I don’t think of myself as a material girl, but this morning an online quiz told me that three planet Earths would be needed to support my lifestyle. That scares me.
I’ve learned that – in terms of material consumption – it’s not easy, no matter how hard you try, to consume differently from the culture in which you live.
The United States is a culture of consumption. And so it’s interesting when a U.S. organization like the Worldwatch Institute – an independent research organization in Washington D.C. – releases an annual report with the title State of the World 2010: Transforming Cultures: From Consumerism to Sustainability.
I haven’t yet received a copy of the report, which is said to include 26 articles from more than 50 eminent researchers and experts on consumerism, sustainability and cultural change. Worldwatch says the report will “provide information on how we can make the needed shift from consumerism to sustainability.”
According to Worldwatch, the report has at its heart a profound question: how do we transform consumer cultures into cultures of sustainability?
Let’s assume that question is meaningful enough – for enough of us – to make that transformation a possibility. Personally, I believe it’s one of the most meaningful questions around, but the reality is that we live in a world where consumer culture is a goal, not something to be transformed. To me, it’s only logical that our finite world can’t support infinite consumption of natural resources, and so the question to me is, simply, when will we reach the point of consuming more than Earth can provide, assuming we haven’t already reached that point? Many experts say we have reached it already. Every year now, the Global Footprint Network marks the annual Earth overshoot day, the day each year on which, according to the calculations of the Global Footprint Network, humanity has placed more demand on ecological services – from filtering CO2 to producing food, fiber and timber– than nature can provide in a single year.
Have we reached the point of unsustainablity already? The Global Footprint Network and the Worldwatch Institute say yes. If it’s true, what will happen? On the upside, new technologies will surely lead to ever more efficient use and recycling of resources. On the downside, there is the possibility of a global pandemic and ensuing population loss – and/or of massive economic disruption – leading to the use of fewer resources.
Worldwatch says that over 2 billion of Earth’s nearly 7 billion inhabitants are now considered to be in the global consumer class. Chances are – if you’re reading this – you belong to that class, as I do. In our world of consumer culture, we are encouraged to define happiness and success through the consumption of goods and services.
Is that me, I wonder? Is it you? What would it be like to transform our consumer culture? What would it like to live with less?
If you’re interested in this question, you might take a look at the State of the World 2010 report from Worldwatch. Go to Amazon and tell them you want to see the report available on a Kindle! Or start by reading Worldwatch’s blog on this subject – or join their Facebook page, which is called Transforming Cultures.
I almost feel like sustainability is defined by the fact that we’re unsustainable. I’d be interested to know when our planet tipped over from being sustainable to unsustainable, and what living in a “sustainable” world was like. As a child of the 80s, I feel as if I’ve always lived in an unsustainable, consumer-driven culture. I was always part of a demographic, a target audience.
I read an article recently that said the recession is causing people to spend more on doing things, and less on buying stuff. That indicates maybe a shift in our attitude about consumption, but we’re still consumers. We still want to go out and buy drinks with our friends. We still want to take our kids to Disney World. We still want our economy to grow.
I think a transformation of consumer culture, as you say, would have to go hand-in-hand with a transformation of the global economy. That’s to create meaningful change. I’ve heard of plenty of individuals who decide to live off the grid, or own nothing, as an experiment in dropping out of consumer culture. I know plenty of people who would like to define happiness and success by their relationships and emotions, not by goods and services. But unfortunately, that’s more of an ideal than a reality.
Thanks Lindsay. I think that’s what I was trying to say here. What would it be like to consume less? I tried thinking of that this morning as I got up in a heated house – cooked oatmeal – put on warm clothes – rode the bus to work – turned on my computer. My lifestyle seems pretty simple to me, but I know there are people in developing worlds who have little or none of those things … food, warmth, clothing, transportation, information …
It’s not all just big cars and jet setting around. I feel as if my lifestyle is pretty simple, yet still the quiz I took today said it requires three Earths!
You were wondering since when we tipped over the equilibrium. It was about 1000 years ago believe it or not. Since then all we have been able to do is to extend the time it takes for us to break down the earth. It went at high speed during the 1400-1900, but since late 1900s we have been more and more efficient at slowing down the process. It is not a question of whether we are able to reverse the breakdown, but rather a question of how much we can delay it. With constant population growth we act like a virus, multiplying. People argue we have space, but we don’t have resources. People argue we can solve food problems but we can’t solve waste. If you wanted to help save the earth you were born too late. If you want to help delay it’s destruction live sustainably. That is get rid of your house, car etc. And build your own cottage somewhere where you can live of off either fishing, hunting or farming, and most importantly; never trade. Share you can, but trade is what started consumerism.
Thanks Deborah for your great blog! Hopefully the articles in the report (on the way from Worldwatch already I hope) will help answer these questions. But ultimately the main point of the report is that we can go beyond living simply and take a proactive shifting cultures so that living sustainably isn’t hard to do but is easy and feels as natural as consumerism does for many today. As we discuss in the report, all of us–through our roles not just as consumers, but as parents, children, teachers, students, workers, bosses, engaged community members, policymakers, and so on–can proactively and intentionally use societal institutions to reorient cultures on sustainability. Sometimes that’ll be through big actions like working to extract fossil fuel subsidies or create a carbon tax, but at the same time the accumulation of many small actions will be as important–school garden programs, green curricula, social marketing campaigns, efforts to make it easy to bike and walk to work, creating green businesses, and so on. Together, over time, these will add up to a major transformation of human cultures.
Best,
Erik Assadourian
Project Director, State of the World 2010
Erik thank you for this work and this hopeful vision of the future.
I believe it will happen – because it has to!
Deborah
The transformation must begin within people themselves.