Acceleration of Consumption

“Probably the reason we’re in the climate crisis is because we’re living inside a story of accumulation. Somewhere along the line there’s a story of scarcity, as if this planet is a scarce planet and we must compete to accumulate as much as we can. And that story has such a strong grip on us.” 

adrienne maree brown

Humans have long been innovating technologies to make their lives easier. Over time, however, our relationship to the earth, to each other, and to ourselves has become wildly out of balance. Throughout our research and devising process, we have identified particularly important moments in history, when significant social changes and technological developments led us further askew and rapidly accelerated the rate of human consumption, particularly in the Western world. Below are three such periods. 

The Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution marked a turning point in history that is considered by some to be responsible for an increase in population, an increase in the standard of living, and the emergence and solidification of the capitalist economy. During this time, the pace of change appeared to speed up significantly, and technical innovations brought about an array of new tools and machines, including the cotton gin, the spinning jenny, and the steam engine. As a result, new ways of living, being, and working developed just as rapidly, ultimately ushering much of the world into the modern era. 

Such rapid advancement had its downside however. Dangerous pollutants began making their way into the atmosphere and our bodies like never before, unsafe working environments were rampant, and the introduction of tenement housing left many living in inhumane conditions. 

The 1950s

The 1950s marked “the golden age of Capitalism” in America and has been called the “age of acceleration.” The war was over, the economy was thriving, and the United States held fast as the world’s strongest military power. Rates of unemployment and inflation were low, and wages were high, leading to an expanded middle-class with more hope for the future and more money to spend than ever before. Driven by a sense of prosperity and promise, people spent their money on the wide variety of ever-expanding consumer goods and leisure activities that were being produced and advertised on a mass scale. Air travel, for example, became a glamorous affair for Americans wishing to spend their money on experiences instead of things. A roomier version of Coach class was introduced in the 1950s, though it was still very expensive: a "bargain fair" ticket in 1955 cost anywhere between $1100-$3200. Like much of society, planes were also segregated, with airline phone ticketing operators trained to identify the voices of African Americans so they could be placed on segregated flights without white passengers.

According to PBS’s The American Experience, between 1945 and 1949, Americans purchased 20 million refrigerators, 21.4 million cars, and 5.5 million stoves, a trend that continued well into the 1950s. Television and automobile sales also skyrocketed, as people needed vehicles to travel longer distances now that they were no longer confined to cities. Similarly, families of all income brackets were buying televisions at a rate of five million a year. Shows like Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows Best projected images of the ideal nuclear family, while television networks divided viewers into target audiences and advertisers spent large sums to promote their products in living rooms across the country. 

Women and teenagers were especially targeted, and for the first time, teenagers were developing their own subculture and proving a valuable consumer group in their own right. Because of the depression of the previous generation, teens in the 1950s had plenty of job options, and since their parents were generally also thriving, they often were able to keep all of their earnings for themselves. Heavily influenced by the advertising of the time, they spent their money on cars, fashion, and entertainment designed just for them, not unlike young people who can afford to do so today. For women, many of whom were homemakers and young mothers, advertisers preyed on their self-image just as intensely as their homemaking, and an obsession over body image and weight came to the fore during this period. All in all, television and print culture exerted an increasingly large influence over the average American, contributing to the development of a modern, consumer-based popular culture.  

“When do we say, ‘Enough is enough, and I feel full.’” 

Rebecca Solnit

The Internet Age

Online shopping has transformed the retail landscape, perhaps accelerated by the COVID pandemic. In June 2020, global retail e-commerce traffic reached a record 22 billion monthly visits and a staggering $26.7 trillion in sales. The uptick in online shopping has stressed global supply chains, and it has also impacted the environment due to the excessive packaging. Packaging contributes in large part to CO2 emissions from producing plastics, polluting ecosystems as well as adding enormous amounts of waste to our landfills. 3 billion trees are pulped yearly to produce 241 million tons of shipping cartons, the forest conservation group Canopy found. And of the 86 million tons of plastic packaging produced globally each year, less than 14% is recycled. Shipping also takes an environmental toll, especially fast shipping, where products are often sent out as available, rather than in a group. In 2020, shipping and returns accounted for 37% of total greenhouse gas emissions—a figure that is likely to increase over the next decade. Returns are crucial in this increase: return rates, especially of fashion items, have skyrocketed, exceeding 30% of all purchased goods. A study on consumers’ behavior showed that 79% of consumers want free return shipping and 92% of them are likely to buy again if the items they purchase are easy to return. Cardboard boxes from shipping have increased. The good news is that most of this makes it to the recycling bin. Still, 10% of cardboard - 350,000 tons - winds up in landfills. Also, cardboard fibers get shorter with recycling, so they can only go through 5-7 recycling loops before the fibers become too short to bond. 

“There is plenty of quantifiable abundance out there–as stuff, disposable stuff, fast fashion, cheap furniture, rapid travel, packaging and litter and garbage heaps and the plastic patch in the Pacific. The carbon dioxide we’ve added to the upper atmosphere is in its own way a kind of garbage dump, a residue of our fossil-fuel consumption.” 

Rebecca Solnit