Do material possessions make us more satisfied with our lives?

GNP per capita and expressed happiness

Social comparison & reference groups

Comparing - according to what criteria?
Values -- Materialism

1) Producing much: Assume wants are infinite, and develop ability to meet them by economic productivity. Economics assumes this.

2) Desiring little: Assume that human material wants are finite and few, and technical means are stable but adequate. The "original affluence" of hunters and gatherers.
 

Actual sources of satisfaction in life:

Satisfaction with family life, especially marriage
Satisfaction with work
Helping others
Leisure to develop talents
Friendships

Buy Nothing Day
Center for a New American Dream

Recall:
Environmental impact =
Population * Consumption / person * Impact / unit of consumption

The third factor is determined by Technology.
 

Can technologies that

1) increase energy and resource efficiency
and / or
2) decrease pollution

The answer from technological optimists:

Markets plus science can overcome economically scarcity

Consider copper:
 
 

plus, 156 million were consumed over this 30 years!!

How could we use almost 6 time what there was?
 
 
 
 
 

Hint: the global "stock" of a mineral is the theoretical total amount in the earth.
That's different from the reserves!

The "reserves" of a mineral are that proportion of the global stock of that mineral that can be exploited given current technologies and yield a profit given current prices.
 
 

Is there a limit to how far we can exploit reserves?

Consider the environmental costs of mining "ever-thinner ores":
Cyanide leaching of gold ore

Markets respond to economic scarcity by stimulating search for substitutes.
Excess profit is a signal of inefficiency and stimlutes competition.
 
 
 

But it's not true that technological change is only influenced by markets!

1) Find examples from State of the World of howgovernment policies

• Maintain present technologies
or
• Stimulate or inhibit new ones
2) "Reverse adaptation" occurs when using a technology becomes an end in itself, often by institutions committed to its continuation whether it is the best tool of the job or not.

3) "Technological imperative" refers to society's irreversible commitment to a technology and all that supports it.

What will it take to have a STEADY-STATE ECONOMY?
 

Assume:
1) Population by 2050, according to UN medium projection:
up by 80%

2) Consumption per person, growing at 1.2%/year (rate of 1980's):
up 100% by 2050

Therefore,

3) Technology would have to cut the damage done by each unit of consumption by:
72% --- just to keep total damage rising at today's rate

An example: Greenhouse gas emissions from cars:

Assuming population and consumption keep growing as above,

to cut CO2 emissions by 60% from today's levels
(as recommended by the Intern. Panel on Climate Change),

new technology would have to cut emissions per unit consumption by:

89%, or 3.8% / year, each year, to reach the goal in 2050.

An 85 mpg car could deliver this in the transport sector,
assuming 10 years to be developed and another 15 to saturate the market.

Key Question:
What combination of industry and governmental incentives and policies could achieve this?
 
 

CONSIDER THE ABILITY OF THE BIOSPHERE TO PROVIDE

NATURAL CAPITAL
ECOLOGICAL SERVICES
LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEMS

       -global gas balances & stable climate
       -clean watersheds & aquifers
       -wetlands
       -fertile top-soils & rangelands
       -nutrient recycling
       -forests & wood products
       -fisheries
       -purification of soil, air, water
       -degradation of wastes
       -pollination
       -control of pests
       -healthy ontogenetic systems (reproductive and embryological)
       -biodiversity & habitat

These goods are COMPLEMENTARY, NOT SUBSTITUTABLE!

They are ECOLOGICALLY SCARCE
 
 
 

Market-driven substitution works imperfectly or not at all
for ecologically scarce goods
because:

• Money valuation of these goods is distorted and underestimated
• There are no markets to trade them
• Private ownership cannot be secured (some are fluid and move)
• They depend on widely distributed processes to function

The Ecological  Footprint measure translates human activities
into areas of land needed to support them.  Four types of land are needed for:

• carbon storage (fossil energy consumption)
• food
• forest products
• built-up areas

Ecological footprint analysis provides an ecologically-relevant way to measure and compare the impacts of different lifestyle choices and levels of consumption.  Monetary measures fail completely at this task.

Visit Redefining Progress for more on ecological footprints
 
 

Comparing national per capita footprints

• The average American uses 25 acres to support his or her current lifestyle. This corresponds to the size of 25 football fields put together.
• The average Canadian lives on a footprint 25 percent less
• The average Italian lives on a footprint on 60 percent less

Earth Shares

• If all the earth's biologically productive land and ocean were devoted to sustain humans, each person in the current population of the world would have an "earth share" equal to about 5 acres.
• As population continues to increase, the earth share decreases.  It will decrease from 5 acres to about 4 by 2050.

Other Species

• If we save land for the earth's 30 million other species, the human per capita "earth share" amount would have to be decreased...
• How much should we set aside for other species? 10%? 50%  80%
• If we set aside 50%, today we would have shares of 2.5 acres -- requiring a ten-fold decrease in the impacts of the North American lifestyle

Total footprint

• Today, humanity's footprint may be over 30% larger than what the world has to offer.
• We are living on natural capital - beyond the sustainable income of the biosphere.
• If everyone today lived at the standard of North Americans, we would need more than an additional two earths to support it.