practical steps .. advocacy .. and education, are all certainly necessary. But this post is not to present or discuss them. The intent is simply to present some concepts that have helped me to *visualize* the social and environmental issues in different way, in terms of individual & societal spending habits, and capital trickle-down / reallocation.

I’ll summarize the ideas again below. Some of your comments are addressed in-between.

(1) The core of part-1 is that every individual has the power to make a difference, through his spending choices. It may even be spending ten rupees. The choice you make sends signals to all the right places. What could be more down to earth than that ? It says one need not wait for all kinds of grand ideas and movements to play out, not wait for world governments to negotiate on some pact, but through simple act of spending one can make her voice heard.

(2) The next obvious question is what is “right” spending and Who should have the ultimate dictate on how to spend one’s money. This addresses your question “what is needless / excessive consumption”. In middle of part-2, I said i would leave that judgment call to the individual based on (a) whether he needs the product (b) his awareness of the impact of consuming the product on the environment (c) his knowledge of opportunity cost. Very subjective calls. Is it possible to have an “objective” assessment of what right level of consumption is ? And what can we do with such objective information ? These are interesting questions that came up while posting this comment. I’ll do a separate post on that soon.

(3) If some people or as a society we choose to spend wisely, is there a way to visualize this process ? I felt it is useful to visualize the whole thing as a trickle-down / reallocation of capital to social and environmental programs. This reallocation can be done at the individual-level OR societal-level. *How* this reallocation is achieved on societal-level is not the subject of the post. (I think the last paragraph of your comment is asking about *how-to* steps. I know .. important stuff). I just presented one obvious and easiest way is for an individual to cut unnecessary consumption and directly/indirectly channelize capital to more useful efforts. Iam *not* suggesting though, that we completely rely on individual philanthropy and wash hands about other steps needed.

Other steps are certainly needed for societal level capital reallocation. It could be through all kinds of advocacy programs, education, sustainability summits, conferences, efficiency solutions, conservation programs, tax shift from income taxes to consumption tax, carbon trading etc .. and above all, as mind is the master-key, a shift in attitude towards more responsibility. They are all certainly needed. More power to people who are trying to make it happen !

Now you say, needless consumption. needless by what standard ? living alone in a 2-bed room apt in a city where 1000s cannot even afford 2 square meals and basic clothing is needless by some people’s standards. Using an iMac is needless by many. Stashing away money is FDs, CDs is needless by some. so where do we draw the line.

by paying 1000s of $s for a painting is seen as needless by some but it is also an acknowledgment of virtuosity of the artist. if everything is done on a need bases, art and artist cannot survive and they have an important role to play. Painting for instance is an expression of life and is not an urgent need. wanting to see snow flurries is an expression of life, being able to experience the Himalayas at home. They will bring some kind of joy to someone and joy is about being Human. Expressions of life do not have logic. Some can afford those joys and many cannot. For all that you know, it is quite likely that the Ambanis have donated 10 times the amount they are spending on their “homes” to charity in one way or the other.

practical steps could be advocacy and educating the society about the dangers we are getting into, environmentally, ecologically, humanly, socially, biologically. I know a lot of time and money has been spent in advocacy. Do the results correspond to the investment ? I say they do. so it is time to come up with up practical, doable plans and start executing them in the capacity each of us can. design and define interventions that can tilt the balance in favor of the principle you are advocating. get real my friend and come down to the earth. no point sitting in ivory towers and proposing idealistic solutions.