Download Dr Michelle Maloney - Australian Earth Laws Alliance

Dr Michelle Maloney
Convenor, Australian Earth Laws Alliance

In 1992, the Rio Declaration on the Environment
(Agenda 21) saw 178 nations acknowledge that:
◦ “[t]he major cause of the continued deterioration of the
global environment is the unsustainable pattern of
consumption and production, particularly in the
industrialised countries, which is a matter of grave concern,
aggravating poverty and imbalances.”



But today, consumption of natural resources
continues to escalate and threaten the health of the
ecosystems on which life on Earth depends
Why have we failed to address our consumption of
the natural world and live within our ecological limits?
What can we do – collectively – to address
consumption? What role does and should law play?


Understanding the causes and impacts of
consumption
What we can do to address and reduce
consumption?
◦ Focus is on collective, ‘structural’ responses, rather
than just individual action



What we consume
Who consumes what
The environmental and social impacts of
humanity’s consumption
Alan Durning ‘How Much is Enough? The
consumer society and the future of the
earth’ (1992)
Humans have evolved
through our tool making
and consumption of
‘natural resources’





Freshwater
Land and soil
Minerals
Forests/trees and
plants
Animals





From 1900 to the year 2000 >>
Global consumption of fossil fuels and primary
electricity expanded 16 fold
Humanity’s global output of steel rose 30 fold
(with half the mass produced AFTER 1980)
Consumption of primary paper and paperboard
multiplied 19 times (despite growth in recycling)
Consumption of plastic rose from nothing in the
1940s, to more than 306 billion tonnes in year
2010 (and we consumed more in the first ten
years of the 21st Century than in all previous
decades put together)
Category of
consumption
Diet
Consumer class
Middle income
Poor
(1.7 billion)
(2.5 billion)
(2.8 billion)
Meat, packaged
Grain, clean water Insufficient grain,
food, soft drinks
unsafe water
Transport
Private cars
Bicycles, buses
Walking
Materials
Throwaways
Durables
Local biomass
[1]
This table structure is from Durning, p.26 with updated data from World Watch Institute (2010). The Rise of the Consumer Class,
<http://www.worldwatch.org/node/810> 2013

“Humanity has used more
resources since 1950
than in all of previous
human history”
(Durning, 1992)



We’re now using 1.6
earths
By 2030 we’ll need 2
earths
If the global population
lived like ‘average’
Australians, we’d need
4.8 planets
◦ Global Footprint Network
(2015)




Climate Change
Biodiversity loss
Degraded ecosystems
Loss of ‘the wild’
Welcome to the
Anthropocene
Photo: Dubai; National
Geographic


Global inequities
◦ Obesity v starvation
◦ Over consumption and
under consumption

Tim Jackson
‘double dividend’
benefits





IPAT - First proposed by Ehrlich and Holdren in the early 1970s as a
way to calculate the impact of humans on the environment
IPAT is an equation that expresses the idea that environmental impact
(I) is the product of three factors: Population (P), Affluence (A) and
Technology (T). (affluence = consumption)
Australia’s population increases by 400,000 every year – expected to
reach 40 million in 2061 (Australia Institute, 2015), 65 million by end of
Century (Ian Lowe)
Must formulate policies for slowing population growth
In addition to population growth, industrial societies consume more per
head of population than ‘developing’ societies - reducing consumption
is essential

“Perfect storm” - human impact on the planet
escalated during the Industrial Revolution; eye of
the storm mid 20th Century (‘Great Transition’)
◦
◦
◦
◦
Population growth
Technological innovation (powered by cheap fossil fuels)
Resource consumption/pollution
Global governance – Empires created global inequities,
continued by Western corporations, supported by their
governments
◦ Our anthropocentric world view

Great books about how we got here
◦ Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation
◦ Robert Lekachman, The Age of Keynes.
The obvious solution is to consume
less and to ‘limit human
consumption so it doesn’t exceed
the sustainable level of production
from natural systems’.
(Ian Lowe, 2006)
Why aren’t
we reducing
consumption
and
living within
our limits?
There are
powerful
BARRIERS
to reducing
consumption
in all sectors
of industrial
society
Social/cultural
(consumer culture)
Economic –
Consumer capitalism
Growth economics Legal, Political &
Institutional
(support growth)
Beliefs, Ideology:
anthropocentrism +
pro growth
Nasty corporations and their
advertising and marketing?
Or greedy individual
consumers?
Or both???






