you did what you did because you felt how you felt and now it is what it is

The reason "We (USamericans) should reduce our personal consumption of resources to save the planet!" won't change anything, is that there is no "we."

The average American does X amount of unnecessary shopping, but collapsing the wide range of wealth inequality into an average creates a vague call to action that sufficiently motivates 0 people.

Poor people feel guilty about buying stuff already. Even essential stuff. They have very little ability to adjust the amount they consume, and any adjustments that are possible would be almost negligible.

The moderately affluent and up vastly overestimate the impact of small adjustments to their lifestyle, and think of denying themselves any indulgence as extreme frugality. This is often the group that uses the "we" pronoun in the statement "We should consume less."

Most of the USA's carbon emissions come from heating and cooling and from cars. Since homelessness is treated as a crime, houses are not made sustainably or constructed smaller than a certain size, and it is virtually impossible to work or obtain basic needs without a car, there is a very solid and nearly impenetrable bottom to the scale of individual consumption.

So much consumption is near 100% impossible to opt out of, which means of course that the money that goes to it is never really yours, it just happens to pass through you on its way to its true destination.

This is obscured by the fact that the more privileged can ride a cushioned elevator below that bottom, play for as long as it takes for them to feel good about themselves, and take the elevator back up, and then write an article saying "See! I lived on 3 cents a day/lived in a 100sqft house/didn't use electricity for a week, and here's what I learned!"

Sure, you tried living a frugal life for a while. But you never doubted that the elevator would be there to take you back when you were tired of playing. You never felt the Fear. That's why you learned nothing.

mushroom-huntress

I have two additions that are personal anecdotes that fundamentally changed how I view this discussion.

I worked in a small, locally owned bookstore for a while. I created more garbage every single day at that job than I did in a week or more as a person outside of it. Books would usually come in recyclable cardboard boxes, but shrink wrapped together or using "recyclable" plastic bubble wrap (so much plastic is not actually recyclable, even if it has a recycle symbol on it). Toys and little gift items sold at the counter would almost ALL come in individually wrapped plastic that would be removed before display. Many items would come in a plastic wrap or shell made for display but were shipped in ANOTHER layer of plastic that keeps them clean during shipping (?? for no other discernable reason was the extra plastic on any of these things). Even products made of wood or other natural materials marketed as "sustainable" were most often shipped with plastic. There was ONE company we ordered from that shipped with all compostable/recyclable materials. It didn't matter if I, personally, lived a literally zero waste life, I had to go to work and throw out a 15 gallon bag of trash every day.
A different job I had, I worked directly under someone who had both familial and personal wealth. He would regularly take business or personal trips and forget to bring something because he liked to pack light. He would always just buy a new one wherever he was or have amazon ship it directly to his hotel. Clothes, toothbrush, sunscreen, normal stuff you might forget and could easily still be used when you come home. Not that he would bring half of it home, he'd just throw it out. Also laptop and phone chargers, new luggage because he bought some souvenir that was too big, shoes, a whole ass new laptop. The worst was when he went to Burning Man and basically bought everything to decorate a tiny apartment - numerous pillows, blankets, lights, decor, plus camping mattress and equipment. I know he didn't bring any of it home with him, I can only hope he dropped it all at a goodwill and not a dumpster. I had never met someone who consumed so conspicuously. There are absolutely people who could benefit from being beat over the head with "conspicuous consumption" messaging, but if they'll even listen, they'll only hang their head and feel bad and do a week-long zero waste challenge and then go right back to how they lived before. I can't help but think they would benefit most from simply being taxed into a more middle class existence.

headspace-hotel

I couldn't have asked for a better addition.

Like yes this is exactly it! Some people DO need the message that they should stop consuming and wasting so much goddamn STUFF, but the people who genuinely are going out and buying 'fast fashion' by the cartload every other week, or who have a closet with 150 pairs of shoes or who install giant TVs in every room of their house or who go on vacation in an expensive resort 4 times a year, appear totally invulnerable to actually transformative self-reflection. Responsibility on behalf of humanity rolls off them like water off a duck.

These people are, however, INCREDIBLY comfortable with """realizing""" that there's a problem with what they value and the way they live, if they pretend that the problem is universal and the responsibility is collective.

This strategy is ingenious: it makes them come out looking better than everyone else because in the fantasy world it constructs, everyone is compulsively buying and throwing away prodigious heaps of junk, and they are the noble person who has reflected on themselves enough to own up.

So they love to say "We, as Americans, consume and waste too much," even though they would rather be burned alive than say "I consume and waste too much."

quotes by Victorians about the 1920s view of their generation's women