Coordinator's Note: This category might be one of the most important given the increasing signs of major environmental changes. One interviewee noted that even if we don't want to change our system, we will have to, as is evidenced by increasing numbers of environmental disasters. However, many women interviewed did not make the connection as to how a GLI would impact on the environment. Yet as writer JS Larochelle (a founding member of Livable Income For Everyone) has stated: "Without a GLI, you are forced to harvest natural resources and turn them into products to sell in the free market to make money. Without a GLI loggers have no choice but to log. Fishers have no choice but to fish. If you are a welfare worker you have no choice but to go to that office, use electricity, use paper, use computers-all of which would have no function in a society where there is a GLI. This would free up everybody to do work that is socially beneficial." (Interview, March, 2006)

MAIN POINTS
(from interviews)

1. GLI is an environmental idea; people would be able to reject environmentally destructive work

2. Less commuting =less polluting

3. People would have more time to be connected to
and appreciate nature

4. People would have more time to get involved in green initiatives,
recycling, and using non-harmful cleaning products

5. People would not forced to buy the cheapest disposable
products (less waste from planned obsolescence)

6. People would have more time and money to support local
organic food production

7. There would be less over-harvesting of natural resources
due to desperation from poverty

8. There would be less waste of natural resources with the
elimination of economic activities that serve no purpose
beyond generating income

Benefits for NATURE - Quotes

People really have to open their eyes. If we continue this way, we are not going to have a planet to worry about. We're going to destroy ourselves with these chemical plants and everything else, because they are trying to create more jobs -that's all we hear, "create more jobs" -when it is not necessary. We are not back in 1960, and we are in deep trouble, and we need to make a huge change. Yes, a lot people will be angry with change, but we won't have to keep building and destroying in order to put up more buildings and cutting down more trees ad infinitum. When I looked at job production, with every job they have to create, there is something that is being taken away from nature. When you look at the land-oh my God! I looked at the city where I grew up back east, and there are no trees, in the name of creating more work, more business towers, Holy cow, folks, we need these trees to breathe! If we did have GLI, that would make a huge, huge difference. We are at the crossroads, and if we don't make a right decision, I'm awful afraid of what will happen to all of us a human species, because we are destroying things left, right and centre. Certainly the biggest benefit is healing-not only ourselves, but allowing our planet to heal at the same time. -Olive

Nature? You would see a lot fewer things that are done just to make money, that don't have any particular benefit. In Georgia there's a movement to save gas by not going into work or school one day a week. -Jennifer

With a GLI, we would become a lot more human and fair; less dog-eat-dog and do-or-die. Once we move away from that type of survival, there will be a ripple effect on nature. The companies, whether small or large, will take more responsibility for impacts on human beings. If a person is not forced to work full time, this will have impact on a lot of things, like the environment. They won't have to run their car and will have more time with kids.   Commuting, the 8-hour day is more like a 12-hour day. The migration patterns will change in terms of where people will live and how they live. -Faith

I never thought about the definitions of productive and unproductive before.   I don't understand how people could not value clean air and clean water. -Aletheia

Cleaning houses using natural cleaners is more labour-intensive, but it's possible. The trouble is, many people have to worry about going to three jobs to feed the kids. GLI would help the environment as long as people learn to understand that it's not just about being able to buy stuff. - Janine

Low-income people are less polluting, most don't go around in cars. -Claire

A GLI would encourage us to look at each other more equally and to take time to think about nature and the spiritual realm and the universe and our place in it. -Janine

I advocate a GLI because it's important that we eat live food, organic food. People would have more time to notice nature, notice the trees-we are not robots. -Kym

Families will spend more time at home and won't spend so much gas on going to work. They won't spend so much on over-consumption to make up for lack of time with kids. -Anna

We are programmed to compete with each other. Imagine the things we could do with each other and what we could do for the environment if we weren't competing. If people weren't in this rat race, looking at how they get their next buck in order to live, they would say, "Wait a second; how are we destroying our planet?" With GLI, people could be freed up to turn their attention to nature. I would hope it would totally shift the whole consumer balance [in a healthy way]. -Rachel

If people have GLI, then it frees us up to think of what we need. How do we create a sustainable place to live? Coming at it from that end, I can see how it would have an impact on the environment, but I don't think those other [high-paying but harmful] jobs will disappear right away. -Sol

We need Guaranteed Livable Income for a Guaranteed Livable World. If the Planet Earth were a patient in a hospital at this moment, she would be in the ICU in critical condition, with life support being withheld by ideology.   The condition in which we find our planet is a direct result of misguided economic activity where the preservation of the planet counts for nothing -yet without the planet, none of us would be here. We are in big trouble, and it is not because we don't have enough skilled labour. We may have already passed the point of planetary exploitation (rape of Mother Earth) and are starting to experience the domino effect of extinctions. As the planet goes, as our brother and sister species go, so do we. Our own local areas are toxic waste.   So are we. Cancer, anyone?   It's from what we breathe, eat, drink and think. Not only are we removed from nature today, [but] it has become an enemy.   This is absurd; this is wrong.   It is our home.   It is not the natural laws that are the problem; it is us behaving like unconscious robots, swallowing propaganda hook, line and sinker. One of the main arguments against GLI has been that people are lazy; well, now is the time for laziness!! The deep ocean fish need 100 years of being left alone in order to find out whether or not we've already driven them to extinction. Canada, North America, the planet, need low-impact human activity if we want a planet 100 years from now.   We do not need any more of anything currently being produced, unless it's life-enhancing/affirming.   We do not need any more golf courses, ski resorts, mega-developments. We need to care for the planet.   We could probably keep the economy strong by simply recycling all the stuff we already have for the next 500 years. No more clearcuts. No more oil, no more diamond mines, no more uranium mines, no more destruction. No more damn jobs-surely we can do better than that. GLI means: "Hello, welcome to Earth. Your basics needs are taken care of for life; we look forward to watching your genius unfold." -Valerie

To me it is the ripple effect. More people are trying to work on that job, but it could be a very bad job for the environment, like the oil industry. [With a GLI] there would be less exhaust in the air because you are not driving back and forth to work. Less fast food services-we could have a community garden. All of this affects the environment, which costs us more in the long run. We have to start thinking of the long-term effects. -Debie

With a GLI, they could choose work according to their beliefs and morals-work that is better for nature. With a GLI, people will be able to live and make their own choices. And people who do not believe in the system, and who want to opt out of living in society as it is, could have the ability to live how they seek to live and not be labeled. A GLI would include women who choose to work in their homes. It would include everybody. A GLI... it's a must. -Ruth