Cover image credit: Millenial Consumer by Optician Training is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

It is abundantly clear that climate change is an existential threat to humanity, and excessive mindless consumption on a global scale is the main culprit responsible for it.

It has been shown that if everyone consumed the same amount that Americans do, we’d need the equivalent of more than 5 Earths to sustain us. What drives us to consume so much?

If you think about it, it’s not hard to see that one of the main drivers of mindless consumption is the plethora of advertisements (ads) that are constantly bombarding us from all directions. In today’s world, it’s hard to escape ads no matter where you turn – on giant billboards, through various media such as TV, radio, social media, email, etc. In fact, the ad industry is a really big business – so big that they fund not only TV & radio shows, sports events, etc. but also many modern services we routinely rely on such as email and social media¹.

Ads actually act as a double whammy for driving mindless consumption. A lot of our consumption patterns are driven (at least subconsciously) by peer pressure, and since almost everyone is exposed to the barrage of ads, most of us end up purchasing something or another that we saw an ad for.

It wouldn’t be too much of an exaggeration to say that ads are the ultimate driving force of the consumerist system that has led us to the climate change crisis.

Given their significance, it’s important to gain more than a superficial understanding of ads’ true nature, as well as their impacts on our lives.

In essence, ads are a mechanism to manufacture demand for the advertised product or service. Although they’re not intrinsically evil, today most ads have been weaponized by drawing on deep insights from modern psychology for more nefarious purposes. The best minds of our generation are working for big corporations in the business of exploiting our psychological quirks to sell all kinds of stuff to us. While companies profits from this behavior, it can have a very negative effect on the audience members.

Mindless consumption is very insidious. By giving in to the temptation of buying whatever is advertised to us, we waste our hard-earned “rem”. In other words, we’re squandering away our time, energy and skills, i.e., some of our most precious resources, that we use to earn money, to acquire stuff we don’t really need. The need to spend on this activity distracts us from making full use of our potential and fulfilling our lives. Instead, we’re chained to our unfulfilling jobs to satisfy this insatiable urge.

This manipulation of our behavior in the service of capitalism is essentially what’s sustaining the modern consumerist capitalist system.

The end result of all this is that we ultimately surrender control of our lives to external forces, whose interests don’t align with our own.

On a global scale, this mindless consumption has lead to a host of environmental problems, whose effects are now generally felt all across the world. Mindless consumption has a devastating on the environment. Some of the most disturbing images of this devastation are provided by overflowing landfills that are literally filled with the waste from the mindless consumption of people from the so-called “developed” economies.

If all of us stopped mindless consumption, not only would we individually be better off, but the entire planet will also benefit from it. Furthermore, the money freed up can be donated to charities that are doing very important work for the community that is ultimately beneficial to everyone. Last but not least, you can quit the mindless drudgery you’re subjected to at work sooner, as you would be able to accumulate the money needed to fund your modest lifestyle faster.

Defeating mindless consumption is the arguably biggest challenge of our generation.

One of the most effective strategies to mitigate the harmful effects of ads on ourselves is to maintain the practice of budgeting. In addition to making you aware of how you may be unconsciously manipulated by ads and spending mindlessly, budgeting enables you to direct your most precious resources to ends that matter most to you. In this way

budgeting can be a crucial tool for leading a purposeful life and combating the climate change crisis we’re currently confronting.

Voting with your dollars is the single most powerful action you can individually take to change anything you’re unhappy with in the capitalist society we live in. We all like to think of ourselves as decent humans, and try to act in accordance with what we think are good values. However in this capitalistic world we live in, more than our actions, what we spend our money on shows our true nature. You may think that you’re a very non-materialistic person, but if you’re spending most of your money on fancy cars, your preferences are at odds with your claim.

Ultimately, your spending patterns are a reflection of what you value, whether you’re conscious of those values or not.

Individual purchasing decisions play a very important role in keeping a capitalist society working. A capitalist economy’s functioning depends critically on the flow of capital, i.e., money. One of the biggest contributions to capital flow patterns in a society is people’s spending patterns. Products or services that people are willing to spend money on become commercially successful, e.g., smartphones. On the other hand, those that don’t have many dollars turn their way die out. A good case in point is how point-and-shoot cameras have been completely replaced by smartphones. As a more extreme example, if everyone in the world decided to never buy cars, and only rely on public transportation or, say, horses, all auto companies will go out of business, and no one will ever make cars again. There is historical precedent showing that real change can be effected by economic actions of people. For example, the boycott of goods from South Africa when Apartheid was still practiced there, was one of the important factors leading to its eventual demise.

In summary, consciously changing our spending patters is the most effective form of activism at an individual level to precipitate change in the capitalist society we live in. Budgeting is the most effective tool of recognizing and taking control of your spending patterns Thus, budgeting is the most powerful tool available to us as individuals to influence our society according to our values.