The Conundrum of Consumption
=============================
Wolran Kim
December 2012
Author, Alan Thein Durning (1964~) is the founder and executive director of the Sightline Institute (formerly Northwest Environment Watch) which focuses on promoting sustainable environmental policy for the Northwest region. He was born and raised in Seattle but attended Oberlin College during the mid-1980s. He worked as a researcher at the Worldwatch Institute in Washington D.C. from 1986 to 1993. He has written a number of books and articles, among them, How Much Is Enough?: The Consumer Society and the Future of the Earth.
This title, The Conundrum of Consumption, asks us about the subject, need, and the ancillary consequences of consumption. Consumption refers to the act of spending things such as money, goods, time, and effort, and people’s lives are made with the choice of these acts. There is no free moment from consumption in modern everyday life. Industrialized and mass-produced consumption give us a more convenient life, and the propensity to consume accelerates rather than decelerates. This culture of consumption is followed by many evil effects, and the author is sounding an alarm about destroying the natural environment.
This article is written in 1992. There were some special historical occurrences in this time: Iraq invades Kuwait leading to the Gulf War in 1990, the Cold War ends as the USSR dissolves in 1991, Los Angeles riots result in $1 billion in damage, and Hurricane Andrew causes $26 billion in damage to Florida in 1992. As the American economy matured in the 20th century, however, the freewheeling business mogul lost luster as an American ideal. The technological revolution of the 1980s and 1990s brought a new entrepreneurial culture that echoes the age of tycoons.
The author’s intended audience is ordinary people who consume in their everyday lives. His criticism of economic priorities in “The Conundrum of Consumption” gives readers a better awareness of cultural and economic change that might need to take a place in the future. The challenge given to readers is to take these ideas and expand on them to make a more beneficial economic system for our natural environment.
Durning’s article makes us think of the relationship between the habits of lifestyle, consumer culture, success, ego satisfaction, and happiness. According to the author, our consumption which is activated much more than people’s demands, needs desirable criteria for the future of our generations and the planet. The consumption culture is not made overnight and the author’s proposal would be an opportunity to move toward positive results rather than more negative results that come from concentrating only on current satisfaction.
Durning’s major concerns are over population and consumption. Durning believes the consumer behavior and the harmful effects of consumption are destroying the world’s natural environment. He discusses that consuming goods has become the way of life, and our appetites to live the American Dream have taken a toll on the earth’s natural environment. He suggests the earth’s sustainability depends on the reduction of consumption levels and realizing that materialistic things do not define our happiness. Better economic societies have more consumption, but psychological evidence shows that the relationship between consumption and personal happiness is weak. He says we need to address the problem of consumption because it is harming our natural environment. Earth-justice is devoted to protecting the planet for us and for future generations to come.
He asserts that the society born in the United States into the 1920s has moved far beyond American borders and it has in a way become harmful to the environment. Durning suggests that we should curb our consumption and give up our fixation on money and material goods. Durning provides many examples within his writings of producers trying to capitalize on “green consumption,” the attempt by producers to convince potential customers that buying a specific product will benefit the earth. Green, a symbol of life, good health, and vigor, is also a color that reminds us of hope.
All around the globe, the word is associated with energy conservation and environmental protection. The term “green consumption” covers a full range of activities in both production and consumption fields, including green products, the recycling of materials, the efficient use of energy, the protection of the environment, and the preservation of species. Specialists of environmental protection have agreed upon a definition of green consumption as the five “Rs”: reduce, reevaluate, reuse, recycle, and rescue. In China, however, another definition emerged in the new millennium.
Can we consume our way out of our environmental predicament? Consumption requires more natural resources, and creates more waste, pollution, and spending, which powers the economy. The consumer society’s exploitation of resources threatens to exhaust, poison, or unalterably disfigure forests, soil, water, and air. Durning emphasizes the economic imbalance in American industrialized lifestyle. He thinks that the way we have been living is doing more harm than good. “Opinion surveys in the world’s two largest countries – Japan and The United States – show that people increasingly measure success by the amount they consume.” He believes that as a whole our economic priorities are not balanced. The emphasis made on our consumption of goods is placed too high on our priority list.
