[MCN] When consumers' climate denial kicks in

[Lance Olsen]

Excerpts : “A group of researchers, led by a UNSW sustainability scientist, have reviewed existing academic discussions on the link between wealth, economy and associated impacts, reaching a clear conclusion: technology will only get us so far when working towards sustainability - we need far-reaching lifestyle changes and different economic paradigms.

“In their review, published in Nature Communications [ OPEN ACCESS pdf ] <<https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16941-y.pdf <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16941-y.pdf>>> and entitled ‘Scientists' Warning on Affluence,’ the researchers have summarised the available evidence, identifying possible solution approaches.”

“’It's hardly ever acknowledged, but any transition towards sustainability can only be effective if technological advancements are complemented by far-reaching lifestyle changes,’ says co-author Manfred Lenzen, Professor of Sustainability Research at the University of Sydney.

"I am often asked to explain this issue at social gatherings. Usually I say that what we see or associate with our current environmental issues (cars, power, planes) is just the tip of our personal iceberg. It's all the stuff we consume and the environmental destruction embodied in that stuff that forms the iceberg's submerged part. 

“Unfortunately, once we understand this, the implications for our lifestyle are often so confronting that denial kicks in."

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Bloomberg March 19, 2019
Climate Challenge Will Be Harder Than It Seems, JPMorgan Executive Warns
CHRISTOPHER FLAVELLE 
<<https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-19/climate-challenge-harder-than-it-seems-jpmorgan-executive-warns <https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-19/climate-challenge-harder-than-it-seems-jpmorgan-executive-warns>>>

Excerpts : The world isn’t cutting carbon emissions anywhere near quickly enough, a senior executive at J.P. Morgan Asset Management <https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/0215978D:US> told clients this week -- and changing that will require far harder choices than most people realize.

The message to investors, Cembalest said, is not that cutting emissions is hopeless. Rather, it’s that the U.S. and other countries will need to accept much more sweeping – and likely politically unpopular -- changes to reach that goal.

“Reduced consumption is going to have to be a part of the equation,” Cembalest said.

“I think more sacrifices are going to be needed than people still understand.”

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PNAS first published November 7, 2019.
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1917051116 <https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1917051116>

Excerpts : The emission of greenhouse gases into Earth’s atmosphere is a by-product of modern marvels such as the production of vast amounts of energy, heating and cooling inhospitable environments to be amenable to human existence, and traveling great distances faster than our saddle-sore ancestors ever dreamed possible. 

However, these luxuries come at a price: climate changes in the form of severe droughts, extreme precipitation and temperatures, increased frequency of flooding in coastal cities, global warming, and sea-level rise (1, 2). 

This is the price we pay for the luxury of about 200 y of relatively unchecked greenhouse gas emissions.
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“Consumer expectations of ever-higher living standards were fuelled by more lenient and readily available bank lending, …. 

“Social status and identity became closely associated with consumption, in particular with the concept of luxury. 

"Identifying oneself with the good life meant being able to live beyond traditional understandings of basic needs. Debt was the price one paid for the joys of being part of a hedonistic consumer culture.”

Kenneth Dyson. The Morality of Debt. Foreign Affairs. May 3, 2015
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2015-05-03/morality-debt <https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2015-05-03/morality-debt>

=========================
The Meaning of Things : Domestic symbols and the self. Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi & Eugene Rochberg-Halton. 1981. Cambridge University Press

Excerpts : “The point is that a habit of consumption can become an end in itself, feeding on its autonomous necessity to possess more things, to control more status, to use more energy.” p. 231

“The prognosis is not very bright, given that our goals and institutions are now geared to maximize each person’s drive to consume.”

“The most basic change needed to turn things around is a change in the meaning we derive from possession of goods and energy.” p. 232

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Consumer demand - Definition - Economics Online ... <https://www.economicsonline.co.uk/Competitive_markets/Consumer_demand.html>
www.economicsonline.co.uk › Competitive_markets <https://www.economicsonline.co.uk/Competitive_markets/Consumer_demand.html>
Consumer demand is the willingness and ability of consumers to purchase a quantity of products in a given period of time, or at a given point in time.
Demand Definition - Investopedia <https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/demand.asp>
www.investopedia.com › Economics › Microeconomics <https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/demand.asp>
Jun 25, 2019 - Demand is an economic principle that describes consumer ... Market demand is the total quantity demanded across all consumers in a market ...

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“The ecological systems upon which humans rely for life support are in crisis, and human behavior is the root cause.”
 
Elise Amel, Christie Manning, Britain Scott, Susan Koger

Beyond the Roots of Human Inaction. Science 21 April 2017

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"The big challenge is still to deliver emissions reductions at the pace and scale needed, especially in a world where economies are driven by consumption.”

Sonja van Renssen.The inconvenient truth of failed climate policies. 
Nature Climate Change  MAY 2018
<<https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0155-4>> 
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The Story of Stuff
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GorqroigqM <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GorqroigqM>

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From Energy Transition to Energy Reduction <https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-05-20/from-energy-transition-to-energy-reduction/>
By Chris Smaje
Excerpt : My request to those working in the renewable energy industry is to ask themselves before undertaking any new project: “Will this help people to live a lower energy lifestyle than they previously did?” – which, regrettably, is not something we can say of the low carbon energy installed globally to date. If they can’t answer yes to the question, I’d request they dump the project and seek another one. It’s urgent.

<<https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-05-20/from-energy-transition-to-energy-reduction/ <https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-05-20/from-energy-transition-to-energy-reduction/>>>2020

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“What we are witnessing is a temper tantrum against the mere suggestion that there are limits to what we can consume.” 

Naomi Klein
<<https://theintercept.com/2019/09/15/trump-straws-plastic/>>

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“The American way of life is not negotiable.”

George H. W. Bush. 1992

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"We are not able even to think adequately about the behavior that is at the annihilating edge."

R. D. Laing, M.D. Introduction, The Politics of Experience. 
1967, New York. Pantheon Books, a division of Random House

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It's too easy for consumers to blame the corporations for the climate crisis, when we subsidize them every time we buy what they’re selling. At the same time, corporate policy does matter, so corporations can’t pin the blame entirely on consumers. 
 
This buck stops everywhere.

<<https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/06/25/caught-in-a-trap-of-our-own-making-climate-change-blame-and-denial/ <https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/06/25/caught-in-a-trap-of-our-own-making-climate-change-blame-and-denial/>>>2020
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"The biosphere -- this thin film of air and water and soil and life no deeper than ten miles, or one four-hundredth of the earth's radius  -- is now the setting of the uncertain history of man."

“Man must learn to see himself in his true place and proportion in the biosphere.”

The Editors, Scientific American. Foreword to The Biosphere, the book version of Scientific American’s September 1970 special issue on The Biosphere.
 

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