Sustainability and sacrifice
[Based on some early reaction, which made me realize I was not clear, this blog has been revised on June 12, 2010.]
Do we need to make sacrifices to achieve sustainability? The kinds of behaviour changes being proposed in the service of sustainability are often framed in terms of limitations on our desires and habitual behaviours. On this model, we need to choose consciously to moderate our consumption, to drive less, for example, or do without unnecessary goods or services.
But the language of sacrifice and doing without is not in itself strongly motivating, especially over long periods of time. Is such an approach likely to lead to widespread global adoption of changed consumption practices that can be maintained indefinitely into the future? I doubt it. Sustaining the planet by a conscious process of continuous collective self-denial does not strike me as a very robust path to follow.
We can agree that we need forms of collective and individual behaviour that are themselves inherently benign, indeed restorative, of social and environmental conditions. But, to be sustained, these activities need to be behaviours that fulfill our desires and aspirations, not sacrifices we must force ourselves continuously to make.
Some people may indeed be strongly motivated by calls for sacrifice and self-denial, and such early adopters may play an important role in the initial development and implementation of more sustainable technologies and behaviours. But we need to move quickly to embedding such technologies and behaviours in social practice, in the form of positive and habitual activities that enhance our lives, rather than constrain them. This suggests the desirability of paying more attention to how social norms become embedded in our society, at both the collective and individual level, and to how sustainability can be connected to our aspirations and desires.