I have found a point of agreement with Osama bin Laden.

The Al Qaeda leader just released another of his periodic tapes lashing out at the United States. But this time, instead of religion, the topic was global warming.

He’s against it. He said Western industrialized nations are responsible, and challenged the world to boycott American and other products to bring the wheels of the American economy to a halt.

According to the Associated Press, he blamed industrial nations for the floods, desertification and hunger spreading around the planet, saying, “Speaking about climate change is not an intellectual luxury, the phenomenon is actual fact.” His message was “to the whole world about those responsible for climate change and its repercussions, intentionally or unintentionally, and about the action we must take.

“I know this has great consequences and grave ramifications, but it is the only means to liberate humanity from slavery and dependence on America.”

I agree, although with a different slant. For more than 40 years I’ve been writing about “the… means to liberate humanity from slavery and dependence on,” not America, but the global  Industrial and Economic Establishment. Humanity could be liberated through what we call homesteading. That means boycotting industrial products, not to destroy an enemy, but to save the planet.

In those 40 years the potential disasters have taken many forms, from agricultural crises to stock market crashes to Y2K and Climate Change. The Establishment has always managed to muddle through, somehow, so far. But it weakens with every new blow. (It’s difficult to explain this in a few words to anyone who hasn’t been watching closely, but there are many ways to get up to speed… including reading The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Self-Sufficient Living.)

To both Bin Laden and me, the means isn’t all that important. Global warming just happens to be a handy, and very likely, current suspect, in a long list of possibilities. What really concerns both of us is what happens next. Not the means to the end, but the end.

In my case, the ideal would be to save the world — civilization, humanity, the planet itself — through reasoned logic and gentle persuasion. That’s why I have always tried to portray homesteading and simple living as a very pleasant, sensible way to live, as opposed to mindless materialism and the waste of life and resources involved in our current (and quite recent) culture of accumulation. If that doesn’t work (and it’s not working), the simple fact is that constant growth on a finite planet—the Spaceship Earth analogy — is impossible. (Stein’s Law: If something cannot continue, it will end.) The result can only be disastrous, whereas the sane, reasoned, homestead approach would allow a “soft landing,” so to speak.

With every new jolt that rattles the established system, that soft landing seems less and less likely. And yet, just try to imagine the vast difference between being dragged, kicking and screaming, into the devastated world Bin Laden and others envision, and actively managing that transition based on homesteading principles.

What would happen if Americans produced 40%-50% of their fruits and vegetables in their own yards, as they did with Victory Gardens during World War II? What if even just the 20% of Americans who are unemployed (yes, the true unemployment rate is 20%) engaged in a few homestead-type activities, such as food production?

And what would happen if virtually every American over the age of 16 didn’t feel entitled to 3,000 pounds of resource-wasting pollution-emitting automotive power? Yes, those who provide cars and their vast web of support facilities — gas stations, insurance, traffic cops and road maintenance workers, to name but a few — would be affected, and the economy would be devastated. But what would that do to mitigate climate change? And how would that be any worse, or different, from how those of us who are over 70 lived when we were young? Or from how the Amish, and in fact, most people in the world, still live today?

In a book I could (and did!) go on and on — about how the average house today is more than twice as big as the average house of my youth (and uses way more resources), how we use much more water and energy than we did then; how almost everybody has more clothing than any rational being could possibly require, and more stuff and junk of every kind and description (all requiring energy, in some form).

Today’s extravagance can be contrasted not only with the America of 70 years ago, but with most of the world today — including not only the Amish, but also many serious homesteaders. It could easily be shown — at least to rational people — that living simply and sustainably is not only no great hardship: it can actually be more healthful, stress-free, rewarding and fun!

That hasn’t worked out. The clock, a time bomb, is ticking. What could have been a glorious new age of sensible sustainable living will sink into a morass of deprivation and terror.

Osama bin Laden and I agree on the likely scenario. If it plays out on the course we’re now taking, he will be very happy. Not me. I know how it could have been avoided.