Overconsumption
Overconsumption refers to the excessive use of resources, goods, and services, leading to detrimental environmental, social, and psychological effects. It encompasses the overexploitation of natural resources like water, timber, and fossil fuels, as well as the consumption of commodities such as electronic devices and vehicles. Particularly in developed nations, overconsumption manifests through disproportionate purchasing behaviors, where households often acquire multiple luxury items, resulting in significant ecological footprints. This behavior raises concerns about justice, as it negatively impacts developing countries that face resource depletion and environmental degradation. Historically, overconsumption has roots in human behavior dating back to Paleolithic times, but it has intensified in recent centuries due to industrialization and aggressive marketing strategies. Psychological effects can include compulsive buying and social isolation, often exacerbated by advertising that manipulates consumer desires. Efforts to address overconsumption involve educational initiatives that promote awareness of environmental impacts and encourage sustainable consumption practices, alongside potential political and legal reforms aimed at fostering ecological balance.
Subject Terms
Overconsumption
Definition: Excessive and unsustainable utilization of resources, goods, and services
Human life is impossible to sustain without consumption, but overconsumption often causes multiple external effects (such as air, water, and soil pollution) that have negative impacts on the health of ecosystems and organisms, including those of humans. Depending on the circumstances (culture, geography, social milieu, income, education, and so on), individuals and groups overconsume different kinds of things.
It is useful to distinguish among the reasons for and the agents, objects, and effects of overconsumption. Among the things that are overconsumed in certain parts of the world are natural resources (such as water and timber), energy (such as electricity), and commodities (such as electronic devices and automobiles); services and information may also be overconsumed. Overconsumption of different types can have various environmental effects. The overfishing and overhunting of animals can lead to the extinction of species and thus to the reduction of biodiversity; an example is the extinction of the Caribbean monk seal in the twentieth century as a result of overhunting. The intensive and extensive global usage of gasoline as fuel for combustion engines results in high levels of carbon dioxide emissions, which have been shown to contribute to global warming. Another example of the unsustainable—and intergenerationally unjust—utilization of nonrenewable resources is the consumption of scarce chemical elements such as lithium, tantalum, indium, and hafnium, which are used for semiconductors and liquid crystal displays (LCDs) in televisions, computers, and mobile phones.
Reasons for Overconsumption
The developed world’s overconsumption often takes the form of the excessive purchasing of consumer goods in affluent social milieus, such as purchasing multiple televisions or vehicles per household. In 2022, UNICEF noted that if every individual in the world mirrored the consumption habits of Canada, Luxembourg, and the United States, the equivalent of five Earths would be needed to maintain supply. This overconsumption by wealthy nations has a disproportionate, negative impact on developing nations, where overconsumption is more often related to excessive or unsustainable exploitation of raw materials coupled with overpopulation and poverty. These overconsumption behaviors are evident in theclear-cutting of trees for charcoal or timber export. Such problems raise questions concerning justice or equity within one generation (intragenerational justice) and between generations (intergenerational justice).
Overconsumption is not a modern phenomenon—since Paleolithic times, humans have destroyed their environment through excessive utilization of resources and then moved to unspoiled areas. The rate of consumption was intensified and accelerated to a globally unsustainable level by a combination of factors, including the dawn of modern science and technology, the growth of industrialization, the advancement of worldviews and ethics that endorse despiritualization, and the advent of a paradigm of productivity, economic growth, and capitalism. Since the early twentieth century the fields of marketing and advertising have not only intensified but also accelerated the rate of consumption even further by utilizing psychological, sociological, and cultural strategies. Such strategies play on people’s unfulfilled personal desires and attach symbolic values (meta-goods) to commodities to lure potential customers to consume beyond their actual needs.
Attempts to Reduce Overconsumption
In addition to causing environmental problems, overconsumption can have significant psychological effects, such as oniomania (compulsive buying disorder), and social side effects, such as social isolation related to excessive usage of electronic media. Environmentalists, educators, and psychotherapists have expressed concerns about marketing strategists’ ulterior motives and the hidden agendas of advertisement campaigns. Advertisements can trigger and foster overconsumption by intensifying—or even creating—desires.
Approaches to reducing overconsumption include education about the environmental impacts of consumption habits (for example, through the calculation of ecological footprints, or how much demand exceeds the regenerative capacity of a resource or the biosphere’s supply). Other educational strategies focus on analyzing the psychology at work in advertising campaigns and on making consumers aware of social factors that stimulate overconsumption, such as peer pressure, symbolic consumption, and conspicuous consumption. Ecological economists—who locate the economic sector within the world and its ecology—design and suggest political strategies and legal mechanisms that attempt to form development in the sectors of economy, society, and ecology in a sustainable fashion. Campaigns against overconsumption can also take more radical forms that include acts of ecotage (or monkeywrenching) or ecoterrorism. Additionally, many experts said that the COVID-19 pandemic of the early 2020s may have influenced a change in attitude for many individuals concerning overconsumption.
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