A four-hour work day might be a workable response to climate change

The ceaseless fertility of the world’s economy, its endless waste of energy and with that our gouging and our never-ending use of the earth’s finite fossil fuels is a key plank in the difficulties that lead to the deterioration of our atmosphere and the dangerous emergence of climate change -  Robert McLean sees one response being the introduction of a four-hour workday that would limit the economy, reduce our prolific use of energy and re-use rather than re-new would become a way of life.

Work has always been, and still is, the rock to which my life is anchored, as is that of many others.

That, however, is a habit I don’t want to break as it pointedly enriches who and what I am. It makes me, in my view, a better person.
Naturally it is easy to be philosophical flippant about the pleasure work brings when not locked into seemingly endless and equally pointless and heartless sweat inducing toil, reminding me of the words from the Bruce Springsteen song Factory:

“End of the day, factory whistle cries,
Men walk through these gates with death in their eyes.
And you just better believe, boy,
somebody's gonna’ get hurt tonight,
It's the working, the working, just the working life”.

Bruce Springsteen

Work, for me, however is not about that sort of drudgery (of course some jobs  have had that flavour), rather it has largely been an ongoing joy through which the human interaction brightens my being, makes me smile and brings satisfaction to every day.
Interestingly though, our addiction to contemporary understandings of work, sees us devote a hefty, and almost irrational portion of our lives to maintaining a structure that ultimately enriches only a few, while the many toiling endlessly, get little.
The “responsible men” who, by what they make appear default, but which is really intent, call the shots in society repeatedly bleat about the need of the “many” to work harder and longer, often for less, to ensure the integrity of an economic system that ultimately serves only them.
The disparity between rewards to the worker and ever bulging bank balances of the few is what ignited the unrest that become known as “the occupy movement”.
The “occupiers” have my support and sympathy as I can sense the injustices they live with and the subsequent unfairness that assaults them every day as a system deemed to be as it should be favours only a few.
However, as understandable as their cause is, it seems somewhat ill-directed in that it seeks equality, or at least an increased sense of fairness, in a system that is in itself fundamentally flawed.
The literal meaning of work has been so distorted by capitalistic tub-thumpers that it equates more now with drudgery than a vocation or a soul-enriching contribution to the broader betterment of the human experiment.
Modern times have seen most people enslaved to an economic paradigm from which we need to urgently disengage, both individually and as a society.
The sacrosanct eight-hour day might seem untouchable to adherents of the present scenario, but a four-hour day in most industries would see a similar amount of work undertaken and completed with hitherto unseen efficiencies.
Those who only see the welfare of man linked inextricably to the economic paradigm and therefore have no understanding of the richness of human contemplation and the fruitfulness of humanism would weep at the idea of people doing what they love rather than having their shoulder to the wheel.
An eight-hour day is a fantasy for many and a move to halve that would need a cultural change of tsunami-like proportions, which undoubtedly would be accompanied by threats from the responsible men about the inevitable collapse of society.
Contemporary work injects discipline into our lives, bringing with it a certain contentment arising from that understood regime and so to live with what would effectively be a half-day holiday every day, people would need to re-think their affairs enabling the fortification of personal resilience attributes and survival understandings that future scarcity will make imperative.
Naturally, a switch to a four-hour day would bring complexities, but from those subsequent intricacies would emerge people who were psychologically more intact, happier, better workers and, importantly, vastly improved communitarians.
Suggestions of a four-hour work day will bring, no doubt, a chorus of comments ranging from “stupid” to “won’t work” from those unable to see the finer attributes of life and whose futuristic vision is limited to what they can see through the prism of growth and its attendant consumerism.
A four-hour work day will naturally slow our exploitation of earth’s finite resources, first by reducing our manufacturing throughout and so resultant output and secondly by an overall reduction of our fiscal wealth and, one would hope, a decline in our apparently inexhaustible desire to accumulate.

The tsunami-like cultural change of a four-hour day would ricochet through the whole of society and with such a short working day it would be advisable to live where you work, or at least within easy walking or cycling distance, bringing an urgent reality to the idea of a five minute life – that sees most everything critical to day-to-day doings being just five minutes away.
The extra free time in our lives should not be wasted on frivolities, but devoted to working on strengthening the character of our neighbourhoods and, by default, our lives.

The idea that is “work” will be re-shaped, restructured and re-thought with many working either at home, or from home, and travelling regularly to a central Work is essential to our mental and emotional health, just as is the “balance” we are always encouraged to bring to our lives about many things.

Should we have the capacity to understand how our egos ignite to underpin the consumerism that drives the capitalistic ethos, then maybe we can find a true balance in our lives between work and living.

The extra free time in our lives should not be wasted on frivolities, but devoted to working on strengthening the character of our neighbourhoods and, by default, our lives.