One of the courses in my program is Exploring Sustainability that everyone takes for 6 trimesters. It is pretty awesome and delves into a lot of different aspects of sustainability. Right now, we are focusing on sustainable consumption, with the underlying question of “is there a way to sustainably consume?”
The book we are reading posed the schools of thought around this topic as “consume less” and “consume differently (ie more eco-friendly products). To which many of us thought BOTH/AND!! BOTH/AND!! There needs to be a move towards BOTH consuming less AND consuming differently. Neither camp has the answer. There seems, actually, not to be one right answer, a certain path to go down towards sustainable consumption. Especially when the question is added: sustainable consumption for who? (or is it whom?)
It got me thinking about this way I understand prison abolition that was helpful to a co-student/friend so I thought I’d share it here. When I think about prison abolition, I don’t have a single path or vision of exactly what that looks like. I only know that from where I stand in my places of privilege and my socialization in a society so deeply invested in – and dependent upon – the PIC (prison industrial complex), that I stand in a place of immense fog. A fog so dense that I cannot see a world without prisons. Not from where I stand today. And yet, I know it’s out there. Every time I unlearn just a little piece about prison culture and every time I learn just a little piece about transformative justice alternatives, I move through that fog. I move one step towards a place where I can see the world I envision. And so every step lifts the fog just a little. Every step brings me just a little bit out of the thick of it to where I can start to envision what I want. It brings me closer to a place where I can see and understand and know – not just hope – that prison abolition is real.
So an underlying piece of this analogy, this moving through the fog, is this hope piece: that there actually is a place out there that I/that we are moving towards. That the dream and goal of a world without prisons is not only possible, that it is happening. And yet, from where I am right now, I can also say that I don’t know how to get there. I don’t need to know how to get there. Maybe some other folks elsewhere know. And maybe nobody does. The point is that there is a foundation of hope underlying this journey out of the fog. And the steps I take towards that goal are what clear the fog just a little bit at a time until the path becomes clear.
I thought about this a lot this past weekend in terms of sustainable consumption. I don’t know the answer to the question “is there a sustainable way to consume?” And if there is, I don’t know if there’s one universal answer for everyone. That’s actually not true. I am pretty confident that there isn’t one universal way to consume. And yet that ‘s not the point. The point is that once again, I find myself in a fog.
I will admit that I find this fog a lot thicker than that of prison abolition. And that is because I think I have a much further journey ahead of me. I have not spent a lot of time thinking about this question. And especially not a lot of time answering this question. And yet it is so basic and fundamental: can human consumption come to a place of sustainable consumption? What does that look like? And how do we get there?
It was a bold and beautiful invitation to think about these questions. And so I invite you to think about them, as well as some other questions that have come up since: who are we to be having these conversations? What places of privilege do I or don’t I hold that allow me to even think about changing my consumption behaviors? What are the different ways people consume unsustainably? In what areas do I over-consume? In what ways do I under-consume?
What questions about consumption have inspired you?
learn the system you want to dismantle 
You are right, that to pose these questions is a first step. I try to stay close to the ground, “rooted” if you will, in that I need to first answer and act upon that answer for myself and the person I live with first. I can’t even fathom an answer to any larger group of people until I have my own s*** together regarding sustainable consumption. I actually hate the words “consumer” and “consumption” because they’ve been devised by the marketing and manufacturing people — those that have a vested interest. For me, I’d rather look at it as the satisfying of my sustainable needs and maybe some of the wants.
In a similar way to sustainable consumption, I believe that transformative justice or even the PIC begins at home. Let’s get to know and then practice justice one-on-one, looking into each others eyes and hearts. That’s the only way true learning occurs anyways.