"Walking the Talk!"

Downsizing in square footage...

while upsizing in the joy of living department!

SOS #200 -- J. Morris Hicks -- (3-7-23)

This SOS Memo is all about how we choose to live.

Without a doubt, the smaller and more efficient our residences, the less stuff we will need. I believe that with proper planning, we Americans could lower our individual impact on the ecosystem by more than 80%.

Of course, that kind of shift will never work in an economic system like capitalism that depends on maximizing the consumption of "stuff" in a world of finite resources.

We covered that topic in OUTCRY, now FREE to the public. Just click on the book cover above to read the entire book.

I also refer to OUTCRY as a

User's Guide for Planet Earth

A little background. In the first ten years of my work in this arena from 2003 to 2013, I was primarily focused on promoting whole, plant-based eating for human health reasons.

My focus began to expand in late 2013 after I learned about World Bank researchers, Robert Goodland & Jeff Anhang, and their alarming 2009 paper, entitled: Livestock and Climate Change. What if the key actors in climate change...are cows, pigs and chickens?"

Their powerful World Bank paper changed the trajectory of my work.

It shocked me into realizing the incredibly important consequences of our food choices and it inspired me to look at an even "bigger picture" regarding how we humans are living on this planet.

And that led to envisioning a totally-sustainable civilization -- one in which future generations will be born into an overall way of life that nature can sustain indefinitely.

But, it's our generation that must get that process started -- and, so far, we are failing miserably. And I include myself in that group -- but this SOS Memo documents a huge step in the right direction for J. Morris (Jim) Hicks.

I was just getting to know Dr. Goodland before he died in 2013 -- and have since met and communicated a number of times with his colleague, Jeff Anhang, who reads my SOS Memos regularly -- a very special person who I now consider a friend.

For the past twenty years, I've been investigating, envisioning, writing and speaking about what we must do to survive as a species.

Now it's time for me to...

Just Start Doing It!

It's time to start "walking the talk."

If enough of us start "walking" -- maybe others will follow.

Last month, I took a giant step. On my 78th birthday, I moved into my new writing studio/apartment in New London, CT -- a place that could enable me lower my carbon footprint by over 80%.

According to published research statistics, the average size of new, single-family homes built in the U.S. from 1975 to 2021 was 2,485 square feet -- almost SIX times larger than my new place in Connecticut.

Now that I am getting settled, my feelings about living this way keep getting better and better with each passing day. I find myself thinking about this famous quote from Thoreau:

Our lives are frittered away with details. Simplify, Simplify.

As I fully adjust to living in 443 square feet, it's hard for me to properly describe the joy it is bringing.

Can you believe it? 443 square feet?

Yes, you read that right! But, before you declare that you could never live in such a small space, take a quick look at what one-third of my 443 square feet looks like -- and then continue reading about this amazing, Thoreau inspired, way of living.

After just two weeks of living this beautiful, organized, efficient and convenient lifestyle, I am feeling a gradual, but steady lessening of stress and an ever-growing sense of calm and joy (FLOW) -- inspiring me to help others feel comfortable in choosing this pleasant and highly efficient way of living.

Near the end of Chapter 10 in OUTCRY, i write about experiencing that special kind of mental high, or flow as it relates to an anecdote regarding my former boss, Ralph Lauren.

With that thought in mind, here's another

reinforcing quote from Mr. Thoreau

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three -- not a hundred or a thousand. Instead of a million -- count by half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumbnail… Simplify, Simplify.

To be sure, Thoreau did indeed walk the talk when it comes to living a simple, stress-free life.

Here's the way I see it. If he could find joy in a 150 square foot cabin, I can certainly find it now in my "flow enriching" modern home that is three times that size.

For him, finding happiness was via simplification of his life and freeing up his mind for other pursuits. For me, in my luxurious 443 square feet, I'm already feeling like a load has been lifted from my shoulders as I settle into a simple, yet comfortable, calming, efficient and ultra-sustainable way of living.

• Then there's the food co-op, Fiddleheads (pictured here) that is also a ten-minute walk away. I have been there three times already. Not only do I get fresh, organic produce and great IPA beverages, I no have to start my car to go grocery shopping.

