Shop till the planet drops?
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What's America's favorite pastime? Before you begin debating football, basketball, or baseball, consider these two factoids:
- There are 1,808 sports stadiums in the U.S.
- There are 45,827 malls and shopping centers in the U.S.
Statistically speaking, Americans love bargain hunting about 25 times more than cheering for the home team.
The shopaholics among you might be thinking just about now: Soooo...what's your point? To answer, I'll turn to the venerable social philosopher and environmentalist Murray Bookchin who, long before "green" was the popular scene, wrote of how our economic system "pits the mass of humanity against the natural world." Bookchin goes on to explain:
"Just as men are converted into commodities, so every aspect of nature is converted into a commodity, a resource to be manufactured and merchandised wantonly. ... The plundering of the human spirit by the market place is paralleled by the plundering of the earth by capital."
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The tangible reality behind Bookchin's point is this: American consumers collectively spend $8.7 trillion, accounting for 40% of the developed world's economy. To meet this demand requires the consumption of what we label "resources" at a rate that no one deems sustainable. Our insatiable hunger for new products comes at a massive global environmental cost. In the words of economist Juliet Schor: "Global consumerism devours resources like there's no tomorrow. And unless we address how much we consume, we won't succeed in averting disastrous climate change." Schor adds:
"Per capita, we're purchasing almost twice as many clothes as we did in 1991. The volume of furniture, measured in pounds, has more than doubled in just seven years. In fact, households are buying almost everything at rates far higher than a decade ago, from food to glassware to sporting goods. And all those products put carbon in the atmosphere as they are produced, shipped, used and discarded."
The answer is not just: "Stop shopping"
"Stop shopping" may be the first step but re-inventing an entire culture is a much longer journey than that. Since shopping has become such a primary component of our social lives, our task is to find new ways to replace that form of human connection. Here are 3 basic examples:
All three of these choices simultaneously reduce consumption (and disposal) while building community. Once community is built on a green foundation, we just may create the kind of movement that can dramatically re-shape how we live on this finite planet.
