my writing on environmental awareness.
opinion piece: How do we slow climate change? Consume less
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SANTA BARBARA-The dry dirt on the side of the road flew into the air as a massive truck barreled towards its destination.
California was at the peak of its more than seven-year long drought, but Montecito residents still needed water for their still bright green lawns.
This truck, carrying thousands of gallons of water to the homes and estates of some of America’s wealthiest, had come from neighboring towns such as Santa Barbara. Santa Barbara and Montecito are part of different water districts, and Montecito had placed restrictions on water use for their residents. The restrictions were put in place for water conservation purposes.
Montecito residents, in order to avoid these restrictions, hired trucks to pick up water from neighboring districts with just as dwindling water sources.
These events in Montecito shed light on one of the significant issues that is slowing down progress to mitigate the effects of climate change.
As sea levels rise, air quality diminishes, global temperatures warm, weather events become more extreme, and water sources deplete, the wealthy are at a major advantage.
Those with surplus income can afford moving, or trucking in water from a neighboring town.
When climate change leaves towns flooded with rising sea levels, air so toxic it impairs breathing, and clean water sources run dry, it is the impoverished who will suffer first.
Those who live paycheck to paycheck, or even worse, will not be able to afford picking up their families and moving to higher ground when the flooding starts in coastal areas.
The wealthy are the income group most responsible for the climate crisis, yet they will be the least hurt by the catastrophic issue they themselves are contributing the most to.
“One of the hardest problems is this great irony that the poorer you are, the worse climate change is going to be for you,” Dr. Kelsey Jack, an associate professor at UC Santa Barbara who has researched the intersection of environmental and developmental economics, said.
“On the one hand, the best way to lower the impacts of climate change, in terms how much it ruins people’s lives, is to make people richer,” Jack said, acknowledging the other views on this issue.
Although, Jack went on to explain how, from an economics standpoint, when people are richer, they consume more. That consumption tends to have a negative impact on the environment; hence, as an individual’s income increases, so does their carbon emissions.
“This is the fundamental tradeoff. How do you make people richer without totally trashing the environment?” Jack added. “And that goes for the global environment too. How do we think about lifting people out of poverty in ways that don’t just exacerbate climate change?”
The issue only becomes more complex when the relationship between small businesses and large corporations is explored.
New environmental regulations being introduced throughout the world with goals to prevent major industries, such as the meat and dairy industries, from continuing to release such large levels of emissions.
Wealthy corporations can simply ignore the regulations in the same way Montecito residents can take water from neighboring towns and pay the fines.
Dr. Ira Leifer, the CEO at an environmental consulting agency in California, has researched this issue extensively. “The big businesses will manage one way or another. They will just pay the fines, they won’t care,” Leifer said.
It will be the smaller, local, farmers, who are not contributing to significant emissions to start, that will be hurt when large farms increase their emissions and can still afford the fines.
Once again, the less wealthy will be hit the hardest. The wealthy, on both a personal and business level, will simply be able to avoid the horrors they have sewn.
It is the poorer people who are taking the bus, living in smaller houses, using less energy, flying less, and farming more efficiently. These are all things that, if chosen by the wealthy population, would greatly reduce emissions.
“Even if richer people are buying organic milk, they are almost certainly having a massively larger impact on the environment than being poorer,” Jack said.
While all of this can be said, who are the wealthy to tell those living in poverty that they should not want to be wealthier and have the luxuries of increased wealth?
What those with more disposable income and wealth can do, in order to resolve this irony, is to contribute to others with the luxuries they have.
For those with wealth, use that wealth to mitigate climate change instead of worsening its impacts for those without the luxuries of money. The wealthy won’t be heavily impacted, but they can change their lifestyles to help those who will.
an in-depth feature: How Income Shapes Eco-friendly Shopping
Erika Smith, a financially independent college student living in Isla Vista, walked into the grocery store to buy food for dinner.
She was confronted with the decision to choose a more expensive, environmentally friendly product, or a cheaper, less sustainable one.
“I would usually choose the cheaper product. I would probably just disregard the fact that it’s not fair trade or something like that,” Smith said. “We go for what’s cheap, especially college students.”
Smith’s story reveals the huge role that economic status plays in whether or not someone buys eco-consciously.
Today, sea levels are rising, air quality is diminishing, temperatures are warming, and water sources are dwindling. Even if a lower income consumer wants to support the environment and reduce these negative effects of climate change, the price premiums of sustainable goods present a major obstacle in mitigating the effects of climate change.
