SOC 311: SOCIETY

AND ENVIRONMENT
By
Anthony Mtuta
0994118603/ 0881015624
[email protected] /[email protected]
• Our environment is nature’s most precious and vital gift,
and it needs to be handled with utmost care. It is the
natural ecological system where we live, depending on
each other for survival.
• The environment is defined as the combination and
interrelation between all biotic and abiotic components.
• The ecosystem of our environment needs to be
maintained in a proper balance, and if any part of it is
disturbed, the whole ecosystem gets affected.
• The environment refers to the surroundings in which life
exists on earth. Components like animals, humans,
sunlight, water, trees, and air make up the environment.
• They are the earth’s living and non-living components.
Living organisms include trees, humans, and animals.
Non-living components such as the sun, water and air
are essential for man’s life.
Definitions of the concept of
environment
• Everything that surrounds or affects an organism during its life time is
collectively known as its environment or simply put everything
surrounding a living organism like people; place and things constitute its
environment which can be either natural or man-made.
• The word environment has been derived from a French word ‘environner’
meaning to encircle or to surround.
• In the beginning, environment of early man consisted of only physical
aspects of the planet earth such as land (lithosphere), air (atmosphere)
and water (hydrosphere) along with biotic communities but, with the
passage of time and advancement of society man extended his
environment to include his social, economic and political functions too.
• At the organismic level it is essentially physiological interaction which
tries to understand that how different organisms are adapted to their
environment in terms of not only survival but also reproduction and
propagation of their population.
• Environment is sum total of water, air and land inter-relationships
among themselves and also with the human being, other living
organisms and material goods.
• Environmental studies give an approach towards understanding the
environment of our globe and the impact of human life upon the
environment and vice-versa.
• Thus environment is actually universal in nature and it is a
multidisciplinary subject counting physics, chemistry, geology,
geography, history, economics, physiology, biotechnology, remote
sensing, geophysics, soil science and hydrology.
• Environment is defined more comprehensively by others ‘as a holistic
view of the world as its functions at any point of time, with a
multitude of spatial elemental and socio-economic systems
distinguished by quality and attributes of space and mode of
behaviour of abiotic and biotic forms.’ (K.R. Dikshit, 1984)
• Environmental Sociology deals with the relationship between the
society and the world.
• It is further unveiled in the debate nature’s nature which is linked to
the principle of environmental sustainability.
• The sustainability of the environment is what dominate in many
political discourses and decisions.
• They are centered around opposing concepts of
• i) realism and
• Ii) constructionism
• Realism, or realpolitiks, is one of the most longstanding
and popular theoretical traditions in international
relations. At its core, realism holds assumptions about
human nature, power, and morality.
• Central to the realist environment is the intrinsically threatening
character of anarchy, which implies that the office building has hidden
trap doors which could end life suddenly and unexpectedly.
• Such a potentially threatening environment ensures that a state's
primary interest will be in survival and in emulating the patterns of
behavior that assist survival
• The behavioral patterns deducible from realism's anarchic
environment are self-help in quality and include the pursuit of power,
