Our Affluenza Epidemic

By Laurine Brown, PhD, MPH

"Live simply so that others may simply live."

"Wow, you have so many clothes," a teen girl from a primitive Bangladesh village remarks while watching me hang 3 crisp outfits in the tin hut I'll call home for a year. I'm humbled. Embarrassed really. If she only knew how many clothes packed my American closet.

My impoverished young friend suffers from hunger and malnutrition. She longs for just two square meals a day and a new dress to replace her tattered one. Halfway around the globe in America our basic needs of food, shelter, and clothing are mostly met, and then some. But we're not satisfied. The affluenza epidemic has hit us-- we're suffering from a disease of materialism. We fill our big houses with stuff and we still feel empty. Shuffling the stuff consumes our time and clutters our minds. So we pack workshops on clearing the clutter and send our rejects to landfills.

I wonder what my teen friend would do with just a small treasure from our trash?

We consume. Our consumption pollutes. Our pollution hurts our planet and its life. The "good life" is a part of us all, including my Asian friend who enjoys none of its riches. The plastic packaging, deadly dioxins, and gasoline fumes are literally knit into our tissues, causing unknown disruption. And scientific evidence of our consumption's environmental damage to the planet is staggering-- global warming, ozone hole, depleted fossil fuels, acid rain, extinctions. In 1992 scientists from 80 countries warned that humanity is on a collision course with nature. Not a good path. They predict extinctions beyond those of the last big asteroid. This time the asteroid is us.

Scientists even have solid solutions for our biggest environmental problems, like wind and solar energy, and cleaner transportation. But all the solutions in the world are worthless if people don't think there's a problem, ISU biologist Dr. Angelo Capparella explains. That's the bigger problem-- we just don't get it. Our planet can support 2 billion people at our current level of consumption. We're already topping 6 billion.

Most of us sense something is not right. We want to do something about the environment, but feel powerless to make a difference. The Union of Concerned Scientists has taken this concern to heart in "The Consumer's Guide to Effective Environmental Choices". They've outlined priority actions consumers can make that cut our most polluting practices-- transportation, food production, and household operations. As we enter the season of way-overconsumption, it's a good place to start.

1. Transportation-- Personal use of cars and light trucks is the single most damaging consumer behavior, causing greenhouse gases, air and water pollution (through manufacturing, oil, gas and highway runoff), and disruption of wildlife habitats (by road networks). Drive less by choosing a home close to work and stores or other places you frequent, carpooling, and economizing errands. Use a fuel-efficient, low-polluting car no bigger or powerful than needed. Set concrete goals for reducing your travel, by first keeping a log of daily miles and then deciding on a reasonable reduction, say 20%. Whenever practical, walk, bicycle, or take public transportation.

2. Food-- Meat production (beef, chickens, pigs) causes more environmental harm than any other kind of food production. In addition to water pollution from enormous amounts of animal waste, our meat-centered diet harms the environment through pesticide and fertilizer application on grain grown for animal feed, depleting aquifers for irrigation of these grains, and hoarding land for animal feed crops and grazing (crowding out natural habitats and wildlife). Cutting meat consumption in half and replacing it with grains cuts food-related land use and water pollution by nearly 30%. Also, buying certified organic produce and grains eliminates spraying of harmful pesticides and synthetic fertilizers, and cuts soil erosion and irrigation demands through common use of cover crops and crop rotations.

3. Household Operations-- First, don't oversize your habitat, or you'll hike your fuel bills along with emitting more greenhouse gas and air pollutants. Construction of bigger houses also hoards material resources (especially timber, disturbing wildlife habitats). Higher initial costs of "greening up" your home's operations may eventually be offset by long-term savings, with less pollution to our planet. Prevent heat or cool air loss with good insulation, high-efficiency windows, and sealed windows and doors. Reduce the environmental costs of heating and hot water by choosing cleaner natural gas, replacing old with more efficient systems (consider solar), turning down thermostats at night. Reduce electricity use through efficient appliances, (especially refrigerators/freezers that use 25% of home electricity), and replace incandescent light bulbs with fluorescents. And choose an electricity supplier that offers renewable energy like wind, solar, or plant energy, or hydropower (coal and nuclear energy are most polluting).

4. Finally, reduce consumption in ways that are meaningful to you, even though not environmentally significant. This may seem a peculiar path to becoming an environmentally friendly consumer. But quiet reflection about what's really important to us often guides us toward meaningful connections with ourselves, families, and communities. Indirectly it leads us away from the short-lived joy of accumulation of stuff with its raping of the earth's resources and polluting life cycle. We remember that we too have a sacred place in the web of life on this planet, and it is our responsibility and honor to make the best of it. And that feels good.

"As the GNP of a country goes up, the health of the earth goes down."
-Lester Brown, The Worldwatch Institute

November 2001