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TechnoratiStop Shopping ... or the Planet Will Go Pop
'Many big ideas have struggled over the centuries to dominate the planet,' begins the argument by Jonathon Porritt, government adviser and all-round environmental guru.'Fascism. Communism. Democracy. Religion. But only one has achieved total supremacy. Its compulsive attractions rob its followers of reason and good sense. It has created unsustainable inequalities and threatened to tear apart the very fabric of our society. More powerful than any cause or even religion, it has reached into every corner of the globe. It is consumerism.'
According to Porritt, the most senior adviser to the government on sustainability, we have become a generation of shopaholics. We are bombarded by advertising from every medium which persuades us that the more we consume, the better our lives will be. Shopping is equated with fun, fulfilment and self-identity. It is also, Porritt warns, killing the planet. He argues, in an interview with The Observer, that merely switching to 'ethical' shopping is not enough. We must shop less.
From pictures of Coleen McLoughlin weighed down with designer bags to branding endorsements by the likes of David Beckham, the image of consumerism as a universal aspiration is ubiquitous. Last week 3,000 people stormed Primark's new flagship store on London's Oxford Street before the official opening time, putting two staff in hospital and earning the description by BBC2's Newsnight of 'a plague of locusts'. There are, however, a growing number of dissenting voices such as the so-called 'Froogles', individuals who use the internet to seek a simpler lifestyle, and organisations and websites which urge people to kick the retail habit.
Porritt, chairman of the government's Sustainable Development Commission, has concluded that consumerism is central to the threat facing the planet, cannibalising its natural resources and producing the carbon dioxide emissions which result in climate change.
In a film for Channel Five, he points out that Britons throw away their own body weight in rubbish every seven weeks, with 100 million tonnes of waste pouring into the country's 12,000 landfill sites every year. If all six billion people in the world were to consume at the same level, we would need two new Earths to supply all the energy, soil, water and raw materials required.
'I think capitalism is patently unable to go on growing the size of the consumer economy for any more people in the world today because levels of consumption are already undermining life support systems on which we depend - so if we do it for any more people, the planet will go pop,' Porritt told The Observer. 'So in a way we don't have a choice about this: we've got to rethink the basic premise behind capitalism to make it deliver the goods. In the long run, when you really look at what happens on a planet with nine billion people and really serious constraints on the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that we can emit, it's almost inevitable we will learn to have more elegant, satisfying lives, consuming less. I can't see any way out of that in the long run.'
Porritt, co-founder of Forum For The Future, Britain's leading sustainable development charity, believes that consumerism has taken over our lives almost unnoticed. 'Shopping has become a recreational activity,' he continued. 'There's a lot of evidence that people really do see shopping now as an amenity pastime. We're well beyond the time where shopping was just a way of transacting what you needed in life. It's now all about identity and status and recreation and companionship, even about meaning in people's lives. There's always been a "keeping up with the Joneses" type thing, but it's now almost universalised and there is a sense of buying to be more like something or to get the image of somebody, particularly with clothes or branded goods, where there's very much that sense of, "If I buy something with this name on it, maybe a little bit of the magic of that name will rub off on me and I'll be a better person", whereas we all know you're exactly the same person just waiting to go out and make your next branded purchase.'
Porritt's film cites China as an example of how booming economic growth has produced an explosion of consumerism with mixed results: millions have risen out of poverty, but the consequences for the environment are severe. He added: 'There's always been a more privileged part of society which was into buying more than they needed in order to demonstrate how wealthy and influential they were, but the benefits of mass consumption have now been spread so wide that we've got anywhere between 1.5 and two billion people on the planet today who can use their purchasing power like that. The total spend on advertising is just so enormous now that it's little wonder people are seduced into this idea that their personal happiness results from spending in the way they're being encouraged to do.'
There are some pockets of resistance. 'Froogles' include New Yorker Judith Levine who, realising that she had spent $1,000 (£500) in the run-up to Christmas in 2004, decided to buy nothing but necessities for the next year, chronicling the experience in her book, Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping
A group called The Compact, made up of 10 friends in San Francisco, gained members around the world: their mission, to take a '12-month flight from the consumer grid' and boycott all non-essential products. Every year, in November, Buy Nothing Day encourages people to 'shop less - live more', and last year there were multiple events in Manchester and Oxford and at least six other British cities. Meanwhile, websites such as Freecycle.org enable users to exchange unwanted goods and preventing them going to waste.