a willingness to resort to violence, an avoidance of functional
specialization and interdependence, and a suspicion regarding
cooperative efforts.
• The power and capabilities of one's neighbors also play a role in
motivating balancing behaviors such as arms races and alliances.
• The discussion on the two opposing concepts comes because of its
inability to properly explain a fact which ought to be the standpoint of
any debate around sustainability: the transformation of nature into
human environment and a realistic turn in the constructivist account
of nature. Grounded in different theories of knowledge, realism and
constructivism defend two opposed conceptions of nature.
• According to the realistic position, nature is an objective,
autonomous, independent entity. It can be known, but is firmly
located beyond the realm of social.
• The constructivist position refers “nature” as the final outcome of a process of
social construction through language and culture. It is something we can only
know through society itself.
• ENVIRONMENT applies to all the external factors that have a
formative influence on one's physical, mental, or moral
development.
• the surrounding conditions or forces that influence or modify: as
• a: the whole complex of factors (as soil, climate, and living
things) that influence the form and the ability to survive of a
plant or animal or ecological community
• b: the social and cultural conditions that influence a person or
human community
• The realist approach comprehends "risks" as objective
elements of interaction between nature and society.
• It explains the "increase of environmental and
technological risks" through the intensification and
extensiveness of nature's utilization.
• It goes in line with the concept of environmentalism.
Environmentalism or environmental rights is a broad philosophy,
ideology, and social movement regarding concerns for
environmental protection and improvement of the health of the
environment.
• Environmentalism is a movement that arose in response to
global environmental crises.
• It encompasses theories about the nature and causes of
environmental problems, moral views about our relation to
nature, and attempts to define and bring about an
environmentally sound society.
• Environmentalism is used as a general term to refer to
concern for the environment and particularly actions or
advocacy to limit negative human impacts on the
environment.
•
• biocentrism claims that nature has an intrinsic moral
worth that does not depend on its usefulness to human
beings, and it is this intrinsic worth that gives rise
directly to obligations to the environment.
• Humans are therefore morally bound to protect the
environment, as well as individual creatures and
species, for their own sake.
• In this sense, biocentrics view human beings and other
elements of the natural environment, both living and
often nonliving, as members of a single moral and
ecological community.
Constructivist Approach to
environment
• The constructivist approach comprehends "risks" as constructs of societal
communication and explains "the increase of environmental and
technological risks" through cultural processes of change.
• Douglas and Wildavsky – two important representatives of constructivism
within the field of risk research , who are selected here in order to give an
example for its specific pattern of argumentation and its implications, state,
that the balance of power between the central cultural institutions
(including the market and the hierarchy) and the sect as the socially
peripheral subculture, has shifted so eminently, that the risk-aversions of
social movements (which are said to perform "egalitarian" ways of life) have
turned into a prevalent subject and thereby predominant "reality" for the
developed industrial societies
b. Sociology and the balance of nature:

