A sustainable life
Low-impact crusader speaks at Green Mountain College
Toolbox
By SARAH HINCKLEY Herald Staff - Published: December 4, 2006
A number of incidents changed the course of Jim Merkel's life but the final straw was the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
The author of "Radical Simplicity" was at Green Mountain College on Friday explaining to students and others in attendance how he lived on $5,000 a year for 16 years. Merkel's philosophy is the antithesis to whoever has the most toys wins; he believes the point is to have the most fun leaving the smallest ecological footprint — the least impact on the Earth.
Living this philosophy earned him the position of sustainability coordinator at Dartmouth College, where he is working to make aspects of the campus more sustainable.
"They'd like to be a model and I'm taking them at their word for that," said Merkel about the college that at times has hesitated on making changes. "I always like to go for way more than (I) can get and then back away a little."
Thus far he has helped transform one of the dining halls by offering a dining kit that includes reusable containers, a cloth napkin and a Nalgene bottle to cut down on garbage. The kitchen is using mostly whole foods, some of which are grown on campus. Merkel is now working with officials on the possibility of installing alternative energy sources for the campus.
Before becoming a self-sustainability guru, Merkel was a military engineer involved in the sale of arms to foreign governments and designer of a top-secret cryptographic computer. In the first election Merkel was old enough to go to the polls, he proudly cast a vote for Ronald Reagan — a proclamation that earned a few groans from the GMC crowd.
"You are 100 percent responsible for what you do in your life," was something his father — who Merkel said is a Republican to the right of Rush Limbaugh — told him, and it stuck with him to the point of causing an ethical crisis.
"I couldn't sit home anymore with that blood on my hands," said Merkel about his contribution to world conflicts. He added, when it comes to military spending, "our spending matches that of the whole world."
With the help of the book, "Your Money or Your Life," Merkel made some life changes. He rented out the additional rooms in his house, got rid of his car, planted a vegetable garden, and at one point quit his job.
He had the opportunity to ask one of the book's authors how it was possible to continue living on $5,000 a year with inflation. The response was, "consciousness grows faster than inflation."
And each year Merkel understood what that meant and continued to discover ways to become more self-sustaining. By building a root cellar Merkel could have whole foods to eat year round and by building a composting toilet he could use the humanure to fertilize the garden. He built a house for $1,500 by using materials found on the land where he lived and shared the living space with others.
Despite all of this work to make his life sustainable, Merkel was still able to log 25,000 hours of time to charitable causes over 16 years. Recently he traveled to Spain and did a Tour No Oil bicycle tour around the country observing sustainable practices there. His travels included a festival in Barcelona focused on sustainability that attracted over 6,000 people.
"Doing all these crazy things caused me to get hired at Dartmouth," he told those gathered at GMC. "It's nice to be the only one sometimes doing this weird, stupid stuff."
But there are times when Merkel feels like what he does makes no difference and a member of the GMC audience pointed this out.
"I think you're a dreamer, all the colleges you talk about are surrounded by woods," said the man during the question portion of the speech. Merkel had mentioned earlier how other college campuses around the country were initiating sustainable practices.
"The warrior knows what he does is useless," said Merkel, quoting an ancient philosopher. "I do feel depressed sometimes. I cry sometimes, I feel hopeless sometimes and I keep working."
Contact Sarah Hinckley at sarah.hinckley@rutlandherald.com
40