February saw the launch of Buy (Less), whose website parodies RED, the global fundraising campaign led by U2 singer Bono which tells consumers that when they buy RED branded products -which include clothes, a credit card and mobile phone - a slice of the money will be used to fight Aids in Africa. Buy (Less) Crap challenges the concept, urging its visitors to 'join us in rejecting the ti(red) notion that shopping is a reasonable response to human suffering'. It provides weblinks to several charities so that people can make direct donations instead.
'I've always been very nervous about this implied assumption that the more you put on your credit card, the more your charities will benefit, which is a bit perverse, but is what happens when you're using credit cards of that kind,' Porritt said. 'I think it clutters up the awareness we need to encourage in people now that there's an awful lot of unnecessary consumption, conspicuous consumption, irresponsible consumption, and we're just got to get used to cracking down on that in our own lives and really thinking through the implications of all that.'
Red officials argue that their campaign is not about buying more but about buying differently. They say that is about buying an 'ethical' version of a product rather than a 'non-ethical' one. But Porritt argues that there is not only a need to shop differently, but to shop less. 'I don't subscribe to this view that all we need to do is consume a little more thoughtfully, a little bit less damagingly. When I look at the amount of consumption that almost instantly turns into waste, with huge amounts bought for no particularly good purpose and then discarded or thrown away, I do find it inexcusable. When some people are buying food they're not buying for a particular meal, they're not thinking it through very carefully, they're almost buying speculatively as if, "Well, we might eat that this week, if we don't we'll chuck it away." I find that extraordinary. I'm not being a miserable, parsimonious, old tightwad, it's just why would you buy stuff that's not needed?'
He denies that he is advocating a return to the austerity and rationing last seen during and just after the Second World War, although he describes low air fares as 'ludicrous' and warns a sacrifice will have to be made to reduce carbon emissions. 'I know for sure that if we ever had a golden age, as far as most people are concerned, it's been over the last 50 years. That's the period of the greatest prosperity for the greatest number of people, so I don't have any nostalgia for past eras where life was simpler but more primitive. I don't talk about going back to anything, I talk about using technology a great deal more intelligently and efficiently to continue to give us a very high quality of life with a fraction of the environmental cost.
'We need "sustainability literacy", enabling people to see what the costs of living in a certain way really look like. We're blind to a lot of that. When people take holidays in far-flung places they very rarely think about the impact of hundreds of thousands of tourists descending on some destination somewhere in the world. We've just got to get wiser to what happens when we enjoy the perks of this life.'
His sentiments were echoed by the conservation group Friends of the Earth. Tony Juniper, its director, said: 'Our consumer culture is completely out of the step with the capacity of the planet. If we're going to have a world that is in a fit state to live in by the end of the century, we're going to have to drastically reduce the amount of material demand.
'We need a legal framework for economic activity, but in the end this is about culture, and culture shapes politics. At the moment the culture is being shaped in an unsustainable direction by the advertising industry. It's perfectly possible to present an alternative, but no one has the budget: Friends of the Earth has a few thousand pounds, whereas millions are spent to promote a single car.'
Trevor Datson, a spokesman for Tesco, Britain's biggest retailer, insisted it shares many of Porritt's values. 'There's no question there's too much waste in society, and we'd agree with Jonathon there. The thrust of Tesco's moves on the environment is helping customers choose a greener lifestyle. Our carrier bag scheme is designed to incentivise rather than castigate: we've saved 350 million plastic bags since last July by offering club card points for people who re-use bags. It's the power of making people feel good about green choices rather than having to live like a monk.'
Mountains of waste
· 3.3 million tonnes of food are binned every year in the UK
· People get a new mobile on average every 18 months
· Last Christmas, more than 6 million PCs were left on standby in empty offices
· 1.5 million computers are thrown away every year, of which 99 per cent work perfectly
Buying into a low-cost lifestyle
'Froogles' started life as a broad American movement of environmentally motivated types who wanted to reduce drastically their consumerism. They use the internet to exchange goods for free.
