By Abe Huyser-Honig

Staff Writer

Nearly 80 students showed up at the Cave Monday night to listen in on an Earth-Day panel discussion sponsored by Calvin's Environmental Stewardship Coalition (ESC). As well as the opportunity for education, students were enticed by the prospects of free coffee and free reusable cloth grocery bags, complete with a stylish ESC logo.

At 7:00 pm Benjamin Hoff of ESC got things going by introducing the topic, ``The Culture of Consumption,'' and the four panel members: Prof. Rick DeVries, a Calvin graduate and now a professor in our Economics Dept; Mark Post, a Grand Rapids resident and member of the Institute for Global Education and the local chapter of the Green Party; Henry Kingma, Calvin's recycling coordinator; and Marta Swayne, owner of the Eastown shop Hemp Goods.

The panelists began with brief statements of their positions and opinions. Swayne, who spent twenty years as a freelance educator on social justice and environmental topics before opening Hemp Goods, expounded what would become a repeated theme for her throughout the night: conscious consumption. ``Every dollar spent is a vote for more of what that person is buying,'' she said. ``Creating opportunities for dollars to be directed consciously is the greatest need I could see.''

Kingma noted the conflict between the recycling industry and a culture that constantly demands convenience and speed. ``A lot of our work is just keeping up with new things that need to be recycled,'' he said, citing as an example Calvin's policy of getting new computers every three years or so.

Post also commenced on a note that would grow into a theme for him. Comparing the bar-code symbol on ESC's poster for the event to the bars on a prison cell, he talked about the way many businesses ``look at us not as people but as dollar signs.'' Post, who considers himself an ``anti-consumer,'' related the anecdote of how no network television station would run spots produced by the anti-consumerism group Ad-Busters.

``I have to admit that as an economist, I feel very guilty on earth day,'' DeVries began. He blamed many of the world's economic and environmental problems on the model of the world most economists assume, one in which trying to satisfy unlimited human desires becomes the goal. ``The U.S. version of capitalism...emphasizes competition and conflict over communities,'' he said, going on to say that we need to question how we look at progress every day, not just on Earth Day.

Hoff then opened the discussion with the question, ``What's specifically wrong with consumerism?'' Swayne responded by first recounting how appalled she had been when she found out some of the unpleasant facts of the apparel industry and then reiterating her call to informed buying. ``I don't know what can save our world if people aren't willing to ask questions about their dollars,'' she said. ``Informed customers will completely change the system.'' Post noted consumerism's unsustainability, its reliance on the poverty of many for the wealth of few, and the negative atmosphere created by advertising that is always trying to convince people of their incompleteness and lack of worth.

In response to a student's question about the feasibility of a zero-growth economy, DeVries answered that this question was perhaps missing the point.

Instead of focusing on GDP (gross domestic product), the factor that determines ``growth,'' he suggested that economists should pay more attention to other factors such as the quality of life. Swayne related the suggestion of author Paul Hawken, who has proposed a system of ``natural capitalism'' where taxes are levied not on property or income but on pollution.

More student input included a comment on the strangeness of the government's exhortation to show patriotism in the wake of Sept. 11 by going out and buying things and a question of where to find out more about consumerism (unanimous answer: the internet).

Answering a student who asked how Calvin could improve its recycling program, Kingma said, ``We have a system in place that, if used, would be very, very effective. But it's as good as how many people choose to use it, and there's a lot of apathy out there. We can recycle just about everything that gets tossed, but we don't have the time or people to go picking through [the trash].'' Post noted that of the three R's of conservation, ``Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle,'' recycling is really the least desirable, a last resort for when the other two have not been accomplished. Kingma added that environmentalists are really pushing a fourth step in which consumers ``close the gap'' by choosing recycled and environmentally friendly products.

Further student questions concerned what could be done to change a culture in which conservation is not ``cool,'' whether fair trade models could be feasible for large corporations, and how people who cannot afford niche products like hemp and organic produce could help combat consumerism.

Hoff's parting question was whether the panelists saw signs of a ``post-consumer'' culture. All the panelists displayed some hope, but the overall consensus was that there is a long way to go. Post warned that even if the materialism of the 80's and 90's is dying down somewhat in the U.S., advertisers and multinational corporations are now turning to vast and largely unexploited potential markets in other parts of the world. ``If China [becomes as consumerist as the U.S.], we're not even going to have the resources in the world to survive,'' he warned.