Consumer Culture vs the Biosphere
by Eric Assadourian
Chris Jordan & Sarah Waller: Tuna 2009. The artwork depicts 20,500 tuna, the number taken from the world's oceans every 15 minutes.
In the 2009 documentary "The Age of Stupid", a fictional historian who is possibly the last man on Earth looks at archival film footage from 2008 and contemplates the last years in which humanity could have saved itself from global ecological collapse. “Why didn’t we save ourselves when we had the chance?” Were we just being stupid? Or was it that “on some level we weren’t sure that we were worth saving?” The answer has little to do with humans being stupid or self-destructive but everything to do with culture.
Human beings are embedded in cultural systems, are shaped and constrained by their cultures, and for the most part act only within the cultural realities of their lives. The cultural norms, symbols, values, and traditions a person grows up with become “natural.” Thus, asking people who live in consumer cultures to curb consumption is akin to asking them to stop breathing—they can do it for a moment, but then, gasping, they will inhale again. Driving cars, flying in planes, having large homes, using air conditioning…these are not decadent choices but simply natural parts of life—according to the cultural norms present in a growing number of consumer cultures in the world. Yet while they seem natural to people who are part of those cultural realities, these patterns are neither sustainable nor innate manifestations of human nature. They developed over several centuries and today are actively being reinforced and spread to millions of people in developing countries.
Preventing the collapse of human civilization requires nothing less than total transformation of dominant cultural patterns. This transformation would reject consumerism—a cultural orientation that leads people to find meaning, contentment, and acceptance through what they consume—as taboo and establish in its place a new cultural framework centred on sustainability. In the process, a revamped understanding of “natural” would emerge: it would mean individual and societal choices that cause minimal ecological damage or, better yet, that restore the biosphere to health. Such a shift—something more fundamental than adoption of the new technologies or government policies regarded as key drivers of a shift to sustainable societies—would radically reshape the way people understand and act in the world.
Transforming cultures will require decades of effort in which cultural pioneers—those who can step out of their cultural realities enough to critically examine them—work tirelessly to redirect key culture-shaping institutions: education, business, government, and the media, as well as social movements and long-standing human traditions. Harnessing these drivers of cultural change will be critical if humanity is to survive and thrive for centuries and millennia to come and prove that we are indeed “worth saving.”
The Unsustainability of Current Consumption Patterns
In 2006, people around the world spent $30.5 trillion on goods and services. These expenditures included basic necessities like food and shelter, but as discretionary incomes rose, people spent more on consumer goods—from richer foods and larger homes to televisions, cars, computers, and air travel. In 2008 alone, people around the world purchased 68 million cars, 85 million refrigerators, 297 million computers, and 1.2 billion mobile phones Consumption has grown dramatically over the past five decades, up 28 percent from the $23.9 trillion spent in 1996 and up sixfold from the $4.9 trillion spent in 1960 (2008 dollar values). Some of this increase comes from the growth in population, but human numbers only grew by a factor of 2.2 between 1960 and 2006. Thus consumption expenditures per person still almost tripled.
As consumption has risen, more fossil fuels, minerals, and metals have been mined from the earth, more trees have been cut down, and more land has been plowed to grow food (often to feed livestock as people at higher income levels started to eat more meat). Between 1950 and 2005, for example, metals production grew sixfold, oil consumption eightfold, and natural gas consumption 14-fold. In total, 60 billion tons of resources are now extracted annually—about 50 percent more than just 30 years ago. Today, the average European uses 43 kilograms of resources daily, and the average American uses 88 kilograms. All in all, the world extracts the equivalent of 112 Empire State Buildings from the Earth every single day.
The exploitation of these resources to maintain ever higher levels of consumption has put increasing pressure on Earth’s systems and in the process has dramatically disrupted the ecological systems on which humanity and countless other species depend. The Ecological Footprint Indicator, which compares humanity’s ecological impact with the amount of productive land and sea area available to supply key ecosystem services, shows that humanity now uses the resources and services of 1.3 Earths. In other words, people are using about a third more of Earth’s capacity than is available, undermining the resilience of the very ecosystems on which we depend.
In 2005 the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, a comprehensive review of scientific research that involved 1,360 experts from 95 countries, reinforced these findings. It found that some 60% of ecosystem services—climate regulation, provision of fresh water, waste treatment, food from fisheries and many other services—were being degraded or used unsustainably. The findings were so unsettling that the MA Board warned:
Human activity is putting such strain on the natural functions of Earth that the ability of the planet’s ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted.
