MAIN POINTS
(from interviews)

1. Many jobs are destructive to the environment, to water, air
and forests and to other species

2. Industrialization will cause more environmental disasters

3. Over-harvesting often provoked by poverty, or fear of poverty,
for yourself or your children

IMPACTS ON NATURE - Quotes

We don't need to produce more. The earth has enough stuff right now. We don't need to be making more stuff; we just need to share what's already here. People could do job-sharing or just work part-time and then the world would slow down a bit and we wouldn't be producing so many things that just get dumped in the landfill -Janine

The level and kind of consumption that we feel we need to use as compensation for the shit jobs and the long hours and the exhaustion.... I think those are tied together. When do I buy the prepackaged food, or do things that are destructive to my health? When I am most maxed out. The kind of consumption that is destructive to the environment is the kind of consumption that those of us who are so-call "most productive" engage in to reward yourself for the 9-to-5 day. I am so horrified at what we are doing to the planet. More people having gardens and having the time to be able to garden contributes to the   health of the environment. I'm not talking about mega-farming, but creating more green spaces even within cities. But again that is about time. -Naomi

We tend to overwork and it can be wasteful and polluting. -Claire

Some of the jobs people need to do to be productive destroy nature and health. People are hurt because of seeing what's happening to their mother [earth]. -Aletheia

We have to stop producing the bad stuff in society; we are losing the balance with nature. -Hilda

With the current capitalist system, people are forced to do work at McDonald's, or work at pulpmills.... There are so many types of work that are not good for the environment and pollute. The garbage from McDonalds, the food isn't healthy. The whole system is really bad for nature; the overproduction in the economy is not good for nature at all. -Ruth

With a basic income, you wouldn't need to find a job that was destructive to the planet, to yourself and your community, just to pay your rent and put food on the table. Many people don't think, "How is this job impacting my body, my planet?" We need vast tracts of our planet left alone.   I grew up in Saskatchewan. When I was really small all the chemical farming was just starting. That was coming out of the universities: "This is how you farm." Now, in my lifetime, a lot of the land is dead, mostly in the southern part of the province and it is radioactive in the north. Not much of how we behave economically sustains the planet. But there are indigenous people everywhere. That knowledge is still around, but it is underground, and it's not part of our everyday way of looking at things. If anybody was living a spiritual life right now, the planet would not be on its last legs. -Valerie

  If you look at women in Africa, they go and chop firewood because they don't have anything else to sell, just so they can get some extra money. Maybe if they get the extra money, it would help save the environment. -Evelyn