Guardian UK: Eat, drink and be miserable: the true cost of our addiction to shopping

[marmar]

Eat, drink and be miserable: the true cost of our addiction to shopping


Today it seems politically unpalatable, but soon the state will have to turn to rationing to halt hyper-frantic consumerism

Madeleine Bunting
Monday December 3, 2007
The Guardian


There's a pamphlet scudding around my kitchen; it has accumulated coffee rings and fingerprints, but I keep rescuing it from the recycling bin with the good intention of signing up to a green tariff on electricity again. (I can't quite understand why the deal I signed up to years ago ever ended.) A good intention that has a 50-50 chance of fulfilment.

According to all the research, there are a lot of people like me: full of good intentions, deeply concerned about climate change and yet ineffective at translating that into their behaviour. Why? A mixture of information overload, time poverty (a much overlooked aspect of environmental sustainability is how much time it requires) and utter confusion about what "doing one's bit" entails. Plus the killer equation: what sacrifices is one prepared to tolerate when they are pathetically insignificant compared with Chinese power stations going up at the rate of two a week?

Is it enough to have halved family meat consumption, have foregone flights for several sun-starved years and arranged a life in which habits of cycling to work and walking to school are routine? No, it's just scratching at the surface. If the developed world is to implement the 80% cuts in carbon emissions the UN demands as part of the talks beginning in Bali today, the lives of our children will have to be dramatically different from everything we are currently bringing them up to expect.

In 2006, each person in the UK produced 9.6 tonnes of C02, and that needs to come down to less than three tonnes by 2050. That is the non-negotiable on which there is widespread consensus among environmental scientists and economists. The much more controversial issue is whether that means consuming less or just consuming differently. In other words, does sustainability require an entire recasting of the good life, or can we continue on our way, our aspirations to comfortable homes, nice cars and fancy holidays unchecked, delivered by green techno-wizardry?

Government environmental policy is entirely built around the latter. But the problem is that there is no evidence that techno-wizardry can deliver the cuts in carbon emissions needed. In the past increased energy efficiency has only driven up aspirations: "If my fridge is more energy efficient and thus cheaper to run, perhaps I'll now buy that air conditioning unit for these new hot summers." Technological innovation is an important part of the solution, but it won't be enough. Wizardry it is rightly nicknamed: there is an irrational faith at the heart of government thinking. ....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2220838,00.html