Believe me, those four features are just the beginning of my new lifestyle. During my first two weeks of living here, I have driven my 2016 Subaru Legacy less than 50 miles. Compare that to the 1200 miles/month that I have averaged for the past seven years.

In addition to Amtrak, I can ride the Shoreline East commuter train (which I am on right now) from New London to New York for less than $17 (with my senior discount) -- a 126-mile trip that I take often. And the price is the same -- no matter how close to departure time I book the ticket.

I am convinced that the more people who choose to live this way -- the sooner we'll get around to promoting an ultra-modern and ultra-green overall way of living throughout the world.

As stated in the Field of Dreams, "Build it and they will come." I also wrote all about that way of living in Chapter 10 of OUTCRY: Living Large in the Great Big Northern in 2050.

Check out this snapshot of my new lifestyle:

A pictorial of my first trip to New York

from my new, ultra-efficient writing studio

This past Sunday, I walked 10 minutes to the New London train station at sunrise and snapped this photo.

My train was waiting as I joined two other passengers on the 6:25 am train to New Haven, where I transferred to a Metro North train bound for Manhattan.

With a fresh cup of Starbucks french roast coffee (that I brewed at home) as my traveling companion, I pulled out my laptop and started happily writing what you are reading now.

Having lived in the nearby borough of Stonington, Connecticut from 2003 to 2013 -- I've probably made this trip to New York more than 200 times. But this is the first time I ever walked to the train station from my home.

I must admit that my Sunday adventure trip brought joy to my soul. Want to join me and get a feel for this way of living?

All Aboard!

Leading a beautiful, uncluttered way of life...

As I began getting settled into my new place, I realized that I am now living similarly to the futuristic lifestyle that we had envisioned in our 2020 book, OUTCRY.

If you haven't read the book, you might want to do so after checking out Chapter 10 that described a way of living that is quite similar to the one I am now enjoying in New London, CT. Here is a link to that chapter: Living Large in the Great Big Northern (2050)

Here are five more photos of the interior of my simple, livable, affordable, convenient and stress-free abode. I should have taken this step a long time ago.

Unlike the spartan conditions in which Henry David Thoreau lived, I am talking about an ultra-comfortable, yet ultra-sustainable way of living for all humans.

One more key opportunity regarding the efficiency of my new way of life. In the envisioned 3,000-mile, green living corridor of the future (in OUTCRY) -- the moving industry will not exist. That's because the basic furniture never moves -- only the personal effects like wall decor and linens will need to be moved from one ultra-efficient dwelling to another.

In our book OUTCRY, published on the 50th anniversary of Earth Day in April of 2020, we describe a future way of living that we believe could make it possible for around four billion humans to keep living in perpetuity on this finite planet -- the only one in the known universe capable of keeping us alive.

The Bottom Line

Simplify. Simplify. Simplify.

The more people who choose to live this way now, the sooner we'll get around to promoting an ultra-modern and ultra-green overall way of living throughout the world.

That said, let's summarize four goals we must accomplish in order to have a decent chance at surviving longterm as a species:

A To-Do List for All of Humanity

• One. Lower the population from eight billion to four billion or less. The number of humans that our ecosystem can support depends on what we choose to eat and how we choose to live.

• Two. Change our "scorekeeping" system from capitalism to one that answers first to Mother Nature. What we have now rewards us for maximizing our consumption of "stuff" in a world of finite resources. In OUTCRY, we call it Earthonomics in Chapter 11 -- an economic system that rewards efficient living and punishes all wasteful and unsustainable endeavors.

• Three. To maximize our chances -- and to provide the four or five decades needed to truly learn how to live in harmony with nature -- we absolutely must shift to a sustainable way of eating. Conveniently, the diet-style that promotes optimal health in our ecosystem, also promotes optimal health in our bodies. You can read all about it in this FREE e-copy of OUTCRY, the book that I like to call a User's Guide to Planet Earth.

• Four. Learn how to live meaningful, enjoyable lives in a manner that minimizes our impact on the biosphere. It is an approach that has been the primary focus of this SOS Memo.

