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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