Comments on: How Do You Sell Environmentalism?

By: Jamie

Jamie — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 00:25:42 +0000

One place to start looking at economic models that do not assume infinite growth is John Kenneth Galbraith’s “The Affluent Society.” If you’re going to read economics, this is about as good as it gets. He makes a bunch of screwed-up, difficult economic concepts easy to understand, and he offers alternatives to the crazy production-oriented model.

Oh, and here’s a blog you might check out. It’s pretty good about practical approaches to real environmental problems.

http://depletedcranium.com/

By: Maggie

Maggie — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 20:24:04 +0000

I feel like I ought to take a deep breath and plunge deeply into economics because surely someone has looked into an economic model that doesn’t assume perpetual growth. I mean, I understand basing an economy on production and consumption but isn’t there a finite limit to how much can/should be consumed and can’t we find a good way to live within that?

If that could be done then we could eliminate the issue of “undermining the economy of the entire world” and the issue would just be convincing people to move back to a lower consumption level. That is also an issue but I believe there can be a lot done to shift perceptions about what leads to a “quality life.” I’m sure it will be a long time until some people are willing to turn their thermostat below 70 in the winter and stop buying shelves full of DVDs for their home video systems but there are a lot of things like increasing energy efficiency that don’t have a noticeable impact on day-to-day quality of life – in fact, they save money by reducing electric bills.

The question is, where is that point where we can keep the economy going and keep people in relative comfort and keep from destroying our environment? It may be below the comfort level of a lot of folks. And it may require a drastic reduction in population. But I like to think it’s achievable through happier methods than large scale suffering.

By: Jamie

Jamie — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 05:53:16 +0000

It’s a tough sell, in large part because environmentalism–particularly conservation and reduced consumption is completely counter to all functioning Western economics. We have built an economy based on PRODUCTION, and what is produced must be consumed, or the producers are out of jobs and the economy tanks–at least, that’s the theory, and that’s why the government is pouring billions of dollars into tax cuts. The hope is that people go out and blow that money immediately. So how do you sell something that undermines the economy of the Western world, and therefore the entire world?

Good damn question.

The crux of the biscuit is that I don’t think the bulk of people will buy something that reduces the perceived quality of their lives. The only obvious options are 1) come up with a way to meet those needs “greenly,” or 2) wait for large scale suffering to change the economics of the situation such that the cost/benefit analysis changes dramatically.

I think you’ll agree that #2 is…undesirable. But that’s the only way I can see people being susceptible to “selling” environmentalism en masse.

Other ideas?