AUGUST 24 2019 LISTENER 3

EDITORIAL

Consumer choice

‘G

loom from the climate change frontline”,

read a headline in the Economist last week

about the report on land use and food

waste from the Intergovernmental Panel on

Climate Change.

The major headlines here at the time

were about the Reserve Bank of New

Zealand jolting the dollar downwards and

surprising markets by dropping the Official Cash Rate by half a

percentage point to just 1%.

Reserve Bank Governor Adrian

Orr did not quite say, “Come

on, you slackers, get out and

spend”. But the new interest

rate said it for him.

The bank’s monetary policy

committee “acknowledged the

importance of additional spend-

ing from households, businesses

and the Government, to meet

inflation and employment tar-

gets”. Business confidence, the

committee said, had dampened

in 2018 and not picked up this

year. And softening house prices

could potentially further subdue

household spending. Perhaps

lower interest rates would spur

more house buying, more infla-

tion and more spending.

Herein lies the dichotomy: the IPCC’s

latest report says that over-consumption,

particularly in the Western world, is doing

possibly irreparable harm to the planet and

almost everything that lives on it.

Although an estimated 821 million people

are undernourished, about 2 billion are

obese. Shockingly, food loss and waste amount to a third of total

global food production. If we were all to be honest, though, that

is not such a shock.

Yet, at the heart of the Reserve Bank’s latest OCR move is the

belief that we need more consumption to grow the economy. It is

through economic growth that governments get to spend more

on the things that the public demands and desires.

If both institutions are right in their hypotheses, how are we

to proceed? This central question has become the dilemma of

our age. How to continue to enjoy the benefits of growth that

we have become accustomed to as a right, without continuing to

inflict the damage on the environment and other species’ habi-

tats that we have also claimed as a right?

GE

TT

Y (^) I
M
AG
ES
The doomsayers would have it that we are at the edge of a cliff,
a dead end, a pick-your-own-cliché point on the continuum of
human evolution. They demand ever more drastic solutions,
including an end to capitalism itself. Our own Prime Minister,
Jacinda Ardern, is not immune to blaming capitalism for poverty,
as though poverty is unknown in other political systems. It seems
staggering that the benefits of capitalism, including lifting mil-
lions out of poverty, can be so easily overlooked.
Yet, the latest IPCC report was not as without hope as the
Economist headline suggested.
Agriculture can be made more
efficient, and the report recom-
mends improved harvesting,
storage, packaging and trans-
porting of food. On the demand
side of the equation, the IPCC
suggests that healthier diets,
less meat, less dairy and fewer
sugary drinks would be good
starters. None of that involves
stopping spending. However,
it does involve spending
differently.
Importantly, the report sug-
gests that by changing how we
live – purposefully though not
radically – we can not only arrest
the damage but also begin to
repair it. There is no suggestion
that we need to ditch capitalism to do so.

W

e can, it seems, make the most of

low interest rates by continuing to

spend, thus keeping the economy

growing, without destroying the Earth. The

key is what we spend our money on.

Equally important is the IPCC’s suggestion

that consumer demand – particularly for healthier diets – will

make a difference in reducing land degradation and carbon

emissions. We do not all need to become vegan. Cumulatively,

the small decisions and actions each of us takes to lower our own

carbon footprints matter. But we need to act now.

None of this is to suggest that Westerners can shop their way

out of trouble, or that significant lifestyle changes will not be

forced upon us all – possibly catastrophically – if we do not

choose them first. But if we know anything about humanity, it is

how endlessly innovative, inventive and creative it is.

We cannot have our cake and eat it too, but we can have a

growing economy and a healthier environment if, by our deliber-

ate actions, we choose to. l

We can continue to

spend, thus keeping

the economy growing,

without destroying

the Earth.