ABSTRACT
Two global crises characterize the present day: first, the deepening problem of climate change, which is a marker of a range of other environmental problems faced by the planet; second, the more acute crisis triggered by the financial and economic meltdown of 2008 and its consequences. Both, we argue, are crises of prosperity occurring within an economic system in which positive feedback amplifies a pathology of consumption which takes the form of an addiction to intrinsically unsatisfying goods and pleasures. Unless affluenzic addiction to consumption is controlled, then invocations to individuals to limit their consumption and live sustainably are likely to fail. This chapter explores the possibility of finding systemic solutions to the problems of overconsumption and addiction, but also warns that these problems may be so grave as to lie beyond solution.
