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Page added on July 7, 2016
In Conversation: Consumerism After Fossil Fuels
The creation of the consumer economy—a complex, interconnected system of institutions, goals, rewards, and punishments—was one of the great social projects of the twentieth century, when energy was cheaply abundant and two of our chief economic problems were overproduction and unemployment. The transition to 100% renewable energy raises some key questions for the future of consumer culture and consumption-based economies. For instance:
- What are the prospects of the consumer economy in this century, when we are changing our energy sources and also dealing with climate change, water scarcity, resource depletion, and overpopulation?
- How will we create jobs if we’re not constantly expanding consumption?
- What’s the future of advertising?
- What are some of the best practices related to reducing consumption and waste that can serve as models as we move forward?
Live Discussion: Consumerism After Fossil Fuels
On June 30, 2016, Asher Miller and Richard Heinberg from Post Carbon Institute were joined by Annie Leonard (Greenpeace and Story of Stuff) and John de Graaf (Take Back Your Time, The Happiness Alliance) for a lively, free-flowing conversation about what the future of consumerism might look like in a 100% renewable energy future. The recording can be viewed below.
Over the coming weeks, we’ll be hosting discussions with experts in various sectors to explore what the post fossil-fuel future. You can sign up for upcoming discussions by visiting OurRenewableFuture.org.
6 Comments on "In Conversation: Consumerism After Fossil Fuels"
Apneaman on Thu, 7th Jul 2016 7:28 pm
“Consumerism After Fossil Fuels”
Rather a oxymoronic statement don’t cha think?
Life after death
Born again virgin
Reasonably woman
MSN Fanboy on Thu, 7th Jul 2016 7:38 pm
Reasonably Woman
LOL
DMyers on Thu, 7th Jul 2016 9:53 pm
What I consider consumerism is more aptly called, squanderism and irrational acquisitionism.
Bring out something big, shiny, fast, loud, and subtly shaped like a sexual organ. Will people like it?
Consumerism has been a campaign of sales expansions focused on the smallness of humanity. Envy, vanity, and free-ridism, for example are exploited repeatedly, without shame, seducing the consumer into a closing posture.
In other words, consumerism elevated our weakest. most despicable and counterproductive tendencies to the status of our guiding lights. This came at the cost of other options, but we were too busy gut-reacting to give those any thought.
Accentuating one’s worst traits is counter-evolutionary by definition. The only reasonable conclusion is that consumerism leads to extinction.
joe on Fri, 8th Jul 2016 2:26 am
The post war phenomenon of oil driven mega malls is already under threat, except in major urban centres. Consumerism without cheap oil? No.
Davy on Fri, 8th Jul 2016 6:58 am
I remember when I was getting through high school marketing was the big thing. In college I took some marketing classes as part of my finance major. I learned about the human psychology and statistical side of marketing. Marketing is the study of consumerism and consumerism is the satisfaction of wants. In today’s fossil fuel world those wants are extreme. We are living far past our consumption carrying capacity.
This is unsustainable and lacks resilience. The unsustainable is obvious. The lack of resilience is obvious too but there is a deeper danger people fail to recognize. Many people think we can degrowth consumerism. They think we can lower consumption by lowering discretionary spending. The problem becomes one of economics. Economies of scale and velocity of money become entangled in the whole issue of consumerism.
Many products have dual uses. Many products are made up of parts that can be used elsewhere in products or equipment that may be vital to our global system. It is economies of scale that allow globalism. Supply and demand in a global system does not work with managed consumerism. Human wants are fickle. We saw how communism failed and capitalism won. Yet capitalism is an end game in a world of limits with population overshoot.
We must lower consumption in an effort to prepare for shocks and disruptions in the pipeline. The problem with this nice sounding idea of sacrifice for a common good is it means economic collapse. Economic collapse means dislocation from decay and deflation. We will see bankruptcies and homelessness. Communities will be destroyed. The system will further corrupt and power will further concentrate as it has done historically as systems begin to fail. So something as innocent as consumerism today is in reality vital to the global system and cannot reform. Any effort to diminish consumerisms growth will take down the global economy. We can have recessions but we will not survive a depression.
The coming depression imbedded in our collapse process will end consumerism. This end is necessary per natural law. It must happen and it will happen. There is nothing that can stop the shattering of our systematic place our modern civilization is in. Like any ecosystems we have gone far past our carrying capacity of population, consumption, and ecological position. When all three are in overshoot there is no hope.
Modern man continues to barrel on with political capitalism with a cake and eat it mentality. We want to degrowth and transition to the sustainable but we want to do it with prosperity and development. There is no thought of discarding markets and corrupted democracy. There is no talk of returning to localism in a community based arrangement. There is no plan B nor an ejection seat of safety if there is failure. We are exhausting our options and the most important one is time.
If our collapse timeline is decadal then now is the time to pull the plug on capitalism and political democracy. We need to force a change now into a radically different living arrangement. This living arrangement would be crisis based. Consumerism must end in this type of arrangement. Many lives will be lost and likely quickly. This is unavoidable and will make a worse die off less likely. This is theory and not reality. The reality is an adaptive self-organizing system that will go through a process of collapse without internal direction. We are not going to change this system from within. Nature will change it from the outside. Once our global system goes into crisis change will coalesce. It will have to wade through dysfunction and the irrational. We will have irrational abandonment of the good and retention of the bad. We will have irrational policies from the top. The herd will lurch this way and that without direction because it has not been given direction.
You, yourself, in your local can find direction and prepare. I am buying everything I can for my doom and prep effort. These are high quality products with a future. I am investing nothing in the markets. I budget something every month for doom and prep. While consumerism is strong and products are available and at a reasonable price buy items with a future. Be a modern equivalent of a monastery of the dark ages. Buy books with vital knowledge. Buy equipment for your food needs. Buy quality cloths that will last years and equipment to repair them. Outfit your shelter with solar, lights, and basics of refrigeration. Invest in a few bikes and with what is needed to repair them. Buy tools and hardware. Stock up on vital supplies. I could go on and on. Consumerism is killing us true but it can give you a chance at life later if you embrace it in preparation for when consumerism is past history.
penury on Fri, 8th Jul 2016 10:05 am
Consumerism post fossil fuels? I think we used to call that poverty and want. The world today is awash in unnecessary,unneeded and basically intelligence destroying distractions as collapse continues most of these toys will disappear and things which are vital to survival will become unavailable.The knowledge necessary for survival is being lost, due to the dependence on information storage in the cloud not the brain. Inter personal relationships are dying among the young device addicts Davy your advice is great and will probably be followed by the 50 or so people who can read and understand it.