Note: After a bit of a break, I am now getting back to the chapters from Carbon 350. Here is the next one. These chapters address the distractions that have befallen the climate debate and led to its ineffectiveness as an agent of change.
Will consuming less save the planet? Unfortunately, the answer is no, but that has not stopped the ideology of reduced consumption from becoming another failed climate change strategy. The mantra can be heard over and over again in the debate: “We must consume less.” “Most Americans can change their lifestyle to reduce consumption by 50% and they wouldn’t even feel it.” “If we don’t consume less, we are f*cked.” These are real quotes from comments received. Here’s the problem.
The prescription to “consume less” isn’t very clear. It is almost always a generalized mantra. “Use less. Consume less.” Consume less than what? How much less? If we consume, for example, 10% less gasoline, is that enough on climate? How about 30%? If reduction means the businesses that build things just build fewer of them, is that sufficient on climate? I don’t think so. We need to use our very best talents and skills in concert with other people to radically change how things are made and how we procure things, not just how much we procure and consume.
But to try to get at this number of how much we must reduce consumption, I went on a search. It seems that we have an answer from UN IPCC. The first primary objective is to get to a net zero state of emissions. Certainly, that is the main goal articulated in the Paris Accords. A UN webpage says this: “To keep global warming to no more than 1.5°C — as called for in the Paris Agreement — emissions need to be reduced by 45% by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050.” The same report goes on to say: “More than 70 countries, including the biggest polluters — China, the United States, and the European Union — have set a net-zero target, covering about 76% of global emissions.” In other words, the target is a 76% reduction in emissions to get us to net zero. Those who advocate consumption reduction as a solution, therefore, must have in mind a 76% reduction in personal consumption. That’s a lot, so I got to thinking: how much of my consumption do I actually have control over?
Let’s see… I can buy fewer groceries but I already have that pretty well attuned to my hunger needs. I can drive less, but I still need to get to work every day, get the kids to practice, and get to the store for groceries and home repair supplies. I guess I could go out to eat less, but the local restaurants need my business and, dang it, sometimes I am just too tired and can really enjoy the respite going out offers. Out of guilt, I replaced my gas-powered lawn mower with a push mower, and from the standpoint of noise it is an improvement, but I cut the lawn less often because it takes more time. I guess I do use less gasoline in the mower though. I consume by eating, driving, working, heating my home, and taking care of things. Can I eat 76% less than I do today? Heat the house 76% less? Drive to work 76% less?
My point is that most people think of their consumption this way. They don’t see it as extravagant, over-the-top, or massively abusing. They see it as normal and much of it as necessary. Even folks with different values than mine — those who love their four-wheelers and Jet-Skis, for example, or those who feel the need to fly for a vacation in Central America — tend to see their own lives this way. Since life does not feel extravagant, what are they supposed to consume less of? And how much less?
And most important, does it make a difference?
This is the reason why climate change is so challenging. In many quarters, it has been turned into an assault on personal lifestyle practices rather than the industrial systems that cause it. Here are some examples:
We are implored to use mass transit and park the car when there would be little wrong, from a climate perspective, with driving an electric vehicle powered by solar energy. Not driving is our personal change, the kind of cars we have is a systemic one.
We are told not to travel by air because of its carbon footprint, but the problem isn’t the footprint, it is the way the planes are made and operated. We have no personal control over how airplanes work.
Electricity is generated by burning fossil fuels. We are told to use less energy — turn off the lights, turn down the thermostat, closed the refrigerator — personal practices. We don’t choose to get electricity from burning fossil fuels when there are alternatives — the industry does. If we change at the industrial level, our personal choices matter far less.