Buy (Less) is an organisation that encourages individuals to donate money to charities and inspire less consumption.
www.buylesscrap.org
Justin Rowlatt, a reporter on BBC TV's Newsnight, became Ethical Man when he led a green lifestyle for a year. He installed energy-efficient lightbulbs, avoided animal product foods and gave up his car to switch to public transport.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/6413195.stm
Buy Nothing Day started in 1993 and became an international event celebrated in 55 countries. Its aim is to make consumers think about how buying goods impacts on the environment and poverty.
www.buynothingday.co.uk
In December 2005 a group of professional friends in San Francisco got together and called themselves The Compact, aiming to go 'beyond recycling' by reducing clutter and waste.
www.sfcompact.blogspot.com
A New York City couple, Colin Beavan and Michelle Conlin, are spending a year experimenting with a new lifestyle they call No Impact. They only eat organic food produced within 400km of Manhattan, producing no rubbish, and using no paper (including toilet paper) or carbon-emitting transport.
www.noimpactman.typepad.com/blog
Luc Torres
· Big Ideas that Changed the World: Tuesday 10 April, 7.15pm, Channel Five
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007
32 Comments so far
Show AllWhy waste your time worrying about this stuff!, Nothing will change until we run out of black gold, you all know this, human nature is very stubborn, it will not change until it is cornered. Live your life now as there will definitely be NO tommorrow.
I quite enjoy the irony of affluent people bemoaning rampant consumerism. Stop me before I shop again! And when you've got all your solar power panels in place and are driving your hybrid cars and buying only organic foods, what are your suggestions for the ninety percent of the people on the planet who can't afford any of those things?
It is good to consume less. But as a result of consuming less, entry level and non-skilled workers are going to lose their jobs. So...... I can hear you saying that these workers can find better jobs, but that is exactly the same mentality that the CEO, that is laying them off, is going to have.
What we need is to try a new system of living. There is no immortal law that states that capitalism is the only economic system to use on the Earth. I don't know what that system is but I am ready to try something new. Trial and error is how you learn. The study of economics is a fraud to help promote capitalims. Read Noam Chomsky's, "Understanding Power", you idiots.
How to bring true democracy to America--continued from: http://www.beyondplutocracy.com/chap32.htm
We should use the Internet to show people what true democracy is. By creating a demos on the Internet within which the members of the electorate may participate, people would come to understand what a true democratic process is and glean its implications for their lives in the real world: "Oh, this is what a real democracy is! I want this in our real government!"
As almost anybody who has had much to do with today's Internet knows, it is very fragile and unstable. Data transmission is slow and intermittent, connections become disconnected, web sites crash, dead and broken links clutter the landscape, and a small army of bright, misguided computer hackers take unending glee at breaking into web sites, raising havoc, and cranking out a steady stream of ever-improved computer viruses.
Given these circumstances, getting an Internet demos up and running reliably and securely would be a daunting task. Most likely any group of people who attempted to create and run such a site on the Internet would be flying by the seat of their pants and operating on a shoestring. Add to these difficulties the likelihood that even a fairly large group of Internet users who joined and participated in the demos would not accurately reflect our whole society but would represent youth over age, the more educated over the less educated, and the upper economic half of the population more than the lower half, thus skewing the demos consensus.
None of these difficulties and challenges are insurmountable. Despite all, a demos could be put together and run well enough to achieve its central purpose: to demonstrate to the American people and to the people of the world what it is like to participate in a true democratic process, the idea being that they may compare their current political systems with it and come to demand that a demos be added to their real governments. The other proposals presented in this work could also be incorporated into the demos site creating an understanding and demand for these reforms to our society as well.
A working demos would also serve as the tool and test bed for the improvement of the demos's physical infrastructure, software and user interface, security, mathematical system, and rules and procedures. The site's creators and managers could enter into a synergetic interaction with its users to discover new ideas and better ways of achieving ends. Demos participants would gain experience and confidence in the art and practice of deliberative democracy.
America's currently established elite would, however, point to the unreliability and insecurity of the Internet and to the very possibly embarrassing instability of the demos site, and try to make good reason of it, along with other reasons they would no doubt dream up, as to why a demos could not work and cannot be tried. The people creating, running, and participating in the demos should be prepared for this. There is a world of difference between running a demos on the current Internet on a shoestring and the creation and running of a real demos with the full weight and resources of the federal government and the American people behind it.