The shifts in one particular ecosystem service—climate regulation—are especially disturbing. After remaining at stable levels for the past 1,000 years at about 280 parts per million, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide are now at 385 parts per million, driven by a growing human population consuming ever more fossil fuels, eating more meat, and converting more land to agriculture and urban areas. A 2009 study that used the Integrated Global Systems Model of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that unless significant action is taken soon, median temperature increases would be 5.1 degrees Celsius by 2100, more than twice as much as the model had projected in 2003. In other words, policy alone will not be enough. A dramatic shift in the very design of human societies will be essential.
These projected levels of temperature change mean the odds would be great that ocean levels would increase by two or more meters due to the partial melting of Greenland or W. Antarctic ice sheets, which in turn would cause massive coastal flooding and submerge entire island nations. The one sixth of the world who depend on glacier or snowmelt-fed rivers for water would face extreme water scarcity. Vast swaths of the Amazon forest would become savanna, coral reefs would die, and many of the world’s most vulnerable fisheries would collapse. All of this would translate into major political and social disruptions—with environmental refugees projected to reach up to 1 billion by 2050.
Climate change is just one of the many symptoms of excessive consumption levels. Air pollution, the average loss of 7 million hectares of forests per year, soil erosion, the annual production of over 100 million tons of hazardous waste, abusive labour practices driven by the desire to produce more and cheaper consumer goods, obesity, increasing time stress—the list could go on and on. All these problems are often treated separately, even as many of their roots trace back to current consumption patterns.
According to a study by Stephen Pacala, the world’s richest 500 million people (roughly 7% of the world’s population) are currently responsible for 50% of its carbon dioxide emissions, while the poorest 3 billion are responsible for just 6%. These numbers should not be surprising, for it is the rich who have the largest homes, drive cars, jet around the world, use large amounts of electricity, eat more meat and processed foods, and buy more stuff—all of which has significant ecological impact. In 2006, the 65 high-income countries where consumerism is most dominant accounted for 78% of consumption expenditures but just 16% percent of world population. People in the United States alone spent $9.7 trillion on consumption that year—about $32,400 per person—accounting for 32% of global expenditures with only 5% of global population. It is these countries that most urgently need to redirect their consumption patterns, as the planet cannot handle such high levels of consumption.
Indeed, if everyone lived like Americans, Earth could sustain only 1.4 billion people. At slightly lower consumption levels, though still high, the planet could support 2.1 billion people. But even at middle-income levels—the equivalent of what people in Jordan or Thailand earn on average today—Earth can sustain fewer people than are alive today. These numbers convey a reality that few want to confront: in today’s world of 6.8 billion, modern consumption patterns—even at relatively basic levels—are simply not sustainable. Add to this the fact that population is projected to grow by another 2.3 billion by 2050 and even with effective strategies to curb growth will probably still grow by at least another 1.1 billion before peaking.
It therefore becomes clear that while shifting technologies and stabilizing population will be essential in creating sustainable societies, neither will succeed without considerable changes in consumption patterns, including reducing the use of certain goods such as cars and airplanes. Habits that are firmly set—from where people live to what they eat—will need to be altered, and in many cases simplified or minimized. These are not changes people will want to make, since their current patterns are comfortable and feel “natural,” because of sustained, methodical efforts to make them feel just that way. Indeed, human behaviors central to modern cultural identities and economic systems are not choices that are fully in consumers’ control. They are systematically reinforced by the increasingly dominant cultural paradigm of consumerism.
Chris Jordan's Midway: Message from the Gyre, 2009, a photographs of an albatross chick on Midway Atoll in the N. Pacific. Nestings are fed bellies-full of plastic by their parents, who soar out over the vast polluted ocean collecting what looks to them like food for their young. On this diet of human trash, tens of thousands of chicks die yearly of starvation, toxicity, and choking.
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Consumerism Across Cultures
To understand what consumerism is, first it is necessary to understand what culture is. Culture is not simply the arts, or values, or belief systems. Rather, it is all of these elements—values, beliefs, customs, traditions, symbols, norms, and institutions—combining to create overarching frames that shape how humans perceive reality. Cultures, as broader systems, arise out of the complex interactions of many different elements of social behaviors and guide humans at actors and institutions and by the participants in the cultures themselves.
