A Consumption Manifesto

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Good Stuff? — A Consumption Manifesto: The Top Ten Principles of Good

Consumption

Consumption is one of life's great pleasures. Buying things we crave,

traveling to beautiful places, eating delectable food: icing on the cake of

life. But too often the effects of our blissful consumption make for a sad

story. Giant cars exhaling dangerous exhaust, hog farms pumping out noxious

pollutants, toxic trash heaps nudging into poor neighborhoods—none of this

if there weren't something to sell.

 

But there's no need to swap pleasure for guilt. With thoughtfulness and

commitment, consumption can be a force for good. Too long have we consumers

been a blushing bride overwhelmed by business suitors. It's time for the

bride to assert herself. We've got the dowry; we have the purchasing power.

We can require our suitors to comply with our vision of environmental

stewardship—or we can close the door behind them on their way out. Through

buying what we need, produced the way we want, we can create the world we'd

like to live in.

 

To that end and for the future, a Consumption Manifesto:

Principle One. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. This brilliant triad says it all.

Reduce: Avoid buying what you don't need—and when you do get that

dishwasher/lawnmower/toilet, spend the money up front for an efficient model

Re-use: Buy used stuff, and wring the last drop of usefulness out of most

everything you own. Recycle: Do it, but know that it's the last and least

effective leg of the triad. (Ultimately, recycling simply results in the

manufacture of more things.)

Principle Two. Stay close to home. Work close to home to shorten your

commute; eat food grown nearby; patronize local businesses; join local

organizations. All of these will improve the look, shape, smell, and feel of

your community.

Principle Three. Internal combustion engines are polluting, and their use

should be minimized. Period.

Principle Four. Watch what you eat. Whenever possible, avoid food grown with

pesticides, in feedlots, or by agribusiness. It's an easy way to use your

dollars to vote against the spread of toxins in our bodies, land, and water.

 

Principle Five. Private industries have very little incentive to improve

their environmental practices. Our consumption choices must encourage and

support good behavior; our political choices must support government

regulation.

Principle Six. Support thoughtful innovations in manufacturing and

production. Hint: Drilling for oil is no longer an innovation.

Principle Seven. Prioritize. Think hardest when buying large objects; don't

drive yourself mad fretting over the small ones. It's easy to be distracted

by the paper bag puzzle, but an energy-sucking refrigerator is much more

worthy of your attention. (Small electronics are an exception.)

Principle Eight. Vote. Political engagement enables the spread of

environmentally conscious policies. Without public action, thoughtful

individuals are swimming upstream.

Principle Nine. Don't feel guilty. It only makes you sad.

Principle Ten. Enjoy what you have—the things that are yours alone, and the

things that belong to none of us. Both are nice, but the latter are precious

Those things that we cannot manufacture and should never own—water, air,

birds, trees—are the foundation of life's pleasures. Without them, we're

nothing. With us, there may be nothing left. It's our choice.

—Umbra Fisk, Grist Magazine

For more advice on wise consumption, visit Grist Magazine online at

http://www.gristmagazine.com/ask/.