The 2015 A.T. Kearney Consumer Wealth and Spending Study Report states: “It’s no surprise that global wealth and spending have soared since 1990 and will continue to do so. Adjusting for inflation in both unit cost of goods and currency, growth in real spending will increase by $12 trillion in the next 10 years. Spending on food will account for about 10 percent of this growth, while spending on durable goods, personal care items, transportation, healthcare, hotels, and leisure activities will account for a larger percentage. The United States will continue to be the largest contributor to this increased spending.
Advertisers Will Spend Nearly $600 Billion Worldwide in 2018
A ‘cool’ add for beer in Cook Islands!
From eMarketer: Around the world, advertisers will spend $592.43 billion this next year, according to new figures from eMarketer, an increase of 6.0% over 2016 stats. US, China, Japan, Germany and the UK lead as the top five ad markets.
Did you know? Google and Facebook were very recently ranked no 2 and 5 respectively on the largest listed companies, by market capitalization in the US? Well, it may be a surprise, but both the companies are ‘Advertising Companies’! They make their money from being the best at connecting the most buyers to (the most?) sellers through advertising! I haven’t seen one advertisement for more than a week now!
Flying going Skyward…:
“Flights over the Atlantic were up 6.3 % last year and worldwide up 5.1 %. There were 1400 flights a day cross the North Atlantic alone…! Advances in aircraft positioning is allowing planes to get closer and 5 carriage ways tracks across the Atlantic now expanded to six to enable more planes!” London Times & Sunday Times, 4 December 2015.
Hmmm, rather than my no flying, container ship travel,’ maybe with all these new highways opening up, I’ll just join ‘The Crowd’ that does it ‘overnight’, again? After all, the planes still fly with or without little, One Point Zero, Howard as a passenger!!
You fly, I fly, they fly, we all fly, and then the plane can fly and none individually takes responsibility for the footprint problem. After all, “It was the airlines who offered us the seat and service???” Also….. “Oh, but if they didn’t, another airline would?!! And each month I get a letter from my Airline Frequent Flyer offering more flying for me. And the more flying I do, the more free flying I get…” Who is at the centre of the ‘crime’ ? Hmmm, if only…..???
“Enough, enough”, we know all this…..
We all know all this, but when is it going to stop, slow down, or at least just take a break??? Can I stop it. I stupidly ask? Can ‘you and I’ stop it, seems almost as impossible? Can ‘lots of us’ stop it…..? Yeah, I think ‘lots of us’ can…. But ‘we’, that;s lost of us, need to want to…?
My exploring since setting off in 2016 on ‘Trumped by Adventure’ has really challenged my very core with a ‘Big Why’ question???’:
WHY don’t the 97+% (???) of ‘us’, the people ‘of my demographic’ want ‘IT’…?:
‘Enough is Enough’ Success??? Don’t we have it in us to stop and get ‘IT‘? Do we need some big ‘Moral Warrior’ to embarrass us by ‘exposing our immorality’, and then to ‘force’ us on a new ‘Moral Path’…??
Will ‘our’ Anthropocentric destruction of the Planet, one day be seen in hindsight as a much worse than Slavery, Apartheid, etc?! From the comfort of ‘The Crowd’, it maybe all seems morally OK today, but so did slavery and apartheid, at one time! Maybe Crowds are to help us bury our heads under the sand, where the problem of ‘IT‘ magically get obliterated. In burying our heads, can we also bury our souls?
I have many views on this, but probably my ‘today conclusion’ is: People don’t know what ‘IT’ is or if they do, ‘IT’ isn’t important enough in their life priorities…
So what actually is ‘IT’ then?
‘IT’ is a very simple thing: ‘IT’ is getting back to living like we humans are supposed to live! Finding our true belonging through a changed relationship state with Our home: Nature and the Planet: This means we have a fully working, non-exploitative, net give-less take, flourishing relationship with Nature and all living things on the Planet.
Basically to get back to pre-1970 situation where we are again living within One Point Zero Planet’s means! Not ‘primitive’ living as it was back then in, but a new type of ‘Modern Living’! Living comfortably within Natures restorative ecological capacity, and using all our human innovation to adapt to keep us as Humanity less than One Point Zero forever, and ever….!
Given that it it is before 1970 that we have been living on a fractured relationship, and the momentum build started quite a bit before that, I sense ‘we’, who are current, ‘younger’ developed nation citizens, don’t know what it’s like to have a flourishing relationship with Nature? That is quite a profound conclusion, that means we may not know what ‘IT’ means for each of ‘US’, and a new adventure is required?
It’s called: The Chasm Crossing adventure…..! Find out where you are on that journey here.
