Consumerism

Earth vs. Super Bowl: High Holiday Of Waste By The Numbers

February 2, 2014 Lindsay Abrams, www.salon.com Educate! Consumerism, Environment

The 48th annual Super Bowl is making a play to be “the most environmentally friendly yet.” And for those who’ve scored tickets, this may well turn out to be the case. Over at MetLife Stadium, event organizers are planting trees to offset carbon emissions and powering generators with biofuels. They’re collecting electronic waste in New York and New Jersey to help make a “positive environmental impact” on their host cities. They’re even serving local and organic concessions. Which will then be composted. Those of us watching at home, however, are obliged to honor no such commitment to green living. On the contrary, it’s days like this — the biggest feast of excess this side of Thanksgiving — that tend to bring out the worst in us. Get three-fourths of America (that’s 181 million of us) together and in a celebratory mood, build up as much consumerist hype as you can, and yeah, we’re going to be wasteful.

Study: Cheap China-Manufactured Goods Pollute US Air

January 23, 2014 Brandon Baker, www.nationofchange.org Educate! China, Consumerism, Environment, Walmart

Aside from the extra day of smog, as much as one quarter of the sulfate pollution on the West Coast is tied to Chinese exports on some days. All the contaminants tracked in the study are key ingredients in smog and soot. As much as 36 percent of various air pollutants in China in 2006 were related to the production of goods for export, according to the report. One-fifth of that pollution was specifically tied to trade between the U.S. and China. “This is a reminder to us that a significant percentage of China’s emissions of traditional pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions are connected to the products we buy and use every day in the U.S.,” Alex L. Wang, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, told The New York Times after looking at the study.

Wake Up Call

January 21, 2014 Staff, www.gaiafoundation.org Create! Consumerism, Environment

Today we live in a time when there is little to no understanding of how the goods we consume and take for granted came into being. Without this we lack the knowledge to understand the true costs of our consumption, and the power to take action. As a result we have become disconnected from Earth - the origin of our health, wealth and all of the ‘things’ we depend on. Wake Up Call takes us on a fast-paced, animated glimpse of the true costs behind some of our most prized possessions - our electronic gadgets. Joining the dots between the stages of extraction, production, consumption and disposal, it reveals that, although our gadgets appear sleek and shiny, their appearance is misleading.

2014: The Year Of Living Consciously

December 31, 2013 Murray Dobbin, www.rabble.ca Create! Consumerism

The truth is that we are all woefully ill-equipped to deal with the multiple crises that are bearing down on us. (A friend of mine is so alarmed that during an evening of political small talk he periodically declared that we were facing “A tsunami!!” and then just went silent -- no more able to cope with the reality than the rest of us). The terrible irony our situation is that just as we all need to be what I call intentional citizens we are, unconsciously and even unwillingly, becoming less and less engaged, more and more individualistic. Just what are we to do, as individuals, when faced with crises so overwhelming that our minds reel at the thought of the varied, frightening consequences: "Oops, better not go there -- way too scary.

The Man From The North: Tis The Season To Boycott

December 1, 2013 Rivera Sun, www.dandelionsalad.wordpress.com Resist! Consumerism, Corporatism

Boycott Season is now upon us. Let every citizen take careful aim. Your target is the corporate empire. Your weapon is your wallet. For decades, corporations have defined the battlefield of shopping malls, box stores, mail order catalogues, and online sites. They have set the timeframe back each year; Halloween currently kicks off the battles. You can see the preparations: the lights rolled out, the anthems played, the trees set up like cannons. The enlistment fliers have been posted far and wide: on billboards, in newspapers and magazines. The radio sends out the call: all shoppers to the front! Every family must support the effort and do their patriotic duty. The costs are high; savings must be sacrificed. The debts pile up like soldiers’ bodies, unspeakable. But it can’t be helped – the holidays fuel our country. Like wars for oil, it’s unavoidable.

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