Carry your digital camera with you and send me some examples of over consumerism in your area.
Hard Economic Times Bring More Scams
I know it is easy to panic and sell off your valuables when there is little or no income. Remember that there are individuals and companies who make there living and thrive off of the hardship of others.
Do your research and do not be fooled by people taking advantage of the hard economic times. There are a few great websites that you can use to look up these so called scammers and just plain old bad business practices.
http://www.complaintsboard.com/
If you need to off load some off your un-needed items take the time and do the research on where you can sell it and get the most out of it.
I use Craigslist, Etsy, and Ebay
A good bookmark to keep around is the Consumerist. Shoppers Bite Back and explain their personal consumer experience.
http://consumerist.com
Do your research and do not be fooled by people taking advantage of the hard economic times. There are a few great websites that you can use to look up these so called scammers and just plain old bad business practices.
http://www.complaintsboard.com/
If you need to off load some off your un-needed items take the time and do the research on where you can sell it and get the most out of it.
I use Craigslist, Etsy, and Ebay
A good bookmark to keep around is the Consumerist. Shoppers Bite Back and explain their personal consumer experience.
http://consumerist.com
Illegal Dumps
An Illegal Dump is a concentrated pile of debris that is purposefully dumped. Illegal dumps are often located on wooded hillsides, in alleys, and on vacant lots. Commonly dumped items include: appliances, construction debris, mattresses, car parts, and tires.
Most of the time there are items found that are in perfect working order. I do not understand why someone would just throw it out... at least give it to someone who needs it.
Illegal dump clean-ups can be very dangerous and sometimes require a lot of planning. In some cases, the clean-up may be too risky for volunteers and will sometimes require a City crew to do the job with heavy equipment.
Solution #1 Give your unwanted and broken stuff away. CraigsList has a "Free Stuff" section that I use from time to time and every time I have used it, my unwanted stuff had a new home within a few hours.
http://vancouver.en.craigslist.ca/zip/
Comment your solution...
Most of the time there are items found that are in perfect working order. I do not understand why someone would just throw it out... at least give it to someone who needs it.
Illegal dump clean-ups can be very dangerous and sometimes require a lot of planning. In some cases, the clean-up may be too risky for volunteers and will sometimes require a City crew to do the job with heavy equipment.
Solution #1 Give your unwanted and broken stuff away. CraigsList has a "Free Stuff" section that I use from time to time and every time I have used it, my unwanted stuff had a new home within a few hours.
http://vancouver.en.craigslist.ca/zip/
Comment your solution...
The Good Life
This is a well known story that I first read from Timothy Ferris's book "The 4 Hour Work Week" which is an amazing book and an even better experience if you let it become one.
"The Good Life" takes you to a chance meeting between an MBA and a fisherman on a small island. As the MBA tries to teach the fisherman about business, the fisherman teaches him about life.
Thank you Tim for the inspiration to start changing my life.
http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/
The Story of Stuff
The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It'll teach you something, it'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.
http://www.storyofstuff.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLBE5QAYXp8
The day after Moving Day
Incredible amounts of furniture, electronics, appliances, clothing, and home décor are prematurely disposed of each day which contributes to the creation a self consuming species (Human).
Source: http://blog.fagstein.com/2008/07/02/the-day-after-moving-day/
Source: http://blog.fagstein.com/2008/07/02/the-day-after-moving-day/
Over consumption
Over-consumption is a theory related to overpopulation, referring to situations where per capita consumption is so high that even in spite of a moderate population density, sustainability is not achieved. The theory was coined to augment the discussion of overpopulation, which reflects issues of carrying capacity without taking into account per capita consumption, by which developing nations are evaluated to consume more than their land can support. Green parties and the ecology movement often argue that consumption per person, or ecological footprint, is typically lower in poor than in rich nations.
CO2 emission per capita per year per country
Energy consumption per capita per country
CO2 emission per capita per year per country
Energy consumption per capita per country
Consumerism and Over-consumption
Consumerism and Over-consumption
3. Consumerism and Over-consumption:
Uncontrolled consumerism is a colossal problem and a wide field of study. The harmful tobacco industry and extravagance in celebrations, are but two aspects of the much larger problem of consumerism.
a) What is consumerism?
Consumerism is…
(i) The theory that an increasing consumption of goods is economically desirable.
(ii) A preoccupation with and an inclination towards the buying of consumer goods.
As human beings, we have basic needs like food and shelter, which are the bare necessitates of life. We require more than this to live more productive and comfortable lives. Progresses in science and technology have made available to people, more than ever, goods and services that benefit mankind and become a means towards better living.
Technology and material goods should be a slave to mankind that help him reach his true goal. If these roles are reversed, or as someone said, 'The victor belongs to the spoils'; then we have big problem at our hands. That, which was meant to enhance our life, becomes its misery. In the words of Herbert Marcuse, 'The more 'materialistic' society became in the advanced industrial countries, i.e. the higher, the standard of living rose for broad strata of the population, the clearer became the extent to which this progress stabilized misery and unhappiness. Productivity bore destruction within it and turned technology from an instrument of liberation into one of new enslavement. Faced with a society in which affluence is accompanied by intensified exploitation, militant materialism remains negative and revolutionary (even where exploitation becomes more comfortable and does not penetrate into consciousness). Its idea of happiness and of gratification can be realized only through political practice that has qualitatively new modes of human existence as its goal.' [Herbert Marcuse, Negations]
Consumerism has become the heart of our modern world, whereby endless shopping malls stretch from corner to corner of the planet. Products that no-one in their right mind could truly justify as necessary, adorn every shelf and showroom, enticing towards wasteful and thoughtless consumption. Regrettably, this is considered part of the acceptable goal of 'economic growth.’
