needs to feel they are indispensible, for the first time in the history or pre-history of the human race!; and (ii) that do-ing less was a good thing, since resource consumption is involved in most of the things that people do.
(You can see why I was reluctant to put my oar in: I've found it stops the conversation cold!)
I've realised only a few months ago [~Jan.'98] that I'm coming out of my depression, and in the last few weeks have found that my remaining son and daughter (who has just left to catch the bus to Auckland University) are indeed happy to live under the same roof with me - they buy their own stuff beyond sharing the 9 items I've eaten for the last 5+ years (mainly bread and cabbage). My wife left earlier to catch the 6:30 AM bus to her job lecturing in the Physics Dept. of the university.
So I think our family is living in a nearly sustainable way, suitable for an over-populated world.
Sorry for that blast.
David.
David MacClement <d1v9d-at-bigfoot.com>
(fix address)
_|+: (Added in January 2011:)
** Being fired at age 52 ** in August 1989 and not finding a job I was capable of doing (and willing to do) during the next 18 months,
** was the best thing that could have happened to me **
- in this last part of my life, since it required me to re-examine my life and purpose;
I became convinced there are too many too rich on earth and I was one, so I should effectively vanish ("become a ghost").
In the mid-1990s I said "By choice, I have lived for the last three and a half years on less than NZ$1,250 p.a.- a subsistence existence, just enough to keep body and soul together"; see my letter to the N.Z. National Conference on Universal Basic Income, in Aug. 1996 at: https://davd.tripod.com/dsmenu.html#UBINZ96
_|³: In 2007 (at 05:35 p.m. 17/06/2007 +1200) I (David M) wrote "DM near midwinter
day. Making backups. Re: a personal accounting" {at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/LessIsMore/conversations/messages/36573 sign-in first}:
· [In the original LessIsMore list] below are: a post summarising my "living on very little" life, and
one about having back-ups available, which I sent today to the
90%Reduction list. My: "I recently calculated that I live on about NZ$1,850 per year|ª (roughly US$1,300 _per_year_)" in it, seems to
conflict with: "My expenses are NZ$7,490.87 (US$5,208) [plus donations
NZ$1,827.66 (US$1,270.77)], 16 percent of my... NZ$11,440 income
(US$7,954)" {amended using full 12-month data in my Jul 17, 2007 "...
DM's personal accounting, complete first year":
http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/LessIsMore/conversations/messages/36716 }.
Summarising: For nearly two decades I've lived on very little: NZ$1,850 or US $1,350 in 2004-dollars (or: sharing all household expenses with my wife: NZ$7,490 or US$5,208 per person per year in 2007 after getting NZ's universal pension).
_|ª: "comments on living-on-very-little" http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/LessIsMore/conversations/messages/25097
· The main distinction is that my "personal accounting" ... is after [a full 12] months sharing the total household costs with my wife B. half-and-half, the reconciliation being done at the end of each month. So,
*** much of the difference is what I help buy,
but the other three people here, use. ***
...
· ... "I live on about NZ$1,850 per year" _was_ true when I paid for
only what _I_myself_ used.
...
David.
|
 |
http://csf.colorado.edu/mail/deep-ecology/jun99/msg00056.html was:-
Received: from edsac (p226-tnt4.akl.ihug.co.nz [216.132.188.226]) ... Date: Sun, 06 Jun 1999 17:22:27 +1200 From: David MacClement <d1v9d-at-bigfoot.com> In-Reply-To: <05163107220104@metro.net> Message-Id: <3.0.3.32.19990606172227.00697dd8@tao.ca> To: Deep Ecology list [archived for some years on csf.colorado.edu ]At 21:57 4/06/99 -0700, Eric wrote:Subject: Re The Deep Ecology Platform
>In looking through the "Platform" (by Arne Naess and George Sessions) I >[thought] about how radically one would have to shift from current >consumer lifestyles in order to follow these principles ... and that they >should not just be suggestions for behavior. I haven't been hearing >a call for such radical changes on this list, so I thought I'd [comment]. > >> The Deep Ecology Platform >> >> 3. Humans have no right to reduce this richness and diversity >> except to satisfy vital needs. > > ... questions: > >* Is it possible for humans (or any other species) to satisfy their vital >needs without ever reducing the flourishing and diversity of others? >** ".. possible ..":
>* Does this require looking at things on a large scale or can it be applied >at an individual level? >** Both. The average is important on a planet-wide scale, multiplied by the total number. For a Poisson distribution (most members being not far above zero), the mean (=average) is quite low, which says that, to keep the average consumption from getting any higher, to say nothing about reducing it, one person at the-mean-of-the- uppermost-decile cutting back their consumption to (say) half what it was, would allow very large numbers of those below the population mean to increase theirs a tiny but significant (to them) amount.
>* What are "vital needs"? >** That minimum required to stay alive as a functioning human. My: https://davd.tripod.com/dsmenu.html
( see Betsy Barnum's expansion of the above list, at end of this letter.)
>* Are there any restrictions on the degree of reduction to the richness and >diversity allowable when satisfying vital needs? >** Good question for a deep ecology discussion. Since human activities' "richness and diversity" cannot be allowed to grow without limit it seems to me that other species (and whatever goes into 'richness and diversity' - don't forget microbes and biome types and sizes) could reasonably be limited to a similar degree.
>* Can anyone think of something they do that is not satisfying vital needs >and does not reduce the richness and diversity in even a small way? (I'm >sure there are some, but there can't be many in our society.) >** I take "there can't be many in our society" to be critical of this society.
** Have to talk about my past and the future here; my present is dedicated to living at the minimum, i.e. vital needs only. I believe many of the things people used to do when human populations were tiny didn't noticeably decrease the world's richness and diversity. Even in recent decades, there are many sustainable activities: teaching and learning; the theater and 'acoustic' music-making; walking/hiking; sailing clinker-built boats (made using steam-box and copper nails); horse-riding; kite-flying; antique glider-flying (bungee-launched from a ridge) etc. As you might guess, I've done almost all of these, mostly in my youth in the '50s-'60s.
>* Do people on this list have a vision of a human society where we are able >to abide by this principle? (I do, but it's not something that most people >are willing to accept.) >** I have more than a vision of it, I remember it. Or nearly - some things we did then didn't fit the criterion. They'd have to be toned 'way down or eliminated. But generally, villages were stable, self-sufficient to a large degree, and people were willing to live within the limits of renewable supplies.
** Living the way I grew up wouldn't "reduce this richness and
diversity except to satisfy vital needs", but there's still the question of
increasing it, returning it to what it was about 30,000 years ago.
And what I've said really only applies to the 2.5 billion
people in the world when I started secondary school. What I described is not
possible for over 6 billion humans without reducing the average
(material-&-energy) standard of living from that of New Zealand (& some
parts of Nth. America) at about 1950, to that of (I'm guessing) country
Thailanders|` a decade or two ago. Quite pleasant, but much more limited, and
without religion or a good philosophy it would be hard not to be resentful.
>> 6. .. changed ... basic economic, technological, and ideological >> structures. The resulting state of affairs will be deeply different >> from the present. >** This was obviously written by someone in an OECD country - it's certainly true for these. But that's what Naess and Sessions wanted to change, wasn't it?
>the Platform ... seems directed at human society in general >and not to individuals. Was this written for a specific purpose and not >intended as a general statement of DE as a philosophy? >** I'm out of my depth here.
David.
David MacClement <d1v9d-at-bigfoot.com>
(fix address)
{_|`: Re: Thailand:
See under my photos for July 2018 Ontario Greens notes.}
(Don't go to RainForest: David's Page
My Web-Archived Geocities page
