Overconsumption In The United States

Some of them are not even aware the environmental issues are important. The United States has such high quantity of human activities to support people's daily functioning. In the article “Climate of Denial,” Al Gore points out, Americans have quadrupled the global population in the past century. Simultaneously, they depend on almost 85 percent of the world's energy by burning coal, oil, and gas. Americans are cutting, and burning forests, but the trees are supposed to help the atmosphere by reducing some added carbon dioxide (p110.) In the United States, most of the household owns at least one car, and personally owned vehicles are the primary transportation for Americans. These cars are burning a significant amount of gas, and release tons of wasted gas to the air. Compared to other countries that feel guilty, the report shows that they use public transportation more than personally owned cars, and they promote using electric scooters or bikes. If there are not enough trees to reduce these wasted gas, the wasted gas is going straight into the atmosphere and eventually undermine the environment. It is not only affecting the environment of the United States; it is polluting globally. Therefore, some Americans choose to deny the problems because they do not see the impact of global pollution has direct

The Global Sustainable Competitive Index, GSCI, measures the sustainability of a country through 5 subcategories: governance efficiency, intellectual capital, natural capital, social capital, and resource efficiency. America’s GSCI score is 49.2 which ranks it 29th, partially because it has the world’s largest economy (“The Sustainable Competitiveness Index 2017”). However, about 40% of food in America is wasted and 25% of freshwater used is for food that never gets eaten (“Sustainable America”). Yet there are 49 million Americans who go to bed hungry (“Sustainable America”). Consequently, this creates an inefficient use of valuable resources.

Comedian Robert Orben joked, “There is so much pollution in the air now that if it weren’t for our lungs there’d be no place to put it all.” As Homer Simpson famously said, this joke is “funny because it’s true.” The pollution of Earth has been going on for decades, but recently scientists have been pushing very hard for practices that do not harm our planet. In 2006, the first Environmental Performance Index (EPI) was published, ranking countries on how well they are protecting Earth with their policies and practices. Who doesn’t love a little competition? One would think America would love a competition, looking at their competitive market economy. But America is not faring well in this environmental competition.

The average U.S. citizen consumes eighteen tons of natural resources per year and generates an even higher volume of wastes. These wastes get dumped and unloaded into rivers, lakes, and oceans and other landfills; only a small portion are recycled. The spread of mass consumption over the U.S. and its effects are staggering. The production and processing of our wants and needs is done by the extraction of natural resources such as fossil fuels, wood, ore, and water. This requires the creation of factories which gives off poisonous byproducts, while the commodities create more pollutants and waste themselves. This process keeps cycling over and over to create a bigger and more detrimental problem on our environment. Who is paying for this? The Earth; our environment.

Consumer culture today is thriving – but not necessarily in a good way. As consumer culture thrives, we have desires for products and services. Consumer spending is a major part of a country’s/world’s economy and that makes the economy strong but the aftermath is an unsustainable lifestyle. Although, Wall-E didn’t indicate exactly what caused consumers to destroy the planet and then flee for the sake of human survival, there are many guesses that can be made as to how it happened. One of the major points made in class during week eight was the fact that the world is becoming overpopulated. This major issue can possibly be

The United States agriculture makes up for more than two-thirds of our nations water footprint. That huge water footprint is primarily due to the tremendous amount of water needed to grow the grass and feed that a cow eats over its lifetime. This also includes the Cattles drinking water, cleaning, and processing. Those who are greatly affected by the lack of water in their states, particularly in the west coast, feel that the amount of water consumption needs to be reduced significantly. According to the National Geographic, “the water it takes to produce the average American diet alone—approximately 1,000 gallons per person per day. This is more than the global average water footprint of 900 gallons per person per day for diet, household

United States is the leading country on a global scale that produces and consumes millions of gallons of water annually. Oil, a limited and expensive resource, is used in the process of creating polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic water bottles which is generally regarded as a safe and recyclable packaging material. (Palliser, 2010) The process of manufacturing bottled water to meet the United States’ demand uses more than 17 million barrels of oil annually. (Ban the Bottle, 2014) The following examples will help to visualize how much of valuable, natural resources are used: in a year, the energy used to produce bottled water is enough to power 190,000 homes and the millions of barrels of oil used is enough to fuel 1.3 million cars. (Ban