As climate change worsens, every individual is faced with the choice of changing their lifestyle in order to aid the climate crisis. Although, as Smith explained, not everyone has the luxury of being able to spend extra money on sustainable and eco-friendly products when they are struggling to pay the bills.
“When you’re poorer, the value of saving a dollar is much higher just because you are spending fewer dollars” Dr. Kelsey Jack said when discussing how a consumer decides whether to buy a, possibly, eco-friendlier product on the shelf.
Dr. Jack, an associate professor at UC Santa Barbara, has conducted years of research on the intersection of environmental and developmental economics. She believes that income does have a significant effect on whether someone buys a more costly sustainable product.
Sustainable products on the market can range anywhere from organic foods, fair-trade products, plant-based meat alternatives, to recycled goods.
Some of the most popular “sustainable” products, in recent months, are plant-based burgers from Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods. These burgers are now being sold across the country even at fast-food restaurants such as McDonalds and Burger King.
Researcher Benjamin Goldstein and colleagues found that producing plant-based burgers was far less detrimental to the environment than beef production. Plant-based burgers’ environmental impact had reduced greenhouse gas emissions, water consumption, and land use in the agricultural business in comparison to traditional burgers.
But what about their price?
A look at Burger King’s menu reveals that the suggested price for the Impossible, soy based, Whopper is $5.99. The classic whopper sells for $4.19.
Researchers Benjamin Held and Christian Haubach found that, in Germany, the average household had to pay 82 percent more for food if they purchased organic versus conventional. Additionally, the researchers found that organic meat cost nearly twice as much as non-organic. Buying organic milk and dairy resulted in spending one and a half times as much as the non-organic options.
“The value of saving that dollar on milk so that it can be spent on toothpaste, or toilet paper, or your child’s doctor’s bill. That’s a much more valuable saving than if you have surplus income that has already been allocated to one of those categories,” Jack said. “Poorer consumers tend to be more price sensitive for any given product.”
A recent study published in the Journal of Hunger and Environmental Nutrition found that the biggest factor affecting where residents of “food deserts”, with no nearby supermarkets, purchase food is primary based on cost. Almost all the participants of the study cited that they were highly motivated by cost when purchasing foods.
“You see price disparity especially in organic goods, so I never buy organic, but that’s because I want everything to be cheap,” said Charlotte Marston, a college student and employee of an environmental consulting agency.
“A lot of people who work don’t have time. A lot of people who are poor and living paycheck to paycheck, they don’t have time. On top of that, accessible, pre-cooked, healthy food options are insanely expensive,” Marston said.
“If there was a kitchen in impoverished neighborhoods that cooked the food and sold it at a price that’s reasonable, that makes healthy food accessible, but right now it’s not, because that’s a long-term benefit. When you’re living paycheck to paycheck, the last thing you’re thinking about is your heart attack bill when you’re 60,” Marston said.
Jack echoed that sentiment, saying that the decision to purchase a cheaper, albeit less environmentally friendly product, has nothing to do with preferences or views about climate change. Instead, this is an example of how income shapes purchasing preferences.
She added that poorer households prioritize immediate consumption needs, such as putting food on the table that night, instead of more long term, altruistic needs like climate change. The purchasing decision to save the two extra dollars, on each product, simply comes down to the fact that lower income individuals simply cannot afford more sustainable goods.
“I need to worry about the stuff I need today. That is going to make lower income consumers even more price sensitive when it comes to the greenness of the product,” Jack said. “My guess is that we see poorer consumers spending less on eco-friendly products.”
Marston agreed. “These people don’t have the luxury of spending on long term benefits such as the environment. Normalizing plant-based eating is good, but there need to be healthy options at fast-food restaurants that are inexpensive. If cost is the barrier, plant-based burgers are not the solution.”
Simply lowering prices so that lower-income consumers can purchase them will not solve the climate crisis.
Many of these goods are not the proper alternative, according to some experts on the issue.
Dr. Ira Leifer, CEO and chief scientist at Bubbleology Research International, an environmental consulting agency, believes that moving to plant-based alternatives, such as the Impossible Burger, will not truly solve the climate crisis. He believes that moving towards organic products and farming are what can truly make a difference.
When asked if he believed the trend towards plant-based alternatives will be productive, Leifer said, “Probably not in the current state. That’s probably not helping much. If you are getting that soy from overseas and shipping it across the world, suddenly you’re really cancelling a lot of your greenhouse gases.”
