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Consumption, Ecologically Unequal Exchange and Ecological Debt

Consumer blindness arises when people fail to consider (deliberately or not) the circumstances under which the products they consume reached their shops, or where the wastes from this consumption ends up, and what consequences this has. In a globalized world where the distance travelled by products has greatly increased, where resources are becoming scarce and overconsumption is leading to competition, this leads to an explosive mix of ignorance and injustice. This is especially so when consumption in one place creates some form of ecological debt in another place. EJOLT will increase the quality of the arguments of the Climate Justice movement by providing evidence in support of analyses of Ecologically Unequal Trade and Ecological Debt so as to raise consumer awareness leading to more responsible, less environmentally damaging consumption. We will also develop recommendations on European policy and directives with implications for consumption, for fossil fuels trading, for mining and for biomass transfers from South to North.

Latest from the Blog

New scientific insights on ecologically unequal trade

By Nick Meynen. A new light is shining on the old problem of a global economic system that creates regional environmental imbalances. Ecological economists identified and analysed the asymmetric flows of …

Why the degrowth debate is growing

By Nick Meynen.Ten years ago only a few professors and some activists used the word “degrowth” as alternative to the neoliberal model of perpetual economic growth. Today, “degrowth economics” is …

Latest Consumption, Ecologically Unequal Exchange and Ecological Debt Resources

Global patterns of metal extractivism, 1950–2010: Providing the bones for the industrial society’s skeleton

By Anke Schaffartzik, Andreas Mayer, Nina Eisenmenger and Fridolin Krausmann. Abstract During the second half of the 20th century, mining expanded globally and must be considered one of the dominant forms of …

The unequal exchange of Dutch cheese and Kenyan roses: Introducing and testing an LCA-based methodology for estimating ecologically unequal exchange

By Martin Oulu. Abstract The theory of ecologically unequal exchange (EUE) posits that international trade is structurally organized in a manner that allows a net transfer of resources from peripheral developing to …