Discuss: Forget Shorter Showers

Shout it, brother.

Identification of the leading cause of problems is the critical thing.

However, I wouldn’t say it’s all down to our evil corporate overlords.

We are also a pretty demanding bunch.

A car takes 1000+ gallons of water to build. That environmental cost is not listed among the features/drawbacks of owning that particular car. I would argue, however, that water was consumed by proxy by the owner who purchased the car. He demanded 1000+ gallons of water be used [wasted] in that way in exchange for the low price and efficiency of the end product.

No?

I’d like to add something from a faith perspective in support of what Jensen is arguing. This comes from Katharine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church. “The overarching connection in all of these crises has to do with the great Western heresy - that we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God…That individualist focus is a form of idolatry, for it puts me and my words in the place that only God can occupy, at the center of existence, as the ground of all being.”

I’ve posted a short response to this article on my blog.
<a >Be The Change or Fight the System</a>
Thanks,
Jeremy

Sorry, html didn’t work.  Here’s the link:
http://jmtrom.blogspot.com/2009/07/to-be-change-or-fight-system.html

A number of comments above had appropriately indicated that the link between industrial use and consumer demand is complex. Golf players create a demand for golf courses, for example.

In naming this complexity, they note that demand is the sum of individual choices which, if changed in some way, would affect the industry supplying the demand.

I get hung up with another part of this linkage. Which, IMHO, weakens the individual-as-the-solution answer. That is advertising. Industry spends billions to stimulate demand for the most profitable products - which often means the products which are created on the greatest environmental subsidy (the amount of “free” environmental damage the builder takes advantage of.)

And advertising is carefully designed to remove reason from the buying decision. Making the purchase an impulse or an image choice rather than a utility choice. This makes rational and value based buying difficult.

So we’re back to industry. One solution is to base profit and price on the true cost of manufacture. Pollution controls, for example, moves some of the cost from the environment to the manufacture of the product.

Let the consumer buy what he/she wants but also insist that the full price is paid. That would create a basis for simpler living to change the industrial system.

I’ve appreciated many of the comments in this discussion - in some ways, more than the original article itself. Jensen’s cut-to-the-chase style does a great job of smacking down ambivalence, but invites a response that may be less than thoughtful. I came away wondering if universal lobotomies, vasectomies, or monkey-wrench-gang-style economic policies were the logical next step.

Seems to me, as far as the environment is concerned, we’ve already jumped out of the plane. There’s no going back to a level of “sustainable” that will sustain seven billion and counting human beings and restore ecosystems to their pristine condition. No public action, no matter how radical, will make that happen.

The question instead is whether or not we’ll pull the parachute in time to land softly. If that’s what we’re seeking, then by all means, let’s begin taking down the “dark satanic mills” - but let’s not pretend that restoration of the biosphere is within our power, whether as individuals, as nations, or as a species. Only time, evolution, and a cultural shift from “me” to “we” can accomplish that.

@John
Srsly.
“Your order was shipped!
You bought:
1x$2K Laptop computer
- 500GB HD
- 4GB RAM
- 3hr battery (now with toxic chemicals!)
- 2Lb chassis (now from mined iron ore!)
- 200g waste water
- never-biodegradable components
...”

Good God. Everyone in America should read Comment #28!