When I visited Korea, I realized that they do not use a garbage disposal in the kitchen because it is illegal to prevent water pollution. Also, they have very strict laws in their recycling system because it is such a small land with a high population. Without a disposal in the sink, washing dishes becomes a filthy job when having to separate all the leftover food with weight their mind. I never thought seriously about the relationship between convenience of lifestyle and environmental pollution before. We use too much disposable containers, cups, forks, spoons, and bags, more than we really need. We are getting lazier and idler, and then nature pays the price instead of human beings.
The time that it takes for products like plastic, Styrofoam, and wood to go back into the natural environment is 10 to 500 years. These disposables need enormous resources: 250 paper cups are made from one whole tree. American people have unique customs of consumption: The sales of the holiday season between Thanksgiving and Christmas are over 25% of total annual sales. The Back to School season, Valentine’s Day, and Halloween Day all seem like they are made for consumption. American consumption has characteristics such as sensitivity, practicality, compatibility, collection, individuality, uniqueness, differentiation, and enthusiastic attitudes for new items.
America was established from a venture capital, and its pioneer spirit shows through the consumption culture with a pile of promotional and discount coupons in the mailbox every day. Consumption is surely the lubricant of the economy; however, the global economic downturn might include irrational consumption besides a leverage problem, such as the war in Iraq, Wall Street’s shock, and the bankruptcy of the Lehman Brothers.
American biologist and naturalist, E. O. Wilson, emphasized in The Bottleneck that we need to find ways to transfer appropriate technology and wealth to those who are severely impoverished, so that they can enjoy a graceful and sustainable standard of living. A little electricity, pure water, and access to health care and family planning would go a long way to ease the lives of billions. Durning concludes as, “Scientific advances, better laws, restructured industries, new treaties, environmental taxes, grassroots campaigns—all can help us get there. But ultimately, sustaining the environment that sustains humanity will require that we change our values.” I agree that modern propensity of consumption needs a break and a bottleneck point to slow it down and to remedy any abuses.
=============================
Wolran Kim
December 2012
Author, Alan Thein Durning (1964~) is the founder and executive director of the Sightline Institute (formerly Northwest Environment Watch) which focuses on promoting sustainable environmental policy for the Northwest region. He was born and raised in Seattle but attended Oberlin College during the mid-1980s. He worked as a researcher at the Worldwatch Institute in Washington D.C. from 1986 to 1993. He has written a number of books and articles, among them, How Much Is Enough?: The Consumer Society and the Future of the Earth.
This title, The Conundrum of Consumption, asks us about the subject, need, and the ancillary consequences of consumption. Consumption refers to the act of spending things such as money, goods, time, and effort, and people’s lives are made with the choice of these acts. There is no free moment from consumption in modern everyday life. Industrialized and mass-produced consumption give us a more convenient life, and the propensity to consume accelerates rather than decelerates. This culture of consumption is followed by many evil effects, and the author is sounding an alarm about destroying the natural environment.
This article is written in 1992. There were some special historical occurrences in this time: Iraq invades Kuwait leading to the Gulf War in 1990, the Cold War ends as the USSR dissolves in 1991, Los Angeles riots result in $1 billion in damage, and Hurricane Andrew causes $26 billion in damage to Florida in 1992. As the American economy matured in the 20th century, however, the freewheeling business mogul lost luster as an American ideal. The technological revolution of the 1980s and 1990s brought a new entrepreneurial culture that echoes the age of tycoons.
The author’s intended audience is ordinary people who consume in their everyday lives. His criticism of economic priorities in “The Conundrum of Consumption” gives readers a better awareness of cultural and economic change that might need to take a place in the future. The challenge given to readers is to take these ideas and expand on them to make a more beneficial economic system for our natural environment.
Durning’s article makes us think of the relationship between the habits of lifestyle, consumer culture, success, ego satisfaction, and happiness. According to the author, our consumption which is activated much more than people’s demands, needs desirable criteria for the future of our generations and the planet. The consumption culture is not made overnight and the author’s proposal would be an opportunity to move toward positive results rather than more negative results that come from concentrating only on current satisfaction.
