“For Consumers, the Hits Keep Coming” a recent banner headline in a New York Times-owned daily newspaper here in Northern California reports. The article misses the main points. If we continue to understand ourselves as primarily passive consumers, rather than as active citizens, the US economy will enter at least a recession, probably a depression, and possibly a collapse. Even our republic is at risk.
Rampant consumption, our addiction to growth, and our failure to accept limits to growth damage us. The headline beneath the banner-”Cleanup Response Criticized”-reveals one of the saddest results. We are not adequately cleaning up the San Francisco Bay after a recent oil spill. Many other aspects of our environment need cleaning up. Without a healthy natural environment and climate conducive to humans, no economy can endure. Over-consumption drives the increasingly extreme and chaotic climate.
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