Is unsustainable consumption a natural product of human
progress and evolution?
“The Gospel of Consumption” by Jeffrey Kaplan
(https://orionmagazine.org/article/the-gospel-ofconsumption/) is one of many articles written about
consumption
But especially good because it provides clear evidence for
the corporate creation of consumer culture in the 1940s
Manufactured ‘endless dissatisfaction’, to ensure new
products purchased (marketing, advertising, ‘want’)
Very clever ‘blending’ of ideologies by the biggest
corporations in the USA - blended the idea of being a
“consumer” with individual freedom, market based values
and “the American Way” – supported by USA government
Kaplan’s article suggests consumerism was created,
therefore it can be challenged



Civil society groups – NGOs, intentional
communities - and academics, think-tanks have
been trying to address consumption for decades
Governments around the world DO NOT have
policy responses for reducing consumption;
growth and consumption are seen as the only
way forward
The failure to reduce the consumption of fossil
fuels (so far) is just one example of industrial
society’s failure to reduce consumption and
transform modern society


There are predictions of resource use
‘collapse’ (peak oil, peak everything) – but
this workshop is about pro-actively reducing
consumption … preferably before collapse
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree
/2014/sep/02/limits-to-growth-was-rightnew-research-shows-were-nearing-collapse
1. Create new frameworks for analysing,
discussing and challenging consumption
2. Understand our ecological limits and what
‘ecological health’ looks like
3. Integrate an Earth centred approach,
acknowledging the rights of nature
4. Build new governance models, so human
societies can live within our ecological limits



Confronting Consumption, Princen et al – provide
an important critical and analytical framework
They critique ‘the production angle’ which
dominates our analysis of the current ecological
crisis.
They have three key arguments
◦ Industrial societies are not used to limiting
consumption; we lack the language and discourse to
discuss or address consumption
◦ Vested interests ensure that our society is structured to
focus on production – including our responses to the
environmental crisis – because this is good for the old
economy
◦ The processes and impacts of consumption are hidden
from view and need to be more transparent
New
developments
in Earth
System
Science Planetary
Boundaries
◦ Civil society is already challenging corporate power
 Occupy highlighted inequities in wealth/power
 Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, other NGOs have
worked on campaigns to challenge consumption (eg
timber/forests)
◦ Need to create new economic and cultural systems,
within a framework that respects ecological limits
◦ Need to challenge neoliberalism and the marketbased economy’s domination of modern life
◦ Build a “New economy”
 Sharing, collaborative, local, solidarity economy
 (note conference in Sydney in August!)
Underlying causes
1. Corporate creation of
‘consumer capitalism’
◦ Since 1940s – creation of
consumer dissatisfaction
◦ ‘production problem’
2. Dominance of growth
paradigm
◦ ‘Hidden’ foundation of
neoliberalism and
consumption
3. Dominance of ‘old
economy’ – post industrial
revolution, hierarchical,
socially unjust
Responses
1. Challenge corporate
power (plutocracy)
◦ planned obsolescence,
marketing/advertising,
government and corporate
collusion
2. Accept ecological limits
◦ New discourse – language
and frameworks
3. Build new economy
4. Collective action
◦ Citizens
◦ Regulation





Protected areas? Do try to protect natural areas
from human development/consumption
Biodiversity protection? Does try to set limits ‘absolute’ protection for endangered species
Pollution law (water, air) – NOT about
consumption – manages ‘production’, end of
pipe, based on ‘assimilation’ principles
Planning law? Aims to allocate land use, but is
NOT typically linked to methodologies related to
ecological limits
There are few laws limiting consumption and
production of consumer products based on
environmental grounds

Laws already exist that directly reduce
resource consumption
◦ Current examples - water restrictions, limits set on
recreational fishing, plastic bag bans
◦ In a ‘steady state’ planning laws would ensure
reduced consumption



Need legal structures
to help build societies
that consume less
Not just about
traditional
environmental law
Growing examples
overseas




Reduce car traffic
Increase public transport
Increase public spaces
Facilitate downshifting
through reduced work hours




We need to talk about
consumption and build
new discourse/language
– take ‘the consumption
angle’
It is possible to set
parameters and limits on
resource use
It is possible for law to
play a positive part in a
more sustainable future
Many of the ‘barriers’ are
political – so we need
collective, political,
structural responses
◦ To see real change
◦ To see good law making