Hi Ladies,
I was listening to MPR recently and I heard a professor from Boston College (holla, Casie) say the following:
“Per capita, we’re purchasing almost twice as many clothes as we did in 1991. The volume of furniture, measured in pounds, has more than doubled in just seven years. In fact, households are buying almost everything at rates far higher than a decade ago, from food to glassware to sporting goods. And all those products put carbon in the atmosphere as they are produced, shipped, used and discarded. Counting on technology to overcome the surge in what industrial ecologists call “material throughput” requires magical thinking. It may go over well in economics textbooks but falters in the real world.”
Now, i’m sure you all at least assumed the above was true or you woudln’t have joined our little group. But to be honest, I’ve been struggling with temptation to buy new things, and hearing this gave me a little extra surge of certainty that we’re doing the right thing here! In case you want to read the whole thing (it’s not very long at all), here’s the link: http://marketplace.publicradio.org//display/web/2008/07/04/volume_commentary/?refid=0
I hope you’re finding simple pleasures in non-things all around this summer …
sarah
