Advertising, excess consumption and climate change

[lostnfound]

Recently, it occurred to me that few connections are ever made between advertising and climate change. Attention is paid to individual effort like buying energy star appliances or lowering your thermostat or recycling, and corporations have sustainability initiatives and/or greenwashing. But advertising as a generator of unnecessary material consumption that contributes to climate change? I personally had never heard this connection being made (or proposals to mitigate it) in public forums.

Is the connection so obvious that there’s no point in discussing it?

Corporations want growth, so they advertise. The industry I came from is a prime example of the damage that results: aviation is virtually all based on fossil fuels, and the path to sustainable commercial aviation is not clear. But growth matters to the airline industry, so they advertise, and convince more people to travel more. People who woke up this morning having no inclination or plan to travel are struck with a desire to fly to the Bahamas or else plan their third trip to Paris.

Is it possible to tax or reduce advertising -
-> in order to reduce consumption
-> in order to reduce resource extraction and energy consumption
-> in order to fight climate change?

How would you do it?
What obstacles would be encountered?
Should you give up on it because there are obstacles?

Perhaps differentially tax, based on carbon impact or category of industry?

Among the many climate-change-fighting initiatives, why is this never discussed?

I personally feel that it is a giant blind spot in climate discussions.

What do you think?

By the way, I found a couple articles on the topic when I searched today, in case anyone wants to read further:

International Journal of Advertising: Perspectives: Advertising and climate change – Part of the problem or part of the solution? Abstract: The advertising industry has a direct carbon footprint but also contributes to climate change by stimulating unsustainable economic growth, promoting climate-harmful consumerism, and greenwashing polluting products and companies. However, advertising can also play a pivotal role in fighting climate change

The Guardian: The advertising industry is fuelling climate disaster, and it’s getting away with it

The Drum blog: Is advertising causing climate change? Actually, it’s worse than that

11 votes, 1 pass | Time left: Unlimited
	A giant blind spot and a good opportunity for change
	11 (100%)
	Irrelevant - the economy needs ads so there's little point to discussing it
	0 (0%)
	Impossible - the drive for wealth will kill any shift away from ads
	0 (0%)
	Pointless - sustainable fuels and recycling will get us there
	0 (0%)
	I've seen plenty on this topic, it gets the attention it should
	0 (0%)
	Other
	0 (0%)
	1 DU member did not wish to select any of the options provided.
Show usernames Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll

[Scrivener7]

1. This is a really important observation. It's astonishing what advertisers have convinced Americans

we need that we absolutely DON'T need.

Here are some facts that back up your observation:

https://www.becomingminimalist.com/clutter-stats/

1. There are 300,000 items in the average American home (LA Times).

2. The average size of the American home has nearly tripled in size over the past 50 years (NPR).

3. And still, 1 out of every 10 Americans rent offsite storage—the fastest growing segment of the commercial real estate industry over the past four decades. (New York Times Magazine).

4. While 25% of people with two-car garages don’t have room to park cars inside them and 32% only have room for one vehicle. (U.S. Department of Energy).

5. The United States has upward of 50,000 storage facilities, more than five times the number of Starbucks. Currently, there is 7.3 square feet of self storage space for every man, woman and child in the nation. Thus, it is physically possible that every American could stand—all at the same time—under the total canopy of self storage roofing (SSA).

6. British research found that the average 10-year-old owns 238 toys but plays with just 12 daily (The Telegraph).

7. 3.1% of the world’s children live in America, but they own 40% of the toys consumed globally (UCLA).

8. The average American woman owns 30 outfits—one for every day of the month. In 1930, that figure was nine (Forbes).

9. The average American family spends $1,700 on clothes annually (Forbes).

10. While the average American throws away 65 pounds of clothing per year (Huffington Post).

11. Nearly half of American households don’t save any money (Business Insider).

[lostnfound]

3. I see myself in a lot of those stats

I think I would have lived a simpler life on my own, but the child-rearing phase (now over) amped up everything, and then there’s the lack of time. I did not do well.