The process would start with a dedicated group of programmers, mathematicians, economists, and students of political science working together to create the demos site. Once the demos is operational and on the Internet, its existence would be made known, and people would be invited to participate. At first there would only be a few people participating at the site, but (hopefully) there would soon enough be a few hundred people and then a few thousand. The presence of the demos site could be made known by the people who created and maintained it and by the growing number of participants using every known method of Internet and other advertising. If the idea of a demos is attractive, demos deliberations are interesting, and voting results are promising, participants would tell their families, friends, neighbors, co-workers, and others about it. Soon Internet-savvy news and interest groups would start asking, "What is all this hubbub about?" In time, the always-hungry news and interest groups around the country and world would hear about it, enquire, and report the news. If this scenario proves successful, then hundreds of thousands and even millions of people could end up participating in the demos.
All the while there would be an increasing individual and collective recognition of what a true democratic process is like. Standing in comparison within people's minds would be the so-called democratic process that exists within our current American government. It would be clearly recognized as the scam and farce that it really is. More and more people would come to exclaim about the demos, "I want this in our real government!" In fact, since the Internet is a worldwide phenomenon, people around the world could and would explore the demos as "read-only" visitors, come to the same realization and understanding about the lack of any true democratic process within their own governments, and desire changes to their own governments as well.
As people participated in the demos, debated, and read and viewed more and more mass media discussions about the virtues of a demos and the shortcomings of our current government, our collective consciousness and will would move from desire to demand to action. A mass movement would be afoot. The current people of privilege, the establishment, would, of course, be dead set against it and make every kind of maneuver, manipulation, and sabotage against the success of the movement. But like an avalanche "we the people" would roll right over them and eventually win them over. In time, in a generation or two, history would prove and the leaders of those times whose predecessors resisted the fundamental changes to our government would come to see and agree that the changes affected our lives, our nation, and our world profoundly for the better.
Once the demos web site became sufficiently developed and functional and many people were frequenting the site, then we could treat the demos as if it would become the fourth branch of government. We could treat it as if it already were the fourth branch of government.
If this Internet demos came to be frequented by a large number of people with serious intent and result, it is entirely possible that it could become something of a power center in its own right even before a real demos became an official part of government. Our elected 'representatives' repeatedly toss biased polling results at us and tell us ad nauseam how "in touch" they are with our minds and hearts. The demos could become the place where the electorate's real views concerning the issues were made known. It could also serve as a place for would-be political candidates to test the waters. Successful candidates could watch their names climb up the Candidates lists. The Internet demos could possibly come to be seen and felt as an alternate or "people's" government. It could become a true political power to be reckoned with. In this way something of a demos could unofficially serve America (and prove itself) before a real demos were made an official part of government.
http://www.beyondplutocracy.com/chap32.htm
The challenges we face are enormous, immensely discouraging, but there are voices and great minds out there that are showing us the way.
For starters, I suggest reading David C. Korten's book, "The Great Turning". The thing about David Korten is that he introduces you to the writings and imagination of many other great minds. You will learn that in the evolution of humankind, these are truly exciting times.
Buy less? After the powers that be have got us depending completely on their stores and resturants just to survive ?
Why the world economy would crash .People would be releaed from their cubicles where they go to earn a days pay.
The powers that be would have their soldiers in the streets arresting all the trroublemakers. Why they might even bring back public hangings just for them.
Can any of you really live without a Big Mac?Or how about a Cell Phone complete with Camera and downloaded music.
I am sorry folks my bet is still on the coming of Soylent Green to becoome a reality.
We just ain't got it in us anymore not to go out a shop until we drop,and cast away our tons of trash or store it. Why it would be the end of the world for we developed countries if one day a local Walmart store close its door . Or if a food super market was no more.
S ure I will join the cause and shop sparingly. I have been doing it for many years, but the Our Earth is still going to go POP.
