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Glad to see reducing consumption at the top. People's scarcity mindset makes them think burning less fossil fuels and consuming less stuff will lower their qua
by spodek 7y ago
Glad to see reducing consumption at the top.
People's scarcity mindset makes them think burning less fossil fuels and consuming less stuff will lower their quality of life. On the contrary, most Americans could reduce their consumption by 80% off pure life improvements.
People convolve reducing consumption with returning to the stone age, which is a false dichotomy. It's more like exiting a mindset that stuff means happy to where it means people trying to create craving.
I speak from experience of reducing my consumption by about 90%, leading many others to start reducing through my leadership executive training and podcast. Before they act, they're full of facts and figures arguing why not to act. After they act, they wish they had earlier. The key is to activate their intrinsic motivation, not to tell them what to do. Then what they do feels meaningful.
People don't want to do small things, they want to do meaningful things.
- jncraton 7y agoI'm glad to see this as well. I've been working on a site as part of a class project to help surface used items that have a long useful lifetime. My hope is that this will help in a small way to reduce the cycle of consumerism. Here's a link to the site: https://createdtolast.com/laptops https://createdtolast.com/laptops
- natdempk 7y ago> On the contrary, most Americans could reduce their consumption by 80% off pure life improvements. This sounds great, how do I do it?
- spodek 7y agoMy first TEDx talk describes my process and how to do it http://joshuaspodek.com/my-tedx-talk-is-online-find-your-delicious http://joshuaspodek.com/my-tedx-talk-is-online-find-your-del.... My podcast shares me walking through many people to start their challenge http://joshuaspodek.com/podcast http://joshuaspodek.com/podcast. Do they give you enough to start with?
- natdempk 7y agoI will check them out. Thanks for the links!
- dahfizz 7y agoHow do you define consumption, and how did you come up with the 90% figure? I commend your efforts but that's... A little hard to believe. You mean to say you used to "consume" 10x what you do now? I'm skeptical that's even possible for someone living in the first world. Just food, clothing, and housing is too much consumption to make that figure reasonable.
- spodek 7y agoI can only compare roughly, but I compared my footprint now, which is 0.4 Earths http://joshuaspodek.com/my-ecological-footprint http://joshuaspodek.com/my-ecological-footprint, with the average American, which is 5.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_footprint https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_footprint. I figure I contributed about average for American before. My TEDx talks cover some of the major changes http://joshuaspodek.com/my-tedx-talk-is-online-find-your-delicious http://joshuaspodek.com/my-tedx-talk-is-online-find-your-del.... The important part was shedding the myths erroneously justifying flying or packaged food. Then practicing and finding the joy, community, and connection that life is about when you avoid polluting behavior.
- RobinL 7y agoAgreed. I spent some time making a calculator [0] to help me understand what matters when it comes to energy consumption. This made it very clear that by far the best way most consumers can make a difference is just to stop buying stuff. In the west we get away with 'low'(er) emissions because we import a huge amount of CO2 though imported goods - maps of total energy consumption are quite interesting here [1] Stopping buying stuff is hard for most people, and I think the key is to stop _wanting_ stuff. Sadly I think consumption-driven society is incredibly deeply ingrained. I mean, most people seem to devote large proportions of their life pursuing unnecessary luxury goods. This is the mindset that needs to change - and particularly be reversed as we bring up the next generation. A fundamental shift is needed in what people are 'pursuing'. [0] https://robinlinacre.com/energy-usage https://robinlinacre.com/energy-usage [1] https://observablehq.com/@robinl/energy-usage-and-goods-imports-and-exports https://observablehq.com/@robinl/energy-usage-and-goods-impo...
- distances 7y agoNice calculator. What's assumed as energy source for warm water of it's not part of the electricity consumption?
- RobinL 7y agoGas - which is typical for a UK household. In fact most of the calculator is based implicitly on UK norms.
- KozmoNau7 7y agoBreaking the constant want for new things is going to be hard. I know people who basically define themselves by their consumerism, some of them even fully believing that we can somehow consume ourselves out of this climate crisis. I do try to argue that we should reduce our consumption and buy much fewer, but much higher quality items, which we repair and maintain for a long time, instead of throwing them out and buying a completely new thing. But I am constantly met with arguments that "no consumption means no growth, and no growth means no life and no progress" and similar arguments. These people have really entrenched themselves in consuming more and more all the time.
- harimau777 7y agoAre there any resources that you'd suggest on life improvements that also reduce consumption?
- spodek 7y agoI mentioned my TEDx talks and podcast with links in a post above. A couple podcast guests are prominent in zero waste and minimalism, so you might enjoy their episodes and books: Bea Johnson http://joshuaspodek.com/guests/bea-johnson http://joshuaspodek.com/guests/bea-johnson and Joshua Becker http://joshuaspodek.com/guests/joshua-becker http://joshuaspodek.com/guests/joshua-becker. The biggest resource in my experience is to start however you can. People get hung up on toothbrushes while still ordering take-out while their fridges are full, which uses far more plastic than a toothbrush. The more you do it, the easier it gets and the more horrible the old ways become.