[esarbe]

Because for many people reducing consumption reeks of poverty.

They've grown up in a world where everything just yells more! more! at them. It's the dominant paradigm of our times - growth above everything. Conspicuous consumption as a measure of wealth.

It's become so absurd that even the mere suggestion of improving efficiency - at the consumer level - is met with the outcry of "forcing people into poverty". We are rich, so we can afford to be wasteful. Not be wasteful means poverty.

It's insanity.