At the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference in Paris, one of the world’s leading experts on climate change and environmental protection was renowned primatologist Dr. Jane Goodall. In one of her interviews, she stated that she came to Paris for the UN climate conference to save rainforests from degradation and intensive exploitation.
“So, it’s not a matter of whether one person can make a difference. Everyone can make changes every day. And if we think about the consequences of our choices – what we buy, what we eat, what we consume, what we wear – and start making ethically correct decisions, and when we multiply that by a thousand, a million, a billion, several billion times, we see a world moving towards change. The most important thing is to give people hope. I have seen destroyed areas come back to life and become beautiful again. Nature is resilient. Endangered species can get a second chance.”
In December 2007, Annie Leo… (rest of the text is missing)
nard and her friends from the marketing agency Free Range Studios have made a 20-minute film about how we produce, use, and dispose of things. The film explores the impact of our consumer-driven culture on people and the planet. Six years after the film “The Story of Stuff” started airing, Annie’s “garbage cartoon” has been watched by over 40 million people worldwide.
In a way, Jane and Annie’s efforts are motivated by their concern for us. And we are also concerned about the issues affecting our societies, cities, countries, and the planet. We feel them every day in various forms and we strive to do as much as we can to protect ourselves and our loved ones from the dangers they bring. We are saddened by the economic, environmental, political, and social decline happening around us, but we mostly feel helpless… What can we do? What can I do?
Among other things, one of the actions that can have a lasting impact is paying more attention and being more conscious of our consumer habits. Every day we buy and consume a multitude of products and services. In addition to fulfilling basic needs, this includes luxury items and technological innovations aimed at improving efficiency. Such consumption, which goes beyond satisfying basic needs, is not inherently bad. Throughout history, we have sought ways to ease our lives. However, there are important questions related to consumerism that need attention.
How are the products and resources we consume actually produced? How does this production process impact the environment, society, and individuals? How do consumer habits change with social changes? How much of what we consume is driven by external factors rather than our actual needs? How do material values affect our personal values and relationships with the environment?
Each of our consumer habits, whether good or bad, accumulate and become a community’s consumer habit, whether an influential individual sets a standard that we strive to meet or whether we follow societal norms without thinking critically. It is important to be aware of these questions and continually reflect on our consumption patterns and their consequences. one unit follows or we follow the example of the majority of other people in our community. On one hand, the village of Piplantri in Rajasthan plants 111 trees in honor of the birth of a girl. On the other hand, the majority of other villages in Rajasthan spend extravagantly on weddings. In both cases, an individual has introduced a habit into the community that has actually become a social norm. The common man has too many things that encourage him to follow the herd and too many fears to oppose it.
It is important to remember that not so long ago, before globalization and the advent of modern technology, most people consumed local products and services. For thousands of years, physical limitations combined with spiritual awareness influenced the consumer habits of people driven by the need to survive and thrive.
For example, ancient Athens was built around the Acropolis, an upper city located on a hill in the center of the city. It was a place of inspiration and wisdom, where temples and academic institutions were located. It is said that That inspiration has triggered a transformation in every citizen towards fulfilling their spiritual destiny.
Today, modern cities are strategically built around huge shopping centers! And most of us are significantly influenced by what we see, what we hear, and what we are led to feel. Marketing and media influence our choices and control our decisions, supporting a fundamentally wrong concept of consumerism. Economist Victor Lebow provided an accurate depiction of modern consumerism in his work “Price Competition,” published in the spring edition of the Journal of Retailing in 1955.
“Our tremendously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we turn shopping and the use of products into rituals, seeking fulfillment of our spiritual needs, satisfying our egos through consumption. Measures of social status, social acceptance, and prestige are now patterns of our consumption. Even the meaning and significance of our lives are now expressed through the forms of our consumption.” Childishness. The more pressure there is on an individual to conform to safe and accepted social standards, the more inclined they are to express their aspirations and individuality through what they wear, drive, eat, their home, car, the way they serve food, their hobbies. Products and services must be offered to the consumer as soon as possible. We seek not only “fast” consumption, but also “expensive” consumption. We demand that things be consumed, burned, used up, replaced, and discarded faster and faster. We expect people to eat, drink, wear, drive, and live with increasingly complex, and therefore more expensive, consumption.”
