Why the skepticism over the idea of consuming less? (plus a bit about Stevie Wonder)

Hey, what's wrong with "I just called to say I love you"?

I'm inclined to put the whole question of consumption and consumerism into an ethical context, and I don't think it needs to be very complicated. Anybody pursuing a "lifestyle" that cannot, as a matter of brute fact, be replicated by 6+ billion neighbors is part of the problem.

I think we have the imperative to do more than just consume less. As scientists and educated people, we also need to be finding ways to make consuming less easier.

A great example is the new low-energy fluorescent lightbulbs. If every house in America replaces one lightbulb with a compact fluorescent, it's the equivalent of taking a couple million cars off the raod, in terms of carbon emissions.

The best part about this approach is that it's easy for people to make the switch. It doesn't require buying a new car or drastically altering their lifestyle. It's
'low hanging-fruit' like this that can make a huge difference in the long run.

By analogy, we don't have to ask people to give up Stevie Wonder CDs. We just need to package the CD in earth-friendly materials, and make the CD player more energy-effiecient. Doing so could go a long way towards solving the problem.

I totally agree with the comments above (even the song reference, because it does grow on you). And why shouldn't being socially responsible amount to a notch on the biological fitness scale? In some respects, I think it is starting to anyway, which will hopefully make mantras like "consume less" more digestable on the whole. And as far as making consuming less easier, that would be wonderful, but one does so many things each day which take effort, so really how can one make the effort worth it??

I thought that the end of "Global Warming: What You Need to Know" with Tom Brokaw was very effictive in showing some of the things average consumers could do to easily half their CO2 emissions. The Science channel has been replaying it a lot if you haven't seen it.

http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/globalwarming/globalwarming.html

I don't buy the "progress" and "sacrafice" argument for one damn minute. People always have a choice between cars, cleaners, food, everything, and those choices can be made without sacrificing comfort and it usually saves you money to boot.

There is something of a strawman here; if I say (and as far as I can tell it is a true statement):

'Consuming less may help but is not by any means a full solution to AGW or resource depletion'

This should NOT be construed as saying:

'We should not consume less'.

Here's the problem:

I use CF bulbs throughout the house, which is also a modern, very well insulated house with a high efficiency combi boiler. I recycle as much as I can. My car has (in real world tests) slightly better fuel economy than a Prius. We don't have a diswasher or air conditioning. I even grow some of my own veg. All of my appliances are A rated for efficnency.

Here's the problem: It's Not Enough. If everyone in the first world did as much as I do, then we might reduce global emissions for two or three years, before economic growth overwhelmed these efforts.

Now, I could cycle to work (20 mile round trip over savage hills), or install solar panels, but there would be getting into seriously inconvienient/expensive territory.

It's like bulding sandcastles against the tide; you can do a little for a short time, but in the end there is only going to be one winner. And (to stretch the analogy unpleasantly) those of us who can see the approaching tsunami of Chinese and Indian emissions are not so much worried about our sandcastles as looking at the hills and asking if they are high enough..

The thing that comes to my mind when I hear a claim like 'I don't buy the "progress" and "sacrafice" argument for one damn minute' is OK, where's your mechanism for getting consumption back on track? We've been relying on a voluntary scaling back of consumption: see the evidence all around you, do you? Even with rising oil prices, etc - ie with significant economical incentives to scale back consumption - we're not seeing any improvement.

So what do you do? Personally, I'd be happy to see govenments using punitive taxation to limit pollution and polluting consumption, but that isn't going to happen any time soon because that's what you might call a losing election platform. So what other mechanisms are there? The system is not self-correcting, but any significant changes would require the kind of government interventionism that Americans in particular (others, too, but especially Americans) have been fighting against 'forever'.

Assuming the current consensus on AGW is at least close to base (yes, I know that's a matter of contention in all directions), we're going to need significant cuts in consumption plus major increases in renewable energy use plus nuclear investment (preferably using FBRs or other improved technologies) plus plus plus...

There's no magic bullet, no one course of action: yes, we need to curb consumption - but there's no way we can do that enough to achieve the kinds of effects we ned. We're going to need a lot of wedges*...

*links to Socolow and Pascala, Stabilization Wedges: Solving the Climate Problem for the Next 50 Years with Current Technologies, Science 2004.

