This time of year it's easy to throw your great intentions out the window due to generosity, sentimentality, peer pressure, guilt or whatever and you find yourself buying things you would never touch the rest of the year.
Not only does it affect your wallet and credit rating but it can have a monstrous negative effect on our planet.
In The Story of Stuff Annie Leonard discovered that, of the materials flowing through the consumer economy, only 1% remain in use six months after sale. Even the goods we might have expected to hold on to are soon condemned to destruction through either planned obsolescence (wearing out or breaking quickly) or perceived obsolescence (becoming unfashionable). And how about all the forests that are felled to make salad bowls and cutting boards? How many of these do we need?
Green Christmas
The US Department of Energy has reported that Christmas lighting uses up more than six terawatt-hours of energy annually, which equates to the cumulative monthly power consumption of about 500,000 homes1. It is hard to ignore the environmental detriments that accompany the excessive consumption of electricity on such a scale. Several studies have tried to measure the carbon footprint left behind by Christmas lighting: the Energy Saving trust of Great Britain has calculated that 15,500 hot air balloons can be inflated with the carbon dioxide that Christmas lights alone produce.2
Furthermore, the centuries-old tradition of having a Christmas tree has high carbon emissions associated with itself because of the footprint resulting from the entire cycle of Christmas tree farming, harvesting, distribution, and eventually disposing off. Moreover, the resulting carbon footprint from the wastage of food and the excessive wrapping and packaging of gifts and is another dampener. A calculation of the carbon footprint that UK leaves behind over Christmas claims that food, travel, lighting, and gifts generate about 650 kg of carbon dioxide emissions per capita, and this amounts to about 5.5% of the nation’s annual carbon footprint3.
Our economy fuels pathological consumption. We are pressured by constant marketing to believe that we are not being good Americans if we aren't major contributors to the GDP. But our over consumption at all levels is fueling the destruction of our habitat and sabotaging our children's future
How about this year just writing a poem or letter, baking a cake or another food gift or just giving a kiss and saying "I love you"?
Or how about the best gift of all? A subscription or donation to Daily Kos.
You don't need to trash the planet to show you care.