"... This devouring impulse in Western culture is comparable, they* maintain to a drug or alcohol addiction: 'Recycling is an aspirin, alleviating a rather large collective hangover... overconsumption.' Or again, 'The best way to reduce any environmental impact is not to recycle more, but to produce and dispose of less.'"
- pg.50, par.2, the last two sentences.
* in reference to Use Less Stuff: Environmental Solutions for who we Really are authors Robert Lilienfield and William Rathje
I was personally intrigued by this line of reasoning, for I too have been brainwashed by the reduce, reuse, recycle tri-force as a bandaid for environmental change. It shows the lack of invent-fulness in our current goals of becoming "green" as a whole. Most solutions simply attempt to add-on or amend products and processes to try and be less-bad. When at the root is really our ridiculous desire to consume anything and everything regardless of its harm to us and our environs.
This is really more or less the thesis the rest of the book is built on, however, it leads me to believe that behavior modification, or "good," "ethical" brain-washing is the key to changing the direction we as a culture are currently headed in. It is no different than branding and sales-pitches in any other sector, we just need to dissemenate the word, get the public in the right heading and business will have to follow.
Of course, getting people to buy and use less of whatever they want is important too.
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Herein lies the complexity of the call to artists and designers. How to effectively promote and participate in the transformation of energy intensive culture while at the same time making less stuff. Issues of durability, non-materiality, zero waste design are up against the urgent need for being as effective as possible.
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