Reduce Consumption to Address Climate

by Chuck Lynd

Most of us shop with little awareness of the supply chains that support the consumer goods we buy. Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI.com) has deconstructed supply chains and concluded that, on average, the items we purchase include about 42% embedded CO2 .  The moral to this research story is that our consumption must be curtailed. Why? 70% of our economy is driven by consumer goods, yet this common sense strategy to reduce CO2 and slow global warming is rarely considered.

Instead we are told that we must transition to renewable energy sources and away from burning carbon rich fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas. We now know that we’ve been creating the greenhouse effect since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Moving to cleaner energy is without doubt a laudable goal but achieving it by 2030 or even 2050 will not solve the climate crisis.

In reality we have simply added renewables to an “all of the above” energy mix.  This amounts to “greenwashing” because it allow us to continue business as usual when scientists are clear that we are on a steadily warming trajectory that is leading to an environment unfit for human civilization.

We need a new narrative. Let’s focus instead on our consumer culture and the global supply chains from mining operations to production, manufacturing, marketing and distribution systems. Why?  Consumption and the comforts we enjoy are the driving forces underlying the disruption of habitats on land and seas.

For example, Industrial agriculture is destroying rainforests to plant corn and soy beans to feed cattle in feedlots to ensure a steady supply of inexpensive beef to fast food chains around the world. As industrial ag denudes our soils, industrial fishing disrupts the ecology of marine life (and many local fishing industries) while delivering seafood to consumers on demand. Retail industries, like “Fast Fashion,” produce cheap clothing in supply chains that embed huge amounts of CO2 to deliver goods that are soon thrown away.

The result of our wasteful consumer culture? We humans are sleepwalking into the Sixth Mass Extinction of species on earth. It’s not just about us. It’s about all the plants, animals, and fungi that share the earth with us.

Fossil fuels power the industries that have created the global consumer economy. The remarkable success of these systems in delivering goods and services to ever more people has blinded us to the environmental impacts rippling through the supply chains.

Fortunately, evolution is not linear. We are not doomed to suffer the consequences of overheating the planet.  Climate change is not a so called “wicked” problem requiring AI and Big Data to tackle the evolution of complex systems.

Global warming is reversible.  The seeds have been planted and the fruits are maturing.  Solutions to the broken systems we have created are emerging from the bottom up, both in nature and in our societies.

Paul Hawken’s research teams at Drawdown.org and Regeneration.org have identified real solutions that are emerging to address the degradation of our “ecosystem services.” Richard Heinberg’s team at the Post Carbon Institute has similarly curated initiatives around the world to support efficient use of energy systems and solutions. See Resiience.org. Kenny Ausubel, founder of Bioneers.org, has advanced nature based solutions to restore and rewild ecosystems.

Our current “zombie” neoliberal economists pushing for “growth” while ignoring the environmental costs, along with the politicians owned by corporate interests, may well succeed in pushing too many tipping points and lead us to extinction.  As noted above, evolution is not linear. There is much evidence that we humans are waking up and creating systemic changes required for the transition to an ecological culture.

References

Numerous visionaries have anticipated the critical transition we must make to create a livable future.  Here are a baker’s dozen thought leaders and visionaries. Use your favorite search engine to brush up on these authors via podcasts, YouTube presentations, and books.

> Thomas Berry (Technozoic Era to the EcoZoic Era)
> Joanna Macy (The Great Turning and Active Hope)
> David Korten (Ecological Civilization: From Emergency to Emergence)
> Helena Norberg Hodge (Local Futures, Economics of Happiness)
> Riane Eisler (Partnership Way)
> Duane Elgin (Choosing Earth: Humanity’s Great Transition to a Mature Civilization)
Lynn Margulis (The Gaia Hypothesis, Film/Symbiotic Earth)
> Vicki Robin (Your Money or Your Life, Podcast: What Could Possibly Go Right?)
> Roger Briggs (Planetary Project)
> Douglas Rushkoff  (Team Human, Life Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It Back)
> Richard Flyer (Birthing the Symbiotic Age)
> Rob Hopkins (Transition Handbook, From What Is to What If)
> Annie Leonard (Story of Stuff films; Lifecycle of Materials Goods)

There is no reason to despair, and there is every reason to become part of the movement to heal our ecosystems and ourselves in the process. As Naomi Klein’s book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism Versus the Climate, reminds us: “when everything changes, we need everyone to engage.”