A Simpler Way: Crisis as Opportunity

August 26, 2015

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A documentary about simple living, permaculture, and local economy as a response to global crises.

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The dominant mode of global development today seeks to universalise high-consumption consumer lifestyles, but this has produced perverse inequalities of wealth and – to an extent that is no longer possible to ignore – is environmentally catastrophic. We are called on to take shorter showers, recycle, buy ‘green’ products, and turn the lights off when we leave the room, but these measures are grossly inadequate. We need more fundamental change – personally, culturally, and structurally.

The purpose of the documentary is to envision a way of life that positively responds to the overlapping global crises of climate change, peak oil, economic collapse, and consumerism. Genuine progress today means building a new, more resilient world based on permaculture, simple living, renewable energy, and localised economies. Most of all, we need to reimagine the good life beyond consumer culture and begin building a world that supports a simpler way of life. This does not mean hardship or deprivation. It means focusing on having enough, for everyone, forever.

The tiny house we built at Wurruk’an:

 "A Simpler Way" is being written and produced by Jordan Osmond, founder of Happen Films, and Dr Samuel Alexander, co-director of the Simplicity Institute. We are super passionate about this project and believe that the message is urgent. By supporting our documentary you are investing in a revolution of consciousness that will help produce what Charles Eisenstein calls "the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible".

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We hope to raise $10,000 toward the production of this documentary, which, in line with our ethics about simple living, will be spent efficiently and thoughtfully. Funds raised will contribute to:

  • Jordan’s basic living costs whilst living simply at Wurruk’an
  • Buying necessary camera gear and hard drives
  • Buying music for the film
  • Travel costs
  • Promotion of the film once it’s completed

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Find out more about the campaign on the indiegogo site here.

Samuel Alexander

Over the last ten years Dr Samuel Alexander has been a lecturer and researcher at the University of Melbourne, Australia, teaching a course called ‘Consumerism and the Growth Economy: Critical Interdisciplinary Perspectives’ as part of the Master of Environment. He has also been a Research Fellow with the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute and is currently co-Director of the Simplicity Institute. Alexander’s interdisciplinary research focuses on degrowth, permaculture, voluntary simplicity, ‘grassroots’ theories of transition, and the relationship between culture and political economy. His current research is exploring the aesthetics of degrowth and energy descent futures. His books include Degrowth in the Suburbs: A Radical Urban Imaginary (2019, co-authored with Brendan Gleeson); Carbon Civilisation and the Energy Descent Future (2018, co-authored with Josh Floyd); Art Against Empire: Toward an Aesthetics of Degrowth (2017); Just Enough is Plenty: Thoreau’s Alternative Economics (2016); Deface the Currency: The Lost Dialogues of Diogenes (2016); Prosperous Descent: Crisis as Opportunity in an Age of Limits (2015); Sufficiency Economy: Enough, for Everyone, Forever (2015); and Entropia: Life Beyond Industrial Civilisation (2013); he is also editor of Voluntary Simplicity: The Poetic Alternative to Consumer Culture (2009) and co-editor of Simple Living in History: Pioneers of the Deep Future (2014). In 2016 he also released a documentary called A Simpler Way: Crisis as Opportunity, co-produced with Jordan Osmond of Happen Films. Alexander blogs at www.simplicitycollective.com.

Tags: a simpler way, powering down, social movements, voluntary simplicity