Consumerism
By Dash M.
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Have you ever looked around your house and realized that there were so many things that you never used or you don't need? Have you ever bought something online without thinking about it? You're not alone! This is called consumerism.
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Consumerism is using and buying things. Consumerism produces 60% of global greenhouse gasses (45% is from the making of things we purchase and the rest is the transportation of the products). Have you ever thought about the process of getting a cotton T-shirt to your house? First, people grow cotton. Then they harvest the cotton with large machinery that releases greenhouse gas (GHG). Next, they make the cotton into thread with machines (which releases more GHG). Then they make the T-shirts with the thread with more machines! Finally, they ship the t-shirt hundreds of miles to you and that produces a lot of GHG. Now you have it. But, of course, the average person wears clothes only seven times before discarding them! So all that production and carbon emissions for barely any use!
Fast fashion isn't the only issue with consumerist waste. Only 1% of “stuff” is still in use after six months of having it. Part of this is because we are buying more than we need, thanks to the advertising industry. For example, in American culture, we have turned holidays into a happy and good time to buy things we don't need. After World War II, many businesses started advertising more because the US economy needed to rebuild. Since then, companies use that culture shift as a strategy to get more customers. According to Exploding topics, during the Christmas season in 2022, the average American spent about $1,000.
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Infographic created by Dash M.
Not only do we buy more things than we need, but many companies are using materials that are bad for the environment. For example, plastic is way overused; three hundred eighty million tons of plastic are produced each year in the world, and 12.7 million reach the oceans that damage the life of more than 700 species.
Unfortunately, this problem is only getting worse in recent years. From 2000 to 2019, total domestic material consumption rose by more than 65 percent globally, amounting to 95.1 billion metric tons in 2019. There is hope, however, if we all reduce buying things we don't need. For example, A recent IBM survey found that 54 percent of consumers polled are willing to change their holiday purchasing habits to reduce environmental impacts and 44 percent wrote that they would take sustainability into consideration while shopping. I think that if you, the reader, would try to cut back on buying things you don't need, then you would help reduce climate change.
works cited
works cited
“How Can We Resist Rampant Consumerism?” Greenpeace USA, 22 Nov. 2017, www.greenpeace.org/usa/how-can-we-resist-rampant-consumerism/.
16, Renee Cho |December, et al. “How Buying Stuff Drives Climate Change.” State of the Planet, 18 Dec. 2020, news.climate.columbia.edu/2020/12/16/buying-stuff-drives-climate-change/.
Jacobs, Suzanne. “Consumerism Plays a Huge Role in Climate Change.” Grist, 7 Apr. 2021, grist.org/living/consumerism-plays-a-huge-role-in-climate-change/.
Rehman, Abdul. “Let’s Talk about ‘How Does Consumerism Affect the Environment’.” LinkedIn, www.linkedin.com/pulse/lets-talk-how-does-consumerism-affect-environment-abdul-rehman#:~:text=The%20problem%20is%20when%20we,it%20is%20required%20or%20not. Accessed 18 May 2023.
“Plastic Pollution: Facts & Figures.” Surfers Against Sewage, www.sas.org.uk/plastic-pollution/plastic-pollution-facts-figures/. Accessed 26 May 2023.
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