How Much Is Enough?: The Consumer Society and the Future of the Earth (The Worldwatch Environmental Alert Series)

An account of the detrimental effects of consumption and consumer behaviour on the world's natural environment. It discusses the use of resources, pollution, and the distortions created in the economies of both wealthy industrialized nations and Third World countries. Early in the age of affluence that began after World War II, retailing analyst Victor Lebow declared: "Our enormously productive economy ... demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption ... We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced, and discarded at an ever increasing rate." Americans have risen to Mr. Lebow's call, and much of the world has followed. The wildfire advance of the consumer lifestyle around the globe marks the most rapid and fundamental change in day-to-day existence the human species has ever experienced. Over a few short generations, we in the affluent fifth of humanity have become car drivers, television watchers, mall shoppers, and throwaway buyers. The tragic irony is that while the consumer society has been stunningly effective in harming the environment, it has failed to provide us with a sense of fulfillment. Consumerism has hoodwinked us into gorging on material things because we suffer from social, psychological, and spiritual hungers. Yet the opposite extreme--poverty--may be even worse for the human spirit and devastates the environment too, as hungry peasants put forests to the torch and steep slopes to the plow. If the Earth suffers when people have either too little or too much, the questions arise: How much is enough? What level of consumption can the planet support? When do more things cease to add appreciably to human life? These are the issues that Alan Thein Durning tackles in his eloquent and thought-provoking How Much Is Enough? The Consumer Society and the Future of the Earth. How Much Is Enough? is the second book in the Worldwatch Institute's new Environmental Alert Series. Ultimately, Durning argues, the linked fates of humanity and the natural realm depend on us, the consumers. We can curtail our use of ecologically destructive things and cultivate the deeper, nonmaterial sources of fulfillment that bring happiness: family and social relationships, meaningful work, and leisure. Or we can abrogate our responsibilities and allow our lifestyle to destroy the Earth

An account of the detrimental effects of consumption and consumer behaviour on the world's natural environment.

Library Journal

Durning, a senior researcher at the Worldwatch Institute, develops the thesis that of the three issues the global community must address in order to save the world's environment--population growth, technological change, and consumption--the latter is the most neglected and can ill afford to be. He argues that it is easier to focus on technology, which is simpler to replace than the cultural attitudes governing consumption. The conundrum of consumption is that ``limiting the consumer life-style to those who have already attained it is not politically possible . . . or ecologically sufficient . . . and extending that life-style to all would hasten the ruin of the biosphere.'' Durning calls for a ``culture of permanence,'' a society that lives within its means. A potent philosophical as well as practical guide, this is recommended for collections concerned with the growing issue of environmental sustainability.-- Jennifer Scarlott, Campaign for Peace and Democracy, New York

I - Assessing consumption; The conundrum of consumption; The consumer society; The dubious rewards of consumption; The environmental costs of consumption; II - Searching for sufficiency; Food and drink; Clean motion; The stuff of life; III - Taming consumerism; The myth of consume or decline; The cultivation of needs; A culture of permanence; For further reading and action; Notes; Index