In a recent post (“Why should we reduce, when the rich fatcats are living large?”), I mentioned that we eco Boomer folks are unintentionally glorifying hyperconsumerism.
As a full-time sustainability educator / climate activist (self-employed), I feel a longterm, deep-seated frustration at seeing so many of my fellow concerned environmentalists appearing to become extreme consumers.
Annual European vacations, constant cruises, etc. Big houses with air-conditioning and big cars and all that. Multiple cars per household, even for each of the teenagers. Multiple houses in multiple countries. And posting it all on social media.
I understand that in some cases, the setup of our cities and society forces people into gross consumerism. Being virtually forced to own at least one car per household is a prime example.
But maybe we should be keeping very quiet about it. Or, if we do post about it on social media, maybe we should be talking regretfully about how hard it is to avoid consumption that ultimately adds more to our stress than it does to our quality of life. Even if that consumption, and telling our friends all about it, feels good in the moment.
I would like us to be posting a lot more about our successes related to thrift and reduction. The joy of seeing live local music on the patio of the restaurant down the block. The unexpected family adventure of deciding to leave the car at home and walk to the store. The unbelievably fun Zoom wedding, or Zoom graduation, that brought together friends and family from multiple states or even multiple countries without the eco-footprint and assorted hassle of air travel and being around lots of people. Praise for our local community college, which is easily accessible by public transport and offers so many good career training programs that more of our kids are deciding to stay in town to learn a trade and then serve the community. Our young friend’s success in her business of hand-making clothing out of old discarded clothing. My wonderful 60th birthday stay-cation a couple years ago, at a cool historic bed-and-breakfast across from the marina that is a picturesque 30-minute walk over the bridge from my house. (The proprietress — and her vintage hats and vintage jewelry, which she encourages people to try on — was as much fun as the building and grounds itself!)
And so on. That kind of thing. You can probably think of all sorts of your own examples. Social media should be flooded with stuff like this.
And definitely, please keep those native plant garden and vegetable garden pictures coming! A lot of you have been posting those, and it is very beneficially contagious.
Also, although the lavish “eco meme” images one sees on social media may be digitally enhanced, I have no problem encouraging people to post them. Visual images are a highly useful tool in helping to reset the default norms of industrial-consumerist society. So go ahead, flood your feed with over-the-top solarpunk images of trees growing on the roofs of skyscrapers and so on.
Background: Even while expressing anguish and upset over the biospheric crisis, many in our cohort (a group which I have come to refer to as “eco Boomers” or “Woodstock Boomers,” plus Boomer-adjacent generations who identify with such) are rationalizing that the big rich fatcats are the ones with the big footprint, so “why should I deprive myself?”
This is a very widespread sentiment.
So, I wrote a post answering that very question. In case the link doesn’t work for you, it’s the post immediately preceding this one. Hope you find it helpful and encouraging!