Meaningful Conservation Isn’t Nearly as Hard as We Pretend It Is

One of the objections to doing anything about climate change always seems to be that “they” want to take away “your” or “our” “way of life,” as if the way we’re living right now is somehow necessary or good or useful.

It’s not, and until we recognize the reasons why we’re attached to our current way of life, there’s no way we’ll ever get serious about changing anything.

In fact, the lifestyle to which we’ve become accustomed is a petty individual tyranny, an impractical and needless pattern of waste that gives us a stupid rush of power. “I am the lord of the faucet. I get to leave it running, because I can. Not caring shows how powerful I am.”

I can say this, because of a little personal experiment that showed just how easy it is to slash consumption. That one experience dramatized just how much the purveyors of trash (read: all producers of consumer goods, but especially the plastics industry) and utilities have conspired to get us used to turning a blind eye to just how much we waste our resources as a habit.

It’s a feature, not a bug.

I was recently confronted with exactly how much water I use. I won’t explain the exact circumstances that forced this knowledge on me, but I was faced with a potential shortage. I had all the water I needed, but there was a delay that made me not entirely confident that it would be there when I turned on the tap. People in Jackson, MS would scoff — they’re facing far worse — but it did make me hyper-aware of how much water I was using.

The answer? Approximately thirty gallons a day.

It is hard to get reliable figures for how much the average American uses per day, but from what I’ve gleaned, it’s somewhere around 100 gallons per day. Thanks to the Colorado River crisis, we all have easy access to data on the highest per capita consumption, which is in St. George, Utah — 300+ gallons per day. That is obscene, especially in the middle of a desert (a desert experiencing a drought no less).

Let’s assume 100 per day is “normal.” I was at a third of that, meaning: we could slash consumption of water by more than half in this country if everyone behaved like I did during that timeframe.

Did I sacrifice? Did I shower like a French person (meaning: less than daily)? Did I follow the mantra “If it’s yellow, let it mellow?”

No, no, no. I went about my life as normal. I showered daily. I washed dishes. I did laundry.

I didn’t water a lawn (no need). I did become aware of when I was simply wasting water.

For instance, I became very aware that when I rinse or hand wash dishes, I often just leave the tap running. Why? It serves zero purpose besides convenience. The water simply runs down the drain. We do the same when we wash our hands or brush our teeth. We save ourselves the split second it takes to turn the water off, then turn it back on.

As soon as water felt like a finite thing to me, I realized how stupid this was. I made sure to shut the tap. That was really the only major change I made, which only dramatized how wanton the average per capital consumption really is. There’s no reason for the average person to use 100 gallons per day.

Well, no rational reason. Waste must provide some benefit, or we wouldn’t engage in it. It doesn’t provide a material benefit. Resources squandered aren’t able to provide any benefit later. Rationalism would seem to argue that future flexibility dictates: you expend as little and leave as much as possible in reserve for the future.

Waste has an emotional benefit, though. When you use more than you need, you demonstrate primacy. In a world of scarcity, it robs finite resources from others. In a world of plenty, well, it bestows on you the privilege of the kings: not having to care.

That’s what we’ve all become accustomed to: you are in control. You get what you want, when you want it. Our economy is built around it.

If we moved to a more sustainable existence — if we used things the way I used water — we’d scarcely notice; but look how we resist it! We fight it like an attack on our very lives. Burning gas, tossing away plastic wrappers like it’s going out of style, disposing of flat-screen TVs like they’re not full of toxins — this is our birthright!

It is also our degradation. It’s sad that human existence has come down to this: the ability to open and toss away plastic wrappers. The right not to care, to pretend that waste has no cost.