Report
Think back to the last month alone, how many times have you bought something that you don’t need, or, how many times have you been in the shower for much longer than needed? Although we all would like to forget about things like that and continue our day, the effects of these linger on and ruin our world. But, if we could you know, go without that chocolate bar, jump on the tramp instead of watching that extra episode, we can take a step to save the world. In this report I will talk about what consumerism is, its history, the methods of stopping it, and answer why we believe we can reduce the effects of consumerism in our everyday lives by being more self sufficient.
What is consumerism
Consumerism is the practice that we need to keep buying stuff even if it doesn’t enrich our lives. Like this frozen-32 ad, convincing people that they deserve this refrigerator. Our expert, Mr Warrilow, opened our eyes to the fact that there are two sides to consumerism. From a seller's point of view, it is the method of convincing people to buy stuff they don’t need. Although it can be a bit devious, it is also how people make money, I bet most of us would do the same thing if we were a shop owner who needed to make money. Pros it enables businesses to thrive and continue eventually getting more workers which, gives people a job it drives innovation it makes people happy. Cons, resources are wasted, because the items aren’t needed, they are eventually wasted and will pollute the environment, it is unethically tricking people, it has crept into holidays forcing families to buy things for their kids they can’t afford, and don’t need, it also demeans the holiday. As you can see, consumerism has its ups and downs. The main downfall is pollution, which drastically plague’s us.
Consumerism has been around for a long time but key events triggered the growth and forming of the consumerism we see today. One key event was the “Age Of Exploration''. This event went from the 15th century to the 17th. It was when European explorers discovered large plots of land. This land was quickly colonised and because of this, they had lots of raw materials that Europeans used for consumer goods. Before the industrial revolution, European folk were divided into two groups, the working class, and business owners, while business owners were making the big bucks, the working class were struggling to cope. When socialist values emerged, they supported the working class, and the middle class were born, this enabled consumable goods to be buyable for a major lot of the country which drastically changed things. These were two major supporters of consumerism.
There are two different ways of seeing consumerism: there is the business and the consumer and the effects on both are very different. First, the consumer is more important than the person giving the product but it’s actually the other way round. The business is the one who convinces you to buy their product and is the one who is in control. They say stuff like all the cool kids have this, the new and improved, better than last year, the perfect Christmas gift or the cream that makes you look younger than you are. These are just ways that they hook you in and with this, you get stressed out and into distress were you need to buy that product. Then for business they take advantage of this and they get paid but with every wrong, there's a right, when they need something they will hire a person to do it or at factories people need jobs and they provide. But this still does not make it right.
Self-sufficiency is a great method of stopping the effects of consumerism. Being self-sufficient is living in a sustainable way in which you are reliant on only yourself in order to survive. This is a great way to reduce your carbon footprint and save money. For example, in Greenland, they don’t use gas as a power source, but sulphur. By doing this, they aren’t reliant on a country for energy, because they can provide for themselves. You don’t have to be as self sufficient as Greenland, instead, you can do small things to be more self sufficient. Like making orange juice instead of buying it from the supermarket. If we could do this, we could greatly reduce our carbon footprint, and we wouldn’t have to be consumer’s. For example, Aaron Fletcher is an American shepherd who is homeless by choice. He lives in his wagon with his sheep, and has an awesome life. He is a guy who loves life even though he has barely anything. He has done this for 12 years and is an awesome example of a self-sufficient lifestyle.
Stopping the effects of consumerism is a topic that requires multiple methods of prevention, for example, this method can’t prevent the effects of consumerism, but is a method which could make a huge difference. This may sound like a conspiracy theory, but it’s not, some big corporations and businesses design products to fail, and some use other methods like creating new power leads, so people will have to get completely new leads. Like Apple, Apple created the USC charger, which apart from the headphone jack, is the only connection point MacBook pro or late models of MacBook airs have. Forcing them to buy an extra lead if they want to use a USB charger. My 2015 MacBook air has two USBs: a headphone jack, a charging point, an XDSC card slot, and a lighting port. Apple wanted to make the extra money so they put the USC charger in their new and “improved” MacBook Pro. An example of things that were intended to fail, the main brand at Kmart, Anko, uses cheap materials and makes items that aren’t going to last. If businesses could design products that last and require no extra purchases, we could seriously cut down on pollution. Doing so would also disrupt their money though, so not all businesses can afford to make that sacrifice.
Well yes, if we cut down on the things we want to buy we would have more money in our pocket for bills or other important payments. Not to mention you can buy more important consumables like food, clothes and gas which are skyrocketing in price. Though that doesn't mean we should completely get rid of the things you want, you can still get fun and entertaining stuff so long as you know you can properly afford it. Most people put themselves on budgets so they only get the need’s for that week, but some people get forced into a budget because they are not making as much and decide to cut out something to get food that week and with the over going raise of cost from item. More poor families are struggling and businesses are getting their money.
I think that the best solution to consumerism is being self-sufficient, as I pointed out in the self-sufficientcy paragraph, being self-sufficient isn’t too difficult as you can do little things like making your own bread, using oranges for orange juice. Small things make a huge difference. If everyone made orange juice, a lot of companies would go out of business but, if everyone made their own change in their lives to be more self-sufficient, we could eliminate heaps of pollution, and save the world.
To conclude, we can reduce the effects of consumerism in our everyday lives by being more self-sufficient. If we don’t do anything to reduce the effects of consumerism, we will run out of clean air and die, although this is a long while away, you can make a difference now. If we can make these simple changes, our children won’t have to watch the world die. So, make a change, buy second-hand clothes instead of new ones, and buy a bamboo toothbrush instead of plastic. Join us, and save the world.