• Social theories of environmental reform

• Environment and Social Theory introduces the ways in which
the environment has been used and abused, constructed and
contested within social theory.
• After introducing the theories and methods of sociology, the
lesson focuses on three areas inherent to environmental
sociology: material, ideological, and solutions-based
approaches.
• The material includes consumerism, technology,
infrastructure, and population pressures.
• After introducing the theories and methods of sociology,
the lesson focuses on three areas inherent to
environmental sociology: material, ideological, and
solutions-based approaches.
• The material includes consumerism, technology,
infrastructure, and population pressures.
• The ideological path approaches normative values like
the economics of endless growth, the practice of
consumption as a virtue, individualism versus
collectivism, and how cultural beliefs and experience
affect perceptions of environments
• The solutions path aims to turn the study of socio-
environmental problems toward reform, including
material and technological evolution; recuperating
cultural values of subsistence, community, and
environmental care that challenge normative growth
and extraction paradigms; and applying sociological
insights that support environmental justice and foster
greater equality across human habitats.
What is the role of sociologist in
solving environmental problems?
• An environmental sociologist is a sociologist who studies
society-environment interactions such as the environmental
movement, how people in societies perceive environmental
problems, the relationships between population, health, and
the environment, globalization, and the mechanisms behind
environmental injustice.
• Environmental sociologists study such issues using standard
sociological research methods.
• For example, they develop valid data collection instruments
such as surveys and interviews. They use them to collect data
about the environmental attitudes, values, and behaviors of
people in groups.
• Alternatively, they may collect data based on observation and
reviewing existing documents. They may plan and conduct
research to test their theories about issues such as the
valuation of nature, attitudes toward environmentalism, and
belief in human-induced climate change.
• They then analyze the data to make conclusions about
environmental behaviors, and potentially suggest ways to
address problems. Sociologists generally share the results of
their research by writing and publishing academic papers and
submitting reports to their organizations.
• Many are faculty members at colleges and universities who
teach sociology, in addition to conducting research.
What is ecological Modernisation
theory?
• Ecological modernization is a school of thought that
argues that both the state and the market can work
together to protect the environment.
• It has gained increasing attention among scholars and
policymakers in the last several decades internationally. It is an
analytical approach as well as a policy strategy and
environmental discourse.
• One basic assumption of ecological modernization relates to
environmental readaptation of economic growth and industrial
development.
• On the basis of enlightened self-interest, economy and ecology can
be favourably combined:
• Environmental productivity, i.e. productive use of natural resources
and environmental media (air, water, soil, ecosystems), can be a
source of future growth and development in the same way as
labour productivity and capital productivity.
• This includes increases in energy and resource efficiency as well
as product and process innovations such as environmental
management and sustainable supply chain management,
clean technologies, benign substitution of hazardous substances,
and product design for environment.
• Radical innovations in these fields can not only reduce
quantities of resource turnover and emissions, but also change
the quality or structure of the industrial metabolism.
• As a strategy of change, some forms of ecological
modernization may be favored by business interests because
they seemingly meet the triple bottom line of economics,
society, and environment, which, it is held, underpin
sustainability, yet do not challenge free market principles
•. This contrasts with many environmental movement
perspectives, which regard free trade and its notion of business
self-regulation as part of the problem, or even an origin of
environmental degradation.
• Under ecological modernization, the state is seen in a variety of
roles and capacities: as the enabler for markets that help
produce the technological advances via competition; as the
regulatory medium through which corporations are forced to
'take back' their various wastes and re-integrate them in some
manner into the production of new goods and services.
Critique
• Critics question whether technological advances alone can
achieve resource conservation and better
environmental protection, particularly if left to business
self-regulation practices (York and Rosa, 2003).
• For instance, many technological improvements are currently
feasible but not widely utilized.
• The most environmentally friendly product or manufacturing
process (which is often also the most economically efficient) is
not always the one automatically chosen by self-regulating
corporations (e.g. hydrogen or biofuel vs. peak oil).
• In addition, some critics have argued that ecological modernization
does not redress gross injustices that are produced within the
capitalist system, such as environmental racism - where
people of color and low income earners bear a disproportionate
burden of environmental harm such as pollution, and lack access to
environmental benefits such as parks, and social justice issues such
as eliminating unemployment .
• Perhaps the harshest criticism though, is that ecological
modernization is predicated upon the notion of 'sustainable growth',
and in reality this is not possible because growth entails the
consumption of natural and human capital at great costs to
ecosystems and societies.
• Ecological modernization, its effectiveness and applicability,
strengths and limitations, remains a dynamic and contentious
area of environmental social science research and policy
discourse in the early 21st century.
Competing functions of the environment

• Used as a supply depot, the environment is a source of

renewable and non-renewable natural resources (air,
water, forests, and fossil fuels) that are essential for
living. Overuse of these resources results in shortages
or scarcities.
The four functions of the
environment are:
• Supplying resources ( both renewable and non-
renewable)
• Assimilating wastes.
• Sustains life by providing biodiversity.
• Providing aesthetics.
• Supports life without human actions.
• What are examples of environmental functions?
• Examples of this can include photosynthesis to create
oxygen, the water cycle to provide fresh water and the
earth's natural greenhouse effect to regulate our
climate.
• Through our actions and behaviours, we as humans can
have a very negative impact on these natural systems
that provide these essential services.
What is the treadmill of production?