Nice article by the way. I would share it with my neighbors but they are too bust shopping
I haven't had a tv for over ten years, and I haven't missed it. Within a week of switching off the box, it was remarkable how "unjammed" I felt. I killed my tv, give it a try! You may find yourself bringing groceries home in cloth bags, composting, getting "new to you" clothes when they are necessary at the Thrift Store, and riding your bike more, driving less, and forever looking for carpooling buddies. You may even find yourself looking for ways to get your neighbors to do the same. *gasp* You may even decide you don't NEED that job, because you've paid down or destroyed your credit cards, kept your expenses down, you've quit shopping for endless piles of crap to fill that hole in your spirit's heart, because you've formed real, lasting, satisfying relationships with the people, animals, and land around you, and *surprise* you no longer have a listing shipwreck for a heart. What freedom!
Temporarily working retail is also highly recommended if you want to see inside the Beast. Once you've worked retail at Christmas, you will never again be able to look at stores as entertainment, because the machinations of large business become transparent. What makes you want that new thingamajig? The people who stand to profit from its purchase make SURE you think you must have it. Give it a shot in the name of a Grand Experiment-- then, wiser from your experiment, walk away.
The warmongers are extremely invested in keeping us miserably shopping... somnolent consumers are mostly passive, just the way they prefer their good little taxpayers.
Feh.
Open your mind.
Close your wallet.
The planet is wheezing; say ENOUGH before it coughs us off.
Some changes are better than others. In other words, there are some choices that we can make that will almost automatically affect and change other things. Essentially, my point is that instead of dishing out lists of things people can do to better our lives and the lives of others, we should concentrate on ONE meaningful change at a time. Piece by piece, it will all come together.
The first step is to give up our vehicles. PRIVATE transportation is effectively murdering people around the world; not by carbon emmissions, but rather gunfire emmissions. The war in Iraq and every other oil producing 'nation' is exclusively driven buy our consumerism, particularly gasoline consumerism. Stop that, and you will have stopped not only this war, but a number of other wars, or massacres, really.
On top of that, once you give up your PRIVATE mode of transportation, a myriad of 'consumer' habits will also change.
Once we are all on the same 'train', then we can tackle the more complicated issues of making a composte pile in your condo.
Hybridoma--
Good thoughts--my own suggestion beyond Outerbeltway3's final thought is that we all need to "just say no" to all commercial and just about all "public" TV.
Ration it like they did meat during WWII. My parents told me of having meatless days and even weeks without any consequence to the general public health (actually quite the contrary--all vegans say "Amen") or diminuition of essential strength or neergy.
This may sound ridiculous, but even as a teenager in the 70's I was asking myself:How much longer can this go on? Sooner or later, you begin to run out of things. I also remember that you could look directly at the sun in the late 60's because of all the air pollution.
Today I teach in a poor, small village in Vietnam. If the world ran out of petroleum tomorrow, the Vietnamese would be back on their feet and running within weeks. Everywhere you look, people are moving things with carts and bicycles. Children ride to school on bikes or walk, often holding hands as they make their way to school. Tall, slender and strong men transport EVERYTHING about the city on these types of large tricycles which take the place of pick-ups in the States.
If you throw something away, it's gone within fifteen minutes. That's how fast things get recycled here. I know that the larger cities like Ho Chi Minh have their problems, just like other cities with populations of 10 million do. But I'll say this. I see more smilimg faces in a day here than I probably do in an entire week in the USA. Just don't take away their computers and Internet!
Yes, Western Culture is trying to get into this vast, untapped market. I hope that as Vietnam makes negotiations as it enters the WTO, that it sets some clear limits on protecting its land and culture.
I get to see the simple life lived happily each day, and it doen't take much food or any fancy clothes. A pretty woman looks just as pretty in rags as she does in the finest dress. And the children run around with out footwear without giving it the slightest thought. You don't need shoes. Not here, anyway.
"If Gandhi were alive today and searching for an effective general strike, he'd organize a rally in which we all burn our credit cards - and the bill. Default for Democracy. That'd get their attention." - Alanwartes
That's why the banks pushed through the new Bankruptcy law. They're reptiles alright - smart reptiles, indeed. But we, the consumer, are not a whit better. Exxon Valdez wouldn't have happened without Soccer Mom at the pump filling up the SUV, etc.