Among other consequences, the effect of excessive consumerism has resulted in the following, and this is only the tip of the iceberg…
Wrong distribution and use of limited natural resources such as minerals, trees…
Although we all have the same basic needs, those who can afford more ultimately consume more. This sets off a vicious cycle that has multiple negative impacts. and its impact on the common good of society. For example, just a few decades ago, water was accessible to everyone; the protection and preservation of water resources were the responsibility of local communities. Perhaps the emergence of bottled water, which only a minority can afford, has contributed to the fact that many today have been left without a source of drinking water and cannot afford bottled water.
The United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Report on Social Development from 1998 states:
“Today’s consumption disrupts the base of ecological resources, increases inequalities, and accelerates the dynamics of the consumption-poverty-inequality-environment chain. If the trends continue without change – if there is no redistribution from high-income consumers to low-income consumers, if there is no shift from polluters to environmentally friendly products and production technologies, if there is no promotion of products that support poor producers, if there is no change in prioritizing status-oriented consumption to one that fosters sustainable development – then we can expect further environmental degradation, increased poverty, and growing social inequalities.” “Snow in meeting basic needs – today’s problems related to consumption and social development will only increase.
The real problem is not just consumption, but its patterns and effects.
There are obvious inequalities in consumption. On a global scale, 86% of total personal consumption costs are incurred by 20% of the population in countries with the highest personal incomes, while a negligible 1.3% is attributed to the poorest 20%.
Unsustainable consumption growth over the past 50 years puts unprecedented pressure on the environment.”
Pollution from mass production, transportation, and disposal of products
“Most of us are conditioned to believe that reduction, reuse, and recycling are for those who cannot afford new ones! We cut down trees faster than they can grow back, overfish at a rate faster than oceans can replenish fish stocks, extract more water from rivers and groundwater than precipitation can compensate for, and emit more carbon dioxide which affects global warming.” rather than being absorbed by the oceans and forests.
It is important to note that according to research by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), Earth has lost half of its wild animal population in the last 40 years! Creatures on land, rivers, and seas are being decimated by humans for food in unsustainable numbers, while simultaneously polluting and destroying their habitats.
“If half of the animals were to die at the Zoological Society of London next week, that news would make headlines everywhere,” says Professor Ken Norris, Director of Science at the Zoological Society of London. “But that is exactly what is happening in the wild. This damage is not inevitable, but is a result of the way we choose to live… Nature, which provides food and clean water and air, is essential for human well-being.”
“We have lost half of the animal population, and knowing that it is caused by human consumption, there is a clear call to action and we must act now,” says Mike Barratt, Director of Science at the ZSL. t i politics at WWF. He calls for the necessity of protecting larger parts of the Earth from deforestation and construction, as well as for sustainable food and energy production.
The weakening of human values due to the vicious circle of fulfilling endless desires
We have come to the point of neglecting what is truly important and running after what we can buy with money. We seek internal fulfillment in the feeling of satisfaction that purchasing and consumption offer, blind to the fact that it is only an illusory satisfaction. Consumerism makes us lazy, complacent, and arrogant. It is likely that our ego is the cause of neglecting our own inner challenges and potential for growth that can be achieved. through disciplined effort of the mind and body.
In his book Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor E. Frankl described what a person struggling with what he calls an “existential vacuum” goes through: “No instinct tells them what they have to do and no tradition tells them what they should do; sometimes they don’t even know what they want to do. The existential vacuum appears in different disguises. Sometimes it is a frustrated desire for meaning indirectly compensated for by a desire for power, for money, or for pleasure.”
If we don’t confront the real reasons why we buy so much, we will never truly feel like we have enough. If we don’t understand why things constantly pass through our hands, it becomes less important how we organize, distribute, or dispose of them. We don’t buy things because we have money to spare. We don’t do it because we have space that needs to be filled. We probably do it because it gives us a false sense of happiness. However, research constantly tries to Let me shed some light on a simple truth: the most happiness is brought to us by experiences and people in our lives. Not things. Never things.
Excessive consumption may be one of the main causes of economic, ecological, political, and social decline. The first step is to be aware of this. The next step is to work on internal change in order to correctly prioritize our own priorities; to realize that inner fulfillment can never be achieved through material consumption. By reducing consumption, we could recognize other invisible factors of life. If each of us managed with a little less, directly and indirectly, we could make a big impact. And this can be achieved at our individual level without relying on external factors.
Mahatma Gandhi said: “The world has enough to satisfy everyone’s need, but not enough to satisfy everyone’s greed.”
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