• The theory of the treadmill of production highlights how

the constant search for economic growth leads to
advanced economies being stuck on a “treadmill,”
where their well-being is not improved by economic
growth, yet the impacts of this pursuit of growth causes
massive, unsustainable environmental damages.
• The continuing production of excessive environmental
risk, in particular climate risk, is one of the most
fundamental problems facing economically advanced
societies around the world
• While climate change has already manifested in many
damages, the foreseeable harms from climate change, if
we continue on a “business as usual” trajectory, verge
on somewhere between extremely significant and
genuinely catastrophic
• The fact that it is a theory of the treadmill
of production highlights that those who control the
production process, corporations, are the primary
driving force in the treadmill.
• While the unceasing search for profits has played a role
in the treadmill theory from the beginning of the
theorization of the treadmill, the theory's emphasis on
the primacy of corporations, the importance of the
extension of commodification, and a focus on the
diminution of the autonomy of the state has become
more pronounced over time in the treadmill theory.
• Why do worker-consumers continue to support this process which
is driven by the search for ever higher profitability for
corporations while creating massive environmental damages,
especially when it is the case that those who are not the
“treadmill elites” will not be able to afford scarce “private escape
routes” from environmental risk created by the treadmill.
• The treadmill theory's analysis of consumption, which asserts
that “material desires are largely constructed by material
producers” through cultural production, tends to leave
consumption in contemporary capitalism as a black box, which is
either structurally determined by corporations or which can be
neglected because production takes the lead
• the treadmill theory's acute insights into the awareness
of corporate elites, and many other actors, of their
interests, and the treadmill theory's aim of
contextualizing “the role of consumer decisions within
the material parameters of their political economy.
• It suggests that theorizing power relations within
consumption that support the widespread complicity
with the treadmill—without simply assuming the
widespread existence of “consumer-dopes”—fits with
the core explanatory aims of the treadmill theory.
SOCIAL CONTINGENCY OF ADEQUACY OF COMMODITIES
AND SOCIAL REGARD OF ONE'S COMMODITIES

• Veblen's contribution to thinking about status competition in

capitalism through “conspicuous consumption” so as to
demonstrate “pecuniary strength” powerfully captures an
important thread of the movement in contemporary luxury
consumption.
• In analyzing the positional economy through the prism of
preferences directed at others there is the threat that Veblen's
([1899] 1994) analysis of the positional economy becomes a
means of further buttressing theorizations of liberal capitalism,
where positionality is interpreted in terms of parties who are
not directly involved in the transaction objecting to it because
of nonlegitimate psychological, envy-based reasons
• The discussion presented in this section has highlighted,
the positional economy, specifically the way in which
the advantages of some can undermine the social
practices of others, does not have to rely on status
competition or other-regarding preferences.
• While it is not even clear that all desires to upgrade due
to perception of others’ consumption practices are
necessarily other-regarding, in trying to adumbrate
a structural analysis of the forces that tend to reinforce
the treadmill of consumption.
• The idea focuses on ways in which one's existing social
practices and well-being can be systematically
undermined by the advantages of others, without
resorting to theories of preference upgrading or
emulation based on perception of others’ consumption.
• Dwyer (2009) specifically emphasizes how Veblen's
work can be interpreted as highlighting both the
importance of conventional standards of decency and
the potential for the consumption of others to reshape
and upgrade the necessary requirements to achieve this
standard of decency.
• As de Vries (2008) has emphasized in his groundbreaking study
of the interconnection between “defensive consumption,” the
“industrious revolution,” and the growth of capitalism in North-
Western Europe, falling behind existing standards of decency is
not merely a psychological pain—it can have immense impacts
on one's social practices and life chances.
• One can upgrade one's consumption of goods because others
are (Licthenberg 1996) not necessarily because of envy or
emulation, but rather because the upgrading of consumption of
others systematically increases standards of decency of
consumption and minimum levels of acceptability to participate
in society without shame
• Consequently, much as the upgrading of the material
means of transportation and communication placed
structural rather than mimetic pressures on consumer-
workers to also upgrade their consumer goods, constant
shifts in the social meanings of goods, and their
association with decency and participation in the
community,
• likewise places pressure on others to upgrade their
consumer goods, thus exemplifying the powerful
structural roots of the treadmill of consumption.
THE POSITIONAL ECONOMY OF CONSUMPTION AND
THE TREADMILL OF PRODUCTION

