This is at WPVE, a branch of NPR. Maybe we can start by stopping them from selling products?
Can we address climate change without addressing consumerism?
Is it possible to address climate change without also addressing consumerism? A listener in Muncie wanted to know.
It’s no secret that the less stuff you buy, the less energy and materials are needed to make that new product — and that’s good for the climate. There are other kinds of consumption too — like how much electricity we use in our homes or how much gas we use to fuel our cars.
Amrou Awaysheh is the executive director of the Indiana University Business Sustainability and Innovation Lab. He said many businesses have set aggressive goals to lower their carbon emissions and more companies are making consumers aware of what they’re doing for the climate.
That means consumers can make a positive impact by “voting with their dollars.”
“If they choose to buy products and goods from a company that doesn’t care about the environment, or doesn’t care where the raw materials are extracted from — then that’s on them,” Awaysheh said.
Or, those companies that say they care about Hotcoldwetdry can stop selling products. And the climate cultists can stop buying stuff, stop using electricity, stop using fossil fuels.
Zach Schrank is a sociologist at Indiana University South Bend and teaches classes on the intersection between the environment and consumption. He said there are other things you can do to reduce your impact — like buying things used and sharing items with your neighbors.
But Schrank said just by being in an affluent society like the U.S., we consume more and we don’t always have control over that.
Sounds like an excuse to blow off walking the talk.
“It is the responsibility of the entities that are making these things and the governments that are regulating the production and sales of these things, so that consumers have good options,” he said.
So, basically putting the government in charge of the economy? Huh.
Buy it, use it, throw it away. Lather, rinse, repeat.
There’s always been this undercurrent of thought, even a feeling, that being wasteful, gluttonous, acquisitive was somehow wrong. We’ve been able to overcome that feeling. We now feel entitled to get what we want, when we want it! I want, I want, I want! We have the Chinese make and ship plastic trinkets to us daily.
We should also recognize that this is largely a Western culture, URBAN/SUBURBAN issue. Rural, more self-reliant folk live a simpler life, largely out of necessity.
Teach tell us about how the quality of your life improved after you bought a new sound bar.
Teach typically you blame Joe Biden BIG GOVERNMENT when there are problems
But also demand Biden fix free market capitalism when you think not working out for you.
Fossil fuel prices are rising profits at record highs because……….. Biden wants to cram EVs down ykur throat until you swallow?
You want BIG GIVERNMENT to do something to reduce the price gouging and cut into the profits in our capitalistic economy? You want the Keystone XL pipeline to take private property by eminent domain to benefit a foreign oil company? The Jeystone XL would enable to increase sales of Nirth American oil to offshore countries. Is that going to be good for Americsn consumers ?
Johnny-the Keystone pipeline is a four-step process. Phases one through three have been completed and have been up and running for years. For some reason only liberals are able to discern, phases 1-3 were just fine, but phase 4 was going to cause some kind of disaster. Of course that viewpoint is anything but logical, which means you’d probably be able to explain it to us.
But maybe the best of all-“fuel prices….record profits…. because Biden wants to cram EVs down your throats.” You have evidence otherwise?
the main pillar of communism is central control of everything. It is unalterably tied to the idea that government appointed people know what is best for you. They know how many children you should have (China). They know how many tons of steel a whole nation should produce (USSR, China, etc), and the communists here in the USA have often trotted out the line that you don’t know what to spend your own money on:
No one Needs an SUV.
No one NEEDS an AR-15.
No one NEEDS 15 choices of deodorant or shampoo.
No one NEEDS meat in their diet.
No one NEEDS more than 1.6 gallons to flush their toilets.
Communists always know what is best for you regardless of how often they are wrong about everything. The whole point of communism is controlling the means of production for the benefit of those in power. I am always amazed at how many surfs die under communist government (over 100 million in the last century) all the while thinking that they would be the beneficiaries of the new distribution of wealth.
Same old communists, saying the same old communist propaganda. The word “consumerist” is all about trying to convince ordinary people that buying stuff they want in the free market is somehow a sin.
Excellent summation, sir.
Couldn’t have said it better.
FJB