Yeah, what Andrew Dodds said!

(Oh, and on the energy-saving lightbulbs front - I use them too, but find they never, ever live up to their lifetime claims...)

What we're talking about above is the difference between individual action (necessary, but not sufficient) and shifts in values systems and then structures of economy and politics (necessary, but difficult, and going well beyond what an individual, building sandcastles against the tide, can do). So we get the observation that the problem is not one that can be solved through individual action. I agree.

Yet we had the question (to which the original "consume less" answer was offered), and paraphrasing Homer S.: "what can I do, I'm just [pause, pause, look around, count one finger, pause pause...] one man?" So I offered an answer that is necessary (but not sufficient): consume less. Especially, as one other replier noted, what many would consider entirely unnecessary acts of consumption and what I had earlier referred to as the apparent hallowed virtue of gluttony. In Dodds's and Outeast's replies we hear that they're doing all they can and it'll never be enough. I am in sympathy with that frustration, and I understand the perspective. I don't criticize the observation at all.

But what are we really saying? That it goes beyond individual action, that it's a systemic issue, it's a matter of broader and deeper cultural, social and economic structures. But wait, then Dodds, you again gripe, "easy to claim that problems are all the result of 'the system'." And, then say, "The great irony is that such a position is of great comfort to those who profit from poisioning the planet, since the absence of any positive program acts as implicit support for the status quo." Yet this is strictly non-sensical -- you want to say individual action can?t do the job (agreed), but then you want to say that it's not a systemic problem (disagreed). You want to say the badness of global warming doesn't have to do with maintaining wealth, yet then you say that trying to approach the problem from a structural perspective can only be of comfort to the status quo. Which is it? What gives?

This is ultimately what I need to figure out: When I suggest that the problem stems from a broadly based consumerist philosophy, a worldview predicated on economic factors over-riding all others (moral, ecological, spiritual, e.g.) that reduces individual human agents to consumers first and last (of food, of chemicals, of energy, of experiences, of TV ads, of gallons of gas, of information, of sound bites), then Dodds, you and some of the others who've replied suggest that the answer is to find a better way to consume (after producing) our energy. You can't demean the view that we are consumption hogs, suggest that you are doing all you can as individuals, but then say we need to find better ways to find the energy to consume. The thrust of your argument is to say that nuclear can meet our consumption needs. But you leave "needs" unexamined. I view it, in a different way, that we should begin by thinking about how consumption became such a guiding philosophy of life for you and for our western cultures in the first place so that we might recognize alternatives. (I'd like to quote Thoreau here, but won't, since he'd probably be misinterpreted as preaching giving up all possessions, when he was more faithfully recommending moderation with awareness of ecological conditions.) It hasn't always been this way. It won't always be this way. Will we devote our intellectual and moral efforts into doing what we can to meet our energy "needs" (which are increasing, and redefined every day anyhow) or will we devote that effort to studying how to build a better world that can last and be habitable and non-toxic? You're avoiding the depth of the problem and criticizing those who observe it.

(Plus! and then you have to tell me how we (the West) spent decades trying to get China to take part in our system, only to come back and bitch about all the pollution they are now spewing because they are taking part in our system. But just substitute nuclear form coal, and bingo bango, everything's good.)

First, I'd be interested to know when you think humans as a species last lived in sustainable equlibrium with the rest of the planet. Probably sometime around the mesolithic, if my memory serves me correctly.

Thay may sound silly, but it does in fact illustrate a problem with any 'consume less/need less' approach; even if the entiure human race collectively decided to make do with 'the basics' we would still have an unsustainable impact on this planet. Although it seems that discussion of practicalities is verboten on this blog (or at least not seen as relevant), the problem is that if what you advocate is not practically possible, but in doing so you dismiss courses of action that are possible, you are basically saying 'do nothing'.

Now, if you are asking how can we build a better world.. that requires a longer answer than a blog post. But to do it requires either high intensity energy sources, or a much smaller human population. You can't avoid this issue.

I don't think I do avoid the problem; quite possibly the other way around. How are you going to feed, clothe, house and keep warm 9 billion people?

I'm not aware that we spent decades trying to get china into 'our system', and I certainly don't regard nuclear power as a perfect solution. And I quite resent the way you are trying to put words into my mouth.