• There are powerful factors, in terms of

• relational exchange entitlement,
• the social contingency of the effectiveness of
commodities,
• and the need for defensive consumption in diverse
dimensions of life that lock-in individuals to consuming
more (and more expensive) goods,
• which in turn lock them into the need to participate in
the treadmill of production so as to acquire income and
wealth levels necessary for this upgrading.
• Contemporary economic growth levels are massively
dysfunctional from an environmental perspective.
• All evidence points to the fact that claims that greater
efficiency of production and consumption can reconcile
unceasing economic growth and environmental sustainability
are based on a wish, rather than a dry eyed analysis of the
effects (and mathematics) of unceasing growth.
• Unquestionably fundamental changes need to be made and the
theory of the treadmill of production aims at changing
production in fundamental ways. Yet, to unwind the treadmill it
is necessary to further analyze the imbrication of contemporary
production and consumption with economic growth.
• Just as there is nothing worse than a work-based society
in which there is no work, there is nothing worse than”
being in a growth-based society in which one does not
participate in this growth. While the massive damages
from climate change appear quite distant at this stage,
the ontological insecurity associated with being left
behind in an increasingly individualized and hard-edged
neoliberal society with constantly upgrading
consumption requirements is a much more immediate
and salient risk for many worker-consumers.
• The treadmill of production theory focus on collective, political,
and dialectical change and its orientation to the dysfunctional
role of contemporary inequalities which are well attuned to
beginning to think about how to address the intersecting
problems of the treadmill of consumption and the treadmill of
production.
• important intellectual and social movements related to the
treadmill of production, including the fundamental problems with
contemporary growth and the need for degrowth, critiques of
current widening inequalities (Piketty 2014; Savage 2015; Sayer
2015), and analyses of the dysfunctions of contemporary
consumption (Bauman 2007; Smart 2010), have brought these
problems to the forefront.
• Thinking through the unceasing “engine of destruction”
that is the treadmill of production through its structural
supports from the dysfunctional dimensions of
contemporary positional consumption ultimately aims to
aid in this task of further diagnosing the intersecting
problems of economic growth, inequality, and
environment in contemporary societies.
What is an example of the treadmill
of production?
• We have, for example, created food-based treadmill scholars refer to
as the “pesticide treadmill”.
• In this case, in order to grow more food, more pesticides are used,
which increases problems such as soil erosion, and “these trends not
only do social harm but can undermine productivity.
• Capitalism is an economic system that is organized around three
main dynamics:
1.Private property
2.Competitive market
3.Profit growth
• The treadmill of production implies that growth is only an
aspect of the production process, but in order to produce more
we first have to extract more, and once we extract and produce
more, then we must also distribute and consume more.
• Of course, this leads to the social problems connected to
disposal: burning garbage, plastics in the ocean, and ridiculous
amounts of food waste.
• This treadmill of production — which really could be called
a treadmill of growth; or, the energizer bunny treadmill of
production, that keeps going and going and going and going —
also leads us to the social problems connected to food systems
and health).
• . Growth is the logic behind pumping animals with antibiotics,
and certainly, the logic of growth has impacted our bodies, and
subsequently, made health care significantly more expensive (as
we get increasingly sick, our health care costs skyrocket.
• the treadmill of production has also coincided with
technological transformations.
• First, the first major and hugely (environmentally) impactful
human technology was agriculture.
• This led to larger populations and decreased nomadic lifestyles;
agriculture led to the establishment of towns and further, the
idea of “government” as a mechanism to organize people (Krebs
2013).
• Agriculture laid the foundation for everything that is central to
our society.
• It has also always been connected to the idea of GROWTH, which
is relational: if we can grow more, we can feed more and if we
can feed more we can birth more, and if we birth more we have
to grow more (Mann 2018).
• Growth and agriculture have always been connected, but it
