starting 9:00 a.m.
directed by bryan, this morning i discovered fair share international which is an australian organization suggesting a formula of 5.10.5.10 for a better world. the formula breaks down thusly:
5. redistribute at least 5% of your gross annual income to help people who are financially disadvantaged somewhere over the globe
10. reduce your use of water, energy and minerals by at least 10% and keep it there forever
5. contribute at least 5% of your leisure time to community-building activities in your neighborhood, or with a volunteer organization which helps disadvantaged folk
10. perform 10 acts of significant democratic action per year to correct practices associated with greed and injustice over the world
it's an interesting concept, and bryan says it ties right into the 90% project for him. it's a little baffling as to where to start, though. i could pretty easily give the 5% of my income to friends and family, some of whom are relatively financially disadvantaged. or i could give the money to an organization that directly helps truly financially disadvantaged people somewhere else on the globe. speaking of which, i saw this site yesterday that describes one man's project to bring bicycle-powered ambulances to namibia for use with the HIV/AIDS home care program, among other programs, i'm sure. intriguing. i'd sort of like to have my hands in an organization so that i can see where my money is going, but that may be my tendency toward trying to control everything...
i wonder what 5% of my leisure time is. let's see. i work 40 hours weekly, commute 20 hours weekly. that's 60 hours out of 168 (24x7). i sleep roughly 40 hours weekly, so that puts my count up to 100 hours. i spend three hours grocery shopping, 1 hour doing laundry, let's say 10 hours preparing and eating food, an hour a week in the shower... that puts me at 115. let's say i have roughly 53 hours a week that are leisure time. 5% is more than 2 and a half, less than 3 hours per week to spend in building community. not so bad, is it? hmmm...
reducing my use of water, energy, and minerals is already underway. i'm going for 90% rather than just 10%. we'll see how low i can go.
i'd have to step up the writing of letters or campaigning for political revolution. i did send two letters already this year, but i think i may have sent them to the wrong people. i sent them to my federal representatives when i think the issue is actually an issue for the state legislature.
oh my! that was 17 minutes!
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2 comments:
Thanks for the plug and link! Couple of things of interest:
10. Tread Lightly - refers to reducing your consumption of stuff by 10% each year until you can go no further. This means that after a few years, you should theoretically get close to or past the 90%.
Where to start? I think that the best answer is "somewhere". The FSI website does include some templates that you can use to do an audit of where you're at now.
I just decided to start where I could, trying to do the things that I thought could most likely be adopted as habits.
that's a good stipulation to make, bryan, about the 10% being each year.
i too am starting where i can, and it doesn't feel like a lot has changed even though if i look at the "how far we've come" list it looks pretty long!
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