This continued translation of bad business and industrial practices into an attack on personal practices happens for a reason — it takes the pressure off of business and industry. Here’s the problem: that’s exactly where the source of the problems is. If you cut down your consumption of meat by 10%, you might have a minuscule impact, but if agriculture were forced to stop deforestation altogether, it would have a huge impact. Where should you focus your energy? On your personal life? Or on getting agriculture to stop deforestation? If you stop your flight for your once-a-year vacation, you may be contributing, but if an airline changes to green hydrogen to power its planes, that is a big contribution. Where should you focus your energy--on self-denial or on helping airlines and other businesses make the transition? If you reduce your consumption of electricity by 20% by adjusting thermostats, you will make a contribution. If your electricity comes from renewable sources, however, the amount you consume matters far less from a climate change perspective. The carbon has already been eliminated.
Do you see? It is a disingenuous con job to get everyone navel-gazing at their personal activities when the world is being destroyed at the hands of forces much larger than we can address in our personal lives.
To get an idea of how people think about this, I asked readers on Medium to explain how reducing consumption can solve climate change. Here’s a summary of what I discovered.
There are the three distinct schools of thought in the climate change writers’ community. Roughly speaking, they are A) the group that wants to overhaul how people live and advocate the reduction of consumption by 50–70% mostly at the personal level; B) the group that sees the “consumption” in the system and advocates reducing it there; and C) the group that puts more faith in technological fixes like renewable energy and electrification. So you can recognize them, I offer these portraits.
Advocates of Personal Consumption Reduction
Primary to the advocates of personal consumption reduction is the contention that consumption reduction is essential to solving climate change. As mentioned before, one guy went on and on about people idling their cars at fast food drive-ups. Another was incensed that people drive their cars at all. Yet another visualizes eliminating all private transport, developing regenerative agriculture, and eliminating meat as a dietary option. Another says: “Stop growth and go into low level maintenance. No new anything. Everything has to last. Reduce population, demographic decline. Dismantle old stuff when no longer needed in order to obtain new resources. Manual labor to replace much machinery. Work slowdown. Stop all make work…” You get the picture. Most folks in this category believe that people in the West, especially, can “reduce their consumption by easily 50% with minimal lifestyle impact…” Some say 70%.
I asked one such commenter how one would get home with six bags of groceries for the family if he didn’t have a car. He sent me a photo of a backpack. I didn’t follow up with a question about getting lumber for a home remodeling project.
What I notice in many of these comments is an animus toward modern life, as well as capitalism. “Capitalism drives consumption so we must abandon that system…” And later in response to someone else’s comment: “But the top 10% must end their excessive lifestyles, committing billions to death.”
A second thing I notice is a total lack of a plan. Most people’s essential carbon impact comes from commuting, eating, and heating or cooling homes. The second ring of consumption lies in entertainment, travel, socializing, home décor, and home improvements. A third ring derives from their work — the heating and cooling of that building, the expenditure of emissions to produce goods or services, etc. The advocates of personal consumption reduction offer little in the way of what and how to reduce here, except for “drive less, fly less, eat less steak, outlaw advertising, and otherwise voluntarily spin down their lifestyles…” “Spinning down lifestyles” is not a plan. There are no objectives, no goals, and no milestones. There is no indicator as to how the individual has done given their initial baseline, and as we have seen, there is no way to measure if it is enough.
Although I have many thoughts as to why this is the case, suffice it to say that a position advocated without a plan on something as important as climate change is, at best, a red herring. I would challenge these advocates to articulate their real plan and consider the impacts. For example, when someone says we should just do away with cars, a million questions come up. What happens to the employees of car companies, auto repair shops, gas stations, and car rental companies just to get started? What happens to the millions of families whose most valuable asset — their home — is wiped out because of the collapse in suburban real estate prices? How will it be better that parents, who used to be home before their kids, now are stuck on trains and arrive home hours after their children get home from school instead of being there for them? I’m not saying there aren’t answers, nor that they might even be very good answers. It’s just that advocates of this position need to deal with the answers to be taken seriously.
