- "serious" folks, armed with facts that tend to inspire fear instead of motivation
- "shrill voices" that rely on guilt, scolding ignorant consumers
- "downshifters" who voluntarily give up their consumption
- "conscious consumers," who feel that providing a greener market for goods will help
- "green designers"
- "activists and campaigners"
I've been cleaning old crap out of the basement..just took a load of old electronics parts, wires, etc. to the recycling center, with more to go later. I'm also reading Annie Leonard's The Story of Stuff, a so-far wonderful description of what underlies the enormous quantity of "stuff" we purchase, consume, and dispose of. I like the idea of downshifting in my consumption, and this book is a great way to motivate me. In her introduction, she refers to Einstein's observation of paradigms, and how problems cannot be solved from within the same paradigm in which they're created. A paradigm change is needed to steer us away from the consumption-driven economy, and it is probably an enormous undertaking. Leonard reminds the reader in the intro that water is involved in almost everything we buy (I'm going to try to determine my water footprint at the link she provides, www.waterfootprint.org). She also groups those that approach the problem of consumption into several categories:
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