Due to the age of technology, we are learning more and more about our planet. For example, we have learned about how bad America’s gluttony is. With only 6% of the world's population, Americans generate 35% of the trash and consume 35% of the world's resources. With the introduction of the CUTS program, who knows what those statistics

There are different ways people in the United States waste a lot of natural resources. For instance, just like Allen Billington claims, “We are wasteful people.” News programs and print newspapers show that in fact Americans are the greatest consumers of all. Every year trees around the world are cut down specifically for U.S. different purposes. Such as construction of houses, buildings, furniture, educational supplies, books, pencil and paper. Also, California is experiencing a drought, and some people knowing is becoming very scarce keep on wasting it. These are some of the causes on how people waste so much water, is either by taking long showers, washing their car, washing their hands, laundry and irrigation. In the news they say that the number one use of water in California is through irrigation. Lastly is the way we are destroying little by little the air we breathe through the pollution of cars, refineries, deforestation of fires and factories. All of these aspects have a negative effect on the change of the climate. The three different ways people in the United States are wasting natural resources is from cutting down of trees, the consumption of water in excessively amounts and lastly polluting the air we breathe.

According to the above projections, the food production will provide enough food for the US population in 2050 and the forest lands will remain the same and it might even increase. The only thing that will undergo a dramatic change in the future is the aquatic ecosystem. Today, according to Pew Statistics only 41% of America’s citizens say that Global climate change is a very serious problem, which makes them one of the least concerned countries in the world even though they have the second largest consumption after

As a country, Americans love to shop. Whether in malls, grocery stores, on the Internet, or elsewhere, the culture of buying is deeply ingrained in American culture. Fueled largely by advertising and the current credit system, America’s consumer culture is depleting our planet’s finite natural resources and polluting our environment. Consumerism has instilled in Americans an artificial, ongoing, and insatiable desire for mass-produced and marketed products, and the money with which to buy them, with little regard to their actual usefulness or necessity. This constant desire to acquire more possessions is poisoning the planet, as it can never be sated and thus results in the never-ending exploitation of the Earth’s natural resources, and

Consumerism is the center of American culture. Americans tend to confuse their wants with their needs. With new advances in technology, as well as the help of advertisers, people are provided with easy access to new products that seem essential to their everyday life, even though they have survived this long without them. People cannot live without food, clothing, and shelter. But realistically, according to people's different lifestyles, more than food, clothing, and shelter are needed. Most people need to work to survive. Unless a job is either in their own home, or within walking distance, a means of transportation is needed. Whether it be a vehicle, money for a taxi-cab, or a token for a ride on the subway, money must be spent

Some people argue that it is acceptable for people in the United States to consume at high levels because their consumerism keeps the world economy going. What are the weaknesses in this idea? Although America’s consumerism may seem to help the economy of less fortunate countries, this rampant depletion has become financially and ecologically unsustainable. Globally, 86% of consumption expenditures comes from the 20% of the world’s people in first world countries, while the poorest 20% account for only a meager 14%. It seems that consumption has become a function of our culture. Only by generating and selling goods does capitalism currently work; and the more produced and purchased the more we have progress and prosperity.

The United States of America is at the top of the list when it comes to the countries that use the most resources. In The Waste Generation by Bill Bryson, he talks about the amount of natural resources wasted by Americans. Bryson gets much of the information he uses in his essay from his personal experience. He lived in England for 20 years as a journalist and during his stay, he noticed many differences between the lifestyle of people living in England and the people in America. Most of the people that live in the U.S. are very wasteful compared to people living in other countries and even though some of the people realize that they are being wasteful themselves, they don’t change their habits. This is a very big problem in the U.S. because many resources are wasted such as electricity, water, gas, oil, and more. Compared to other countries, each person in the U.S. uses resources several times more than people in other countries depending on which country but some people may argue that the U.S. is covering up for wasting resources by making more resources, which is fine except for the fact that resources are still being wasted.

The United States clearly consumes more energy than needed, but it is not all due to wastefulness and apathy. For example, if one were to compare the US with the European Union, he/she would see that the US consumes about twice as much energy. However, such an observer must take into account other factors, such as population density. The US as a whole is four times less dense in population than the EU, and therefore needs more energy for basic tasks such as commuting. In addition, the US has greater climate extremes than the nations in the EU and therefore consumes more energy for heating and air conditioning. The same facts work when comparing the US to China or Japan (Lehrman 2). Nevertheless, there is a problem in the United States that must be addressed.