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"Our enormously productive economy… demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption… We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced, and discarded at an ever increasing rate." - Victor Lebow, 1955
Humankind has inherited a 3.8 billion-year store of natural capital. At present rates of use and degradation, there will be little left by the end of the next century. This is not only a matter of aesthetics and morality, it is of the utmost practical concern to society and all people. Despite reams of press about the state of the environment and rafts of laws attempting to prevent further loss, the stock of natural capital is plummeting and the vital life-giving services that flow from it are critical to our prosperity.
Despite the outcome of our recent election, it is encouraging to note that the individual can have the greatest positive effect on the environment by his own personal choices. We don't have to rely solely on federal laws and policies to protect our natural resources; our consumer behaviors and demands can create the market for goods that are created with renewable resources and manufactured with materials that do the least amount of harm to the earth. Most importantly we can slow our demand for ever-increasing quantities of throwaway goods that will spend more time in landfills than in our homes.
Aside from the spiritual impoverishment it implies, adherence to an economic value system that treats the natural world as a free source of building materials or as empty space to toss the refuse is at the root of our current ecological crisis. The Everglades in Florida are dying, ancient forests in the Pacific Northwest have been decimated, Bengal tigers in India are nearly extinct, and Amazonian rainforests together with the multitude of species they harbor are vanishing at an alarming rate. Ecosystems worldwide are collapsing-all victims in one manner or another of a market structure that is weighted toward extraction to meet individual and immediate wants, rather than preservation and an ultimately saner (but more abstract to the individual consumer) pursuit of sustainability and survival.
Global climate change will affect billions of people who have never driven a car or used electricity in their lives. The predicted sea level rise could submerge thousands of coastal communities worldwide-threatening hundreds of millions in poor countries as well as economic centers such as New York City. Likewise, weather pattern changes may forever alter and disrupt traditional growing seasons. People around the world will pay the price for our cheap oil, large cars, and inefficient heating and air conditioning systems.
Enter the national Sustainable Consumption Committee. Our mission is to work with State Chapters and local Groups to raise consciousness about the importance of our consumer behaviors in three areas - food, paper and energy. By implementing this national program, the Club's traditional work on forests, habitat, clean air, clean water, transportation and energy will all be strengthened.
Luckily, what's good for the environment is often good for people and communities. Ending subsidies for cars and investing in better public transportation systems and city planning will not only help alleviate air pollution and sprawl, it will give low-income families better access to goods and services and help encourage mixed- income, more centralized and vibrant communities. Likewise, encouraging greater production of organic fruits and vegetables will spare more migrant farm workers from deadly pesticides. And paying people living wages will enable them to buy more healthy, sustainable products for themselves and their families.
This year the Committee has put its emphasis on the true cost of the food we eat. We believe that dietary lifestyle is the easiest aspect of consumer behavior to address and the one with greatest impact on the environment. The Sierra Club expends enormous resources fighting the symptoms of unsustainable agriculture, from water pollution and toxins in the food chain to loss of habitat and species. What the Club has not previously done is to seriously challenge the root cause of the above: American food consumption patterns. Consider this:
- Agriculture is the largest source of water pollution in the US.
- Our industrialized farming poisons the soil, encourages pests, and destroys biodiversity.
- Three fourths of the land in the continental United States is devoted to agriculture or grazing, and much of the cropland produces grain for cows, not people.
We are literally eating ourselves to death. Worse, far worse is this: Corporate food behemoths, abetted by the government and the WTO, are stuffing this model down the gullets of the rest of the world. They are doing everything possible to get the whole world to eat - not just itself to death - but the biosphere as well, and quickly. By and large, our diet is so unsustainably produced that it jeopardizes not just the environment but also our health. Our diet completely ignores the true cost of food.
The Committee has developed resources to engage our members in thinking about their consumption habits in novel, interesting ways. Our goal is to build community and expand our membership with outreach to allied groups who share our fundamental values of protecting the planet and preserving it for our children. Such groups may be in the organic food, vegetarian, voluntary simplicity, health and faith-based communities.
Would you like to become involved by sharing your ideas, starting a home study group or hosting an occasional outing? Would you like to present our new video, The True Cost of Food, to your friends, family members or community group? To order a copy of the video, send an email to: TrueCostofFood@aol.com.
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