I should also note that other commenters indicate that they have serious reservations about the consumption reduction programs and mandates as well. One said, with perhaps more attitude than was necessary, “Reorganize all of humanity in eight years to make you feel better. Got it. Stop growing enough food for everyone. Got it. Stop travel, and prevent people from earning a living. Got it. You really should check out North Korea.” And another said, “I can see how those suggestions add up to move all the needles in the right direction… but those are BIG societal, psychological changes. I think we’d see fascism blow sky high in rebellion and burn it all down rather than have any of this “forced” on their choice to consume… People might want the results, but can they make the changes? Probably not.”
In many ways, this little microcosm captures the essential problem with the pure consumption reduction position — it evokes such resistance that it is simply not practical as a solution. Any realistic solution needs everyone on board. It cannot be that there are do-gooders who sacrifice so that others can play. I get that this is already how things are, in a way, but as a solution to advocate, this will get us nowhere near the participation that is needed.
Advocates of Consumption Reduction at a Systemic Level
There was a group of more interesting comments about consumption reduction at the systemic level. One effort to define such consumption was made by a commenter thus: “What climate scientists are talking about when they talk about consumption is a nation’s material footprint: the total mass of material extraction within its borders, plus the mass of its imports, minus the mass of its exports.” The discussion of consumption reduction as a strategy would help if this definition were widely used. It would require a systemic look at things. For example, I don’t know how much oil, gas, and coal production adds to the equation for “total mass of extraction” and “mass of imports” but I imagine it is significant enough to radically change the calculation for most industrialized nations. Ostensibly, those numbers could change without the lifestyle changes the first group insists are needed anyway. Convert the entire automobile fleet to EVs, use electricity from non-fossil fuel sources, and the driving can remain while nation-level consumption decreases.
Several commenters saw that the notion of reducing consumption as a straight-line impact on emissions reduction was implausible. One primary reason cited was the growth in population in the developing world, which will easily outstrip any gains from conservation in the industrialized world. As one said, “movements like minimalism or such are not going to achieve the changes we are seeking.” Another figured that 10% of the reduction in emissions we need may come from consumption reduction, but the other 66% would need to come from technology replacement. These folks were interested in seeing through to the causes, as well. By restricting choices upstream, you can change things downstream without much notice. “…if you go to the supermarket and you find cheap products wrapped in plastic, you are likely to buy them. But if you don’t find any plastic, you won’t even think about it.”
Advocates for Technological Change
Proponents of new technology are putting their confidence and hopes in technological advancement creating the change we need. A good example of this attitude is in this comment: “As the developing world modernizes, overall consumption will likely increase, not decrease — so “other” solutions like clean cement and clean steel will become more important. R&D to make those technologies affordable is key, as well as smart grids and other infrastructure to make renewables workable.” Another said, “So, according to this one policy adviser, the answer to your question seems to be the fourth option, 0% from consumption reduction, 76% from renewable sources.”
I am skeptical that we can reduce our way out of climate change. Humanity aspires to live what they see as a better life, and most of the time, that perception results in more consumption, not less. Since population is growing, any consumption-only strategy is doomed to failure. If we remain dependent on carbon, using less means emitting less carbon only until the population develops and catches up, and then we will be right back where we started as the additional people consume to meet their needs. A 10% reduction in consumption is replaced in a few years when the population is 10% higher, even if it is consuming at that reduced level.
Rather, we need to get the energy and power we need in a different way, and technology is critical for that. Electrification and renewable energy are leading the conversion, but deep in the roots of our industrial society, we have other processes — like cement and steel production, how we obtain minerals and materials, how we produce food, etc. — that will also make huge differences that are unseen to most of us, but critical for our world.
My conclusion after finishing this exercise is straightforward. In order to reduce carbon emissions by 76% as prescribed by IPCC using a consumption reduction strategy only, you would have to reduce consumption by 76%. Individuals will never be able to do that, nor will societies. Even if you could get three quarters of your people to do it, those who don’t participate leave you 25% short of the goal. Advocates for pure consumption reduction have either not thought this through or have a different agenda they are not stating. Once again, we have a solution that is looking for a problem to claim as its own.
Anthony Signorelli
Please feel free to share this article!
And if you are so motivated to support my work financially, here’s a easy place to do that. Thanks!