Durning’s major concerns are over population and consumption. Durning believes the consumer behavior and the harmful effects of consumption are destroying the world’s natural environment. He discusses that consuming goods has become the way of life, and our appetites to live the American Dream have taken a toll on the earth’s natural environment. He suggests the earth’s sustainability depends on the reduction of consumption levels and realizing that materialistic things do not define our happiness. Better economic societies have more consumption, but psychological evidence shows that the relationship between consumption and personal happiness is weak. He says we need to address the problem of consumption because it is harming our natural environment. Earth-justice is devoted to protecting the planet for us and for future generations to come.
He asserts that the society born in the United States into the 1920s has moved far beyond American borders and it has in a way become harmful to the environment. Durning suggests that we should curb our consumption and give up our fixation on money and material goods. Durning provides many examples within his writings of producers trying to capitalize on “green consumption,” the attempt by producers to convince potential customers that buying a specific product will benefit the earth. Green, a symbol of life, good health, and vigor, is also a color that reminds us of hope.
All around the globe, the word is associated with energy conservation and environmental protection. The term “green consumption” covers a full range of activities in both production and consumption fields, including green products, the recycling of materials, the efficient use of energy, the protection of the environment, and the preservation of species. Specialists of environmental protection have agreed upon a definition of green consumption as the five “Rs”: reduce, reevaluate, reuse, recycle, and rescue. In China, however, another definition emerged in the new millennium.
Can we consume our way out of our environmental predicament? Consumption requires more natural resources, and creates more waste, pollution, and spending, which powers the economy. The consumer society’s exploitation of resources threatens to exhaust, poison, or unalterably disfigure forests, soil, water, and air. Durning emphasizes the economic imbalance in American industrialized lifestyle. He thinks that the way we have been living is doing more harm than good. “Opinion surveys in the world’s two largest countries – Japan and The United States – show that people increasingly measure success by the amount they consume.” He believes that as a whole our economic priorities are not balanced. The emphasis made on our consumption of goods is placed too high on our priority list.
When I visited Korea, I realized that they do not use a garbage disposal in the kitchen because it is illegal to prevent water pollution. Also, they have very strict laws in their recycling system because it is such a small land with a high population. Without a disposal in the sink, washing dishes becomes a filthy job when having to separate all the leftover food with weight their mind. I never thought seriously about the relationship between convenience of lifestyle and environmental pollution before. We use too much disposable containers, cups, forks, spoons, and bags, more than we really need. We are getting lazier and idler, and then nature pays the price instead of human beings.
The time that it takes for products like plastic, Styrofoam, and wood to go back into the natural environment is 10 to 500 years. These disposables need enormous resources: 250 paper cups are made from one whole tree. American people have unique customs of consumption: The sales of the holiday season between Thanksgiving and Christmas are over 25% of total annual sales. The Back to School season, Valentine’s Day, and Halloween Day all seem like they are made for consumption. American consumption has characteristics such as sensitivity, practicality, compatibility, collection, individuality, uniqueness, differentiation, and enthusiastic attitudes for new items.
America was established from a venture capital, and its pioneer spirit shows through the consumption culture with a pile of promotional and discount coupons in the mailbox every day. Consumption is surely the lubricant of the economy; however, the global economic downturn might include irrational consumption besides a leverage problem, such as the war in Iraq, Wall Street’s shock, and the bankruptcy of the Lehman Brothers.
American biologist and naturalist, E. O. Wilson, emphasized in The Bottleneck that we need to find ways to transfer appropriate technology and wealth to those who are severely impoverished, so that they can enjoy a graceful and sustainable standard of living. A little electricity, pure water, and access to health care and family planning would go a long way to ease the lives of billions. Durning concludes as, “Scientific advances, better laws, restructured industries, new treaties, environmental taxes, grassroots campaigns—all can help us get there. But ultimately, sustaining the environment that sustains humanity will require that we change our values.” I agree that modern propensity of consumption needs a break and a bottleneck point to slow it down and to remedy any abuses.