Well, I've been thinking about what the next dream would be that I would like to work on. Although maybe not a dream, but certainly a motivation, it would be laying down the foundations of a concept I have in my head for a while now: Eco-nomadism.
Eco-nomadism (short for ecological nomadism) means to travel from place to place with the intention of reducing your own ecological footprint as well as those of others.
I've been doing this without really paying attention to it for the last year, but now that I'm consciously aware of it I want to further enhance it and write it down so others can do the same. In my opinion it's one of the most effective ways to reduce our ecological footprint on this planet and transition to a greener way of living.
To explain a bit more in depth why I believe it's so effective:
One of the biggest challenges we have in our Western society is the lack of time and energy to put into ecological projects. This is mainly because we live a sedentary, expensive lifestyle in which we have to work full time so we can pay off all of our costs (housing, heating, electricity, food, etc.). With a full time job you put most of your time and energy in this job and thus are unable to do much more after working hours because you're tired. Sadly enough most full time jobs are, at the moment, unecological, which means we, as a society are putting most of our time and energy in unecological work. Basically, by doing this, we are destroying nature, others and eventually ourselves. Our work nowadays is mostly based on economical performance, not on ecological performance. It is the main cause of our socio-ecological destructive behavior. This could be solved if we could all switch to an ecological, green job. Sadly not an option, because they don't exist yet. We can not make a shift, because there isn't anything to shift to. Quitting your job isn't an option either because you have all our costs to pay!
We are in a challenging situation where we are destroying our precious planet Earth, yet are unable to invest time and energy to reverse this situation. We are in dire need of green, ecological work. We can no longer wait for politicians and the business world to have their priorities changed and switch from an economical to an ecological perspective. Chances are it will be way too late when they do.
Yet I believe there is a creative option which we can turn to. We can reduce this shortage in time and energy by introducing eco-nomads. Eco-nomads are people who consciously choose to not work full time and dedicate their life to ecological projects. By not having a full time job, you have the time and energy to do so. The main challenge with this lifestyle is having a reduced income to even having no income at all. You have to be thrifty and creative. This is where the sedentary, full time working people come in, because they have the possibility to offer accommodation. They become an eco-host. If there are enough people like this who can offer an accommodation, the eco-nomad can fall back on these eco-hosts and effectively invest a lot of time and energy in ecological projects without having to work a full time job to pay for all his or her costs. By fusing these two different lifestyles together there's also the advantage of the eco-nomad being capable of investing energy in the household of the eco-host thus also creating more time for the host.
To go more into detail about the life of an eco-nomad and how I've experienced it so far:
- I am a vegetarian, but I cook vegan. Every time I cook for my eco-host(s) I also cook vegan, thus reducing their ecological footprint, because most people eat meat on a daily basis. Furthermore, when some hosts do cook for me they even cook vegetarian food for themselves!
- I never travel by plane en never drive a car myself. I mainly use public transport or hitch hiking to get to my destination. When hitch hiking there's always a certain point where we talk about ecology.
- When staying with someone I'm always prepared to give an explanation on how to reduce their ecological footprint. This is a topic that's bound to pop up sooner or later when I stay with someone and most people are pleasantly surprised with this information.
- When you stay with someone, you automatically reduce your ecological footprint as well as theirs, because you both use the same space.
My experience so far tells me that this way of living works. It's a win-win situation for both parties, especially when viewed from an ecological standpoint. If I look at the time and energy I've invested so far in ecological projects like Parkveld, I can surely say I wouldn't be capable of doing this if I would be working a full time job. I truly belief in eco-nomadism as one of the pieces to solve our challenging ecological puzzle. It's a way of sharing that what we have in our rich Western society more efficiently among each other, so we can help nature and others.
In my next post I'll try to go more into how to become an eco-nomad.
