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For the final post on humanity’s overconsumptions, I thought it was important to end with the impact of our current Ecological Footprint. As described in the photo to the right, an ecological footprint is the quantitative amount of the environment required to produce the goods and services necessary to support a particular lifestyle. Quite frankly, in modern society the Earth cannot sustainably support the way we consume natural resources. If the countries spanning the globe do not reflect on the annual number of materials consumed, everyone will run out of resources in the coming decades. Once these means are met, there is not a way to go back. Therefore, this is a pressing issue that must be addressed before it is too late.

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The leading countries that are committing this act are China, the United States, and India. Over the past fifty years, the numbers contributed by these countries has caused the global footprint to increase two-and-a-half times. This rapid increase is signaling that things need to change, yet minimal efforts are being taken by these global leaders.

Considering the leading countries have the largest contribution, it is up to their government and citizens to commit to creating a change. There are many simple day-to-day changes that can be made at the consumer level. Organizations have made lists detailing these activities, one of the major being reducing single use plastics. Plastic is non-biodegradable and non-compostable, which means any plastic produced will stay on the planet indefinitely. This is one of the easiest single use materials to eliminate, and doing so will dramatically reduce individual and countrywide ecological footprints.

Another easy approach to this issue is to cut down on the amount of meat consumed. By going meatless just once or twice a week, the carbon impact put into the atmosphere would significantly lessen. The production and processing of animal products puts an extreme amount of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, considering 75% of all food related emissions come from livestock. When considering gas emissions as a global whole, the methane produced through livestock production totals to one third of all methane human caused emissions.

Overall, the growing ecological footprint is a continuous issue that has detrimental effects on the quality of life of all humans on earth. The combined overconsumptions of natural resources around the world come together to both abuse earths nonrenewable resources, as well as exert an increase on climate change. However, we are at a point where it is not too late to make a change. With a collective effort we can help prolong our resources and create a safer, healthier planet.

71% of the Earth is covered by water, and with a percentage like such it seems impossible for water to be over exploited. However, water is the clear, and most definitively, overconsumed and overexploited natural resource on the planet. While at first this may seem contradictory, after understanding that overuse of water is through relocation of the resource and pollution of drinkable or useable water, the issue becomes much more understandable.

This issue has always been prevalent but some systems, like aquifers, are leading to an increase in the issue. Aquifers are systems that accumulate large areas of groundwater underneath the soil of rural area, cities, or other similar areas. This water can then be used for a plethora of purposes such as electricity, water lines, or for city use. Historically, these have successfully worked and been a productive way to control water usage. However, within recent years water usage has increased at an unprecedented level. The result of this increase reveals that the water in the aquifers is currently being used faster than expected, without time for the system to properly replenished. Therefore, there is no water in the open space under the ground, resulting in the ground to cave in on itself. This creates a major destruction of cities, leaving communities with no groundwater to drink, wash, or with the ability live safely.

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Another abuse of the natural resource happens when society uses water for electricity. This is a very common practice and can be seen in America, as well as other parts of the world. This is a complex system that uses water to generate electricity for various purposes. While this is useful for powering necessary functions, it causes a major displacement of water. By storing and abusing such large amounts of water, this leaves less of the resource for all other purposes the water would typically be used for. This increases dehydration around the world, increases the number of droughts, and worsens crop production. As seen in the photo, taken in North India, rural communities face the worst of the negative effects created by this ongoing issue.

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The most visually identifiable exploitation of water is through pollution of water sources. This issue has always been prevalent but continues to increase every year. Pollution makes ground water, that once was healthy and safe, unusable as a result of contamination. This factor of the issue, combined with empty aquifers and hydroelectricity, has led to a devastating loss of the world’s most important natural resource.

As explained by theworldcounts, an activist program dedicated to bringing attention to overconsumption, the earth will have no useable freshwater by 2040. This is a complex issue that is affecting all facets of society. If this overconsumption is not addressed, within the next 17 years humanity will face the consequences of this worsening issue.

While it is clear overconsuming earth’s resources is causing detrimental effects, such as climate change, many do not understand why this consumption has increased in recent decades. While many components take place in the bigger picture of climate change as a whole, overconsumption is directly caused by the growing increase in consumerism. Defined economically by Investopedia, consumerism is the idea that “a person’s well-being and happiness depend fundamentally on obtaining consumer goods and material possessions.” Those companies providing these goods and possessions gain a profit, creating a seemingly beneficial back and forth relationship between the two factors. However, one fact still stands. We, the consumers, do not need this surplus of materials. This raises the questions: How did consumerism reach such a height in western society, and, how can we step back from this endless cycle of unnecessary buying?

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The 1940’s-1970’s have been labeled as The Consumer Era. This is where the boom in American consumerism first started, and since these decades major companies and corporations have been able to continue the idea that buying more and more goods will give you a better appearance, keep you happy, and is good for the economy. Let’s not beat around the bush, Americans love consumerism because it makes you look rich and popular. The status and praise that individuals receive for, quite simply, owning more than what is needed is what fuels the love of consumerism.

After addressing the issue’s place in our society, it becomes easier to create solutions to this growing problem. While there are countless steps that can be taken, such as relying less on social media and the internet to purchase goods or being conscious or how long each purchase will last, the first step is America admitting there is a problem. However, given the capitalistic nature of the country, this is a hard step to take. As a result, environmentalists and conservationists have taken it upon themselves to try and bring light to this issue.

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Overall, consumerism is the most direct and identifiable cause for society’s obsession of overconsuming resources. Whether it be exploiting the necessities like food and clothing or the overreliance on single use goods, this problem will continue to grow and cause inevitable environmental issues. As America is the biggest contributor to this problem, the country must find better ways to fulfill self-desires that do not include unnecessary spending, caused by consumerism.

