Introduction
Have you ever determined how much you buy every year? How often have you bought something you didn’t use, or used once and placed in closet? You’re probably in your house or apartment right now. Find five items that you bought and rarely used. Do you think Americans have a consuming problem?
Consumerism is the process of humans consuming natural resources for their personal needs or lifestyle. Every human on Earth is a consumer.
There are a two things you will want to remember from this module: first, it's the richest countries like the U.S., not overpopulated third world countries that are the main cause of resource depletion and pollution; and second, much of this pollution is caused by Western overconsumption, meaning we buy things -- more things than we can ever use -- under the guise it will make us happy even though sociological and psychological studies show that buying and maintaining the stuff we own makes us feel worse. It might be a different story if our consumption patterns improved our perceived happiness; unfortunately, it does not.
In this module, we will try to understand the relationship between American consumerism and sustainability, attempting to answer the question: “At our current rates of resource usage, are we saving resources for future generations?”
To help you to prepare for this module, try to mentally review the last few modules. We covered resources, waste, and pollution. How do you think resource use, waste production, and pollution will change as developing countries become more like us? What if every household in the world had two or more televisions and everyone over the age of 10 had a cell phone? What if everyone drove as much as Americans and used more than 400 gallons of gasoline per year? The business world has documented on how the consumption trends of American culture have spread to India and China, moving quickly to other emerging economies, and unfortunately the Earth doesn't have the resources or the capacity for pollution to allow everyone to live to the U.S. standard.
Click image for larger view. NASA Blue Marble imagery of Antartica.
What could happen? Well, wars over resources are part of human history; the unfortunate reaction of humans when resources become scarce is to declare war over those that own the rights to those resources. Will a war be fought over Antarctica, a country full of resources but currently held by a treaty to stave off numerous claims countries have made for the territory? Will we go back to our landfills and start to mine them in 50 years to recover the desperately needed resources you’re throwing out today? From Alexander the Great expanding the Greek empire (356 – 323 BC) to the Second Congo War (1998-2003) over precious mineral reserves to, arguably, the constant unrest in the Middle East, ancient and recent history tells us that the human need for resources often leads to conflict.
In this lecture we will cover the following:
- The Problem: What problems can consumerism cause on a global scale?
- Cultural Factors: When is an object a luxury? Why does American culture drive us to buy stuff? Does “stuff” equal happiness or improve quality of life? Why do we feel depressed? When we cannot buy something? Why do people shop for happiness?
- Solutions: Can America adopt “green” consumption? We’ll take a look at the concept of “enough.” We’ll see if organic foods hurt or help this problem.
- Overconsumption is defined as NO LONGER receiving a lasting level of fulfillment and happiness that is greater than the cost (in terms of dollars and time) incurred to achieve or attain a particular item, lifestyle, or status.