We Need a Society That's Better, Not Bigger

Better, not bigger.

That's what we desperately need. Better quality of life. Better thinking. Better approaches to eating, living and collaborating. Not more people and more buildings.

Today, the United Nations issued the first major review of the science of climate change since 2013.?The study warns of increasingly extreme heatwaves, droughts and flooding, and a key temperature limit being broken in just over a decade. Yes, just ten years.

Given my own personal experience this summer, it's easy to observe that such dire warnings are already coming true. This morning, I took the photo at the top of this page. In the past few years, readers of this newsletter have seen many such photos of the gorgeous mountains that surround us, with one exception: today, the smoke from California fires is so thick here in Utah (two states away!) that you can barely see the mountains that are a five-minute drive from here.

The above image is the surface smoke forecast for this morning from OpenSummit.com. To give you an idea of what it is like to live under the "orange" conditions, this morning the smell of smoke is thick in the air. In my town of Park City, we have about 400 miles of hiking trails, but you'd be foolish to hike today with so many harmful particles in the air. The weather is "sunny," but it feels like a cloudy, dim day.

Last month, our travel timing was horrible; we were in Seattle when the temperates were over 100. It felt almost apocalyptic.

Last winter, we had so little snow that the runoff that feeds our reservoirs was almost non-existent; in this county, we are in "extreme drought". The local reservoirs haven shrunken in a manner that is truly terrifying.

And yet, local officials are seriously considering proposals to expand development at the bases of both Park City Mountain Resort and Deer Valley Resort. Development is already proceeding for the new Mayflower Resort around the hill from Deer Valley. Plus, thousands and thousands of new housing units are being constructed in the hills surrounding this little town.

We are actively building a community that is bigger, drier, hotter and smokier. We lack the water to provide for all these new people that don't yet live here. This is irrational, crazy behavior.

I bet there are similar stories where you live. We are obsessed with bigger, even if that also means worse.

It seems that the only thing we know how to do is to get bigger. More people, more buildings, more cars, more revenue.

One way or another, this is going to stop. We have a choice. It can stop because:

1. We are an intelligent society that learns to focus on better not bigger.

2. There are so many fires, droughts, violent storms, and climate shifts that disasters drag us down, sink our economy and cause needless suffering around the globe.

Personally, I vote for option number one. How about you?

What does better not bigger mean?

It means:

• We focus on growing our food through a better approach, using regenerative agriculture that keeps more carbon in the soil and avoids the use of harmful chemicals.
• We apply better thinking to our buildings and communities, so that they use less energy to heat and cool.
• We travel far less for business.
• We stop thinking that economic growth is an absolute necessity, and instead find ways to improve the quality of human life while reducing the size of our global economy. (If you think that this is impossible, then you are a pessimistic quitter.)
• We don't just recycle; we reuse.

I'm sending this article to the mayor of our town, urging him to publicly take a stand against the overdevelopment that's occurring all around us. You might consider a similar tactic, but in the meantime each of us should stop waiting for others to act.

Each of us can construct lives that are better, not bigger. Start today.

Bruce Kasanoff ?is a social media?ghostwriter ?for entrepreneurs. He lives on the side of a mountain in Utah.