Deconsumption: poverty, the best ecological policy?

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Deconsumption: poverty, the best ecological policy?




by Christophe » 11/12/23, 08:19

The title is very politically incorrect (especially for political ecologists), but ecologically it is correct: overconsumption or "malconsumption" are the main sources of pollution!

As a reminder, simply on food consumption, the subject of this article, it has been more than 10 years since the Earth's agricultural production capacity exceeded 10 billion mouths...yet billions of men continue not to eat to their hunger...Find the mistake!

Food deconsumption: “Unheard of since the 80s”

Less meat, less fish... have the French become more attentive to the carbon impact of their diet? Not really, they suffer. They are experiencing food inflation to the point of having to reduce the quality and quantity of their food basket. A situation that is all the more worrying as it seems to be long-term.

This is a drop in historical food consumption, although less significant than expected because INSEE has revised its methodology. It’s even “unheard of” since the start of the census of this data by INSEE in the 80s, explains to Novethic the economist at the French Observatory of Economic Conditions (OFCE), François Geerolf. How to explain it? By food inflation, also unprecedented, linked to the decline in purchasing power. “Wages have not increased as quickly as prices,” explains the specialist. In October, INSEE recorded an increase of +7,8% in food prices.

The results of the latest NielsenIQ barometer published in mid-November for LSA magazine were already striking: “Today, France is the country where prices have increased the most since January 2022”, noted the panelist who scrutinized the prices of thousands of consumer products in seven European countries. As a result, France is one of the worst European countries in this area. Added to this is the worsening poverty in the territory. Hence the calls for donations from food insecurity associations which are unable to meet demand.

Another study, this time from Cways/Fondation Nestlé France, drove home the point on November 16: 37% of French people would declare themselves food insecure in 2023 compared to 11% in 2015. Young people, women, single people and single-parent families are particularly affected. “Hit by inflation, households are favoring low-cost products, reducing quantities and eliminating foods such as fish and meat in favor of starchy foods or canned foods,” summarizes Pascale Hébel (CWays) in Challenges, specialist in eating behaviors.

Sobriety or austerity

The organic sector, for example, has paid the price. Forced to make trade-offs, consumers are turning away from these products after strong growth in sales in recent years. Some organic milk producers are therefore forced to sell their product at the price of conventional milk. A colossal shortfall that endangers the entire industry.

Beyond the price, organic is going through a crisis of consumer confidence and is competing with local, regional products, pesticide-free, GMO-free, palm oil-free claims... "Does organic farming have a future?" asks François Geerolf. For the economist everything will depend on the evolution of income. “I’m not very optimistic from a macro point of view,” he confides.

As for the renunciation of meat or fish, and the reduction in volume in general, some could see this as a tendency towards sobriety. “The French relationship with consumption is evolving,” Emily Mayer, an analyst specializing in the sector, recently told Novethic. “Food waste is becoming a real issue at the moment. We throw away 27 kg of food per individual per year, if every French person starts to pay attention, the volumes could actually drop.", she says.

It remains that this deconsumption suffered relies largely on the poorest. 42% of the most precarious French people are forced to skip a meal. But “sobriety without equality is austerity for the poorest,” writes economist Maxime Combes in a column.


source: https://www.novethic.fr/actualite/socia ... 51953.html

Uh..."sobriety without equality is austerity for the poorest" WHAT?! : Shock: : Mrgreen:

ps: the organized band of braggarts who run us hadn't promised that inflation was over at the start of the 2023 school year? They clearly confirm their ability to produce the opposite of what they promise... but like in Sarko's time, are we changing the methodology to hide incompetence? : Evil:
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Re: Deconsumption: poverty, the best ecological policy?