“In order to evaluate the impacts of these choices, such as going to plant-based burgers, we have to be very specific about what the tradeoffs are,” Leifer said.
Jack agreed. “Certainly, moving away from beef consumption is probably one of the easiest, most impactful things that someone can do to lower the footprint of their food consumption, but what are you substituting for? If you’re reducing the amount of meat you are eating, what are you eating instead? What is your alternative? If you’re substituting for asparagus that are flown in, one by one, from Chile, then maybe, or maybe not.”
Marston also stated a few key changes that can be made. While she doesn’t buy organic, she thinks other, cheaper solutions are overlooked.
“I buy unprocessed, and I think that’s the thing that’s overlooked. I also believe buying unpackaged when you can is important. Sadly, there’s almost no option for products without packaging,” Marston said.
While many foods and products are heavily packaged, research conducted by Dr. Erica Van Herpen and colleagues backs up the idea that more packaging does not necessarily lead to a product’s success.
Van Herpen and colleagues noticed that packaging does have a significant impact on whether or not a consumer purchases a product. The study, published in 2016, found that unpackaged, therefore more environmentally friendly goods, were actually purchased more often than packaged goods.
This research demonstrates how, in some cases, the more environmentally-friendly choice for manufactures may result in more business. Although, in Marston’s view, there is still a great deal of progress that must happen around the perception of sustainable products.
“There are many eco-friendly options that aren’t as expensive, but they aren’t labeled like that. For example, just not eating meat, buying dried beans, and fresh veggies can help a lot, and it’s cheaper than most of the things you buy,” Marston said.
“It’s the things that are specifically marketed as eco-friendly or eco-conscious that are expensive. It’s not that you can’t be eco-friendly on a budget,” Marston said.
There are a variety of reasons why these products, marketed as eco-friendly, may be more expensive.
According to Jack, the primary factor is that, in today’s market, there is not yet enough competition in order to drive prices down. Hopefully, she explained, as more competitors come onto the market, prices will lower.
Dr. Jack also explained a few other factors that may contribute to the increased prices of sustainable goods that could complicate this happening.
“If there is a perception on the consumer side that to be truly green, it has to be more expensive. People are looking for information about whether something really is organic or not, and we have gotten very used to organic products being more expensive,” Jack said.
Jack added how an additional factor, even more likely than the last, that may affect price is how people often feel more better when they purchase a more expensive product. “People feel virtuous when they spend a little more money for something green. Part of the reason I like to buy eco-friendly, is not because I actually think it makes a difference, but because it makes me feel like I’m a good person and I’m doing my part,”Jack explained.
All of these factors still result in more eco-friendly products being more costly.
As long as these products remain more expensive, people like Smith, will not be able to support products that consider the wellbeing of the planet.
“Global warming is evident everywhere, and we are starting to feel the repercussions of it. We are producing a lot of waste and things that are detrimental to the earth. Now, people are realizing that our future generations are going to have to suffer that,” Smith said.
“It’s just a convenience thing. A lot of people don’t go to farmers markets because they want that product immediately,” Smith said. I could also take the bus to work and not pay for gas and drive my car, but when I’m a full-time student that is really hard.”
References:
Goldstein, B., Moses, R., Sammons, N., & Birkved, M. (2017, December 6). Potential to curb the environmental burdens of American beef consumption using a novel plant-based beef substitute.
Held, B., & Haubach, C. (2017). The additional costs of organic food products – A basket of goods-based analysis differentiated by income. Management Revue, 28(1), 6-61.
MacNell, L., Elliott, S., Hardison-Moody, A., & Bowen, S. (2017). Black and latino urban food desert residents' perceptions of their food environment and factors that influence food shopping decisions. Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition, 12(3), 375-393.
Van Herpen, E., Immink, V., & Puttelaar, J. V. D. (2016). Organics unpacked: The influence of packaging on the choice for organic fruits and vegetables. Food Quality and Preference, 53, 90-96.
Interviewees:
Experts:
-Dr. Kelsey Jack, Ph.D, Associate professor at the Brenn School at UC Santa Barbara
-Dr. Ira Leifer, Ph.D, CEO of Bubbleology Research International
Laypeople:
-Erika Smith, 3rd year UC Santa Barbara Environmental Studies Major -Charlotte Marston, 3rd year UC Santa Barbara student and employee at local environmental consulting agency.