A Consumption Manifesto

Editor's note: Ever wonder when We the People stopped being called citizens and started being called consumers? Take back your real identity, and take the consumption-crazy days from Thanksgiving to New Year's in stride -- with Umbra Fisk's guide to graceful (and limited) consuming.

Consumption is one of life's great pleasures. Buying things we crave, traveling to beautiful places, eating delectable food, owning every Stevie Wonder album: icing on the cake of life. But too often the effects of our blissful consumption make for a sad story. Giant cars exhaling dangerous exhaust, hog farms pumping out noxious pollutants, toxic trash heaps nudging into poor neighborhoods -- none of this if there weren't something to sell.

But there's no need to swap pleasure for guilt. With thoughtfulness and commitment, consumption can be a force for good. Too long have we consumers played the part of a blushing bride overwhelmed by business suitors. It's time for the bride to assert herself. We've got the dowry; we have the purchasing power. We can require our suitors to comply with our vision of environmental stewardship -- or we can close the door behind them on their way out. Through buying what we need, produced the way we want, we can create the world we'd like to live in.

To that end and for the future, a Consumption Manifesto:

Article One.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. This brilliant triad says it all. Reduce: Avoid buying what you don't need -- and when you do get that dishwasher/lawnmower/toilet, spend the money up front for an efficient model. Reuse: Buy used stuff, and wring the last drop of usefulness out of most everything you own. Recycle: Do it, but know that it's the last and least effective leg of the triad. (Ultimately, recycling simply results in the manufacture of more things.)

Article Two.

Stay close to home. Work close to home to shorten your commute; eat food grown nearby; patronize local businesses; join local organizations. All of these will improve the look, shape, smell, and feel of your community.

Article Three.

Internal combustion engines are polluting and their use should be minimized. Period.

Article Four.

Watch what you eat. Whenever possible, avoid food grown with pesticides, in feedlots, or by agribusiness. It's an easy way to use your dollars to vote against the spread of toxins in our bodies, land, and water.

Article Five.

Private industries have very little incentive to improve their environmental practices. Our consumption choices must encourage and support good behavior; our political choices must support government regulation.

Article Six.

Support thoughtful innovations in manufacturing and production. Hint: Drilling for oil is no longer an innovation.

Article Seven.

Prioritize. Think hardest when buying large objects; don't drive yourself mad fretting over the small ones. It's easy to be distracted by the paper bag puzzle, but an energy-sucking refrigerator is much more worthy of your attention. (Small electronics are an exception.)

Article Eight.

Vote. Political engagement enables the spread of environmentally conscious policies. Without public action, thoughtful individuals are swimming upstream.

Article Nine.

Don't feel guilty. It only makes you sad.

Article Ten.

Enjoy what you have -- the things that are yours alone, and the things that belong to none of us. Both are nice, but the latter are precious. Those things that we cannot manufacture and should never own -- water, air, birds, trees -- are the foundation of life's pleasures. Without them, we're nothing. With us, there may be nothing left. It's our choice.