by Janic » 11/12/23, 09:00

Uh..."sobriety without equality is austerity for the poorest" WHAT?! : Shock: : Mrgreen:
ps: the organized band of braggarts who run us hadn't promised that inflation was over at the start of the 2023 school year? They definitely confirm their ability to produce the opposite of what they promise... but like in Sarko's time, are we changing the methodology to hide the incompetence? : Evil:
Good document! But we must no longer see this on the scale of a country like ours, which has largely benefited from its gratuitous colonialism, but on the scale of the entire planet and there pseudo-political decisions no longer have any effect. importance, nor impact.
We are in the situation of the guy who falls from the top of a skyscraper and who, on each floor, says to himself (to himself) so far everything is going well.
Globalism has served and still serves at least that; there is no longer independence, but interdependence on this entire earth and where a single fart can stink up the entire room where you can only hold your nose for a short time. Remember the silent spring by Rachel Carson (followed by other whistleblowers) who shook America like seeing an accident on the side of the road, before hitting the accelerator again!
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Re: Deconsumption: poverty, the best ecological policy?




by Ahmed » 11/12/23, 18:00

The extension of poverty solves nothing since it only transposes consumption to wealthier classes. It is even thanks to this wealth differential that the system works, since it is a thermodynamic phenomenon: without the poor who have the choice of working for nothing or dying of hunger, we would not enjoy this multitude of cheap goods...
The trend until recently was a polarization of wealth and fortune between distant countries, now there will be added a subdivision within countries with high standards of living (which existed before the extension of globalization).
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Re: Deconsumption: poverty, the best ecological policy?




by Christophe » 11/12/23, 19:20

So you have to kill the rich? (I already knew !) : Mrgreen:

ps: better, to be on topic, you have to eat them! : Mrgreen:
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Re: Deconsumption: poverty, the best ecological policy?




by Ahmed » 11/12/23, 20:23

Wealth being relative, it would be difficult to manage... : Oops:
More seriously, it is irrelevant whether this or that person is rich or not and by what means they became rich (or not), as long as a differential manifests itself (I am speaking from an objective point of view here) , thermodynamics has no state of mind.
In other words, who in a market system would go to the trouble of working if they have enough income to free themselves from it?
In ancient times, when motivations were quite different from those in force today, all "free" men did this and the job was done through massive slavery. The latter evolved much later towards the universalization of work that we know, resulting in much greater production, to the point of being counterproductive...
With the decrease in energy resources (hello Janco!), the opposite movement proceeds from a certain logic.
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Re: Deconsumption: poverty, the best ecological policy?




by GuyGadeboisTheBack » 11/12/23, 20:48

Ahmed wrote:In other words, who in a market system would go to the trouble of working if they have enough income to free themselves from it?

Someone who would be so intellectually and mentally poor, who would get so bored in his empty “inner universe” that he would go to work to alleviate his boredom?
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Re: Deconsumption: poverty, the best ecological policy?




by Ahmed » 11/12/23, 20:53

And so who would be far more stupid than any animal? : Lol:
I imagine that this can only happen to an individual already emptied of his substance by a previous stupefying job (because it must be recognized that the term "work" covers many quite different realities); otherwise, he has no excuses!
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Re: Deconsumption: poverty, the best ecological policy?




by sen-no-sen » 11/12/23, 20:59

In ecological matters there are three solutions to reduce your footprint:
1)Innovation or “technosolutionism”.
2) Committed sobriety.
3) Suffered poverty.

In fact, point 1 generally results in a rebound effect (example of LED lamps which consume much less but whose use has exploded).
Point 3 is favorable to the appearance of social unrest (yellow vest, hunger riots, etc.), point 2 is ideal but very unfashionable in a world which advocates excessive consumption.
I deliberately avoided point 4 which consists of eliminating the problem at the source... (war, pandemic etc...)

The next decades should be a mix of these 4 points... : roll:

Christophe wrote:As a reminder, simply on food consumption, the subject of this article, it has been more than 10 years since the Earth's agricultural production capacity exceeded 10 billion mouths...yet billions of men continue not to eat to their hunger...Find the mistake!

It must be remembered that currently there are twice as many people dying from overnutrition as from undernutrition in the world and that the latter particularly affects the poor...in rich countries! A hell of a paradox!
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Re: Deconsumption: poverty, the best ecological policy?




by Ahmed » 11/12/23, 21:19

Indeed, overeating can rhyme with malnutrition...
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Re: Deconsumption: poverty, the best ecological policy?




by sicetaitsimple » 11/12/23, 22:14

Ahmed wrote:Indeed, overeating can rhyme with malnutrition...


Yes, but it can more or less be resolved with information and education.
Whereas when there is nothing on the plate.
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