Today the cultural paradigm that is dominant in many parts of the world and across many cultural systems is consumerism. It is a cultural pattern that leads people to find meaning, contentment, and acceptance primarily through the consumption of goods and services. While this takes different forms in different cultures, consumerism leads people everywhere to associate high consumption levels with well-being and success. Ironically though, research shows that consuming more does not necessarily mean a better individual quality of life. Consumerism has now so fully worked its way into human cultures that it is sometimes hard to even recognize it as a cultural construction. It simply seems to be natural. But in fact the elements of cultures—language and symbols, norms and traditions, values and institutions—have been profoundly transformed by consumerism in societies around the world. Indeed, “consumer” is often used interchangeably with "person" in the 10 most commonly used languages of the world.
Consider symbols—what anthropologist Leslie White once described as “the origin and basis of human behaviour.” In most countries today people are exposed to hundreds if not thousands of consumerist symbols every day. Logos, jingles, slogans, spokespersons, mascots—all these symbols of different brands routinely bombard people, influencing behaviour even at unconscious levels. Many people today recognize these consumerist symbols more easily than they do common wildlife an almost invisible level. They are the sum of all “social processes that make the artificial (or human-constructed) seem natural.” It is these social processes that shape people’s realities. Most of what seems “natural” to people is actually cultural. Ultimately, while human behaviour is rooted in evolution and physiology, it is guided primarily by the cultural systems people are born into.
One norm of particular interest is diet. It now seems natural to eat highly sweetened, highly processed foods. Children from a very early age are exposed to candy, sweetened cereals, and other unhealthy but highly profitable and highly advertised foods—a shift that has had a dramatic impact on global obesity rates. Today, fast-food vendors and soda machines are found even in schools, shaping children’s dietary norms from a young age and in turn reinforcing and perpetuating these norms throughout societies.
There is strong evidence that higher levels of consumption do not significantly increase the quality of life beyond a certain point, and they may even reduce it. First, psychological evidence suggests that it is close relationships, a meaningful life, economic security, and health that contribute most to well-being. While there are marked improvements in happiness when people at low levels of income earn more (as their economic security improves and their range of opportunities grows), as incomes increase this extra earning power converts less effectively into increased happiness. In part, this may stem from people’s tendency to habituate to the consumption level they are exposed to. Even products around only a short time quickly become viewed as necessities. Half of Americans now think they must have a mobile phone, and one third see a high-speed Internet connection as essential.
A high-consumption lifestyle can also have many side effects that do not improve wellbeing, from increased work stress and debt to more illness and a greater risk of death. Each year roughly half of all deaths worldwide are caused by cancers, cardiovascular and lung diseases, diabetes, and auto accidents. Many of these deaths are caused or at least largely influenced by individual consumption choices such as smoking, being sedentary, eating too few fruits and vegetables, and being overweight. Today 1.6 billion people around the world are overweight or obese, lowering their quality of life and shortening their lives, for the obese, by 3 to 10 years on average.
Traditions—the most ritualized and deeply rooted aspects of cultures—are also now shaped by consumerism, which is now deeply embedded in how people observe rituals. Choosing to celebrate rituals in a simple manner can be a difficult choice to make, whether because of norms, family pressure, or advertising influence. Christmas demonstrates this point well. While for Christians this day marks the birth of Jesus, for many people the holiday is more oriented around Santa Claus, gift giving, and feasting. A 2008 survey on Christmas spending in 18 countries found that individuals spent hundreds of dollars on gifts and hundreds more on socializing and food. Increasingly, even many non-Christians celebrate Christmas as a time to exchange gifts. In Japan, Christmas is a big holiday, even though only 2% of the population is Christian.
Chris Jordan: Barbie Dolls, 2008 depicts 32,000 Barbies, equal to the number of elective
breast augmentation surgeries performed monthly in the U.S.
Institutional Roots of Consumerism
By the early 1900s, a consumerist orientation had become increasingly embedded in many of the dominant societal institutions of many cultures—from businesses and governments to the media and education. And in the latter half of the century, new innovations like television, sophisticated advertising techniques, trans-national corporations, franchises, and the Internet helped institutions to spread consumerism across the planet. Arguably, the strongest driver of this cultural shift has been business interests. On a diverse set of fronts, businesses found ways to coax more consumption out of people. Credit was liberalized, for instance, with installment payments, and the credit card was promoted heavily in the United States, which led to an almost 11-fold increase in consumer credit between 1945 and 1960. Products were designed to have short lives or to go out of style quickly. Workers were encouraged to take pay raises rather than more time off, increasing their disposable incomes.
Perhaps the biggest business tool for stoking consumption is marketing. Global advertising expenditures hit $643 billion in 2008, and in countries like China and India they are growing at 10% per year. In the United States, the average “consumer” sees or hears hundreds of advertisements every day and from an early age learns to associate products with positive imagery and messages.
