Enough!: Global challenges and responsible lifestyles
Author(s)
Backstrand, Goran and Ingelstam, Lars
Abstract
The paper reviews five proposals made by the authors more than thirty years ago in a controversial paper titled “How much is enough?”. In the controversial paper, the authors proposed to create ceilings for meat and oil consumption, make buildings more economically efficient, increase durability of consumer goods, and prevent private ownership of automobiles. In this paper, the assumptions about the global situation and its challenges, upon which the initial proposals were made, are reviewed and updated. The authors also explore the question of whether more is always better than less. They find that a key problem is that practically no one makes a connection between their lifestyle and consumption and the problems on the international and global agenda. The authors conclude that lifestyle changes, including moderation in material consumption, are both necessary and realistic in relation to the state of the world.
