Minimalism: The Key to Environmental Turnaround
In the 1930’s a German research group by the name of Frankfurt School made a profound realization about capitalism. The group found that capitalist workers were flooding to consumer-based stores in an attempt to fill the emotional gap that their jobs created. During those times, these occupations were becoming less personalized and had detached from the ideals of the working class. This meant that the workers started to feel estranged from their jobs which no longer satisfied them emotionally as their former, more specialized jobs had. The long monotonous hours of the spreading capitalist professions led these workers to find satisfaction elsewhere. The workers turned to the stores as a place to spend their sadness away, thus creating the foundation of contemporary consumerism (Lotha 2019). Consumerism since then has seen great magnification by factors such as globalization, media, advertising, and even more computer-front, passionless occupations. Modern retail and distribution companies like Amazon are taking advantage of the boom in consumerism as Amazon’s revenue has increased by 377 billion dollars over the past 15 years (Macrotrends 2021). Today, we see the effects of consumerism in our everyday lives as it affects mental health, economic inequality, and the environment.
In the year 2000, the average sixteen year old in the United States had seen roughly six million advertisements, breaking down to more than 40 advertisements per hour alive. When taking into account the recent growth of on-demand media in the 21st century, it is undeniable that this statistic has grown (Frantz 2000). This extreme exposure to manipulation and false promise leaves kids and adults heading into the workforce believing that having the newest, most expensive, most luxurious goods will make them happy. In reality, this is not true, one cannot buy happiness. Although many say having these goods makes them happy, the emotions they feel are often insufficient and ephemeral. With humans' everlasting need for happiness and satisfaction, buying a single good only makes us want more–more of the temporary fulfillment it provides. This is the culture of consumerism. We keep buying in hopes that we will be fulfilled but never are, so the cycle continues. The amount of goods consumed around the world today, measured as personal consumption expenditure, has more than tripled the value of 25 years ago, showing signs of near exponential growth (FRED 2021). According to a 2019 article in USA Today, a large portion of the American consumption is non essential purchases as the average American spends $18,000 a year on non essential items (Backman 2019). This amounts to nearly $6 trillion across the US yearly, meaning more than a quarter of America’s roughly $21 trillion GDP is non essential spending. Today we are seeing that the effects of this unnecessary consumption cycle, especially the environmental externalities, are unnatural and closing in on irreversible.
As previously stated, the high rate of consumption consumerism culture promotes affects many different aspects of our lives. Most notably, it affects the environment and contributes to the acceleration of climate change. The large amounts of air pollution around the world are attributed to consumerism's unethically high demand for goods and the fact that manufacturers of these products are not regulated well enough. A 2015 study found that 60% of all greenhouse gas emissions were due to consumerism (Ivanova et al. 2015). This harmful air pollution not only greatly depletes our protective ozone layer but is also the fourth leading cause of death at 4.9 million annual deaths worldwide (Ritchie 2017). Even more causal of climate change is the water pollution problem that consumerism creates. Although water pollution causes fewer deaths than air pollution at 1.23 million deaths annually (2017), the amount of waste that reaches our bodies of water around the world is depleting our aquatic organisms' populations at an exceptional rate. With the oceans and other bodies of water making up more than 70% of Earth’s surface area, these organisms make up a large portion of Earth’s photosynthesis process which acts to regulate the gasses in the atmosphere and ultimately protect the Earth from climate change (Ohm 2020). Photosynthesis acts as a regulator by controlling the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. With fewer land and sea organisms performing this process, there will be more CO2 in the air and the Earth’s protective ozone layer will continue to deplete and worsen our planet's climate. As of February 2021, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere was up 38 parts per million compared to 2005 measurements, corresponding to an increase of 0.34 ℃ in the annual average temperature (NASA 2021). The climate change statistics display similar trends to those of consumption as both show uncharacteristic and steady growth throughout the 21st century.
