I wonder why we don’t stop all inessential economic activity. All. The reason is not because these things (jewelry, swimming pools, tattoos, style, are essential for consumption but for production: they are the way we distribute income. David Graeber in Byllshit jobs * was eloquent and informative about how useless so many jobs are. The distribution problem is real. If I stop making junk and my job is gone, what happens? Unimaginable. So we don’t even hear thee suggestion that we just stop.
If we can add to “stopping all unnecessary work” a serious reconfiguration of each job, getting rid of the inessential parts, we could achieve an amazing reduction in co2 pollution and trash.
Then we would need some serious redistribution of the remaining essentials and would need some form of universal basic income.
*See also the series of books by Richard Sennett, including The Craftsmen, about legitimate work in society/ Sennett