Everyday Environmentalism: Concerning Consumption

• Date: 01 April 2011

41 ELR 10374 ENVIRONMENTAL LAW REPORTER 4-2011

Everyday

Environmentalism:

Concerning

Consumption

by Jason J. Czarnezki

Jason J. Czarnezki is a Professor of Law in the

Environmental Law Center at Vermont Law School.

Editors’ Summary

Modern consumption patterns are a product of the

historical development and industrialization of the

United States, including increased consumer spend-

ing and demand for energy-intensive goods. ese

historical and social trends provide the foundation for

understanding contemporary patterns of consumption

of natural resources, undoubtedly a cause of global cli-

mate change and other serious adverse environmen-

tal eects. Signicant environmental problems have

occurred due to the continued depletion and degra-

dation of public resources, with little consideration

for the ultimate costs, whether known and ignored or

simply unforeseen.

In today’s culture, perhaps it is far too ea sy to throw

away recyclable waste, grab a bottle of water, or print

that e-mail message on paper made from a felled tree.

Taken individually, these actions seem harmless, and their

environmental impacts typically are not recognized. “e

increased cognitive severance for consumers between envi-

ronmental cause and eect exacerbates the potential envi-

ronmental impact of such increased consumption.”1 is

distance is evidenced in energy consumption, food choices,

and home preferences. Televisions magically turn on, fast-

food restaurants permeate our cities, and large homes over-

run the suburban landscape. Many who engage in these

activities remain happily ignorant of the environmental

costs of common behavior and activity patterns.

Environmenta l ignorance couples dangerou sly with

regulator y reluctance. Short-term economic g ains drive

modern public policy,2 and this public policy ignores

individua l behavior.

e dominance of economistic reasoning and the prag-

matism of growth politics conspire to insulate from policy

scrutiny the individual black boxes in which consuming is

understood to occur. A s a result, an entire rea lm of ques-

tions cannot be asked. No one in public life dare s—or

needs—to ask why people consume, let alone question

whether people or societies are better o with their acc us-

tomed consumption patterns.3

us, modern culture and politics inhibit public dis-

cussion of the very questions this book chooses to address:

Why do we use so much electricity in the home? Should

we change our diets? Why do we live where we do? And

an empirical query: why do people consume what they do?

is Article traces the links between historical con-

sumption and economic development patterns in the

United States, the resulting ecological harms, and the

societal reluctance to deal with a new era of environmen-

tal concerns driven by t he consequences of individual

behavior. Part I describes the early American historical

forces that helped lead to today’s culture of convenience,

development, and consumption in the United States. Pa rt

II discusses the more recent phenomenon of American

consumption dened by consumerism, overconsumption,

1. R J. L, T M  E L 220 (Univ.

of Chicago Press 2004).

2. T P    ., C   C   5 (MIT

Press 2002 ). (“ Economi c gro wth, facilit ated at ev ery turn by pu blic

poli cy, becom es the lubri cant f or civ ic pro cesses of de mocrat ic pla n-

ning and co mpromi se.”)

3. Id. at 5.

Editors’ Note: is Article is excerpted from Everyday

Environmentalism: Law, Nature & Individual Behavior,

published in 2011 by ELI Press. e book is available for purchase

at http:// www.eli.org.

Copyright © 2011 Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, DC. reprinted with permission from ELR®, http://www.eli.org, 1-800-433-5120.