The problem here lies in the fact that humans are overconsuming. We buy more things today than ever before and most likely, these are things we can easily live without. After taking a hard look at your possessions and reflecting on their true purpose, an average American consumer could see that they need much less than half the things they own. The reduction of these non essential purchases I label as ‘wants’ and having a focus on the goods we need reflects another type of consumption culture, the culture of minimalism.
Minimalist culture believes that by focusing on the ‘needs’ and not the ‘wants’ while purchasing goods one can improve their mental health, help in the stopping of climate change, and live a more fulfilled life. As Jia Tolentino says in her article in the New Yorker, minimalism is “a mode of living that strips away protective barriers and heightens the miracle of human presence” (Tolentino 2020). Minimalism isn’t about throwing away all of your possessions and living off of nothing; it’s about having what makes you happiest and living a life where there is no need for the aforementioned temporary fulfillment. Arguably more important than a more enjoyable life, another pro to a minimalist lifestyle is the clear fact that one will be consuming less and producing less waste. Therefore minimalists don’t contribute heavily to consumerisms’ pollution, thus reducing their contribution to climate change. If everyone were to consume even 70% of what they do today, the pollution caused by our consumption would undoubtedly decrease. Our oceans would recover, our air would return to a healthy state, and climate change would be less of the global first tier problem it is today. Due to minimalism's insignificance compared to the broadness of consumerism, there is little quantitative evidence of the culture’s benefits. However, minimalism at its core is the culture of less consumption which is the answer to the above problem of our over-consuming society.
The change from contemporary consumerism to minimalism isn’t one of guaranteed joy or fulfillment. The struggles many humans face won’t simply disappear, but the knowledge that you are free from capitalist pressures and able to do what you want to do gives a clearer path to a life of happiness and a world of less environmental destruction. The breaking from consumerism culture starts with having less and buying less. This doesn't mean giving up on a collection or hobby that requires consumption, as that brings you joy. But this does mean being more deliberate with your buying decisions on a daily basis. Asking yourself if a good is a ‘want’ versus a ‘need’ is the perfect starting point that might deter you from buying that non essential pair of shoes or your 30th pair of socks. These marginal consumption decisions are where we need to stop and think; they are the decisions that advertisements promote, that skyrocket our global consumption, and that ultimately cause global warming.
Sources
Backman, Maurie. 2019. "You Don't Need That: Average American Spends Almost $18,000 a Year on Nonessentials." USA Today. May 07, 2019. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/05/07/americans-spend-thousands-on-nonessentials/39450207/.
Frantz, Gregory A. 2000. "Consumerism, Conformity, and Uncritical Thinking in America." DASH Home, January 01, 2000. https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/8846775
FRED. 2021. "Personal Consumption Expenditures." March 26, 2021. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PCE.
Ivanova, Diana, Konstantin Stadler, Kjartan Steen‐Olsen, Richard Wood, Gibran Vita, Arnold Tukker, and Edgar G. Hertwich. 2015. "Environmental Impact Assessment of Household Consumption. 2021" Wiley Online Library. December 18, 2015. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jiec.12371.
Lotha, Gloria. 2019. "Frankfurt School." Encyclopædia Britannica, August 13, 2019. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Frankfurt-School.
Macrotrends. 2021. "Amazon Revenue 2006-2020: AMZN." Accessed April 14, 2021. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AMZN/amazon/revenue.
NASA. 2021. "Global Surface Temperature." Accessed April 14, 2021. https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/.
Ohm, Casper. 2020. "Dangers of Water Pollution." Water Pollution. January 07, 2020. https://www.water-pollution.org.uk/dangers-of-water-pollution/.
Ritchie, Hannah, and Max Roser. 2017. "Air Pollution." Our World in Data, April 17, 2017. https://ourworldindata.org/air-pollution.
Tolentino, Jia. 2020. "The Pitfalls and the Potential of the New Minimalism." The New Yorker. January 27, 2020. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/02/03/the-pitfalls-and-the-potential-of-the-new-minimalism.