Clearly, if advertising were not effective, businesses would not spend 1% of the gross world product to sell their wares, as they do. But they are right: studies have demonstrated that advertising indeed encourages certain behaviours and that children, who have difficulty distinguishing between TV advertising and content, are particularly susceptible. In addition to direct advertising, product placement —intentionally showing products in television programs or movies so that they are positively associated with characters—is a growing practice. Companies spent $3.5 billion placing their products strategically in 2004 in the United States, four times the amount spent 15 years earlier.
The media are a second major societal institution that plays a driving role in stimulating consumerism, and not just as a vehicle for marketing. The media are a powerful tool for transmitting cultural symbols, norms, customs, myths, and stories. As Duane Elgin, author and media activist, explains: “To control a society, you don’t need to control its courts, you don’t need to control its armies, all you need to do is control its stories. And it’s television and Madison Avenue that is telling us most of the stories most of the time to most of the people.” Between television, movies, and increasingly the Internet, the media are a dominant form of leisure time activity. In 2006, some 83% of the world’s population had access to television and 21% had access to the Internet. In countries that belong to the OECD, 95% of households have at least one television, and people watch about three to four hours a day on average. Add to this the two to three hours spent online each day, plus radio broadcasts, newspapers, magazines, and the 8 billion movie tickets sold annually worldwide, and it becomes clear that media exposure consumes anywhere from a third to half of people’s waking day in large parts of the world.
During those hours, much of media output reinforces consumer norms and promotes materialistic aspirations, whether directly by extolling the high-consumption lives of celebrities and the wealthy or more subtly through stories that reinforce the belief that happiness comes from being better off financially,from buying the newest consumer gadget or fashion accessory, and so on. There is clear evidence that media exposure has an impact on norms, values, and preferences. Social modelling studies have found connections between such exposure and violence, smoking, reproductive norms, and various unhealthy behaviours.
Government often reinforces the consumerist orientation. Promoting consumer behaviour happens in myriad ways—perhaps most famously in 2001 when George W. Bush and several other western leaders encouraged their citizens to go out and shop after the terrorist attacks. But it also happens more systemically. Subsidies for particular industries—especially the transportation and energy sectors, where cheap oil or electricity has ripple effects throughout the economy—also work to stoke consumption. And to the extent that manufacturers are not required to internalize the environmental and social costs of production—when pollution of air or water is unregulated, for example—the cost of goods is artificially low, stimulating their use. Between these subsidies and externalities, total support of polluting business interests was $1.9 trillion in 2001. Government actions can also be driven by regulatory capture, when special interests wield undue influence over regulators. In 2008, that influence could be observed in the United States through the $3.9 billion spent on campaign donations by business interests and the $2.8 billion they spent to lobby policymakers.
A clear example of official stimulation of consumption came in the 1940s when governments started to actively promote consumption as a vehicle for development. For example, the U.S., which came out of World War II relatively unscathed, had mobilized a massive war-time economy—one that was poised to recede now that the war was over. Intentionally stimulating high levels of consumption was seen as a good solution to address this (especially with the memory of the Great Depression still raw). Victor Lebow explained in 1955:
Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfactions, our ego satisfactions in consumption.
Today, this same attitude toward consumption has spread far beyond the U.S. and is the leading policy of many of the world’s governments. As the global economic recession accelerated in 2009, wealthy countries did not see this as an opportunity to shift to a sustainable “no-growth” economy—essential if they are to rein in carbon emissions—but instead primed national economies with $2.8 trillion of new government stimulus packages, only a small percentage of which focused on green initiatives.
Finally, education plays a powerful role in cultivating consumerism. As with governments, in part this is because education seems to be increasingly susceptible to business influence. Yet perhaps the greatest critique of schools is that they represent a huge missed opportunity to combat consumerism and to educate students about its effects on people and the environment. Few schools teach media literacy to help students critically interpret marketing; few teach or model proper nutrition, even while providing access to unhealthy or unsustainable consumer products; and few teach a basic understanding of the ecological sciences—specifically that the human species is not unique but in fact just as dependent on a functioning Earth system for its survival as every other species. The lack of integration of this basic knowledge into the school curriculum, coupled with repeated exposure to consumer goods and advertising and with leisure time focused in large part on television, helps reinforce the unrealistic idea that humans are separate from Earth and the illusion that perpetual increases in consumption are ecologically possible and even valuable.
Eric Assadourian is a senior researcher at Worldwatch Institute and Project Director of State of the World 2010. The above is an edited synopsis based on his article The Rise & Fall of Consumer Cultures which WWI has available for downloading as a PDF here.