In a recent series of interviews on Canadian radio, I was asked what people should be doing on Black Friday. I trotted out the usual Treehugger responses, including boycotting it and coming up with alternatives, or celebrating Buy Nothing Day. Treehugger has also suggested more sustainable products with lower climate impact. But it also got me thinking again about the question of why we buy, why we have this obsession with shopping in the first place.
In my recent book, “Living the 1.5 Degree Lifestyle,” I discussed this in terms of our carbon footprints, quoting physicist and economist Robert Ayres, who teaches that economics is a thermodynamic process.
In other words, the entire purpose of the economy is to turn energy into stuff. All that energy in fossil fuels is really concentrated solar energy, which is then degraded into waste and low-grade thermal energy. That’s the economic system: The more energy put through the system, the richer the world gets. Vaclav Smil said this in his book “Energy and Civilization: A History.”
Every time we shop, we are converting energy flows into profit. Every time we throw something away, we are participating in the economic activity of turning energy into waste. Black Friday, and almost every other aspect of our society, is actively abetting and encouraging this. From “Living the 1.5 Degree Lifestyle,” an explanation of how marketing aids and abets this:
There is no point in making stuff unless someone is going to buy it. The stuff has gotta move. In his 1960 classic “The Waste Makers,” (Treehugger review here in archives) Vance Packard quotes banker Paul Mazur:
Packard also quotes marketing consultant Victor Lebow:
This is why the car-dominated suburban lifestyle was such a success at creating a booming economy in North America. It generated so much more room for stuff, for consumption, creating a need for endless consumption of vehicles and the fuel to power them and the roads to run them on. For the hospitals, the police, and all the other parts of the system.
It would be hard to imagine a system that turns more energy into stuff. It is why houses get bigger and cars turn into SUVs and pickup trucks: more metal, more gas, more stuff. It is why governments are loath to invest in public transit or alternatives to cars: A streetcar lasts 30 years and doesn’t add to the consumption of stuff; there is nothing in it for them. They want a booming economy and that means growth, cars, fuel, development, and making stuff. It’s why they build tunnels in Seattle, bury streetcars in Toronto, and fight over parking in New York City: Rule 1 is never inconveniencing the drivers of cars; they are engines of consumption.
For years, going back to the 1930s, there has been talk about planned obsolescence being built into products. One industrial designer told Packard:
Packard was writing long before Ayres or Smil but would have understood the basic principle: It is all about turning energy into stuff and selling as much of it as possible. And when we buy, we are contributing directly to that conversion of energy, a byproduct of which is carbon dioxide. It’s why we have been inculcated in this culture of convenience, to go through all this effort, to keep the fossil fuels flowing and the economy pumping out wealth.
In my book I conclude each chapter with the question “what can we do?” for consumer goods I wrote:
But on Black Friday, one might also suggest buying low-carbon, be it toys made out of wood for the kids or foodstuffs for the grownups. Think about the carbon, and think about whether we need it at all. Last word from Smil:
