User:Alex Prieditis/sandbox

Overconsumption

Overconsumption, in common use, is a situation where the use of a resource has exceeded the sustainable capacity of a system (often used in context of the ecosystem). A prolonged pattern of overconsumption leads to the eventual loss of resource bases. The term overconsumption is quite controversial in use, and does not necessarily have a single unifying definition.[Kjellberg, 2008] The problem lies in what is considered to be the sustainable capacity of the system. It is important to mention that the capacity of a system occurs at both the regional and worldwide levels, which means that certain regions may have higher consumption levels of certain resources then others due to greater resources without overconsuming a resource. In the context of talking about ecosystems, a long term pattern of overconsumption in a given region will cause a reduction in natural resources that often results in environmental degradation.

The discussion of overconsumption often parallels that of human overpopulation;[1] that is the more people, the more consumption of raw materials takes place to sustain their lives. However, humanity's overall impact on the planet is affected by many factors besides the raw number of people. Their lifestyle (including overall affluence and resource utilization) and the pollution they generate (including carbon footprint) are equally important. Currently, the inhabitants of the developed nations of the world consume resources at a rate almost 32 times greater than those of the developing world, who make up the majority of the human population (7.4 billion people).[2] The concept of overpopulation is also reliant on a given system being depleted of its resources which similarly to overconsumption is reliant on a systems quantity of a resource. With this known a region can be overpopulated, but the world may not be, or vice versa.

The concept of overpopulation 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. The United Nations estimate that world population will reach 9.8 billion in the year 2050 and 11.2 in 2100.[4] This growth will be highly concentrated in the developing nations which also poses issues with inequality of consumption. The nations that will come into consumer dominance must abstain from abusing certain forms of consumption, such as energy consumption that produces CO2.[5] Green parties and the ecological movements often argue that consumption per person, or ecological footprint, is typically lower in poorer than in richer nations, however overconsumption is reliant on the actual resource quantity available for each country and not just the world as a whole. However, the developing world is a growing market for consumption. These nations are quickly gaining more purchasing power and it is expected that the Global South, which includes cities in Asia, America and Africa, will account for 56% of consumption growth by 2030.[3] This means that relative consumption rates will shift more into these developing countries, whereas developed countries would start to plateau.

Consumption and Consumerism See also: Consumerism

There is a spectrum of goods and services that the world population constantly consume. These range from food and beverage, clothing and footwear, housing, energy, technology, transportation, education, health and personal care, financial services and other utilities.[6] When the resources required to produce these goods and services is depleted beyond a reasonable level, it can be considered to be overconsumption. Because developing nations are rising quickly into the consumer class, the trends happening in these nations are of special interest. According to the World Bank, the highest shares of consumption, regardless of income lie in food, beverage, clothing, and footwear.[6] As of 2015, the top five consumer markets in the world included the United States, Japan, Germany, China, and France.[8]

Planned and perceived obsolescence is an important factor that explains why some overconsumption of consumer products exist.[7] This factor of production revolves around the designing products with the intent to be discarded after a short period of time. Perceived obsolescence is prevalent within the fashion and technology industries. Through this technique, products are made obsolete and replaced on a semi-regular basis. Frequent new launches of technology or fashion lines can be seen as a form of marketing induced perceived obsolescence. Products designed to break after a certain period of time or use would be considered to be planned obsolescence.

Effects See also: I PAT

Waste generation, measured in kilograms per person per day A fundamental effect of overconsumption is a reduction in the planet's carrying capacity. Excessive unsustainable consumption will exceed the long term carrying capacity of its environment (ecological overshoot) and subsequent resource depletion, environmental degradation and reduced ecosystem health. In 2020 multinational team of scientists published a study, saying that overconsumption is the biggest threat to sustainability. According to the study a drastic change in lifestyle is necessary for solving the ecological crisis. According to one of the authors Julia Steinberger: “To protect ourselves from the worsening climate crisis, we must reduce inequality and challenge the notion that riches, and those who possess them, are inherently good.” The research was published on the site of the World Economic Forum. The leader of the forum professor Klaus Schwab, calls to a "great reset of capitalism".[9]

According to a 2020 study in which both population growth and deforestation were used as proxies for total resource consumption, if consumption continues at the current rate for the next 20–40 years, it can trigger a full or almost full extinction of humanity. To avoid it humanity should pass from a civilization dominated by the economy to a "cultural society" that "privileges the interest of the ecosystem above the individual interest of its components, but eventually in accordance with the overall communal interest"[10][11]

The worldwide prevalence of obesity in males (2008)- the darker areas represent a higher percentage of obese males The scale of modern life's overconsumption has enabled an overclass to exist, displaying affluenza and obesity.[12] However once again both of these claims are controversial with the latter being correlated to other factors more so than over-consumption. Within the topic of overconsumption, many other ideas should be considered to find the true cause of it. Some important events that coincide are poverty, population and the development of an area.[13] Overconsumption can also lead to a decline in the economy and financial instability.[14]

Great Pacific garbage patch In the long term, these effects can lead to increased conflict over dwindling resources[15] and in the worst case a Malthusian catastrophe. Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute, has said: "It would take 1.5 Earths to sustain our present level of consumption. Environmentally, the world is in an overshoot mode."[16]

As of 2012, the United States alone was using 30% of the world's resources and if everyone were to consume at that rate, we would need 3-5 planets to sustain this type of living. Resources are quickly becoming depleted, with about ⅓ already gone. With new consumer markets rising in the developing countries which account for a much higher percentage of the world's population, this number can only rise.[7] According to Sierra Club’s Dave Tilford, "With less than 5 percent of world population, the U.S. uses one-third of the world’s paper, a quarter of the world’s oil, 23 percent of the coal, 27 percent of the aluminum, and 19 percent of the copper."[17] According to BBC, a World Bank study has found that "Americans produce 16.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide per capita every year. By comparison, only 0.1 tonnes of the greenhouse gas is generated in Ethiopia per inhabitant."[18]

A 2021 study published in Frontiers in Conservation Science posits that aggregate consumption growth will continue into the near future and perhaps beyond, largely due to increasing affluence and population growth. The authors argue that "there is no way—ethically or otherwise (barring extreme and unprecedented increases in human mortality)—to avoid rising human numbers and the accompanying overconsumption", although they do say that the negative impacts of overconsumption can perhaps be diminished by implementing human rights policies to lower fertility rates and decelerate current consumption patterns.[19]

Economic growth If everyone consumed resources at the US level, you will need another four or five Earths. —Paul R. Ehrlich, biologist[20] The Worldwatch Institute said China and India, with their booming economies, along with the United States, are the three planetary forces that are shaping the global biosphere.[21] The State of the World 2005 report said the two countries' high economic growth exposed the reality of severe pollution. The report states that

The world's ecological capacity is simply insufficient to satisfy the ambitions of China, India, Japan, Europe and the United States as well as the aspirations of the rest of the world in a sustainable way.

In 2019, a warning on the climate crisis signed by 11,000 scientists from over 150 nations said economic growth is the driving force behind the "excessive extraction of materials and overexploitation of ecosystems" and that this "must be quickly curtailed to maintain long-term sustainability of the biosphere."[22][23] Also in 2019, the Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services published by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, which found that up to one million species of plants and animals are at risk of extinction from human activity,[24] asserted that

A key element of more sustainable future policies is the evolution of global financial and economic systems to build a global sustainable economy, steering away from the current limited paradigm of economic growth.[25]

Effects on health A report from the Lancet commission says the same. The experts write: "Until now, undernutrition and obesity have been seen as polar opposites of either too few or too many calories," "In reality, they are both driven by the same unhealthy, inequitable food systems, underpinned by the same political economy that is single-focused on economic growth, and ignores the negative health and equity outcomes. Climate change has the same story of profits and power,".[26] Obesity was a medical problem for people who overconsumed food and worked too little already in ancient Rome, and its impact slowly grew through history.[27] As to 2012, mortality from Obesity was 3 times larger than from hunger,[28] reaching 2.8 million people per year by 2017[29]

Overuse of artificial energy, for example, in cars, hurts health and the planet. Promoting active living and reducing sedentary lifestyle, for example, by cycling, reduces greenhouse gas emissions and improve health[30][31]

Footprint Main article: Ecological footprint See also: List of organisms by population The planet can’t support billions of meat-eaters. —David Attenborough, natural historian[32] The idea of overconsumption is also strongly tied to the idea of an ecological footprint. The term "ecological footprint" refers to the "resource accounting framework for measuring human demand on the biosphere." Currently, China, for instance, has a per person ecological footprint roughly half the size of the USA, yet has a population that is more than four times the size of the USA. It is estimated that if China developed to the level of the United States that world consumption rates would roughly double.[2]

Humans, their prevailing growth of demands for livestock and other domestic animals, has added overshoot through domestic animal breeding, keeping and consumption, especially with the environmentally destructive industrial livestock production.[citation needed] Globalization and modernization has brought Western consumer cultures to countries like China and India, including meat-intensive diets which are supplanting traditional plant-based diets. More than 200 billion animals are consumed by a global population of over 7 billion annually.[33] A 2018 study published in Science postulates that meat consumption is set to increase as the result of human population growth and rising affluence, which will increase greenhouse gas emissions and further reduce biodiversity.[34] Meat consumption needs to be reduced in order to make agriculture sustainable by up to 90% according to a 2018 study published in Nature.[35]

Biomass of mammals on Earth[36][37]

 Livestock, mostly cattle and pigs (60%)
 Humans (36%)
 Wild animals (4%)

Counteractions The most obvious solution to the issue of overconsumption is to simply slow the rate at which materials are becoming depleted. From capitalistic point of view, less consumption has negative effects on economies and so instead, countries must look to curb consumption rates but also allow for new industries, such as renewable energy and recycling technologies, to flourish and deflect some of the economic burdens. There are movements who think that reduction in consumption in some cases can benefit economy and society. They think that a fundamental shift in the global economy may be necessary to account for the current change that is taking place or that will need to take place. Movements and lifestyle choices related to stopping overconsumption include: anti-consumerism, freeganism, green economics, ecological economics, degrowth, frugality, downshifting, simple living, minimalism, and thrifting.

Many consider the final target of the movements as arriving to a steady-state economy in which the rate of consumption is optimal for health and environment.[38]

Recent grassroots movements have been coming up with creative ways to decrease the number of goods we consume. The Freecycle Network is a network of people in one's community that are willing to trade goods for other goods or services. It is a new take on thrifting while still being beneficial to both parties.[39]

Other researchers and movements such as the Zeitgeist Movement suggest a new socioeconomic model which, through a structural increase of efficiency, collaboration and locality in production as well as effective sharing, increased modularity, sustainability and optimal design of products, are expected to reduce resource-consumption.[40] Solutions offered include consumers using market forces to influence businesses towards more sustainable manufacturing and products.[41]

Other ways to reduce consumption is to slow population growth by improving family planning services worldwide. In developing countries, more than 200 million women do not have adequate access.[42] Women's empowerment in these countries will also result in smaller families.

Additional sources not formatted yet. Word in text citation is currently being used to not dismantle citations from previous piece

Kjellberg, H. (2008). Market practices and over‐consumption. Consumption, Markets and Culture, 11(2), 151-167.