"If everyone lived like today's North Americans, it would take at least two additional planet Earths to produce the resources, absorb the wastes, and otherwise maintain life-support... North American footprints are double European footprints, and seven times that of the average Asian or African footprint."
-Toward Sustainable Communities, Mark Roseland
Consumerism is a driving force in today's society that is a major contributor to the reasons for which our current system of living is unequivocally not sustainable. The ideas that wealth and success are in large part measured or evaluated to some degree on the quantity of belongings that we posses is a staggeringly different approach to living than we should be embodying if we hope to achieve a system of living that can be deemed "sustainable."
Our current culture is so entrenched in the consumerist model that changing the system will be difficult, but ultimately a major shift in lifestyle is necessary for the health of the planet. The benefits of consuming fewer goods are undeniable- less consumption will require the use of fewer natural resources, especially fossil fuels, which will in turn translate into less pollution of the environment. Reducing consumption will also result in less "trash" generation, and hopefully would result in more wide spread recycling and reuse practices.
Reducing consumption also applies to land use practices, and in particular, the urban sprawl that has been the model of development around most cities in the world. Urban sprawl is to some extent an extension of the consumerist mentality in that each household wants a piece of land for its own, entirely separate and under its individual control. This approach to land use is not sustainable, and perpetuates the desires of individuals to consume more in order to outfit their lives in the suburbs, which in themselves are neither rural nor urban, and as such are distally located from both the raw resources and the final creations of goods that drive their consumption habits.
In short, a dramatic shift in lifestyle choices is necessary for the health of the planet; reducing consumption is just one way to enact such change.
We certainly are living in a non-sustainable way in a world with limited natural resources. You're right about the challenge that our current lifestyle faces. What happened to "The American Dream"? James Truslow Adams said "life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement", except we've lost sight of the "for everyone" part and replaced it with "for me". Thoughts on how to change people's conception of lifestyles and "The American Dream" back to one that allows for everyone to have a chance to live the dream?
ReplyDeleteThe "me" concept is so true and directly relates to consumerism. I recently got a taste of how neighborly people are. We live on a small lake (yep, it's a bit out of town...and like many Americans we have our piece of the earth - hypocrisy, yes, it's the bane of my existence)
ReplyDeleteAnyway...we live on one side of the lake and in order to walk the neighborhood on the other side of the lake you have to cut through a private piece of property adjacent to the dam. When we moved in...I contacted the property owners to ask permission...their answer was no. They don't like people on their property. The question rests- is it better to ask permission or just beg forgiveness later? What ever happened to being neighbors...to knowing each other like family? Who knows...but all I know was there was no we/neighborly/worldly/friendly mind set- the mind set was what's mine is mine and what's yours is yours. Eeeh- frustrating.
On another note- our neighbor just down the road did give us permission to walk in his front door and out his back door to cross the dam to make up for the "mean" neighbors. I do believe the entire world isn't bad. In my heart I hold the belief that we all can change for the better.
I agree with you that a dramatic lifestyle shift is necessary in order to achieve sustainability on our planet, but I often wonder how that could be achieved. Our country is nowhere close to being ready and willing to accept government mandates on what we can and cannot buy, where and how we can live, and what manufacturers can produce. (I know there are already rules in the categories I mentioned, but I am talking on the extreme scale.) Do you think that the biggest changes will result from government policies, from a change in thinking due to ramped up social marketing (by NGOs, etc.), or from something else?
ReplyDeleteI think this is a great post, and I totally agree that it is frightening the state at which our planet is in, and direction that we are heading. In order for the planet to survive, it is necessary to find different mechanisms and ways in which to go about out daily lives.
ReplyDeleteAs mentioned in the post, the American dream is to have bigger and better things. As Americans we find happiness in consumption; whether this consumption is found in clothing, new cars, food, alcohol, etc. We have created a culture in which the need to purchase new items supersedes finding happiness in nature, music or friendship. Maybe what we need more than anything is a change in lifestyle and culture so that we can see the beauty in life without the consumption.
I'm so glad you used this quote. It really struck a chord with me when I was reading. It made me want to run around town turning off the lights people leave on when they exit a room. I know this is slightly unattainable, so we have to just plug along, doing what we can. We just have to hope that that kind of thinking will catch like wildfire.
ReplyDeleteThe concepts of "consumer engineering" and "planned obsolescence" have been around for quite some time. Their very existence, combined with the billions spent on advertising each year, shows the unobtrusive and somewhat subversive nature of consumer incentives put in place all around us. Sadly, so much of who we are and how we're judged is based on what we have, and this consumerist ethic has been very cleverly instilled in us starting in early childhood. But how do you convince people that maybe having so much stuff isn't so great?
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