Frugality (like a Scot)
A mess of pottage in your cottage
Lit by a bulb of modest wattage
Scots for sure are known for thrift
So copy them (you get my drift)
Learn penny-pinching (be my guest)
I’m a Scot and I’m the best
They’ll say you’re tight, just like a Scot
But you’ll be right, while they’ll be not
Being abstemious promotes genius
Blow your own bugle about being frugal
This bit of doggerel is written IN PRAISE OF SIMPLICITY AND FRUGALITY: Consuming less energy, food and drink
Sorry about your precious growth of GNP, but a life exhibiting the virtue of frugality, if practiced peacefully by all* will allow our globe to correct its medical problems: its emphysema, overheating, fluid retention (wow, those rising waters), circulation difficulties (hurricanes and flooding) and dehydration (perpetual drought and wildfires in some areas).
Frugality will allow the world to heal — and we its inhabitants to work our way out of starvation and malnutrition in some continents, obesity in others (another type of malnutrition) and a continuing succession of plagues.
*By “all” a good number might be 4 billion people in the world. That’s a long way down from the present 7 billion global population but 7 billion is ridiculous. It has been called a sin against God and Man. Even zero population growth is too much — we need a birth rate lower than our death rate.
click for a frugal tune: Murray Harbour Hornpipe