became about more than human sustenance when Industrial
Agriculture came to the scene and added the need to incorporate
profit growth into the dynamic.
• Thus, the need for more and more technology has been needed
to manage this growth.
• Technology has been, since the beginning, about solving
problems, and thus we have tended to be a people that
sees all technological advances as problem solvers and
benefit adders.
• Societies use technology to overcome obstacles to
surviving and thriving that they perceive in nature to
modify the natural world in ways that need human
needs and desires.
• The social creation of new technologies transforms both
society and the natural world upon which human
societies depend
• We tend to look at technology through the lens of
optimism; we welcome new technology without concern
for the (potential) consequences.
• We did this with coal in the 18th Century and we did this
with computers and the internet in the 1990s and the
21st Century.
• We do have a bit of skepticism now, especially around
Artificial Intelligence, likely because we’ve finally tuned
into the latent functions of technological advances.
• As our landfills have grown and our health care costs have
grown and our houses have gotten bigger, our desire for
technological gadgets to fill those houses has also
grown. “Excess accumulation” (Juliet Schor) leads to lots and
lots of garbage.
• Excess consumption emerges not randomly, but through the
way in which the global (political) economy is organized: U.S.
companies outsourcing factories, lower wages for (sweatshop)
factory workers, and cheaper clothes which are exported.
• Clothes are produced in the global South, consumed in the
global North, discarded in the global North, and then re-
distributed to the global South through places like Goodwill.
• Excess consumption” means to consume in excess:
“an amount of something that is more than necessary, per
mitted, or desirable”.
• The result of this the irony is that this “excess
consumption” becomes undesirable during the last
stage of the “materials economy”: disposal.
• Though there is an emerging market and cultural capital
surrounding thrifting, historically secondhand clothes have
been stigmatized/pitied.
• Thus, the people associated with what is secondhand, with
what has been discarded, and with litter, become
stigmatized and/or pitied people.
• Thus we consume too much, but we don’t want to see it
(hegemony!).
• And, whether we do or don’t see it, through a
sociological framework, is about the systems
that organize the disposal process.
• But, at the micro level (as a result of the macro level,
historical systems of inequality),
trash/second-hand/litter comes to be associated with
certain people: poor people, people of color, “third-
world” people, and bad people.
• This shapes what Hooks and Smith call the “treadmill of
destruction,” a pattern whereby the growth of the military not
strictly the economy contributed to Western expansion and the
colonization of and destruction of land inhabited by indigenous
communities.
• Though as we breathe the air in the Midwest that is shaped by the
fires in Canada, it’s clear that eventually we will all be impacted by a
changing climate and “global weirding.”
• As the concept of environmental racism highlights, where we
live, which is shaped by historical, institutionalized racism, also
shapes the toxins we are exposed to.
• The system produces trash, we make trash, and we
construct “single stories” (Adichie) with social
meaning around that trash that uses “trash” as an insult
to hurl at actual people, thus perpetuating
the inequities of production (low wages, sweatshop
conditions, toxic materials) through the consumption
process.
• In order to address these inequities we have to stop
blaming the most marginalized and exploited and look
to changing the systems, in order to get off
the “treadmill of production.” We can, of course,
also look to our own consumption practices. Each
• Another consequence of the treadmill of production is that
our loneliness and disdain for solitude have also grown.
• While we extract coltan to make batteries for our cell phones
(Leonard 2010), our cell phones are also extracting our in-
person communication skills and our capacity for exploring
our own internal self-worth and ability to be happy with
ourselves.
• It can be argued then that all the problems we’ve looked at all
semester are connected to the treadmill of production, down
to the need for land to extract from (hence the continued
importance of colonization and the need for conversations
about land equity) and to the need for cell phone vacations.
• The treadmill is an aspect of the SYSTEM that produces
these social problems.
• Of course, we as PEOPLE can figure out ways to get off
the treadmill, too.
• To think sociologically we have to explore the