"Come on you young ones organize us a huge party for the future, a happening , 'woodstock' for the planet and our future survival." Melvin Dada
What did the sixties change? It cracked open the dried clay shell of stupid white men controlling all. What didn't it change? Human nature. The stupid non-white non-men succumbed, too. Right?
"How can we heal the planet when we are the sickness it suffers from? When was the last time a virus changed its mind and decided to cure its host?" - CommonMan03
Thank you, CommonMan03. Here we are looking in the mirror, where most of the answers actually are. Do you like what you see?
No? OK, change yourself. Don't worry about anyone else - you can't control them. Change yourself. That will be plenty.
I agree with Nietzsche. Consumerism is an addiction which is every bit as powerful as gambling, drinking or taking drugs. At least with those other addictions, you can point to a ruined life as a sign of the sickness. With consumerism, you only have a ruined planet to point to.
Self-interest, gratification and torpor will prevent most people from rising from in front of their television sets (or computer monitors) which leaves the job to the small percentage willing to pay the price to give a damn.
Industry has seldom shown the intelligence or will to take action in the best interests of the globe. It will have to be legislated. Which then raises the conundrum, how do you expect people who get elected after accepting massive donations from private corporations to act against the best interest of those corporations? You don't. You require electoral reform so that government itself funds the political battles. No allegiances are formed. Politicians can vote their conscience.
Possible?
Not bloody likely. This system of democracy has been in place since its inception.
There has to be a fundamental rethinking of so many social processes, I'm thinking we may as well start planning an escape strategy for the few miserable hundreds of millions who will be left when the die off slows down. The planet will be virtually uninhabitable by that point, but its in no hurry. It has weathered (pardon the expression) monumental changes before. Usually they were caused by things like asteroids. We present a unique problem.
How can we heal the planet when we are the sickness it suffers from? When was the last time a virus changed its mind and decided to cure its host?
I ask myself if I Need this or only Want it.
Yes some excellent posts and links here. I am glad to see this as we have so much work to do. I am despondent at times when I see so much packaging and plastic bottles, polyurethene containers and waste all around me. Too many people in cars, one to a car. And yet there is so much depression. We need to get together. How can we get together and have a party? Not consume anything but have a good time for ourselves with this common dream. A society that is based on healing the earth and cleaning it up. Replanting the rain forests, building solar panels arrayed across our deserts in place of coal etc etc etc. Come on you young ones organize us a huge party for the future, a happening , 'woodstock' for the planet and our future survival.
author wrote "didn't buy non-essentials for a year" ha ha ha ha ha ha was that hard !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?????????? uhhhhhhh
i've been doing that for 15 yrs of adult life, except for a few credit cards i intentionally maxed out to get some money back from the banking scum who also advrt. their credit cards way too obsessively.
And the store mngr. saying "we don't have to live like a monk" says it all, you'll NEVER get FAT AMERICA to buy less. Another reason why so and so and so many things.
this reminded me of the issue of population growth and it's impending impacts on the environment. Where they taken iinto consideration in the IPCC's latest report? Because it seems that pop. growth alone is going to drive global way beyond repair no matter what.
"'So in a way we don't have a choice about this: we've got to rethink the basic premise behind capitalism to make it deliver the goods.'"
Right, we have no choice - the problem is, it will not be chosen until AFTER Earth starts seriously unraveling. Not before. Like when a Senator opposes stem cell research until a loved one gets sick, or when a driver realizes the dangers of cell phones AFTER he totals his car. Or those who regret their support for an illegal invasion now that all the dire warnings they ignored have come true.
We humans will shop to fill the void until the coming cycle of catastrophes begins, unless the shrinks of the world declare Greed a mental disorder and get to dispersing the necessary medication.
Twenty years ago a most excellent film, Bedazzled began where the devil, busily at work in the modern world, is extremely proud of himself for finally coming up with an EIGHTH sin: advertising. Dr. Seuss shows the false basis for origination of desires in the metaphor of THNEEDS featured in his ecological classic, The Lorax. And I like this piece for two more reasons, first, it's the topic of a screenplay I'm working on (good cosmic alignment) and second, it's the best answer yet to all my friends who think it's God's will for them to practice prosperity and manifest their every need (= want). I have explained that other populations cannot emulate US consumerism trends for the simple reason earth (as Mother) is already demonstrating paroxysms of excess. Last night temperatures were in the 30's in the Bible belt of N. Florida where many make fun of Al Gore, saying "he should be out here in his tee shirt now!" George Lakoff has brilliantly spoke of the way we FRAME issues. Global warming is not a good name because satellite photos show there has been virtually no warming in this nation of consumerism to the point of denial of inconvenient truths... what's happening is climate instability, seasons out of joint, shock waves, the balance falling asunder. They shop like the band playing on the Titanic. The Wall street casinos can't afford to utter the mantra of "use less." What a paradigm, it's cannibalizing itself.
