THE COSTS OF CONVENIENCE
Everything we see and touch is made from something, however, distantly, the Earth has given. And we take a great deal, seemingly without a second thought. We expect the shelves to be stocked and the tap to flow, without really acknowledging the systems that make it all possible. It saddens me sometimes to look around and see how we have reshaped the world to satiate our hunger. One could argue, of course, that as part of nature human settlements and influence is completely natural. And there is truth to that. What is not natural, and unlike any other species, is the scale of our consumption. So much in fact that according to the Global Footprint Network out of Switzerland it’s estimated we need about 1.7 Earths per year to meet our demands, and that number grows every year. It is to the point where we deplete the planet’s annual biocapacity by about early August.
ECOLOGICAL DECLINE
The Global Footprint Network assesses for any given population or region the demand for the goods and services that its land and seas can provide—fruits and vegetables, meat, fish, wood, cotton, water etc, and whether it exceeds that bio-regions capacity to absorb its waste (in the form of CO2 emissions) and regenerate what is taken.
No other species on Earth does this. In fact, it is a major tenant of all organisms in healthy ecosystems that they work within their local capacity by way of both energy and resources. Circularity, efficiency and redundancy are what holds up the natural world. It is only in the man-made world that we see consumption so out of balance (1). We are voracious consumers, and the most disheartening thing about it is that we did not create this system. I’ve written about this before, but the profiteers and corporate fat cats who did saw opportunity in post-war manufacturing to line their pockets while flooding the world with cheap, disposable goods. And that trend has seemingly infiltrated every facet of our society. We are over-producing technology, over-producing plastic, over-producing content and media, hell even over-producing food (especially meat). And we have been for decades. After all, there is money to be made. And you could replace produce with consume in each one of these examples, as one invariably follows the other. We participate, wittingly or not, because there isn’t much choice otherwise. And this model of linearity and exploitation has reshaped our lives and twisted us around its finger promising ever more delight, distraction, efficiency, connection, and, most perniciously, convenience.
The pinnacle of this, in my mind, is the onslaught of AI emerging into every facet of our lives, digital and otherwise. Even as I write this Google’s Gemini is popping up with suggested edits and refinements to my work. What frustrates me is that I did not ask for any of this technology to be thrown in my face, and I seemingly can’t turn it off. Companies are now tripping over themselves to be the first to win this illusory ‘AI arms race’, and they seemingly don’t care who or what it impacts (after all, there is money to be made). Sure it can be useful, but it is the ultimate example of convenience blindly forging ahead no matter the price. A recent report by Environment America studied the effects the data centers needed to drive AI (and cryptocurrency) are having on our communities. While the conclusion is that it’s still early, the takeaway is that they are gluttons in every sense of the word; hoarding massive amounts of energy and water to keep their servers cool and humming. And everything around them suffers. Residential communities in Northern Virginia (where I grew up and my parents still live), North Carolina, Georgia, Texas, and California are now facing black outs and disrupted power grids, degraded ecosystems, delayed transitions away from fossil fuels, deafening noise, and drowning economies with the absurd tax breaks these facilities are promised. All so we can compose an email faster or make a few quick bucks? I will not dispute the potential benefits of these technologies, but given their emergence in this time in human and planetary history I can’t help but ponder the words of the incomparable Dr. Ian Malcom when I think of this new frontier,
“Your [engineers] were so preoccupied with whether they could they didn’t stop to think if they should.”
This convenience driven consumer reality hurts everyone in the end, as climate injustice often precipitates. And I'll say again it is not our fault the world looks this way, and the onus is not on us to substantively change it. We need strong policies and leadership focusing on mandating rapid renewable energy transitions, reducing over-production, and demanding corporations take responsibility for the impacts of their goods and services. And that’s clearly not going to happen in an era of corporate personhood, let alone the next 4 years. But I firmly believe we as the consumer are not powerless. There are a million calls to action out there encouraging us to do more about this issue, but part of me feels the best thing we can all do is….nothing. Buy nothing. Use nothing. At least where we can, and on occasion. It is a sort of active anti-capitalism, turning mindless consumption into conscientious conservation; refusing to take part in a system of exploitation that has seemingly no end. I think refusal can be a powerful act of resistance against this trend and perhaps even challenge the corporate greed that feeds it. After all, they need our wallets and eye balls far more than we need them.
“...the thing the human brain craves above all else and nature will die refusing to give: convenience. Ease is the disease…” _ The Overstory
It won’t move mountains, but the beautiful thing about a seemingly inconsequential gesture like this is that it is ubiquitous. There are always little micro-adjustments we can make in every aspect of our lives that over time may lead to systemic change, and we have complete freedom over our own behavior. There are things we need, yes, and we should have them. But we get to decide what else we let into our orbit. It can be overwhelming to know where to begin, so start small: refuse a bag, let your hands air dry, refill a bottle, don’t flush every time (use discretion here), go analog, walk, read a book by candlelight, or put on a sweatshirt to name a few. The key and operating principle here is less. It does not mean we need to deny ourselves or make our lives harder. It’s about being mindful of the costs of making them easier and making informed choices accordingly; to become more discerning and conscientious consumers.
None of this is new or groundbreaking by any stretch of the imagination. It’s a gentle reminder that just because the world throws these things at us does not mean we have to buy them. And I acknowledge that consumption can be addicting, and the convenience driven model is a powerful psychological weapon that has been exploited at every turn to make us believe that what we have defines who we are. But it is a lie. We need very little: food, water, air, shelter, connection. The rest is confetti; a little joy if and when we need it. So let’s take a breath and step back from the brink. Find a little simplicity and bring some awareness back to a system that is so out of balance. The costs of maintaining the status quo are high and its problems numerous, but we may be surprised to find that the best solutions are free.
References:
Zari, Maibritt Pederson, Regenerative Urban Design and Ecosystem Biomimicry, Routledge, New York, NY, 2018.