Re:To Slow Global Warming, We Need Nuclear Power (Op-Ed)
by 6t6t6t6 on Thursday December 22, 2016 @12:16AM
(#13235033)
For me, reduced consumption is about promoting different habits.
In most of western countries, the society is set in a way that happiness is directly tied to consumption. Marketing and the society in general, makes people feel that the only way to fill their lives is by buying things.
In some other countries, people may be able to achieve similar levels of happiness with lower consumption levels; for instance, by doing things instead of buying things.
Reducing consumption is a strange one. We keep making our devices more power efficient, but we pile on more of them. We have more efficient cars, but we seem to be driving them longer and more often. Busy-ness fills whatever space it's given, and that's a huge driver of consumption.
Of course, the very notion of "start ups" as promoted by sites like this are all about increasing consumption, often with new and frankly superfluous service-based conveniences. Money flows when consumption increases, so it'd have to be a truly cultural shift of simplicity, not a legislative or business shift.
While I do think energy consumption per capita in first world countries is probably decreasing, we haven't yet hit "peak population", and lots of people are moving up in poorer nations to be able to consume more.