We are on the high end of consumption. Picking out energy efficient appliances and an electric car have been like bandaids after a self-inflicted gaping gunshot wound. I’m sorry, world.

[Scrivener7]

4. I can see how it would be difficult during child rearing years. But you are right that a lot of

that consumption is simply advertising-driven.

There is a very, very true adage that I think of all the time: "What you own, owns you." The more careful you are about the things you give space to, the easier and more comfortable your life will be.

I'm always working on it, and I'm still not where I want to be. It's a process.

[Scrivener7]

6. ADDING: I think you might have inspired someone. It's a great conversation and I'm glad

you started it.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=18075422

[Hugin]

18. I can vouch for number 2.

The house I reside in was built ten or fifteen years before most of the area was developed. It is well under a third of the square footage of the majority of the homes for blocks around us. I am quite used to the side-eye I get from my neighbors due to my modest home dragging down the comps in this fully developed part of the city.

Now I can hold my head high as at least doing something to combat climate change. Thanks, that makes me feel like less of a cheapskate.

I am way below average on the rest of the list too, but I am above average on number 11.

I guess being a grinch has paid off in the long term even though it was inadvertent.

[CrispyQ]

20. Years ago I read a book, "Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic,"

by David Wann, John de Graaf, and Thomas Naylor.

It was a more light-hearted approach to consumerism, an effort to make Americans see how extreme we'd become in our quest for stuff. The David Horsey cartoons were a wonderful bonus!

The book talks about how urban sprawl started, with the desire for bigger homes, & then the need for at least one car so Dad could get to work & the more well off families got a second car for Mom. Then there was this new big house to fill & ideally you'd be the first on the block to get some new thing or you'd be trying to keep up. There was a photo of an American family & an African family with all their possessions outside & it was a staggering contrast & this was quite some time ago. It talks about how the thrill of buying something new starts to wear of faster & faster. I've seen it in my own life. I'm decluttering my basement where stuff collects for the second time in thirty years. WTF!

Worth reading if you can find it. The Horsey cartoons alone make it worth it.

[Scrivener7]

24. Just ordered it from the library! Thanks!

[Doc Sportello]

2. K&R

Mass marketing has been a cancer since its inception in the early part of the 20th century. It fuels the casino-like calls to buy more and more regardless of need, and the impetus of corportions for unsustainable, ever-increasing profits.

[lostnfound]

21. The techniques are the same as the 20s and the sophisticated tech has enabled it to be targeted

Edward Bernays wasn’t it, who broke ground in it. And now the tech is developing that can customize messages not just on our computers and phones but on our TVs and heck, even the billboards / displays are being developed that will look different to you based on who you are or what you might like, as it identifies you as an individual (to be sold to).

[roamer65]

5. Here's the problem.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want-to-fight-climate-change-have-fewer-children

I have had no children, so I’ve done my part.

[CrispyQ]

8. Six billion miracles are enough.

I bought that bumper sticker back around the turn of the century. No one wants to talk about the 8 billion pound elephant in the room.

[roamer65]

9. I think its finally starting to get through to the millennials and Gen Z.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/nov/27/climate-apocalypse-fears-stopping-people-having-children-study

[femmedem]

16. That article is in line with what I'm hearing from millennials and Gen Z.

Less about reducing emissions by having fewer children and more about not wanting to bring children into an immensely suffering world.

I never had children. I made that decision in the 80s, in equal parts because I knew not having children was the biggest action I could take to reduce my carbon footprint and because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to economically support them. My last years will be lonely and difficult but I've never regretted that decision.

[roamer65]

17. I have been adopted by a niece and nephew.

Uncle Buck.



I hear you, agree with you and understand.

[femmedem]

23. That's so sweet of them!

And I'm sure they wouldn't have done so if you weren't an awesome uncle.

[roamer65]

26. I try.

[Magoo48]

7. As a way of assessing our economy, the GDP is the fastest track available to a dystopian future.

The drive for greed powered extraction, production, sales, and profits fuel advertising.

First world countries will not be inconvenienced by global climate catastrophe.

Until all of the above is shunned and discarded as obscene, we’re fucked.

Teach next generations to prepare to adapt.

