Today is Blog Action Day, the annual collective event which draws together thousands of websites and millions of readers around a single topic. This year’s discussion centers on climate change, which will also be front-and-center in Copenhagen this December as world leaders debate the next generation of binding international climate protocols.
The ramifications of climate change are sweeping, its causes have proven complex, and solutions will be grossly expensive. This made for emotional debate. But if the prevailing scientific opinion holds true — that human-generated carbon emissions are driving climate change — we’ll have to come to grips with a truth which is embarrassing as it is inconvenient: We are literally shopping our planet to death.
Codewords for Consumerism
It’s the developed nations doing most of the polluting. According to a Pew Center study (PDF download), about 50 percent of all greenhouse gas emission come from the richest countries. That means people in developed nations are punching far beyond their weight in terms of population.
Add to this a significant percentage of the pollution from developing economies: Brazil, China, India, and Mexico. These are the industrial centers churning out all the inexpensive furnishings, cars, plasma TVs, appliances, computers, toys, tools, and clothing for the developed world. Virtually everything you buy in a big box discount store comes from one of these countries, and you are personally responsible for the carbon footprint of these products.
So the term “developed nations” is really code for “consumer societies.” Consumerism is the root of climate crisis.
Click to enlarge
Don’t wait for rescue
We can legislate. We can cap carbon emissions. Global problems require negotiated global solutions, so agreements such as the one which may come out of the Copenhagen conference are essential to establishing ground rules for progress.
But merely transferring the Sins of Emission from wealthy nations to poorer ones in trading schemes won’t produce the systematic change necessary to reduce actual greenhouse gas levels. Nor will new technologies — even if they could be developed, financed, and deployed quickly enough to make a difference.
What must happen is up to us. It requires that we rethink the way we live, and why it is that we in developed nations consume such a disproportionate share of the Earth’s resources.
Take action
The single most important thing we can do to help the planet and each other is to cease consuming thoughtlessly. We have to break free from the idea that if we want better lives for our children and grandchildren, they must have more stuff than we do, drive bigger cars, live in bigger houses, and eat richer foods.
There’s a difference between freedom from want and wanton excess. If we can’t return some balance to the way we conduct modern life, international concordats, conventions, and protocols won’t make a bit of difference.
Ready to get started on a simpler, healthier, greener way of living? Here are 10 places to begin:
- Buy things that last, and learn to take care of them
- Distribute non-essential possessions to people in need
- Learn to grow and prepare at least some of your own food
- Walk, ride a bike, or use public transportation whenever possible
- Consider moving closer to where you work
- Live in a home appropriately sized to the number of its occupants
- Eat less meat or go vegetarian
- Replace the chemicals in your life with natural, less toxic alternatives
- Reduce your energy and water use through discipline and efficient appliances
- Remember that of the Three Rs (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle), Reduce matters most
What could you add to this list? Please share your best and brightest ideas with other More Minimal readers in our Comments section!
Checkout line image by Ville Säävuori / CC BY-SA 2.0
