Reducing Personal Consumption Is Not Enough

 

The ideal of reducing personal consumption has wide appeal among environmentalists.  In the face of dwindling natural resources, vanishing wildlife habitat, and impoverished people around the globe we feel concerned about our high consumption.  So we buy a more fuel efficient car, keep the house less warm in winter, and eat less meat. 

 

Every environmentalist understands the need to reduce personal consumption because the major environmental organizations have “shouted this need from the rooftops.”  On the other hand, only a few environmentalists understand that such reductions will fail to provide the desired environmental benefit if we do not soon stabilize the U.S. population.  Few environmentalists understand the urgency of stabilizing the U.S. population because the major environmental organizations are virtually silent on this issue. 

 

In the long run the silence will be self-defeating.  This assertion is not just a matter of opinion.  Rather it is the conclusion that follows from objectively assessing the benefit of reduced personal consumption in the context of a mushrooming U.S. population.  Making the assessment is not difficult; the main aspects follow in just three brief paragraphs.

 

In assessing the benefit of reduced per capita consumption (our average personal consumption) we must ask: Who’s going to reduce consumption, and by how much?  Affluent Americans consume more than low income Americans.  The income and consumption of Americans are tracked by government surveys, and the data is often presented according to income quintile: the poorest 20%, the second poorest 20%, the middle 20%, the second richest 20%, and the richest 20%.  The Bureau of Labor Statistics presented personal consumption expenditures for the year 2000 in exactly this way.¹  When the per capita expenditures affecting the environment (food, shelter, utilities, apparel, transportation, etc.) are compared quintile by quintile, we find that the richest 20% outspend the poorest 20% by a 2:1 margin. 

 

Since more affluent people consume the most, people in the poorest and second poorest quintiles are the last people we would ask to substantially reduce consumption.  No one knows how much reduction we can get from the middle and upper income people, but for present purposes let us assume a miraculous reduction.  Let us assume that people in the middle and upper income brackets will cut their per capita consumption to the level of people in the second poorest quintile.  Among other things this would require the richest 20% (more than 60 million people) to cut their consumption of goods nearly in half.  Obviously this would be a stunning event without parallel in human history.  Yet even with this fantasy model, the reduction in average (or per capita) personal consumption expenditures would be less than 25%!²

 

With a stable population the total consumption of all Americans would track the reduction in average personal consumption.  But our population is far from stable.  The Census Bureau projects that the U.S. population will double this century.³  The consequence is startling. Even if our overall per capita consumption were to miraculously decrease 25%, a doubling of our population will cause our total consumption to increase 50%!⁴  In other words, no matter how much effort we put into encouraging people to reduce their consumption, the total consumption of the U.S. will increase with devastating environmental consequences.

 

If we think we have problems today protecting forests, water resources, pristine areas with potential mineral resources, etc., just imagine how much more intractable the problems will be with total consumption increased 50%, or more.  As population growth drives total consumption inexorably upward, a pristine area saved today will simply be lost later this century. 

 

And what about our demand on world resources?  It is often noted that the U.S. has about 5% of the world’s population, but consumes about 25% of its resources.  This inequity is clearly an environmental justice issue that we should be concerned about.  Yet, regardless of the success we may have in reducing per capita consumption, the U.S. will take a larger and larger slice of the earth’s resource pie.  As a doubling population drives our total consumption inexorably upward, it is difficult to imagine that impoverished people around the globe will not regard us with steadily rising enmity.

 

Doubling the U.S. population during this century is not inevitable.  We have a choice.  As I show in the book, In Growth We Trust, U.S. population will stabilize at 400 Million – if we modestly reduce the average number of children per woman through entirely voluntary means. 

 

Even if per capita consumption remained as high as it is today, with U.S. population stabilized at 400 million our total consumption would increase about 43% – well below the 50% consequence of a doubling population and the fantasy consumption reduction scenario!  Moreover, a population stabilized at 400 million in conjunction with the fantasy consumption reduction scenario would result in a total consumption increase of only 7%.⁵

 

This brief analysis is only a starting point; even so its conclusion is clear: a vigorous effort to stabilize U.S. population is essential if we are to prevent consumption from shattering our hopes for the environment. 

 

What we must do

 

The preceding argument has major implications. Yet, to the best of my knowledge, no major environmental organization has ever published an assessment of the efficacy of reduced personal consumption in the context of a doubling U.S. population. 

 

The leaders of the major environmental organizations have turned a blind eye to the urgent need to confront the role that U.S. population growth plays in our declining environment.  The vision of others is not so impaired:  In his latest book, Tom Horton challenges environmental groups everywhere to join the Chesapeake Bay Foundation in putting the issue of U.S. population stabilization on the national agenda.⁶

 

For the sake of all our posterity, please act.  Help restore the vision of the environmental movement’s national leaders.  Write to them.  Tell them to accept Horton’s challenge.  Or just clip out this essay and send it.  For starters you might consider Larry Fahn, President, Sierra Club, 85 Second Street, San Francisco, CA, 94105-3459.

 

Contacting an environmental leader or several leaders is the simplest possible grassroots action.  If enough people do it, it will be a powerful act.  And remember, if you do not act, won’t you be part of the self-defeating silence?

 

Adapted from an article by Edwin Stennett in the winter 2003/2004 issue of the Chesapeake – newsletter of the Sierra Club, Maryland Chapter.

 

Endnotes

[1] Table 1, “Consumer Expenditures in 2000,” BLS Report 958, April 2002

2 While the 25% readily follows from the BLS report, the arithmetic is too cumbersome to include in this essay.  Readers interested in the details are invited to contact the author.

3 Census Bureau Middle Projection of 571 Million people

4 Population x Per Capita Consumption = Total Consumption.  By normalizing all three terms to 1, we may calculate the future total consumption as 2 x .75 = 1.5. 1.5 is a 50% increase relative to 1.

5 Population x Per Capita Consumption = Total Consumption.  By normalizing all three terms to 1, we may calculate the future total consumption as 400/280 x .75 = 1.07. 1.07 is a 7% increase relative to 1.

6 Turning the Tide (Revised Edition), Tom Horton, Island Press, 2003, p324.