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Overpopulation and Overconsumption (Second Draft)
Humans are now facing serious environmental disaster. There should be two major causes: overpopulation in developing countries, which is well known by most people, and overconsumption in industrialized nations, which is usually hidden behind this great debate and for which there is a lack of awareness. It is believed that the impact of overpopulation and overconsumption are interactive. However, overconsumption should rather be the major cause of environmental disaster, because it is destroying sustainability by depleting more resources, releasing greater amount of pollutions, and has set a high living standard for the Third World to follow. Thus, overconsumption should be controlled immediately in order to ensure that our environment is sustainable for future generations.
Overconsumption is more responsible for resource exhaustion. Even though some people argue that China, which has the largest population, has become the world’s leading consumer (Brown, 2005), the fact is that globally, developed nations with only twenty percent of world’s population, consume eighty-six percent of total goods and services (UNFPA, 1999). It is also illustrated that the US and Europe spend 17 billion dollars on pet food annually (UN, cited by UNFPA, 1999), while billions of people in developing countries are still struggling for basic survival. Moreover, the impact of overconsumption becomes more significant when a “per capita” figure is introduced to evaluate the consumption level. ‘Energy Consumption: Total energy consumption per capita (2003)’ shows that this figure in the industrialized world is well beyond that in developing nations (4623.1 to 910.1). It is clear that overconsumption is degrading our natural resources dramatically. Thus, every individual should be responsible for this problem (Vlais) and carry out solutions before our resources are depleted.
Overconsumption is also destroying environment and damaging sustainability. Comparing with the majority of the world, most of which are still consuming at a basic level, the minority with high consumption standards have led to serious environmental problems. UNFPA (1999) has pointed out that the developed world with twenty percent of population contributes to three fourth of total pollution and waste. Other research has also showed that Australia, which only consists twenty million people, is maintaining a high living standard, while at the same time releasing the highest carbon emissions and producing world’s second highest wastes per capita (Bradley). Those greenhouse gases and wastes have severely destroyed the environment and sustainability. Furthermore, developed nations, whose economy and global status are stronger, purchase a great amount of raw sources from the Third World (Fuller). In this case, developing countries would require more agriculture land to supply those overconsumption nations, thus the deforestation rate might increase sharply, and the environment would be seriously damaged. In addiction, developing nations may also spend more foreign exchange on resource purchase (Fuller), which as a result aggravates global hunger and poverty. It is obvious that overconsumption can lead to severe environmental disaster and create more problems for sustainability.
Moreover, overconsumption may also have several indirect negative effects, which are usually ignored but may be more dangerous. One of the most significant indirect impacts is that a high consumption level has been established for developing nations to follow. For example, global advertising for consumption has doubled during 1990 and 1999, from 257 billion to 435 billion US dollars (UNFPA, 1999). Thus, the concept of overconsumption is globally transmitted throughout media. It has been pointed out that youngsters in India are more eager to purchase goods and services, even though some of which are not necessary (UN). Another example predicted by Brown (2005) is that if China had reach the consumption level of the current USA, then in 2031, this giant consumer would deplete most of the world’s resources and cause serious environmental disaster. It is evident that these indirect impacts may also be dangerous. Thus, there should be a clear awareness about this problem.
It is fortunate that great effort has been made to prevent environmental disaster and maintain sustainability. The best solution should be consumption control, which would have positive effects immediately without significant negative effects. Thus, to solve imminent environmental problems and ensure sustainability, there should first be a raise of the awareness of the impact of overconsumption, and more future research should be carried out to study this problem. The second step, which would be more important, is to build up an ethical consumption level to maintain sustainability and benefit our future generations.
Reference List
Energy and Resources-Energy Consumption: Total energy consumption per capita. (2003).
Bradley, A. ‘Towards 2050-Australia’s Uncertain Future Population, Consumption and the Natural World’.
Found at: http://journalism.uts.edu.au/subjects/oj1/oj1_a2002/towardsandrewbradley/base.html
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). (2000). ‘Population and consumption trends’. Atlas. Author unknown.
Found at: http://atlas.aaas.org/pdf/12-20pdf
UNFPA. (1999). ‘Consumption & Resources’. Author unknown.
Fuller, B. ‘Ethical Issues in Resource Use-Impacts on the Poor.’
UNFPA. (2004). ‘state of world population 2004: The Cairo Consensus at Ten: Population, Reproductive Health and the Global Effort to End Poverty’. Author unknown.
Mata, F. J., Onisto, L. J., Vallentyne, J. R. (2001). ‘Consumption: The Other Side of Population’. International Conference on Population and Development.
Vlais, R. ‘Overconsumption: Everyone’s problem’. Living Ethically and Sustainably (website).
Found at: http://www.leas.green.net.au/overconsumption.htm
Accessed 09/05/2007
Kates, R. W. (2000). ‘Population and Consumption What We Know, What We Need to Know’. Environment. 10, 12-19.
‘Human Population: Fundamentals of Growth - Population Growth and Distribution’. Population Reference Bureau. (2004). Author unknown.
Brown, L. (2005). ‘China becoming world’s leading consumer’. Earth Policy Institute. Cited by People & the Planet. 2000-2005.
Brown, L. (2005). ‘The stark lesson China teaches’. People & the Planet. 2000-2005. |
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