Christmas is nearly upon us and this year I have been struck by the sheer desperation of the advertising strategies being used, with this truly disgusting commercial by Littlewoods a prime example. Ironically the advert received hundreds of complaints, not because of the obscene way it portrays expensive junk as some sort of elixir of life, but mainly because it alludes to the fact that santa does not exisit! In my opinion this year feels like a ‘final push’ to sell as much worthless crap as humanly possible before people realise that the party is over. I believe that by next Christmas there will be a lot less consumers ready to splash the cash, and by then there will have been the beginnings of change amongst the masses, whether due to negative reasons such as widespread banking collapses/huge inflation, or due to a positive seachange in opinion as people wake up to reality.
We are at the logical end of a cycle that began around the turn of the century with the world’s first instance of ‘planned obsolescence’ – the lightbulb – and truly sparked into life with the birth of American consumerism in the 1950’s. Back then people really didn’t know that the earth’s resource were finite, and with the great depression still a fresh memory, and the western world experiencing true stability for the first time in many years, it made sense to create constant desire amongst consumers for new & improved products, the making of which would drive the economy and keep millions employed. But now we know all about our dwindling oil supplies, and are aware of the mountains of refuse our desires are producing and dumping on third-world countries, so there is no excuse for making things that are designed and built not only not to last but to actually fail.
To have a further look at planned obsolescence I urge you to watch this fascinating documentry which can explain things much more in depth than I can. The film contains many examples of items which were designed with fatal faults, such as the original Ipod, modern Epson printers, nylon tights and of course the humble bulb. To make matters worse there are designs of many of these products which are far superior but have been actively surpressed.
It is vital that we in the western world return to the mindset that saw our grandparents through austere times. The true meanings of slogans such as ‘make do and mend’, while still in our collective conscience, have been totally forgotten. In the same way that older generations are conditioned to look after their possesions and fix what can be fixed, today’s generation have been told exactly the opposite, that everything can be replaced cheaply and nothing is worth fixing. In fact we have been conditioned to want to replace products that are still forfilling their purpose perfectly well. That mindset will be very very hard to change, but our way of life here in the West is completely unsustainable and we need to start producing products that are built to last.
Research has shown that we would need over 5 earths to sustain a planet full of Americans, and around 3 planets to keep 7 billion Brits in shiny Ikea furniture and pre packaged grated cheese. The break even point is just about China, but with their consumer economy and need for oil growing rapidly, there is soon to be even more competition for the earth’s limited supplies. Currently we are using around 150% of earth’s sustainability per yer and growing. If you are interested in reading a very in depth study of the world’s ecological footprint, have a look at this document.
What can we do? Unfortunately the likelihood is that mother earth will take care of that herself sometime in the future with a huge correction in population, such as you would see naturally occuring for any species that was outgrowing it’s habitat. Science could concievably fix almost all the problems we have, and the technology is there to provide enough food for everyone, but it would require sacrifices that we in the West are not willing to make. Producing food is one of our biggest challenges, and meat consumption, overfishing and food miles are all areas that need significant reduction. Add that to reducing and eliminating unnecesary packaging and plastic bags, reducing dependency on private vehicles, increasing uses of renewable energy while decreasing overall use of energy, decreasing water useage, increasing recycling and a host of other things and one begins to understand the challenges we will face over the coming years.
These are all tangible things that can be addressed, but many of them are still heading the wrong way, coupled with the social problems that are still growing, wealth inequality being the most obvious example. With the usual frenzy of consumerism that comes with the festive period, its a good time to think about changes. The only way companies will stop making so much crap, and ramming it down our throats, is if we start to reject it.
Decline Of The Western Empire 