The Consumer Society: Has its Use-by Date Expired?

Comments for "Resilient Ranges" Talk
Dandenong Ranges Community Cultural Centre,
Saturday, 2 October 1999

I recently contributed to a panel discussion at Melbourne University on World Environment Day.  During that, there was much parading of affinity by various speakers for indigenous Australians without there being, as far as I could see, any actual indigenous Australians in the (rather large) audience.  So I would like to thank Joy Murphy for her introduction and welcome.  Her words managed to give connection to indigenous Australia purpose and meaning, in place of the rather artificial moral grandstanding at Melbourne University.  The Dandenong Festival has done better than Melbourne University, and I thank Joy for that.

[Note:  Joy talked briefly about her personal experience and understanding of connection to the land as an Elder of the Wurundjeri people, who were her father's people.]

I would also like to very much agree with Frank Fisher [Professor of Environmental Science at Monash University and preceding speaker] about the importance of interactions and connections in society.

I wanting to give hope without implying that there are no problems.  It is perfectly true that the "consumer society" -- by which we mean mass prosperity -- imposes a range of pressures on our environment.  It is also true that, globally, these pressures will increase as people in the developing world aspire to the standard of living that they can see that people in the developed world already enjoy.  It is further true that they will not take kindly to being told that they cannot have what we already do.

But that these pressures are created does not mean that environmental disaster is inevitable.  The key question is:  how well will these environmental pressures be handled?

Fortunately, the news here, though mixed, is far from bleak.  The evidence is already very clear that, though pressures may increase, this does not mean environmental outcomes are bound to get worse.  On the contrary, a by-product of increased prosperity is increased environmental awareness and -- even more strongly -- increased demand for a good environment, for what we might call "environmental amenity".  For example, air quality in British and US cities was improving well before the environmental movement became a significant factor in the political landscape.

There is nothing particularly mysterious about this.  As prosperity advances, people's choices move up the Maslow hierarchy of needs -- from basic physiological needs on to broader issues and concerns.  As basic demands for food, clothing, shelter and so forth are met, people are naturally going to concern themselves with other things -- like the quality of the air they breathe, for example.  Which is why environmental issues become politically more important in economic booms, and less important during recessions:  why they are more politically important in richer countries and less politically important in poorer ones.

Which is not to say there are not problems.  Topsoil loss and land degradation is a real issue.  The Murray-Darling system is not in good condition.  There is a problem with overfishing -- 6 billion people cannot live on the basis of a hunter-gatherer existence, though more seafood is farmed nowadays than people realise.  And there are some really interesting ideas around -- such as using sudden heat changes to "brand" a bone in the head of fish which would then be released and, when they are caught and turn up in fish markets, the hatchery would then be paid.  Still, fishing is an issue, for example -- those of us who are old enough can remember how the fish available in shops has changed as old stocks have been fished out.

Nevertheless, prosperity is good for environmentalism and environmental concern.  It also provides societies with the resources -- the physical, financial, technological and research resources -- to deal with environmental problems.  The worst environmental destruction in recent times -- at least outside the former Soviet Union -- has occurred in poor societies such as the countries of the Sahel and Haiti where weak states and the restricted options of poverty lead to persistence in very low-tech, and very destructive, farming and pastoral practices.

In the developed countries, there has been substantial environmental improvement.  The Ohio River no longer catches alight, fish are now seen in reaches of the Thames where they haven't been seen for decades, even centuries.  Air quality has improved in the cities of the industrialised West.

One would hope that environmental quality in the West has improved, given the enormous resources poured into environmental improvement, the legislative action.  If it hadn't we would be doomed.  Fortunately it has.

What can we do?  Several things.  One is to make better use of pricing mechanisms.  For example, governments, on our behalf, sell trees in national forests and water too cheaply.  Ensuring prices incorporate the real costs involved is a great way to encourage less use and movement to alternatives.  We could also make better use of prices in pollution control -- allowing people to pollute up to some threshold which suddenly cuts out is not the cleverest way to appropriately control pollution.

Better use and definition of property rights is also a useful mechanism.  It is typically the things that no-one owns -- air, waterways, wild animals, fish in the sea -- which are subject to the "tragedy of the commons" and are over-used and under-conserved.  It is not always either possible or desirable to define a private property right but, where this can usefully be done, it can very beneficial.

Governments are often not very good property-owners.  For example, they are typically much better at proclaiming National Parks than looking after them.  Increasing the price of entry to National Parks could make private conservation more viable.  People want to think that the National Parks are "theirs" so they should have free access with all their four-wheel drives and bikes, etc, but that is not how it should be.

This is only a brief indication of some of the mechanisms available.  Prominent economist Paul Krugman has speculated that environmental licences may become a dominant source of government revenue:  this is by no means a silly suggestion.  (Even has this speculative future history with Federal income tax being abolished in 2048.)

It is true there are serious environmental issues in Australia, as I have mentioned -- the Murray-Darling system is in poor condition, land degradation problems are a genuine concern.  But it is important not to destroy hope:  because it unnecessarily darkens our world and because it is important to make people think that there are things which can be done.  Moreover, doomsaying runs the risk of encouraging rash action.

I would also like to put in a good word for profit-making.  If, by proper property rights and pricing, we encourage making conservation and good environmental management profitable then we will see an explosion of human ingenuity.

So, yes there are environmental pressures and yes these will increase, but if we make the right choices, we will be able to handle these environmental pressures.  The consumer society will evolve, but it is not facing likely termination.