[Book Sip] Buy vs Live... 'Deconsumer'

Some sentences encapsulate the entire content of the book itself, while others instantly reach the reader's heart, creating a connection with the book. We introduce such meaningful sentences excerpted from the book. - Editor's note

Economists warn that we must always consume more, and if consumption decreases even slightly, a severe economic recession and downturn will follow. However, the author argues that as consumption 'accelerates,' the 'climate disaster clock' is 'super-accelerating.' Despite investing billions of dollars in recycling technology and energy efficiency improvements and raising renewable energy supply to impressive levels, carbon emissions have not decreased even for a single year. This conveys an honest and threatening message about the correlation between consumption and the economy.

It seemed that humans had two distinct paths to satisfy everyone's desires and needs. One was to produce more, and the other was to want less. p.14

Greenhouse gas emissions actually decreased only when a severe economic recession occurred, that is, when the world stopped shopping. In early 2020, when lockdowns were imposed due to COVID-19 and the doors of consumer culture closed, carbon pollution decreased by about one-fifth to one-quarter in most countries, and countries that had been years behind their carbon emission reduction targets suddenly got ahead of schedule by several years. p.19

We must stop shopping, but we cannot. This consumption dilemma simply became a matter of whether humanity can sustain life on Earth or not. p.23

Current prices reflect the demand for goods and services and the production costs involved in raw materials, energy, manufacturing, marketing, and transportation. However, the consequences caused by production and consumption?ranging from pollution, soil erosion, carbon emissions, habitat loss, to the impacts on human health, the enormous destruction caused by wildfires, floods, and storms in the era of climate change, the 2 billion tons of waste generated annually, and the unspeakable moral trauma of driving species that have lived for millions of years to extinction?are mostly excluded from prices. p.369

Decconsumer | Written by J. B. Mackinnon | Translated by Kim Ha-hyun | Munhakdongne | 400 pages | 18,500 KRW

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.