Advertising's not-so-subtle effect on the planet

When I was a kid, I once read that a person is never more than 10 feet away from a spider, a fact that led me to contemplate what might be lurking under floorboards and sidewalks. Nowadays I find myself entertaining something more troubling: I might seldom be more than 10 feet away from an advertisement.

This occurred to me the first time I was force-fed ads on the Internet and on monitors in supermarket checkout lines or on gas station pumps. And, with the expansion of digital advertising onto smartphones and e-readers, I suspect that many Americans spend most of their waking hours less than a foot from an ad of some sort.

What does this have to do with the environment? Plenty. It serves to boost an already over-the-top consumerism that harms the planet. Americans make up less than 5% of the world’s population but consume 20% to 25% of the world’s resources, i.e., food, fresh water, wood, minerals and energy). This means that, on average, Americans consume 5 to 7 times the resources per capita as the rest of humanity combined.

Consumerism and the future

Renowned ecologist and agronomist David Pimentel of Cornell University has calculated that the Earth’s resources could sustain a population of only 2 billion if everyone had the current average standard of living in the United States. (His detailed analysis was published in the journal Human Ecology in 2010.

The world population is already at 7 billion, and the latest United Nations projection is that the head count will reach 10 billion well before 2100. For all 10 billion to enjoy the American standard of living, Pimentel’s data imply that it would take four additional Earths to supply the necessary natural resources.

Even if that calculation is off by, say, a whole planet, it is evident that the American lifestyle – with big homes, plasma TVs, multiple cars running on fossil fuels – is not a sustainable model. Serious threats to the environment, like global climate change, water shortages and pollution from industrial chemicals, continue to mount up, and well over half of humanity is already malnourished, according to the World Health Organization.

Our consumer culture is based on a belief that happiness derives from having more stuff, and advertising is the driving engine of consumerism. Indeed, the primary aim of much advertising is to create need where none previously existed.

A hefty $313 billion were spent on advertising by businesses within the United States in 2011, according to “The Power of Direct Marketing,” a report released by the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), a global trade organization promoting direct marketing. The 2011 U.S. population was 311.8 million, meaning that $1,004 advertising dollars per person were spent last year wooing every man, woman and child to buy stuff.

This figure includes all media forms of advertising which, in order of most to least ad dollars spent, are television, telephone, direct mail, online media, newspapers, magazines and radio. The above pie chart shows how the $1,004 per capita ad expenditure breaks down.

How do ads affect you?

While an individual might rightly believe that he or she is not swayed by ads, U.S. businesses raked in an estimated $2.7 trillion in ad-generated sales in 2011, or $8,659 per capita, according to DMA’s figures.

Advertising has tricked us into thinking we can and should have every conceivable bauble and convenience, yet basic human needs today are still food, water, shelter, transportation and health care. Advertising, especially the local kind, can no doubt be very helpful in finding a good deal when you’ve decided on a product or service, but the toll on the rest of the biosphere must be figured into our purchasing decisions.

And for those who are budget minded, remember this: There are only two ways to be rich – make more or want less. The point here is to recognize, in our consumer-based, advertising-saturated society, how very hard it is to want less materially and why we must to do so anyway.

Sara Mosko is an activist with the Angeles Chapter. Read more environmental articles by her at www.BoogieGreen.com.