Retail ‘worry’ is economics leading us astray
Britain’s shops suffered a 3.5% fall in the value of sales over the last 12 months.
It’s the High Street’s worst slump since at least 1995. Tears will need to be shed; we must all sink deep into depression.
Or at least go shopping.
So say economists, whose mantra of growth for its own sake has us gripped.
You see, our economy has become almost completely dependent on mass consumption. Modern men and women have turned into consuming machines.
We indulge in ‘throwaway fashion’ buying new clothes every few weeks, guzzle down junk food by the ton, queue for hours for the latest mobile phones: we can’t get enough.
Stuff is everywhere. And most of it we don’t need.
The big problem is it’s destroying our environment. We OVER-consume. It takes energy and natural resources to produce, package, transport, and use these things.
Oh but there’s plenty of oil left, say the climate change sceptics. Right. Plenty. But it’s not infinite. If we keep burning it, it will run out.
Same goes for the the rest of nature. Take the ozone layer. Keep destroying it by pumping out greenhouse gases and ice caps will keep melting.
More than 80% of the Earth’s natural forests already have been destroyed, the World Resources Institute claims. Some 90% of West Africa’s coastal rain forests have disappeared since 1900. Every two seconds, an area of forest the size of a football pitch is lost due to logging or destructive practices.
It’s a simple equation that E.F. Schumacher, a leading economist in the 1960s, spotted a mile off: our world is a finite resource, and that makes the worship of infinite growth as an economic philosophy incredibly dangerous.
I’m not saying we should stop enjoying our lives or listening to iPods, just live more responsibly. We need sustainable growth built on a sound footing.
Our selfish, self-gratifying attitude to nature is shown in food waste. Every household wasts £420-worth of perfectly good food on average each year. Some 8.3m tonnes are binned along with their packaging.
We send more than 18.8m tonnes of rubbish to landfills – our giant tips – each year. By 2018, we could run out of space.
Marine ecosystems are under threat from overfishing. Greenpeace says that 90% of the large fish we love – tuna, swordfish, marlin, cod, halibut, skate, and flounder – have been fished out since the 1950s.
Of course, a lot of these problems can be solved by green solutions – more renewables, emission-free sources of power, better use and distribution of food (and smaller bellies).
But while our over-consumption rages on, I’ll have little sympathy for retailers who come unstuck. It’s a natural correction that, if anything, needs to happen.
Forget ‘growth (greed) is good’: it’s a mantra of ‘reuse, recycle, repair’ we need now.
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