Climate & Consumption

Electronic waste (Image: http://www.sonomacountywaste.com/)

I always find myself somewhat repelled by the word consumption. My reaction comes from reading novels set in earlier times, when it was used to mean “a wasting disease” (usually tuberculosis). Earlier today I watched two short videos that produced the same reaction. Appropriately enough, they were about consumption as we more currently define it, “the using up of a resource.”

In climate parlance, consumption-based emissions are those resulting from the economic activity required to meet demand for goods and services (www.stats.govt.nz). The connection between the archaic and the contemporary definitions? Waste. Our culture — i.e., each and every one of us — extracts resources and then dumps a large fraction of them after a one-way trip; sometimes a very short trip.

These two videos tell this story more effectively in about 10 minutes than an entire textbook might. Highly recommended food for thought, and for sharing: Happiness and Wake Up Call.