The Western lifestyle and its long way to sustainability

Since Fukushima, few people still consider nuclear power as a safe technology. The explosion of Deepwater Horizon was yet another incident revealing the dangers involved in the hunt for fossil fuels. Despite the public attention and outrage at these events, neither the concept of environmental citizenship, nor the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has prevailed in the struggle against environmental degradation. Economic growth offsets efficiency gains, while strategies for energy sufficiency are usually not seriously considered. Action toward a more sustainable society, for example, a 2000 W- and 1 ton CO2-society, must be taken by individuals but further incentives must be set. In order to provide individuals with detailed information about their mitigation options, we took the results from a survey of environmental behavior of 3369 Swiss Citizens, and combined them with life cycle assessment. Our results from this bottom-up approach show a huge bandwidth of the ecological footprints among the individuals interviewed. We conclude that a continuous consumption of not more than 2000 W per person seems possible for the major part of the population in this society. However, it will be far more difficult not to exceed 1 ton CO2 per capita.