Sustainable consumption

Liz

Am just starting a new project on this and wanted to get an (albeit narrow) sense of what people's opinions are/whether it means anything as a concept.

No googling - just want a top of mind response.

Also, views on 'One planet living' very welcome - helpful/not helpful?

Busby1

I'd love to discuss this subject, so I'll start off by saying that these two words 'sustainable consumption' belong to the vacuum existing in space.

andy

I'm afraid I can't participate in any request that bans the use of google.

"One planet living" sounds like something you'd find on a t-shirt made of organic cottonseed hemp produced by a company set up by some bankers who 'got away from it all' and set up their organic hemp t-shirt business in devon and charge £40 for a "one planet living" t-shirt.

David

Sounds like a wooly diet plan that claims you can _"eat all you want and lose 2 stone in a week!"_ when really we know the only way is to stop. eating.

Liz

Excellent. This is exactly what I was hoping for.

Busby1

I cannot think of one thing which can be put under this heading ?

Busby1

Äre you leaving us in the lurch here, Liz?

andy

HOW DO YOU GET AN UMLAUT ON YOUR A?

I WANT ONE

petra

Umlaut!
Well done Andy.

andy

I've got an A level in German.

petra

Oh, sorry, I didn't know.

There's me thinking you picked up some German from your sister's
boyfriend(s) - and Umlaut would have been an unusual one.

andy

I got a C.

I know what an umlaut is, how to get to the railway station and that Katharina Blum had "verlorene Ehre".

David

Ï dõn't knõw åny Gêrmàn büt I'm grêåt ãt ãccènts

Liz

That's just showing off, David. Busby, there was very little I could say given the scorn poured upon my discussion topic - better to stop now before I make it any worse, I think. If you really want to know about it, read [this][mf]. [mf]: http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/pages/020506.html

Busby1

Thanks Liz for the 'this'. I've glanced through it quickly and later I'll read it through thoroughly, but what I have seen just proves to me that sustainability is the wrong word for those possible saving procedures where consumers are concerned.

I'll give you an example - who needs a washing-up machine? - if you are at all interested in keeping the planet sustained then you wash plates and things in the old-fashioned way. Now lots of people are going to jump and say 'oh yes! but washing-up machines use a lot less water than a sink'. Well, this may be true, if you don't use the water again, say for the garden, - but the machine still has to be produced, (raw materials ripped from the earth), transported(needs lorries and roads) and installed. Then it uses electricity, chemical soaps and warms the air (which is a further problem - leading to the need for a fridge!), and, after ten years or so it has to be replaced, thrown away that is, probably in a land-fill site already bursting with poisons....

Did you know that babies' nappies are becoming a real problem???

andy

i feel the same way about microwaves.

David

Even [this guy](http://answers.yahoo.com/question/?qid=20060704195516AAnrdOD) isn't sure how we'll survive the next 100 years and is posting on yahoo answers. Made me think of [Hewey and Duey](http://www.allthingsmike.com/CulturalBlender/robots/hueydewey.jpg)

Liz

Yes, I was terrified by the Stephen Hawking thing too. Busby, your analysis is pretty much spot on. The whole thing is so complicated that it's very hard to tell what the best thing is to do. Andy, FYI, microwaves could potentially be more sustainable than cooking on the hob/in an oven because they use less enery and waste less water than e.g. boiling peas on a hob, though I don't much like the idea myself. The most sobering thought I've come across so far is really thinking about what it means when you waste food: not only are you throwing away the product but also all the energy that has gone into making it e.g. for cheese, producing feed for the cows, looking after the cows, milking the cows, making the cheese, packaging the cheese, transporting the cheese and storing the cheese. Nightmare.

David

So, by not having kids, and therefore no nappies, I'm actually being quite green? Add to that I have a pushbike and no car & recycle my waste, Petra and I must be doing quite well. The masses simply aren't interested in changing their ways and will only do so when something cheaper _and_ better gets their attention. Be that a tax credit for using a greener brand or simply getting the pricing right on existing better alternatives. For example the Sustainable Dev Commision asks _"Should we pay more for our flights?"_ . Yes, paying £25 to fly to Manchester is probably too low considering the environmental costs, but if the train wasn't charging £60 to cover the same distance you'd probably find a lot less flying. The balance is all wrong.

Busby1

I watched a programme on TV last night David which underlines your point. It was a street interview in Ireland about the economy and how it has boomed. One person said that things really had improved, when asked in what way she said 'well, we have two shopping centres now instead of just one'.
That Ireland is now rich because of the money pumped into the country by Brussels seemed otherwise to have escaped everyone's notice.

But not having children isn't actually what I meant about nappies but leads me on to point out that all our troubles and the troubles of our environment stem from there being too many of us on the planet.

