This book explores the ways in which the traditional consumer economy
has impacted the ecosystem we inhabit, and the prospect that an improved
understanding of consumer behavior might contribute to efforts to mitigate
that impact. I started it one night in the spring of 2020, when in the moonless dark with Venus rising to the west above where I stood on the coast of Southern California, the crests of the ocean waves lit up in a phosphorescent blue glow. So did the wake-patterns trailing the boards of the otherwise
invisible surfers riding the curls. And as amazed spectators walked along the
waterline, for a moment they too left trails of glowing blue footprints behind
them. The light show was one of the more charming, and less awful, examples of a growing “global weirding,” the oft-cited term used in reference to the emergence of a variety of extreme events accompanying the planet’s
warming and the associated degradation of the biosphere.
This book will explore the role of consumer behavior in creating that
uncertainty and the potential for changing it to enable a more sustainable
and less threatening future. In it we will take a deep dive into the brain of
the consumer and the consequences of the way that organ works for choices
in the marketplace. And we will investigate strategies that marketers and
policymakers can adopt to move those choices in a more promising direction.