It is prudent to note that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the greater Montgomery Improvement Association (a foreruner to the SCLC) managed to undo 60 years of Jim Crowsegregation not by appeals to conscience or even court action, but by simpy refusiong to ride the buses or shop at downtown merchants who wouldn't offer to serve them at thier restaurants.
It took them about a year and caused a lot of inconvienience (but also forged bonds of relationships and friendships that lasted a life time--including especially between white women and their hired domestic servants!)but what was that compared to the generations of suffering it eliminated.
Now then, where is our Martin Luther King Jr to lead the effort?
"I don't talk about going back to anything, I talk about using technology a great deal more intelligently and efficiently to continue to give us a very high quality of life with a fraction of the environmental cost."
I agree completely with this statement. While there is bound to be a lot of discomfort between now and a time when we have high quality of life again (inertia is inexorable), if we are smart and use technology wisely (a leap, I know), then there is hope.
Anyone familiar with Joe Dominguez? Vicki Robin? Your Money or Your Life? Maybe it's time to introduce yourselves to some of the pioneers of the simplicity movement. Their system (designed for individuals) just may help us save ourselves from ourselves.
http://www.newroadmap.org/default.asp
Stop buying NOW.
Barter. Borrow.
Recycle. Reuse. Refuse to pay for your own destruction. Re-learn the word ENOUGH.
Disobey. If Gandhi were alive today and searching for an effective general strike, he'd organize a rally in which we all burn our credit cards - and the bill. Default for Democracy. That'd get their attention.
I know people for whom shopping is a sickness. They know it but they can't help themselves. Like the alcoholic they will say 'It makes me feel better right now'.
Oh, later they suffer buyers remorse, credit card debt at ruinous interest, and junk lying around that they don't even want. They need help and because it is a national epidemic, WE need help.
If only they knew how good it felt to not be consuming and competing all the time they would have no trouble "staying sober".
People nowadays would go buy packaged faeces if only to relieve their boredom. That's what consumer society has arrived at.
I spend €5 a day on food and that's it. I ride a bike. Handkerchiefs, lighters, shawls, gloves, umbrella's, even underwear and medications, I don't need to buy. I can find plenty on the roadside.
Yes, Yes, and Yes!
We can do this.
A proposal for a buyers' strike, to bring pressure to stop the illegal war in Iraq, has been popping up here and there for a few month/years.
The date I have seen mentioned is right after income tax returns are due in this country, which this year is, I think, April 16th.
All who oppose the war will be agreeing to stop all non-essential purchases.
Of course this will also be a tremendous boon to the beleaguered environment.
My thought is that it will not take long to get results from the warmongers. Many of them are heavily invested in keeping all of us good little consumers shopping, shopping, shopping.
The suggestion has been made that we especially stay away from malls and multi-nationals to the extent possible.
I sent this idea to MoveOn and Code Pink right after the 2004 election was lost, strayed or stolen, unaware that MoveOn had just asked its members (of which I am one) for suggestions for tactics and strategy for moving forward.
My suggestion was No. 5 or something, and immediately buried under 10,000? others.
I hope those of like mind will take this idea and run with it.
I am putting all the internet sites on my favorites.
mesogen wrote:
"If you can help it, don't even use public transportation, ride a bike or walk....
....and buy a hybrid car, but pay the $3000 to get it modified into a plug-in hybrid."
Huh? An ordinary diesel city bus running an average of half-full is getting about 250-300 passenger-miles to the gallon. A Prius, running half-full is getting 100 passenger-miles per gallon at best. My city is tranasitioning to hybrid buses, which no doubt improve on this figure considerably. Of course electric light-rail trolleys or trackless-trolleys get the carbon equivalent approaching 1000 passenger-miles per gallon - even when the electricity is from a dirty source.