Liz

It's a double whammy, I think. There are too many of us and too many of us are consuming too much stuff. That's where the [one planet economy ][mf] [mf]: http://www.wwf.org.uk/News/n_0000001476.asp idea comes from i.e. that if everyone in the world consumed at the rate of industrialised countries, we'd need three planets worth of resources, so we all need to reduce our consumption to one planet. This is most obvious if you think about increasing consumption in China and the effect that is having on prices for raw materials. If everyone in China consumed that the same rate as an average American we'd run out of resources within about a fortnight.

David

The one planet economy is sensible, but it all just feels like words. The US reneged on Kyoto so effoterlessly, how is laying out a bunch of principles gonna do anything? I just get the feeling that consumption will not recede until there's so little resource left its prohibitively expensive. Probably only then will alternatives like [home wind turbines](http://www.dnisbet2.uklinux.net/) etc come into play, and sadly, not before the damage is done.

andy

Home wind turbines are not really viable. Better to turn your lights off and ride your bike. Eat less meat. Fly less. Get on a renewable energy tariff. Lag your loft. Make sure you have good insulation. Efficient boiler. Windows. 27% of carbon emissions are attributable to residential buildings. Transport is the other big one. That's where you can make a saving.

David

True, but my jist was that while turbines are a bit shit now, no-one is seriously pushing these technologies and improving them and just burning up everything else in the mean time, and wind/solar alternatives are probably the only way forward as the human race will simply not recede from its energy use. Its alternatives and solutions or bust. Not turn your lights off and eat less meat.

Busby1

I'm pretty sure that any attempt at a one planet economy would fail from the outset. We need a completely different outlook on life's requirements. But, of course, we are talking about an ideal and we all agree (for some reason) that idealists don't get anywhere. Sensible solutions are conceivable but get bogged down in the mire of convention. We are at the mercy of fear in the first place; fear that we'll lose something precious.

The 'Hawking' report showed this quite clearly, we would all be prepared to reduce our 'needs' if everyone did. In other words we are all prepared to go by bike but only of the neighbour does. This is an understandable attitude. Why should I cycle in the rain while some queen goes by in a Rolls...

We need to change our social content.

A condition of everyone sharing, was visible in part during the war years. It becomes visible in all times of danger and calamity; so maybe we have to wait for a calamity, - wait maybe until no water comes out of the tap - which is, I suppose, what will eventually happen.

Liz

As a household, about a third of your climate change impact comes from food. And, no, it's not mainly the airfreighting. The journeys we make by car to buy the stuff are a bigger contributing factor than airfreighting. The other two things I hadn't thought much about were (a) that most impact comes from meat and dairy because those products are generally intensively produced, processed, packed and stored and (b) that if you throw food away you're not only wasting the product but all of the resources that have gone into producing, packing and storing it. Busby, I fear that you are right about about the social context - all the research says that most people are not really prepared to make a change unless they know it's the right thing to do and everyone else (including government) is doing it too. God only knows how to address this.

David

I didn't know the car ride was worse than the airfreighting. We seem to have a small but at least fairly green minded group on here, but how many of us drive to the supermarket? That bottled water is heavy, damn it, and the icecream would melt before we got it home.

Busby1

In those days when mum went shopping on a saturday in Stroud Green Road she was accompanied either by myself or by my brother - to help carry the potatoes and other vegetables and stuff home.

Ice-cream was eaten immediately, we had no fridge (but never suffered from food poisoning) and bottled water was unheard of. Very occasionally we had a bottle of 'pop'.

Bottled water is tops on my list of the world's most stupid things.

andy

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article1218998.ece

may interest you all.

Busby1

Well andy, that report just about covers everything and is really valid.

I think the problem is that most of us, although for myself I do try, are too comfortable - and assuming we know it, we don't want to go to all the trouble it takes to do things as nature would prefer.

David

Can you really see a mother of four on the welfair buying a small organic chicken for sunday roast that costs £10 or the artificially bloated one that costs £4? And that's after she's urged her children to go veggie for the week? Not realistc at all. Urging everyone to work locally is a bit glib too. While small towns can have an element of local working, most commute to the cities because that's where the work is, the towns simply don't have enough jobs for everyone living there. Also, I'd like to think I do my green bit but in reality it's more a case of natural selection. I don't own a car and cycle short distances but I do eat meat - this is due to not wanting or needing a car in the city but give up that occasional steak? I recycle but I like travelling to Europe - this is because its easy to recycle in Haringey but I _like_ Europe. I turn of lights, etc. when not in use but not because I'm green, because my mother instilled it in me very young and I shower rather than bath as I simply prefer it. So I do green things on that list but none of it is sacrificial, and if someone doesn't do those green things, I can't see the sacrifice taking place to start doing them.