Overconsumption awareness

I have just finished studying Block 5 of U116 module at The Open University. The book is called ‘Changing China’ and my TMA for this was to write an essay explaining how migration enables economic growth and therefore leads to environmental issues. 

We all know that China is growing economically and the growth is still rapid. Whilst developed countries are looking into newer ways of protecting the environment, Chinese government seems to be still steering the country into even more development having little regard for the environmental damage this is causing. List of China’s environmental problems is long. It includes issues like threats from flooding, desertification, water shortages, disappearing forest reserves, air and water pollution and many more.

Studying this subject made me wonder what are we ‘the individuals’ are really doing to protect our environment. How many people actually lead their lives by putting the environment on top of their priority list? Well, that off course would be unrealistic but if anyone would take a small step towards decreasing consumption, it could have a massive impact. But we don’t. Why? Because it’s inconvenient and because often environmental problems don’t affect us directly. We are so used to the convenience of life that we can’t be bothered to even make a small effort. Everything is so easily replaceable and accessible that we just don’t bother to re-use things.

I don’t have children but many of my friends do and it is shocking how many toys and gadgets the littles ones have. I totally understand that parents want for their children to have everything they need and to have a happy childhood. But do they really need 100 toys when they’re five? Or do they need new mobile phone every 6 months when they’re sixteen? No, they don’t. But our society is powered by money, advertisement and sales. When you become a parent you’re being told you need to buy hundreds of gadgets for your baby and they’re all essential. Then you need to buy hundreds of toys which will stimulate baby’s development. And after that your kid wants hundreds of toys and gadgets because they are bombarded by the advertisements. If you do try to stop this and say ‘no’ then you’re facing a fear of your kid being an outsider because all other kids will have the toy, the phone etc. and you have to cave in because you don’t want them to be the odd one.  

So which way do you think this trend will go? Will we continue to overconsume and not think about what we’re doing to our planet? Or will we wake up, stop this madness and teach the future generations to re-use rather than bin and buy a new one.   

Click here to see ‘Overconsumption, overpopulation – in pictures’.