Excess Disguised as Less
Thanks, once again, to Larry O of Entermodal for passing along a solid article:
This one, penned by Akiko Busch, asks that we look closely at our consumer purchasing habits, especially those of us who consider ourselves ‘green’. Could it be that we’re fooling ourselves into thinking we’ve actually changed our behavior? Is our addiction somehow uglier than those who aren’t ’sustainability-minded’ because ours is so much more hypocritical?
From the article: “Few of us will deny that this is a time of consumer excess and that the cycle of bloated consumption and grievous waste is part of our national profile. But as individuals, we are unwilling to cop to our own participation in it. The health of our economy might depend upon our constant consumption of goods, but it’s not an identity we much like. It implicates us in something—not exactly a conspiracy, but at least a kind of collusion between voracious consumer appetite and the marketers who depend upon it. As the writer and conservationist Wendell Berry describes the situation: “It is the fault of an economy that is wasteful from top to bottom—a symbiosis of unlimited greed at the top and a lazy, passive, and self-indulgent consumptiveness at the bottom—and all of us are involved in it.” “
It’s a nice read. I urge you to take two minutes out of your day to give it a scan.
Technorati Tags: consumerism, wal-mart
Tags: commerce
I’m always surprised when discussing green, and all things thereof, that more attention isn’t paid to buying used vs new. It seems, to me at least, to be a nice middle point. Especially things like cars. I mean, your money can go a lot further for a three year old car vs a new one and lately three year old cars come with a warranty too.
Amen to this, Kirk. Buying used is even better than buying recycled. REUSE is second to REDUCE in the holy R trinity. And, of course, by reusing our cars, we do reduce the number of new cars required to satiate the need. Unfortunately, cars are like new clothes and many of us feel that as soon as our car has gone out of style, we need to chuck it and grab the newest, latest. Aside from style updates, I cannot spot a significant advance in automotive technology over the past 20 years. The brand new cars are very little changed over those produced in 1987, offer no extra gas mileage or extra power and minimally improved safety features (side air bags).