Toxic Leisure: The Future Expansion Of Leisure and Environmental Sustainability In The BRIC Economies

In the half century since the end of the Second World War standards of living rose in the western world and most citizens became “middle class” living a lifestyle characterized by high levels of disposable income and a culture of consumption. One feature of consumer culture is the expansion of leisure activities accompanying the growth of an increasingly predatory form of capitalism in the industrialized economies of the West. One of the major effects of that predatory model has been global exploitation of the environment and an exponential rise in carbon emissions which in turn are having a major impact on global climate. At the present time we are on the brink of another major social revolution with the expansion of the middle classes in the “emerging economies” of the developing world. The significance of this social revolution in the BRIC economies, especially in India and China, is that the potential size of their middle classes could be larger than half the world population. While the environmental impacts of industrialization and urbanization in these countries attracts a lot of attention, the environmental effects of the expansion of leisure and the globalization of western leisure pursuits are often overlooked. All such activities have large ecological footprints: the consumption of new technologies, driving of automobiles, the expansion of golf and tourism. This paper is a series of case studies of the impact of these particular leisure activities in the BRIC economies.