Following the last blog post’s discussion of the overconsumption of food, one adjacent issue that arises is overfishing. This is one of the many problems of overconsumption that has grown to concerning heights in recent years. Simply put, overfishing is removing sea life from the ocean at a rate that is faster than the rate at which fish can reproduce and make up for the loss. This leads to a rapid decrease in the population of wildlife in the sea and only continues to drop as the seafood industry grows.

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The biggest cause of this overconsumption is through illegal fishing practices. The most damaging of these practices being bottom trawling. This is when industrial nets are weighted to the ocean floor, then dragged against the terrain to grab mass amounts of fish. This is pictured in action in the image to the right. This method collects various types of sea life, including rare or endangered species. To worsen the matter, the majority– 80-90%– of fish that are discarded back into the ocean from the boats are dead before they reach the water. This also poses a threat to the coral reefs and ocean floor, as the heavy nets compress the homes of the sea life and render them unlivable. For additional information, the National Ocean Service goes deeper into the consequences the coral reef face as a result of bottom trawling.

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The World Counts Organization has significant research that shows the ocean could be left almost entirely wiped of fish by 2048. That is just under 25 years. While today’s fishing practices make it possible to fuel the worlds need for protein and food, this will soon not be a feasible option if practices are not better regulated. One possible way to counteract these consequences is to ban fishing subsidies. The allowance for fishing gear and tools adds unnecessary incentive for unethical fishing practices, as well as encouraging bottom trawling. One way to lessen the impact of this trawling is to create more aggressive fishing net regulations. As detailed in Earth.Orgs solutions to overfishing, placing limitations on the depth of the nets in the ocean by only two meters makes a serious change in the amount of endangered wildlife that is unnecessarily killed. In places like the Indian Ocean, this could lessen sea life deaths by over 90%.

Overarchingly, overfishing is growing to a level that is quickly becoming uncontrollable. With no time to spare, it is ever-so important that society takes the obligatory steps to decrease the global overfishing problem.

Over the past few decades food waste has, globally, become an undeniable issue. Yet, it is one of the few overconsumptions that are often overlooked, as the severity of the situation commonly being minimized. Food waste is the food that is fit for and intended for human consumption, but for one of many reasons ends up being wasted.

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In America alone, food waste is an overwhelming issue. Portrayed in the infographic, as of 2020 40% of food in the USA is wasted. This can happen during the production process, during distribution, and once it reaches the consumer. America has an obsession with perfection, exemplified in grocery stores where all produce is identical. When any type of food item has variance, it becomes the unbought item left on the shelf. This phenomenon leads 80 billion pounds of unnecessarily discarded food per year. As this problem progresses to an uncontrollable level, the FDA has made several attempts at lessening food waste. Their website explains several methods on limiting individual waste, however individual conservation efforts do not counter the billions of pounds of food that is thrown out by producers and distributors. Another modern method of control is by selling the nonuniform items that would be thrown away at a lesser price. There are small shops and online subscriptions that offer this solution, yet until they gain more traction the positive efforts will continue to be cancelled out by the overwhelming waste produced throughout America.

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On a global scale, food waste has become nearly uncontrollable. According to a worldwide tracking system, 116,000,000 tons of food has been wasted this year, and this number is only growing. Of all the food produced every year, over one third will be wasted. This creates detrimental effects on the environment. When the rotting food is left in landfills, it produces copious amounts of methane gas. This greenhouse gas is one of the main reasons for Earth’s progressing climate change. It is thought that one third of human produced greenhouse gas is a result of food waste. In addition to the contribution to climate change, food waste leads to a waste of natural resources, land degradation, and takes away the native homes of countless animal species. By recognizing this global issue and countering the problem by changing our food waste habits, the effects can be slowed and minimized. Considering the fact that America has the largest pound-by-pound contribution to the worldwide food waste production, it is our responsibility to make changes in our habits.

Overconsumption is a leading causation of damage to the sustainability of earth. This topic, in relation to clothes, has been a hot topic in the media as of lately, and for a good reason. Overconsumption of material goods has a plethora of severe negative consequences, the majority being ethical and environmental. The best way to bring awareness to this situation is to highlight the damage consumers are directly causing.

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Clothing items that are not produced in an ethical or sustainable manner are typically referred to as fast fashion items. These take part in the obvious cheap or suspicious clothing stores such as Shein and Aeropostale, but many well-known brands such as Walmart and Nike also partake in slave labor across the globe. This labor is abused in countless countries but considered to be the worst in Bangladesh, Vietnam, and Cambodia. The citizens placed in these sweatshops are forced to work under oppressive conditions, against their will. Despite the obvious fact that this is highly immoral, this situation is dangerous as there is countless waste produced with nowhere to dispose of, as displayed in the photograph. This leads to the excess fabric being dumped wherever is convenient, directly leading to pollution as a result of overconsumption by privileged people.

Maxing the Environments Capacity

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After discussing the immortality of sweatshops and slave labor, it is also important to explain why this is so damaging to earth’s environment. Textile waste, as represented to the left, is one of the main products of fast fashion. As researched by the Council for Textile Recycling, 70 pounds of textiles are thrown away by the average American, yearly. When virtually none of this fabric is recycled, it gets dumped into landfills. Then, when landfills cannot physically hold anymore clothes, they get dumped onto impoverished areas and countries where it won’t be seen by the worldwide consumers. Because majority of clothes are mixed fabrics these items do not properly decompose, therefore leaving them to sit on the ground with no place to go. There are actions to help minimize this waste, such as the push for more people to choose sustainable clothes. Yet, because the initial reason for fast fashion is cheap clothes many are not willing to buy high quality, lasting goods that are retail at higher prices.  Therefore, until the counteraction becomes widespread, the buildup of excess fabric will only continue to worsen.