While many people are worried about such things as pollution, global warming, overflowing landfills, deforestation, and species extinction, there is still widespread unwillingness to acknowledge that this damage to Earth's life support systems is the result of the choices of normal people. The resources we consume, and the waste and pollution that result from this consumption, are the proximate cause of the destruction. As much as we might like to lay blame on faceless corporate conglomerates, we won't make much progress in finding sustainable solutions until we face up to our own responsibility. Corporations won't continue to make things people refuse to buy, after all.

Let me provide some background to frame the issue. With a population of roughly 288 million, the United States is the third most populous nation in the world. The U.S. is also the fastest-growing industrialized country, with an annual population increase of about 2.4 million people per year in recent years. The U.S. Census Bureau (http://www.census.gov) now projects that the most likely scenario for future U.S. population growth will result in a population of about 403 million by the middle of this century. That's another 115 million people in just 47 years, and the Census Bureau projects that our numbers will continue to increase through the end of the century.

While I find the current numbers and projected growth worrisome enough, I'm even more concerned about something else. This past summer, a study titled "Tracking the Ecological Overshoot of the Human Economy" was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (more information on this paper can be found at http://www.ecologicalfootprint.org/programs/sustainability/ef/pnas_0602.html). The authors estimated that our globe-encircling civilization is now exceeding Earth's regenerative capacity by more than 20%. This calculation was based on their estimate that humanity's present ecological footprint works out to an average of 5.6 acres per person.

Of course, we don't all actually have the same ecological footprint as individuals. No, ecological footprints vary widely from one society to another. So, what about us?

Disturbingly, the authors of this paper estimated the average ecological footprint of a U.S. citizen at 24 acres, more than four times as large as the global average. In other words, for all the 6.2 billion people alive today to have the same ecological footprint as the average U.S. citizen, we'd need four more Earths to sustain everyone indefinitely. Well, I don't know about you, but I don't even know where to begin looking for one more Earth, much less four. Consequently, I think it's high time we asked ourselves whether we can reasonably expect to go on living like we're living for much longer.

Once we recognize the consequences of our per person ecological footprint, the connection to the holiday season becomes readily apparent. The annual celebration of Christmas has become one enormous festival of consumption, where we are all exhorted to max out our credit cards to show those we love just how much we love them. Christmas Day itself is focused around the unwrapping of mountains of presents and the devouring of huge quantities of food, with little thought going into the consequences of our appetites. Have you ever noticed how many bags of trash sit on the curbside in the days after Christmas?

It's not just Christmas, either. Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Yule, and Winter Solstice celebrants are also dealing with the distorting effects consumerism is having on their holiday traditions. Consumerism has become such a dominant presence in our society that you can't really escape its influence anywhere, at anytime.

I would find this troubling enough even if I felt sure all this consumption was making us generally pretty happy, but I'm not at all sure of that. Would we have experienced the breakdown of family and community we've seen over the last hundred years if having more and more stuff truly made our lives better? Would so many of us rely on mood-altering drugs-pot, crack, smack, booze, cigarettes, coffee, Paxil(c), Prozac(c), and so many more-to make it through our daily lives? Is it merely a coincidence that the rise of consumerism coincides with these other changes?

Christmas is the time of greatest consumption in this country-and it's also a time of profound depression and debilitating stress for a great many people. Would this be the case if having and consuming more really made people happier? The next time you're in the mall, I encourage you to look into the faces around you and ask yourself how many people appear to be having a truly joyful holiday.

I think we, as a society, have somehow managed to confuse quality of life with quantity of possessions, that we've lost all perspective on how much is enough. If one's focus in life is the pursuit of things, how can one ever hope to achieve happiness? The corporations spend a lot of money to convince us, day in and day out, that there's always something bigger, better, faster, or cooler than what we already own. No matter what you have, there's always more to be had. Beyond a certain level, though, is more really better-or is it just more?

So, if, like me, you're worried about all this, what can you do? Some suggestions:

• Consider refusing to make out a Christmas wish list even if you're asked. And are you really obligated to buy from anyone else's list? It seems to me that making out a wish list places too much emphasis on what one is getting, not what one is giving.
• Give everyone you know permission to not give you a gift. This is basically what I've done, and it hasn't diminished my enjoyment of the holidays one bit.
• Ask people to make donations to your favorite cause in lieu of giving you another thing to clutter up your home.
• Ask yourself whether or not you really want to buy into the belief that you must purchase presents for everyone you care about even if you have no good ideas of what they might want or need. Instead, how about showing that the absence of a present is not the absence of love?
• Consider giving gifts of service, kindness, and time--of yourself-rather than some "thing" which might only end up in a closet gathering dust.
• If you do choose to give a gift to someone, think about choosing one that will last rather than something cheaply made or disposable. You might also do a little research into the ecological impact of any gift you're considering buying, from manufacture through use to disposal.

More ideas can be found in the brochure Simplify the Holidays, published by the Center for a New American Dream. You can download it from http://www.newdream.org/holiday/brochure.html. A Christian organization called Alternatives for Simple Living has their own brochure, Whose Birthday Is It Anyway?, which you can read more about and order from http://www.simpleliving.org/xb/xbcover.html.

I'm convinced that happy holidays are born of strong, loving families and healthy, vibrant communities, not piles and piles of presents. To put it another way, I think that saving the world is not about what we have to give up but what we have to gain-in belonging, security, and happiness. I'll tip my cup of nog to that.