To be clear, the above action items will not happen in chronological order. For example, even if we lowered the birth rate by 75%, it would still take almost two centuries to get down to a sustainable population of around four billion people.

Two of the other three steps will take from four to ten decades to get done -- and we simply don't have that much time.

That leaves the urgent necessity of switching 100% to plant-based eating all over the world ASAP.

Eliminating animal agriculture is the only step capable of buying us enough time to complete the other essential, yet time-consuming tasks. Conveniently, anyone in the developed world can easily change their diet in four weeks -- while reducing their grocery bill by at least 50%

How should you start? Take a half day and read that user's guide referenced above...better known as OUTCRY.

Then read our other FREE book, The 4Leaf Guide -- a book about healthy eating that I wrote with a medical doctor.

Both of these books are also available as e-books on Amazon for $7 and $4.44 respectively. If you want to help this starving author tackle more humanity-saving projects, I encourage you to spend the big bucks and go for the e-books on Amazon.

Also, please consider giving these e-books to others for Christmas, birthdays and other special occasions. No gift-wrapping, no shipping, no manufacturing, and no trees are killed -- all while helping as many people as possible learn how to live green enough to ensure a viable future for the billions of innocent children in the world today.

The 4Leaf Guide is also available in paperback for $8.88 -- as is our first book, Healthy Eating, Healthy World (2011)

Finally, I want to share three short, relevant excerpts from Chapter 10 of OUTCRY.

Living Large in the Great Big Northern in 2050

(The GBN, a 3,000 mile, ultra-green living corridor from

Boston to Seattle -- housing 90% of all Americans)

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."

—Buckminster Fuller

Excerpt #1

The beginning of Chapter 10

We love the above quotation, especially the last line about making the existing model obsolete. And that’s exactly what we’re trying to do with the GBN. We figure that after folks get used to living in the stress-free world of the GBN for a few years that they would never want to go back to the hectic, worrisome and mostly unfulfilling lives that they’re living now. The question remains: How much greener must we live to survive? How close are we to living sustainably now?

It’s impossible to measure, but we estimate that we’re now living less than 10% as green as we need to be. That’s because almost everything we do is not even close to being sustainable: our homes, our food, our clothes, our travel, our entertainment, our gift giving, and on and on.

But we truly believe that all of humanity has the collective wherewithal to plan and build a totally new way of living—one that will not only be more planet-friendly but will end up being a much more fulfilling way of life for a far larger portion of the population.

(Managed by the American Green Region Authority -- AGRA)

But we must think bigger and bolder from the beginning —because it’s almost certain that we will only get one chance to get this right.

Excerpt #2

Re-thinking & re-designing every aspect of our lives

As with the transportation system described above, we must start over from scratch in re-thinking every aspect of the way we live today.

To be sure, everything about the GBN will not be attractive to everyone at first. Some will not want to live there because of any number of reasons—but as time marches on, more and more people will find the overall GBN lifestyle proposition to be overwhelmingly attractive.

The remainder of this chapter includes a closer look at six additional topics that will play a huge role in our future lives:

• Creative Uber/Airbnb model for our new lifestyle
• A new all-green world of gift-giving and entertainment
• The end of the ubiquitous self-storage industry
• A wonderful world of delicious, health-promoting foods
• What to do about our pets in a totally green world
• Focusing on the positives of a mostly stress-free world

Excerpt #3

Taking a look at what makes people happy

No doubt a transition period will be required as we fully deploy the economy of the future — a period during which we will all have attractive incentives that reward us for helping to actually improve the natural world. In the design of our future lifestyle, we should also consider what psychologists know about what makes us happy. What makes us joyful? We need to make sure that whatever it is—that we provide an abundance of it in our new world. Some call it flow.

Have you ever heard of the word flow as it relates to positive mental feelings? It is a word that describes an innately positive experience that is known to produce intense feelings of enjoyment — an experience that is so enjoyable that it leads to overall happiness in the long run. It turns out that the accumulation of wealth and lots of stuff is usually accompanied by plenty of stress but not that much true happiness. 

Flow is not about owning a lot of stuff—it’s about doing something that truly makes a person happy and contented while involved in that activity.