Where am I wrong?

[Think. Again.]

10. You are definitely on the right track!

...and you're 100% correct (in my opinion) that the largest driver of CO2 emissions and therefore climate change is the absurd and completely unnecessary pace and volume of economic-growth-at-all-costs.

For some strange reason people think that growth, in and of itself, is somehow a requirement of societal well-being. Unfortunately, there is population growth, which will drive increased economic activity all by itself, but we also live under the fabricated idea that everything must always be getting bigger, more abundant, and faster, without any consideration of whether bigger, more abundant, and faster is in reality a good thing or a bad thing.

And as we know, it is definitely a bad thing when it causes irreversable damage to our well-being in the form of climate change.

Economic and consumerism growth, when forced to happen for no other possible reason than to force economic and consumerism growth, is literally killing humanity.

I came across a good post by Waterguy https://www.democraticunderground.com/1127163972 that has a link to Project Drawdown which appears to be an organization that is working to address corporate and financial responsibilities of mitigating climate change, among other efforts they are making.

https://www.drawdown.org/

[JanMichael]

11. Bill Hicks had a great bit about marketing.

https://genius.com/Bill-hicks-on-advertisers-and-marketing-annotated

[Ron Green]

12. Our current model: Comfort, Convenience, Consumption.

Our needed model: Simplicity, Sharing, Service.

[lostnfound]

22. Nice slogan

👍

[Magoo48]

28. Yup.

[femmedem]

13. And maybe we should publically fund anti-consumption messages.

Can't tax those messages since no one profits from them.

And then we need to find a way to help the people who lose their income if anti-consumption becomes a widespread cultural value.

[Auggie]

14. Advertising is the function for establishing standards and impossible-to-attain ideals

Blame must be shared by the marketers (corporations, manufacturers, retailers) and not just the function, or service, of advertising.

At one time, the benefits of advertising were to 1) introduced new products to market, 2) forced manufacturers to create better products through comparison, 3) kept prices low through mass distribution, and 4) supported a free press. That's changed some what in the new paradigm of extreme profiteering and alternative media.

What we really need are tougher laws on profiteering, more consumer protections, and regarding climate change, greener manufacturing methods. Continue to refine packaging and waste, especially plastics.

California banned plastic shopping bags. What a great start. Do we really 8 oz bottled water?

[leftstreet]

15. Advertisers have been unable to sell me a private jet

or a 2nd, 3rd, or 4th home in Paris, Aspen, or Dubai

no yachts either

[c-rational]

19. The economist John Kenneth Galbraith made the point that advertising skews capitalism

(and not in a good way) as it gets people to buy things they do not need. Your point is on point (pun intended).

[Cherokee100]

25. I agree

Stupid is as stupid does. Most Americans are so spoiled/brainwashed (religious), that they can't comprehend, not doing as they are told on tv and in church.

[hunter]

27. I've removed advertising that moves or makes noise from my personal universe.

There's no advertising on my television. I subscribe to streaming services that allow me to make ads go away. If I can't make the ads go away I don't subscribe. My wife and I don't have cable, satellite, or broadcast television.

The static advertising I do see, mostly ads in newspapers and some highly directed ads in trade journals, are easily skipped over.

[Kaleva]

29. Does it make sense to fight a battle that's already been lost?

There's been several posts here about making efforts that may have had an effect had they been implemented 20 or more years ago.

We can only win this fight if the world, not just the US, very soon achieves net zero green house gas emissions status. A practical impossibility. Not only do we have to cease emissions but we have to work to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas that's already in the atmosphere and do that rather quickly.. CO2 can linger in the atmosphere for 300 to a 1000 years according to NASA.

The greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere is thawing the permafrost:

"“There’s so much carbon stored in permafrost, and it’s frozen now. It’s locked away, and when that thaws, it then becomes vulnerable for being released into the atmosphere to exacerbate global climate change,” she tells UN News.

Plant and animal material frozen in permafrost – called organic carbon – does not decompose or rot away. But as the permafrost thaws, microbes begin decomposing the material and release greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere."

https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/01/1110722