I can't imagine in an event within this scope and with this profile, so beautiful, where we are seeding good ideas, giving visibility to attitudes and to experiences that make a difference, to sustainable solutions in a world that experiences multiple systemic and interconnected crises. There is an enormous complexity in the solution of these problems, maybe the biggest of all, I think, is this environmental crisis unprecedented in the history of mankind. I can't imagine an event with this profile where we don't open a space, however small, to reflect on the urgency for a new culture based on ethical consumption.
Without ethical consumption there is no salvation, there is no solution for Mankind. We will be replicating the modus operandi of grasshoppers, of the grasshopper plague, that decimates the non-renewable resources of a planet that is unique, where renewable resources fundamental to life sustain us but not all resources are infinite and there is no other planet, there is no Plan B, there is no Noah's Ark Operation. Either we use what we have smartly and wisely, or we will perish.
Either we use what we have smartly and wisely, or we will perish. I think this issue is somewhat invisible within the consumer society for obvious reasons, so I'm going to take the time I have here, with no commercial breaks, to convey my message. Ethical consumption is so important that if, for example, if we could imagine being possible to eradicate, in a snap, all poverty, all misery of the planet, the world would be better.
Better and fairer. However, if in this planet there weren't an widely spread culture of ethical consumption, there wouldn't be a solution for our species. If we could imagine, hypothetically, all the resources now destined to the arms industry, the war industry, rechanneled to the technological innovation, research of new tools in favor of life, the world would certainly be better, a technological world where we could accelerate processes, in several fields.
However, in this technologically sophisticated world, if there weren't the culture of ethical consumption, there would be no solution for our species. We need to spread these values urgently. Because time flies, the years go by and we get more sophisticated in this consumer society.
I am 44 years old and I remember, in my childhood, of the importance attributed to built-in closets. Adults around me would praised the importance of living in a house or apartment where there were built-in closets. It was a big deal, the built-in closet.
It was practical, everything shoved into the wall, out of sight, very practical, you could put everything you needed to use daily inside there. When it was time to move, it was no work, you had no furniture to take. You would go to another place where there were built-in closets stuck in the wall.
Thirty-five, forty years later, kids don't know what a built-in closet is. By the way, it's a telltale of one's age. Nobody talks about it anymore, because values have changed and the demand for space has increased.
Nowadays, we use a sophisticated English word to designate an entire room that needs to house and shelter all our day-by-day clutter. The word is. .
. closet And the closet is something that also came to be highlighted in the home and in our habitat. To the point where inside decor magazine covers have tips for decorating your closet.
I once saw the cover headline for the main article: light designers teaching how to project magic light beams superimposed over stacks of multicolored-fluffy- Egyptian-cotton towels. Stacks of quilts, in a torrid tropical country, a warm climate like Rio de Janeiro. And more light beams over socks, shoes, boxers, panties.
. . And then, after the lofty investment in the closet, there is the open house.
So we'll have the pleasure to host at home - this is legitimate, it's cool, brings friends together, it's an act of love and friendship - come see my place! - This is the living room, the open kitchen, a view to Gávea, look at the Catholic university, room number one, master bathroom, room number two, master bathroom - all those bathtubs in the apartment - room number three, master bathroom, now come here, I want to show you something! Pay attention over there, I'm going to turn it on.
. . And on are the reflectors that illuminate this personal shrine to consumption.
And the closet therefore becomes the symbol of a time. Back in the built-in closet times, it was important to have. In closet times, it is important not only to have but to flaunt.
Three traps, at least three, of the consumerist lifestyle. The first trap is of moral and ethical order. To flaunt abundance where there is scarcity.
In the consumer society this is not an issue, because the consumer society is selfish, hedonistic, individualistic, each one for himself, maybe God for all. In a 100-meter radius, not only in the Divided City of Zuenir Ventura, Rio de Janeiro, but in most of the world, around you, where there are many people, you will find in this virtual circle someone who goes through material deprivation. Flaunting abundance is not smart, it is not a good idea.
The second trap is of ecological order. Everything we take home and need, is necessary, it's consumption, consumption favors life. Consumption is good.
Consumerism, the -ism suffix, points to wastage and excess. Shoes, socks, watches, glasses, any toys we like to collect and consume in a shopping spree and take guiltlessly home, takes with it pieces of nature: raw materials and energy. Everything within this environment, the clothes and accessories we're wearing, this big badge, all this paraphernalia here, to exist, demanded raw materials and energy, pieces of the natural environment that we took home.
