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. With More green thoughts
Given my post the other day complaining about green hype, I should point out the article about the alleged green-consumption trend that appears in (of all places, the Times Style section today:
Critics question the notion that we can avert global warming by buying so-called earth-friendly products, from clothing and cars to homes and vacations, when the cumulative effect of our consumption remains enormous and hazardous.
“There is a very common mind-set right now which holds that all that we’re going to need to do to avert the large-scale planetary catastrophes upon us is make slightly different shopping decisions,” said Alex Steffen, the executive editor of Worldchanging.com, a Web site devoted to sustainability issues.
The genuine solution, he and other critics say, is to significantly reduce one’s consumption of goods and resources.
Steffen, writing in World Changing today, says that’s not really what he said, nor what he thinks:
I believe something quite different: that the genuine solution is not a matter of consumer choice at all.
There is no combination of purchasing decisions which will make the current affluent American lifestyle sustainable. You can’t shop your way to sustainability, as I’ve put it before. On a planet running up against so severe a set of deadlines — global warming, the extinction crisis, the poverty crisis, etc. — prosperity as currently delivered is frankly immoral, even when purchased with an eco-chic package….
The reality is that the changes we must make are systemic changes. They involve large-scale transformations in the ways we plan our cities, manufacture goods, grow food, transport ourselves, and generate energy. They involve new international regulatory regimes, corporate strategies, industrial standards, tax systems and trading markets. If we want to change the world, we need to forge ourselves into the kinds of citizens who can effectively demand such things.
The rest of his post is here.
This relates to what was saying the other day, which I tried to clarify in the comments of that post.
When marketers, designers, gurus, pundits, and others hyping the idea that Main Street is going green because Eco Product X is selling surprisingly well, they frame the larger debate in particular way. They ignore contradictory consumer behavior (steady sales of luxury SUVs), and rarely address what I’ve called unconsumption behavior (that is, how we dispose of things, what we don’t consume, etc.).
Thus they leave impression that the marketplace — consumer shopping patterns — is already solving any eco problems we might face:. The “taste-makers” are leading the way, there will be “tipping point,” and we’ll all be eco-safe, and no one has to make any particular sacrifice, and there’s no need for pesky regulations or whatever. Etc.
All of which helps to marginalize more system-oriented points of view like Steffen’s.
Anyway, both Steffen’s post and the Styles story are worth reading, and gave me more to think about.
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Reader Comments
While I agree completely with the premise that one “can’t shop your way to sustainability,” I take issue with the notion that consumer buying patterns don’t or can’t work towards solving the eco-problems we face as a global consuming population.
Here’s why: consumers by definition vote with their dollars (they’re certainly not voting at the polls, after all). And although we are seeing the contradictory behavior you reference (i.e. ultra-luxury shopping at the same time as “green” shopping), we are also watching American business start treating sustainability as a valid notion.
That Wal-Mart et al. actually have written policies, policies that 1) continue to evolve and change, that 2) directly acknowledge climate change as a force to be reckoned with, and that 3) function on the premise that change in behavior can directly effect said climate change demonstrates the significance of a shift in consumer buying patterns. Of course, cynics might argue that business influences buying behavior and not the other way around, but it’s naive to think this is a one-way street.
All of which is to bring things around to your notion of unconsumption. This is the ultimate beauty of shifting consumer behavior. As any business working towards creating sustainable operations and sustainable products knows, it is screamingly obvious how impossible this is without a dramatic change in production paradigms. That is, businesses must create new products and new operating systems that generate a positive eco-impact, as opposed to simply reducing their negative impact or creating a neutral impact.
I honestly don’t know if it’s possible for consumers to have their eco-cake and eat it, too, but I do think we’d have a better shot at it if government and private industry would team up to promote real innovation in the making of real “stuff.” There’s no doubt, though, that a consumer demand for green products is at the heart of the media’s love of the topic, no?
My feeling on this is that an emphasis on “green” in the market place is a welcome phenomena. I partly say this out of hopelessness, while this discussion is centered around America’s consumer behavior, the sad fact is that our habits of consumption are quickly being imported to nations around the world. Through my own experience of traveling and investigating consumerism around the world, this is a tidal wave that can not be stopped. While we lead the world in our environmentally unsustainable lifestyles, massive nations such as India and China are quickly catching up, as they build up a middle class. Every year more people around the globe are able to own cars, these numbers are rising so fast that even the potential of cleaner running cars mean that CO2 emissions are on the rise. I feel the question now is how do we slow down the pending disaster, and greener consumer products can help. Anything else requires a drastic about face that I believe will not happen on the global scale that is needed, we have become to comfortable to make the changes needed. Of course the major problem with “green” products is that they make us feel good about consumer behavior that we should not be patting ourselves on the backs about. Marketers are clearly taking advantage of this desire, the “if a buy this product I’ll be doing something good for the earth”. In the end maybe its the choice of a lesser evil, such as buying food at a Whole Foods vrs. at Wall Mart, both choices are in support of a environmentally destructive industrial agricultural system, however the Whole Foods does a little bit less damage. The other side of that though is that buying food at a Whole Foods often makes the consumer feel better about themselves, thus makes them feel like they have done their bit for the environment, which they have not if one looks closely at the system behind it.
Great post Rob! I could discuss these issues all day.
Interestingly enough, compared to many people, I have never been that big of a consumer. It is mostly out of desperation that I end up in a store looking for some needed item.
Yet, over time I have still accumulated stuff that I don’t use, no longer need or want! I am now in the process of trying to unconsume some of it in as responsible a way as I can. To answer a question often posted here, I find the act of unconsuming as delightful as new consumption (to the limited extent that I engage in it to begin with), and have enjoyed finding new homes or a users for these things.
The blogger at “Simple Living” has set an ambitious goal for herself and her family, which is to reduce their emissions by 90%. Not 90% of what they typically use, but what the average American uses. This of course will involve how they think about their patterns of consumption/ You can read about her progress (both success and failures) at Simple Living. My hats off to her!