SYSTEM, but we are always still people who have the
ability to shape how we are engaged with the SYSTEMS
that organize us.
• Systems change — hence, the focus on Mills’s relational
understanding of history and biography.
What is the treadmill of production
and consumption?
• The relationship between capitalism and nature,
wherein capitalism exploits nature for production and
consumption, which in turn can have adverse effects on
nature.
Consumerism and Environmental
damage
• Consumerism drives people to constantly be buying more
and newer products, making many people throw out their
old products, creating a massive influx of trash and waste.
• This waste often ends up in nature or the ocean which can
harm local wildlife.
• When we extract resources in this way it has grave impacts
on the natural world.
• Certain means of extracting resources, such as deforestation
and strip mining, can completely reshape the landscape of
the natural world, destroying habitats and completely
disrupting ecosystems.
• Many processes of extracting resources also require the
burning of fossil fuels or the use of harmful chemicals.
• This causes dangerous air and water pollution which can have
serious health effects on humans and the environment.
• Consumerism Creates Waste
• The extraction of resources to create the extra goods
demanded in a consumption driven society cause a lot of
harm to the environment.
• However, it’s not just the creation of goods that causes
environmental harm, but disposing of used products can also
cause serious problems.
• Consumerism drives people to constantly be buying
more and newer products, making many people throw
out their old products, creating a massive influx of trash
and waste.
• This waste often ends up in nature or the ocean which
can harm local wildlife.
• Even if this waste doesn’t end up as litter, it is often
transported to landfills where it meets a not much
better fate.
• While landfills help keep waste out of the natural world
they often emit methane, carbon dioxide, and other
greenhouse gases.
• Landfills can also leak toxic chemicals into
groundwater stores as well as into lakes and rivers. As
consumers throw out more and more of the products
they buy, more waste is created, and more landfills
need to be made.
• Examples of Consumerism
• Consumerism creates an entire culture around buying
and valuing material goods.
• However, while consumers continue to buy more in
general in a consumerist society, there are a few
industries that are particularly notorious for promoting
consumerism.
• 1. The Auto Industry
• Ever since their invention, cars have fascinated
Americans. Whether its going on a road trip to explore
the country or owning a sleek, stylish sports car, cars
are a central part of American culture, so it’s no wonder
that the automotive industry has taken advantage of
the large spike in consumerism that has been
happening in the last several decades.
• Every year every car company comes out with a new
version of every model of car it has.
• This fits the bill of how consumerism operates:
constantly making new products for consumers to buy
and replace there old ones with.
• But while most people don’t buy a new car every year,
what is striking about car production, is how excessively
harmful it is to the environment.
• Not only does driving produce a lot of carbon emissions,
but making a car uses a particularly large amount of
natural resources. Cars are made up of thousands of
parts, many of which come from materials that need to
be shipped from all over the world.
• The actual process of making the car uses massive
amounts of energy. It is estimated that when making one
car 500kg of carbon dioxide are emitted.
• The annual mass production of cars to meet consumer
demands has made cars one of the more harmful
products in a consumerist world.
• 2. The Meat Industry
• The meat industry is another example of an incredibly
popular product that has an exceptionally large impact
on the environment.
• With an increase in fast food restaurants, meat
consumption has gone up in recent years, so much so,
that livestock animals raised to be eaten now
outnumber wild animals by 15 to 1.
• By using land to accommodate one or two different
types of animals in this way, we are decreasing our
planets biodiversity and destroying habitats and
ecosystems.
• Not only does meat production require a lot of land that
forces wild life to live in smaller habitats, but meat
production is a big contributor to climate change as
well.
• Globally, agriculture produces around a fourth of all
greenhouse gas emissions, and within that fourth, meat
production specifically contributes about fourteen
percent of all greenhouse gas emissions.
• This is because livestock animals such as cows and pigs
produce methane, which is an incredibly potent
greenhouse gas.
Consumerism and Religion