It is ok, but it just so happens that it is only one planet, the resources are finite and we have to make good use of them so there is no scarcity. Scarcity scenarios hasten conflict, war and disputes; there is no solution to that. Third trap, in my opinion, is the illusion of transferring to material goods happiness and peace.
Accumulating things thinking this is the path of happiness and then line at the psychoanalyst's office or stuff oneself with licit and illicit drugs because this empty feeling remains. The existential emptiness remains, a disposable and perishable life like a mere gift wrapping. My friends, obviously there are people who think differently this is a subversive thought - there are people who think differently, especially in the economists' caste.
Of course there are economists who think in synergy with what I'm posing. I'll give you names: Hazel Henderson, creator of Ethical Markets, Sérgio Besserman, José Eli da Veiga, recently Eduardo Gianetti da Fonseca, Hugo Penteado, a list. But the majority thinks that consumerism is the driving force of the world economy's locomotive.
There should indeed be consumerism; otherwise there is no job generation and no wealth increase. It is the classical Economics vision. And then we stop to think about the importance of economists, I'm serious, to the modern society, and their weird way of calculating certain things.
For example, you eat chicken every day, I don't. An economist here will look at both of us and say: you two eat half a chicken. It's a weird accounting.
Close-by here, at the university I mentioned before, graduated-Central Bank presidents and ex-Finance Ministers that I think cultivate that thought: “we need consumerism”, “we need consumerism”. The idea gets reinforced without questioning, it becomes a dogma. it becomes a dogma.
A dogma that doesn't hold up. It wasn't the first in the history of classical Economy, and it won't be the last. False dogma.
110 years ago we had in this country a very interesting battle between slavery defenders and abolitionists in the newspapers - hello internet kids, go ask uncle Google, research - there were two arguments, totally opposite, relating to slavery. The abolitionists would say: “It is absurd that Brazil is the last country in the world to emancipate slaves. We can't remain in this shameful situation.
Freedom now! ". And the slaverists would state in a terrorist, threatening tone: “If slavery is abolished, Brazilian's economy will disintegrate”.
False dogma. False dogma. It didn't disintegrate because of the abolition of slavery.
Let's pay attention, then. I understand that today we have to make space for this debate because there's no time to lose. Some institutions reveal that the consumerist fury have determined an advance of 30% into the Earth's support capacity.
Within a one year period we have used 30% more than Earth is capable of supporting in terms of a growing demand for raw materials and energy. It is an ecocide model for development. We are replicating the ecocide.
What is the problem, according to the World Bank, that is not environmental organization? 20% of humanity, today, approximately, consumes 80% of the resources. What is the posed challenge, and that's the idea for us to reflect, think, and improve?
There is no solution for humanity, there is no solution for our species, if we don't disarm the consumerist rage of the 20% caste that we, here, are part of. Consuming less is not only necessary; a simple life is good for the soul. Not a monastic life, a life with less.
Disarming the consumerist rage of 20% of the population, one of the challenges, and the other is that all perspectives of social inclusion that everyone is talking about, it became a mantra talking about social inclusion, it became a mantra talking about social inclusion, so well, social inclusion is utopia if we don't understand that in a consumer society there will never be full social inclusion, because the basic kit of survival on planet Earth for more than half of the world's population that is outside of the consumer society is decent housing, health, education, transportation and leisure, I'll keep these five, for us to provide the excluded with this basic kit, you need raw materials and energy, chunks of nature. Social inclusion is not possible without a strong demand, that hasn't happened yet, over natural resources. Balancing the game and equation demands reeducation in favor of ethical consumption, conscious consumption, sustainable consumption.
Inoculate in schools and universities the anti-virus of conscious consumption. Prevention against marketing that disseminates new desires around what is perishable and is disposable. It's fundamental that we reflect about it.
There are 35 seconds left. I'm going to finish. Since there is no peace in the consumer society because we’ll never be satiated of the new desires that will propel us and drag us to the new sale to pay in 10 interest-free layaway payments, to take what is not exactly important but started to be in 30 seconds of commercial break.
If there is no peace in the consumer society, let’s quote one of the messengers of peace, Mahatma Gandhi, who was among us and said the phrase that I'll repeat, when nobody talked about sustainability, of sustainable development, when we didn't measure ecological footprint, there was no environmental legislation, he already said based on his wisdom the following: The Earth is capable of fulfilling the needs of all men but not the greed of all men. And finally, also by him, Gandhi, who we revere with the honor I'm having of opening this TEDx, let us be the change we want for the world. Thank you very much.
