CONSUMPTION BEHAVIOR AND THE ENVIRONMENT

1. 1 CONSUMPTION BEHAVIOR AND THE ENVIRONMENT HOW OUR CONSUMPTION PATTERNS AFFECT NATURE

2. 2 Quote of the Week: �The individual serves the industrial system not by supplying it with savings and the resulting capital; he serves it by consuming its products.�[John Kenneth Galbraith, The New Industrial State]

3. 3 �Inequality has the natural and necessary effect, under the present circumstances, of materializing our upper class, vulgarizing our middle class, and brutalizing our lower class.� [Matthew Arnold, English poet and the foremost literary critic of Victorian times. He lived from 1822-1888].

4. 4 THE GREAT DEBATE CONCERNING THE �CAUSES� OF ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION Paul Ehrlich Population Affluence (consumption) Technology Barry Commoner Technology The economic system

5. 5 The role of the economic system as a plausible �cause� seems to have diminished, and now the expressions of concern focus on: Population Technology Consumption

6. 6 We will focus on population growth next week. And the reading for this week by Richard Benedick certainly leads into that discussion. But, this week we will be concerned with the levels of consumption of �stuff� as a �cause� of environmental degradation.

7. 7 There are four distinct views of the issue of consumption as it affects the environment: 1. The view of physics 2. The view of economics 3. The view ecology 4. The view of sociology

8. 8 The View of Physics Matter and energy are not really consumed (used up). Rather they are transformed and this transformation entails scattering and dissipation (entropy). Think of the sun and its energy Think of a tree that is cut down

9. 9 The View of Economics Consumption entails the acquisition of goods and services, the use of which provides benefit streams into the future Consumers exchange one form of a benefit stream (money) for another benefit stream (the benefits that will arise from having and using the thing consumed)

10. 10 The View of Ecology Consumption entails the transformation of pieces of an ecosystem into stuff�the bulk of which will reappear in the ecosystem in another form (garbage in a landfill, smoke up a chimney, gunk in a river)

11. 11 The View of Sociology Consumption is a way to gain status Big house (perhaps several of them) Big car (at least 3 if not more of them) Big lawn on which one can ride a big mower (or a small tractor)

12. 12 Key Questions: When is more stuff too much stuff? Can we do more with less? Reduce Recycle Reuse When is more enough?

13. 13 The answer to these questions forces us to discuss values and norms of behavior. Why do certain things give status? Why do we care about status?

14. 14 Let�s return to our discussion of beliefs, rules, and behavior

15. 15 THINKING ABOUT BEHAVIOR

16. 16 Some observers suggest that prudential and economic arguments have been more persuasive in affecting attitudes and behavior than have moral or spiritual arguments

17. 17 But the conversation worth having is one that seeks to focus precisely on these two ways of discussing the environment The proper conversation is one that focuses on the moral and the spiritual dimension Otherwise, we end up engaged in instrumentalism about nature

18. 18 By instrumentalism we mean: Seeing nature only as a tool (an instrument) to process greenhouse gasses as in carbon sequestration by tropical forests Or as a tool (an instrument) to filter dirty water (wetlands) Or as a tool (an instrument) to provide �recreation days� Or as a tool (an instrument) to �cure cancer�

19. 19 Nature is too important, too vital to our moral and spiritual existence, to be instrumentalized in this way We must not objectify nature We must avoid anthropocentric conversations about nature

20. 20 Indeed, this brings us back to Barry Commoner�s insistence that the fundamental problem is that of the economic system Commoner insists that as long as the environmental debate is conducted in terms of the physical limits to growth rather than the MORAL purposes of growth, the instrumental logic of price and physical abundance will prevail.

21. 21 As John Kenneth Galbraith observed, we serve the modern industrial state by consuming its products. Our economic and political systems celebrate consumption�and it is this that Commoner regards as the most serious issue for the long run.

22. 22 Consumption is endogenous, just as is fertility�but that endogeneity cuts in different directions Consider the �feedback� on family size Modernization tends to encourage smaller family sizes Now consider the �feedback� on consumption behavior Modernization tends to encourage greater consumption

23. 23 Thus while we might expect population pressure to subside from continued modernization and development in the South, we can only expect consumption pressure to become ever greater Hence, population growth is indirectly serious because of the implied and inevitable consumption that will accompany that growth

24. 24 Finally, let us consider technology First what is technology? Technology is properly thought of in two regards: Technology allows us to do new things Technology allows us to do the same things more cheaply than at the present

25. 25 Technology Has Two Aspects Knowledge A technique (a tool) which is itself embodied knowledge ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ So in one respect, new technology is new knowledge put to use

26. 26 Technology Is Not InherentlyGood or Bad Polio vaccine seems good DDT helps control malaria and thus seems good Air conditioning seems good Electricity seems good The automobile seems good

27. 27 The issue therefore must concern not technology per se, but the manifestations, entailments, and implications of technology The inevitable dialectics of technology Is it good or bad? Why? The role of technology as a mediator between humans and nature And this brings us back to the central role of beliefs and behavior

28. 28 THINKING ABOUT BEHAVIOR