• Consumerism often manifests as a lack of self-control. It’s

easier than ever before to make impulse purchases, spend
beyond our means, and buy things we don’t really need.
• The need for our self-control to curtail our excessive
consumerism is explored in the following excerpt from Eco Bible
.
• The need for human self-control is a central message of God
telling Adam and Eve not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of
good and evil.
• As the story plays out, human lack of restraint clearly leads God
to expel people from the Garden of Eden, Rabbi Arthur Waskow
teaches.
• Today, lack of moderation and excessive consumerism
are driving the widespread degradation of our planet.
We are on the verge of self-induced expulsion.
• Irresponsible consumerism is destroying our planet. To
learn from the mistake of Adam and Eve, we can reflect
before we make each purchase, instead of just buying
instinctively.
• By making each purchase mindfully and supplying our
basic needs, we can ensure that our spending habits are
sustainable for us and the planet alike.
• While people need to be consumers in order to live and
obtain our needs and wants, excess consumerism is
widely thought to be a negative for society.
Consumerism leads to negative externalities like
pollution and waste.
• By measuring 'secondary impacts’ the environmental
effects of producing the goods and products we buy
every day the researchers say consumers are
responsible for more than 60 percent of the world's
greenhouse gas emissions, and up to 80 percent of
global water use.
• Potentially harmful releases to the environment
associated with production and consumption include air
pollutant and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (see the
cross-cutting story on the co-benefits of addressing
climate change and pollution), effluent discharges to
water bodies, soils and waste, and burdens that are
less.
• The vast majority of what we consume has plastic,
whether it is required or not. Plastics contribute to the
emission of Greenhouse Gases (GHG) from the
extraction of the resources with which they will be
produced (fossil fuels), their manufacture, their
What causes consumerism?
• Consumerism emerged as a new phenomenon after the
industrial revolution.
• Businesses started large-scale productions of different
kinds of products.
• However, it soon led to overproduction that must be
consumed at any cost to avoid huge losses.
• As the supply surpassed demand, they created
manipulative advertising.
How does consumerism and
capitalism affect the environment?

• Most climate scientists have come to agree that the

cause of climate change is the increased emission of
greenhouse gases, specifically carbon dioxide, which
have increased rapidly since the Industrial Revolution
(Baer 2).
• Progressive scholars recognize the serious damage that
results from a global capitalist drive.
Examples of consumerism
• Examples that illustrate consumerism as an economic
philosophy include:
• An automobile company that decides to discontinue
certain cars because of lack of demand.
• An individual purchasing a tea set simply because of its
attractiveness, believing that possessing it will impact
their social status.
• Consumerism is related to the constant purchasing of
new goods, with little attention to their true need,
durability, product origin, or the environmental
consequences of their manufacture and disposal.
• What are the negative effects of consumption and
production?
• 4 Unsustainable consumption and production patterns
are increasing water and air pollution, land and forest
degradation, waste generation and the use of harmful
chemical substances.
Does consumption Behaviour affect environmental
quality?

• Consumption can affect the environment in many ways:

higher levels of consumption (and therefore higher
levels of production) require larger inputs of energy and
material and generate larger quantities of waste by
products.
• How can consumerism be used to benefit the
environment?
• It is a social behavior that promotes the use of eco-
friendly (or green) products.
• Green consumerism is not just about buying eco-
friendly products; it can be practicing recycling,
conserving, or using public transportation instead of
How does consumption contribute to global pollution?

• Your home and use of power, how you move around,

what you eat and how much you throw away all
contribute to greenhouse gas emissions.
• So does the consumption of goods such as clothing,
electronics, and plastics.
• A large chunk of global greenhouse gas emissions are
linked to private households.