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THE EFFECTS OF CONSUMERISM ON THE ENVIRONMENT

At present , the rate of consumption is increasing at an alarming rate , that is, today

people often wish to increase their buying and spending power and buy more products so they

can keep up with others . Because of this huge , continuosly increasing consumer demand, the

planet itself has been out of balance for many years , and this imbanlance is now showing

itself in form of climate change . Climate change and its resulting effect will continue to

worsen and is the the first sign of what is expected to become an environmental disaster

around the year 2025 (Mia , 2007). There are two main effects of consumerism on the

environment namely: Environmental degradation and pollution.

To begin with, environmental degradation is one of the impacts of consumerim on the

environment. High leves of consumption and production require larger imputs of energy and

generate larger quantities of waste by products ( Orecchia, 2007). Moreover , this excessive

demand for consumer products has created most of the current environmental imbalances and

these imbalances have already caused ecological disaster in different places all over the world

(Mia , 2008). Futhermore , our consumption of food can also effect the environment because

of the amount of land needed to produce food and the water required to farm livestock and

crops. With the ever continuing increase in environmental demage there will come a time

where this will reach a point of no return , whereby the planet will no longer be able to

support its own functioning (Mia, 2008 ). In short, environmental imbanlances result from

high leves consumption . Our attention should be focused on the demand for natural

resources generated by unsustainable consumption and take this problem seriously.

The second effect of consumerism on the environment , perhaps more important than

the first one , is pollution. With the rapid growth in production of goods and materialism in

most major nation, what will happen to what remains of the invironment and its ecological

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functioning? ( Mia ,2008). Increased extration and exploitation of natural resources

accumulation of waste and concentration of pollutants can demage the environment and , on

the long run, limit economic activity. Moreover, consumption can also determine

environmental dumping as far as developed countries shift their heaviest polluting industries

to less developed countries . In other words , developed countries consume pollution

intenseve goods produced elsewhere by developing countries (Orecchia, 2007). Plastic bags

are good example of how consumerism can effect our environment . Plastic bags effect our

environment because when they are thrown out they can get washed into our water ways .

when they reach the rivers and oceans , animals can get caught up in the plastic bag and

suffocate. The buying and selling of fuels is also a mojor issue because the machines it goes

into turns it into a poisonous gas ( carbon monoxide) which is omitted into the world¶s

atmosphere. Fothermore, with this huge consumer demand , today, we have more and more

vehicles which runon motor oil and this oil pollutes our environment . In fact, used motor oil

is our largest source of oil pollution and over 20 milliongallons of oil end up in our water

every single year ( Stroup, 2009). Pollution is a serious problem today due to the a huge

consumer demand .

In conclusion , environmental degradation and pollution are the two main effects of

consumerism on the environment .Our high rate of consum ption and the rapid growth in

production of goods and materialism result in environmental devastation . It is important

that the planet¶s worseing environmental crisis is taken seriously and action is taken to make

adequate changes and special attention should be paid to the demand for natural resources

generated by unsustainable consumption and making the required lifestyle change to reduce

the global pollution.

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REFERENCES

Ê Haan , M (2007) . à   


      . USA: Faronah L.

Bojos

Ê Haan , M (2008) .     



 . www.miadenhaan.com

Ê Orecchia ,C (2007) .  


 
    

 
  
    Glasgow UK: University of Rome

,Tor Vergata and ISAE

Ê Stroup , D (2009). ›


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