One more thing, since you've stayed with me this far, you deserve to see a floor-plan of my ultra efficient living space of 443 square feet.

In the GBN, the basic furniture shown below stays with the unit, a feature that will virtually eliminate the moving industry. Each resident brings their own clothes, linens, wall-decor and other personal items.

"Moving" will not be stressful in the GBN. The whole process can be completed in one or two days.

Do you want to do your part to help people get healthy...while slowing, stopping or even reversing climate change at the same time? Then, share this SOS Memo and the free books below with everyone you know.

Also, scroll on down to the Big Picture Documents and Video Section where you will find links to a plethora of references regarding the validity and the urgency of the information contained herein.

FREE: Two "Big Picture" Books

Our health. Our planet. Our future as a species.

Don't have time to watch the entire Honolulu video? Click here to view all 60 slides in that talk

Finally, please contact me about arranging a FREE "live" Zoom talk for your group. They will get a lot more out of my talk if they have read our two FREE books in advance of my talk.

Sincerely, J. Morris (Jim) Hicks

jmorrishicks@me.com 

PS: Scroll on down for more "big picture" information that is mainly in the form of powerful videos, most of which are free.

For a concise summary of "big picture" information about our situation, take a look at the landing page of my primary website that I recently updated. Just click hpjmh.com

What about the preservation of civilization?

As for making our stand on the only planet in the universe capable of keeping us alive, our "Big Picture" section below will provide you with handy reference materials on this most crucial of all topics.

"Big Picture" Documents & Video Section

Chronological timeline of climate change research

1. 2006 UNFAO report: 18% of climate change attributed to animal agriculture (far more than the world's entire transportation sector, combined). After pressure from the massive animal agriculture industry, they lowered their estimates to 14.5% a few years later
2. 2009 World Bank Group researchers concluded that at least 51% of climate change is being driven by animal agriculture -- almost four times more powerful than the numbers being reported by the revised UNFAO study.
3. 2012. What is the right food for humans to be eating? For our own health and for the health of the planet. Five-minute video with J. Morris Hicks
4. 2019 Dr. Sailesh Rao peer-reviewed paper.This former member of Al Gore's environmental team concluded that 87% of climate change is driven by animal agriculture. His paper was recently featured in Forbes.
5. 2021. A 19-minute video session with the producers of the new documentary, Eating Our Way to Extinction.
6. 2021.The Animal/Climate Controversy? Dr. Gerard Bisshop, Director of World Preservation Foundation sorts out the various studies regarding the huge role that animal agriculture plays in climate change (9 minute video).
7. 2021. This six minute video features Dr. Sailesh Rao, speaking candidly with Klaus Mitchell about the sad truths and commercial interests behind the leading driver of climate change. It will make you want to scream.
8. 2022. Published in PLOS Climate (2-1-22) a paper by Michael Eisen and Patrick Brown, "Rapid global phaseout of animal agriculture has the potential to stabilize Gh Gas levels for 30 years and offset 68 percent of CO₂ emissions this century."
9. A summary of THE FACTS timeline from Dr. Sailesh Rao, wherein he explains how in 2012, the UNFAO scientists declined to continue the 51% debate with Goodland & Anhang in the Animal Feed Science and Technology Journal -- but they failed to admit that fact to the public.

Five World-Changing Films

That People Everywhere Must See

Film #5 in 2022

This new film (89 minutes) features a young activist who travels around his country, New Zealand in an effort to find out the truth about the horrors of the dairy industry in his native land.

The film uncovers alarming information about the environmental and health impacts of the industry -- leading up to the discovery that we are on the edge of the biggest global disruption of food and agriculture in history. This new film is now available for $2.99 on Vimeo.

Grasping the "Big Picture"

These 2 films will help in understanding

our unprecedented dilemma.

Finally, this half-hour video was published in November of 2021. It was produced by Michael Dowd, a non-scientific researcher like me who does a very fine job of explaining the many facets of the obstacles standing between us and our survival as a species.

As do practically all researchers, Dowd focuses entirely on the problem; not the solution. I prefer to focus on both.

Collapse in a Nutshell

Understanding our Predicament

What else can you do?

Probably a lot more than you think!