How We End Consumerism
Hi hi!
Hope your Friday is going well so far. Here are some links and quotes to get you thinking this weekend!
Three Quotes:
“Despite decades of extraordinary technological advancement and huge efficiency improvements, the energy and resource demands of the global economy are still increasing. This is because, within a growth-orientated economy, efficiency gains tend to be reinvested in more consumption and more growth, rather than in reducing impact.”
— Samuel Alexander
“If we want to work less, then we will have to suffice also with less consumption.”
— Giorgos Kallis
“Modern capitalist societies, however richly endowed, dedicate themselves to the proposition of scarcity. Inadequacy of economic means is the first principle of the world’s wealthiest peoples. The shortage is due not to how much material wealth there actually is, but to the way in which it is exchanged or circulated. The market system artificially creates scarcity by blocking the flow between the source and the consumer. Grain may rot in the warehouse while hungry people starve because they cannot pay for it. The result is famine for some and diseases of excess for others. The very earth that sustains us is being destroyed to fuel injustice. An economy that grants personhood to corporations but denies it to the more-than-human beings: this is a Windigo economy.”
— Robin Wall Kimmerer
Three Links:
Sustainable City Living on 1/10th of an Acre | Degrowth in the Suburbs (Happen Films)
Decoupling Debunked (Parrique T. et al.)
How 10 billion people could live well by 2050 – using as much energy as we did 60 years ago (The Conversation)
Hope you have a wonderful weekend,
Charlie