Not all of us live in cities whose climate or terrain is amenable to bicycling - or even solar panels. But car usage, followed by central air conditioning and/or oil heat, is far and above the biggest emitter of carbon. Even the manufacturing process uses an average of two-years average driving worth of carbon. So, if you need a car, instead of a new Prius, buy a used Corolla Echo, Civic or Chevy Aveo, and drive it using fuel-economy optimization techniques.
Central AC in many homes is inefficient compared to a couple small window units used only when necessary - place them on the upper floor (in bedrooms) since the cold air drains downward. Somehow, civilization did just fine before the invention of AC (only a few decades ago) - even in the US south. That middle-class people consider central AC a "necessity" here in western Pennsylvania is just ridiculous.
Forget it. Don't even try to stop consumerism by appealing to our better nature. May as well try to stop the sun from shining. Even communists are becoming consumers. The difference is that until recently, the communist masses didn't have the money to consume very much. That's changing.
It's true that consumerism is destroying the earth, but we're going about fixing it the wrong way. At least the Chinese realize that the real problem is too many people consuming too many resources and are doing something about it by promoting birth control. They are also doing something about too few people having everything while too many have nothing, causing warfare, which is our way of dealing with overpopulation.
Communist repression and capitalist oppression are not really the humane way for governments to deal with their people. There are humane methods of achieving the peace and stability we want while removing the depredations of consumerism in growing populations. Check out:
http://dmoz.org/Society/Politics/Democracy/Direct_Democracy/
Some cutting-edge economists like Bill McKibbon are saying that our lives have not become happier by buying more and more. There is a growing amount of data to support this. McKibbon suggests that the old models of growth and consumption no longer apply and may be recipies for disaster in the future, both as individuals and colelctively. Perhaps he is simply expressing the obvious. Why don't we change the way we think and live? Buy less, have more time to spend with others, help the planet and be happy.
To David Smith and Jonathon Porritt what more can I say than YES EXACTLY!
Aged 57, I lived through the tail end of the post-war austerity when people had plenty to eat but not so much that we wasted it. We had gadgets with spare parts so that they could be fixed when they went wrong, people mended their clothes and paid for their shoes to be repaired. We went on holiday too, but nobody would have dreamed of traveling half way across Europe for a one-night booze-up or a 'shopping spree'!
We must have consumed a fraction of what many people do nowadays, but we were just as happy.
I am glad the whole carbon debate has started to come round to the whole issue of wasteful, pointless consumption.
Justin Rowlatt should have done a few more things. He should use canvas tote bags to bring home his shopping. He should try his best not to use the plastic bags in supermarkets, even the ones he puts his veggies in. He should avoid all food products with too much packaging and recycle the packaging that can't be avoided. If you can help it, don't even use public transportation, ride a bike or walk. Most of the trash we throw away comes from food containers. Try your best to limit the packaging. Glass isn't that big of a deal, but paper and plastic are, and you should recycle these things (even though recycling has it's own environmental problems). Also, if you can afford it, install solar panels on you roof, and buy a hybrid car, but pay the $3000 to get it modified into a plug-in hybrid.
It's my opinion that the largest amount of power we have with regards to making things happen is as nonconsumers. Joining together as nonconsumers could be one powerful lobby group!
Siouxrose--
I live in Jacksonville, where in North Florida do you reside? It's lonely here in ther heart of NASCAR Nation and Bush country, for progressives, No?
These articles are right on -- I wrote something along these exact lines, on my blog a couple days ago.
I'd a few more "talking points" here. For instance, the concept of Gross National Happiness: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_national_happiness.
The idea is that we, as a culture, are not bank accounts. We should measure an overall happiness. Per capita income, as some sort of bottom-line, is deceptive if cost-of-living is sky-high, or people are working so much that they have little time for family, civic engagement, hobbies, etc.
There's also an intellectual and self-deterministic drain. If we're consumers at-large (beyond economics -- into the realms of the arts, religion, etc.) we have entered a sort of disposable, destructive and dependent mindset. Unable to do anything for ourselves -- and unable to simply not do.
so when you folks going to stop buying stuff? quitting air travel? buying imported products?