Marketing
Paper One identifies marketing as a critical driver of overshoot, acting on both the consumption and waste levers — while arguing, in its final sections, that the marketing, media and entertainment industries may also be humanity's best available tool for correction.
From functional differentiation to identity
Until the early twentieth century, marketing largely connected functionally differentiated products with willing buyers. As competition intensified, businesses differentiated beyond function: toothpaste became a confidence boost, cars came to signal status, sexiness or rebelliousness rather than space, speed or price. Consumption became less reflective of physical needs and more reflective of mood-boosting, identity-reinforcing, status-elevating psychology.
Data-driven targeting
Consumer targeting has become increasingly effective through data collection and analytics. In the US, personal online data is tracked and shared an estimated 294 billion times a day (747 times per average American); in Europe, 197 billion times a day. By the time a US child reaches 13, AdTech companies hold an average of 72 million data points on them. The resulting overconsumption, combined with the waste it creates, disproportionately multiplied by population, is why the wealthy carry a far greater environmental footprint than the poor.
Framing and signalling
Tversky and Kahneman's framing effects show that choices can be predictably shifted not by changing the options but by changing which qualities of an option are made salient ("98% fat free" vs. "2% milk fat"). The paper argues the same techniques that currently reinforce overconsumption could instead frame adaptive behaviours (flying less, driving less, having fewer children) around concrete personal benefit rather than sacrifice — since behaviour that doesn't feel rewarding won't persist. On status signalling specifically, there is early evidence of a counter-signalling effect among wealthier populations, where consuming visibly less (modest cars, transit, thrifted clothing) itself confers status.
Tipping points
Social-convention research suggests a catalytic threshold around 25% adoption of a new norm in a population, beyond which adoption accelerates — illustrated by how "drink driving," once commonplace, became viewed as unacceptable by 92% of a population within decades.