"Responsible Consumption as a Moral Imperative"

is the 1999-2001 Study/Action Issue chosen by the delegates at the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly in Salt Lake City, June 1999.

Responsible Consumption as a Moral Imperative Issue: Irresponsible consumption endangers our future as it wastes raw materials and precious resources, depriving people in other countries as well as our own future generations. Can Unitarian Universalists and their congregations influence people to become more responsible in our consumption of resources?

Background and Reasons for Study:
The United States and Canada, although technologically advanced countries, are among the most materially wasteful societies in the world. We are caught up in a consumption treadmill that is morally questionable and that is not sustainable; yielding to the blandishments of the marketplace, we buy, build, and consume more than we require--frequently many times what we need. Many studies note the high per-capita consumption in the United States and Canada. The United States, for instance, is home to just five percent of the world's population, but it is responsible for 40 percent of the total consumption of global resources. In the last fifty years, the United States has consumed more resources than the rest of the world did in all previous history. Per-capita energy use in the United States is now as high as it was in 1973, the year before the "energy crisis". Landfills and waste management are among the top environmental concerns for local communities.

Some economists have joined ecologists in suggesting that by the end of the twenty-first century, given our present rates of population growth and consumption, the entire world will be short of food, water, and housing for its inhabitants. Unitarian Universalists should take the lead in alerting consumers, business persons, and political leaders to the consequences that flow from aggressive and irresponsible personal consumption.

Possible Study Questions:

How might Unitarian Universalist congregations promote the current movement for voluntary simplicity?
How can we harness our individual and collective purchasing power to encourage the sale of ecologically friendly and energy efficient services?
How can businesses be encouraged to be better stewards of their products and to monitor the process from the extraction of raw materials to the disposal of the finished product?
Can the Unitarian Universalist commitment to equity and justice for all be achieved by carefully challenging the level of our own consumption?
How do government policies including zoning and land use decisions exacerbate injustices by locating disposal facilities near low-income neighborhoods?
Why does the government subsidize new suburban housing developments with road and sewer construction that destroy farmland and open spaces when inner city neighborhoods need to be rebuilt?

Possible Actions:
As consumers we could use our buying power to redirect the economy toward producing goods of greater quality and longer life span, as well as toward new technologies that allow us to conserve the resources of the world and ensure their fair distribution at home and abroad. Whenever we consider buying a new item, we could pause to reflect whether we need it. At home, we could turn off many of our electric gadgets.

Once a month, we could practice a "day of simplicity" during which we minimize our consumption of electricity.

Once a week, we could take public transportation to school or work. When buying a new vehicle, we could reject fuel-inefficient Sport Utility Vehicles and purchase more fuel-efficient models. Our adult and children's Religious Education curricula, sermons, music, and liturgy could be used to challenge the morality of materialism and instead promote responsible ways of life.

BECAUSE the seven principles of the Unitarian Universalist Association connect the values of democracy, personal growth, and social justice to a recognition of the interdependent web of all existence; and

WHEREAS safe air to breathe, safe water to drink, and a sustainable environment are essential for life; and

WHEREAS government support for environmental protection and energy conservation

programs is inadequate;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Unitarian Universalist Association urges its

member congregations, affiliate organizations, and individual Unitarian Universalists to increase their efforts to:

1. Protect threatened and endangered species and their habitats;

2. Advocate for clean air, both indoors and outdoors, and clean water;

3. Promote the protection of public lands and water resources, and the responsible

stewardship of private lands;

4. Support and practice energy and water conservation and the use of renewable

sources of energy;

5. Use and advocate the use of public transportation and other environmentally sound

alternatives;

6. Reduce the waste of resources in our homes, congregations, and communities by

recycling, using recycled products, and reducing consumption;

7. Educate ourselves and our congregations on the need for these efforts and how best

to undertake them; and

8. Increase government support for environmental protection and energy conservation

programs.

SECOND-YEAR GENERAL RESOLUTION

BECAUSE Unitarian Universalists covenant to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person and respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part; and

WHEREAS a team of scientists and doctors appointed by the National Academy of Sciences issued a report entitled "Pesticides in the Diets of Infants and Children" in which they said that children are at risk of overexposure to agricultural pesticides and other toxins;

WHEREAS pesticides banned in the United States are freely sold to foreign customers, thus endangering both foreign populations and United States consumers of imported produce;

WHEREAS lead poisoning has been declared "the most serious environmental threat to the health of American children" by the United States Department of Health and Human Services and statistics available in 1996 show that nine percent of all children under six years of age in the United States are lead poisoned;

WHEREAS a significant number of scientific studies demonstrate that environmental pollutants are implicated in disruptions of the nervous, endocrine, and immune systems of a variety of animals and may pose a threat to children and adults, with children the more vulnerable;

WHEREAS toxins in the environment disproportionately damage poor children; and

WHEREAS "since 1950, 70,000 new chemical compounds have been invented and

dispersed into our environment . . . [although] only a fraction of these have been tested for human toxicity; we are by default conducting a massive clinical toxicological trial and our children and their children are the experimental animals" (Needleman & Landrigan, Raising Children Toxic Free);

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Unitarian Universalist Association urges Unitarian Universalist congregations and individual Unitarian Universalists to:

1. Inform themselves and their communities regarding these issues;

2. Work with the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee and other groups working

to reduce toxic threats;

3. Reduce their "toxic load" by making more careful choices of foods, building

materials, and other products in their homes and congregations;

4. Work cooperatively to develop shareholder resolutions which expand corporate

adherence to the CERES (Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economics)

Principles, a corporate environmental code; and

5. Encourage more independent objective research on the effects of toxins and the

development of safer alternatives.