One of the most profound effects of the threatening global climate crisis is the insight we gain into ourselves. The more closely we look down the dark tunnel of a ominous environmental future, the more clearly we see our human thought and conduct. In a strange reversal of positions, the outside becomes the inside, and for the first time we begin to understand who we are — a necessary step if we are to evolve a true sense of environmental stewardship.

Self-discovery is neither easy nor comfortable. This helps to explain why we are so reluctant to recognize climate change and undertake corrective measures. When we are the victim of enemies or events — things being done to us — we can muster our opposing resources against them; when we are the victim of our own actions — doing things to ourselves — we are helpless until we first come to terms with our own identity.

We have been doing a lot of this personal inquiry lately. Popular literature is full of examinations and critiques of our character and behaviour. And one of the more interesting examples is a book by Oliver James called Affluenza: How to be Successful and Stay Sane (book review in The Guardian Weekly, Feb.9-15/07).

The word “affluenza” is an amalgamation of two diseases: the affluence of capitalism run amok, and the highly infectious qualities of influenza. James contends that modern capitalism, having successfully fulfilled its mandate of supplying us with what we need, is now satisfying its obsession for production by creating a culture of want. Advertising is fuelling a “selfish capitalism” ruled by superficial values in which people define themselves by how much money they earn and the fashionable objects they possess. The sociologist Erich Fromm would have explained that we have moved from a state of “being” to a state of
“having”. The 18th century French philosopher René Descartes would have said, “I own, therefore I am.” Rather than nurturing enduring human values and enhancing the quality of lives lived, we are simultaneously stuffing ourselves while starving ourselves.

The decades of evolution from “real needs” to “false needs” creates a situation in which — as William Leith writes in his review of Affluenza — “each successive generation is more anxious and depressed. In the past, people wanted things because they were useful; later, they wanted them to enhance their status; and now they want them because they feel ugly and alone.” As a result, our behaviour becomes aberrant and bizarre. (This might explain why the world’s annual consumption of heroin, mostly an addiction in rich countries, is about 744 tonnes per year.)

“It’s a wonderfully clear and cogent thesis,” explains Leith. “Affluenza, as defined by James, is clearly recognizable as our way of life. It spreads because it feeds on itself; when you try to make yourself feel better by buying a car, or bulking up in the gym, or
spraying on a fake tan, or having a face-lift, you actually make yourself feel worse, which makes you want to buy more things.” The more attention you give to having, the less you have for what you really need. And so the virus spreads.

In support of this thesis, James found that people were more depressed in countries where inequality was greatest, as if the quest for satisfying wants increases differences and creates isolation, estrangement, dissatisfaction and unhappiness. This seems to be confirmed by a research paper, “The Proper Study of Mankind: A Survey of Human Evolution” (The Economist, Dec.24/05), which found that incomes above $10,000 per capita per year did not create happier people. Above this level they were presumably feeding the superficial wants of status rather than their material needs.

The environmental implications are obvious. Bottled water, for example, is a vanity item that has no known health benefits in developed countries, yet can cost from 3,000 to 40,000 times more than tap water — a bottle of Bling H2O from Tennessee sells for US$55.00. The carbon dioxide produced from shipping this vanity item — 167.8 billion litres sold globally in 2006 — is exorbitant. Bottled water sold in Canada can come from France, Fiji, Italy... anywhere. Canadians spent $652.7 million on 1.9 billion litres of the stuff in 2005, creating 65,000 tonnes of plastic garbage — only 12% of the bottles are recycled. To add to the absurdity, the polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic containers leach toxic antinomy into the contents. And to complete the absurdity, “The production of one kilogram of PET requires 17.5 kilograms of water and results in air pollution emissions of over half a dozen significant pollutants” (Maclean’s, May 14/07). “In other words,” says Rick Smith, the executive director of Environmental Defence in Toronto, “the water required to create one plastic water bottle is significantly more than that bottle will contain” (Ibid.).

Bottled water is merely one conspicuous symbol of affluenza. The effects are manifest everywhere. The disease becomes the underpinning that justifies SUVs, mega-houses, the endless parade of passing fads, extravagant fashions and massive personal debt. The profligate mining of minerals, burning of oil, cutting of forests and pillaging of seas can all be linked to this collective pathology of discontent. The imperative of insatiable want justifies the ethics of corporate greed, the frivolous use of pesticides, the psychology of entitlement, the imperative of convenience, the desire for immediate gratification, and the disquietude in a throw-away society. We exploit, manipulate, abuse and pollute nature with barely a concern for consequences. We must have what we want because that is the imagined cure for the disease we do not know we have.

If affluenza has a cure, it’s self-awareness, the consciousness that distinguishes need from want and discriminates between “what I own” and “who I am”. The path to our success and sanity, as Oliver James suggests, is nothing more than each of us living comfortably with our own special character — unadorned by unnecessary stuff.