We are totally dependent on natural resources. Everything we have or use is made of natural resources, or raw materials and energy obtained from the environment. The clothes you're wearing, the chair you're sitting on, your house and TV and school and books, the school bus, city streets, whatever you ate for breakfast, and the package your breakfast came in are made of natural resources. Natural resources sustain human life.
Non-renewable resources include oil and gas, soil and water, and minerals like iron and aluminium. They are found in strictly limited quantities on our planet and are not replenished by natural processes (except in geological time frames of millions of years). Renewable natural resources include things like trees which can be replenished or will grow again. However, even these are available in finite quantities. Trees, for example, can only grow so fast. Sunlight and wind are the only natural resources available in essentially limitless amounts. And, although it's not the kind of "event" that makes front-page news, many scientists think that depletion of natural resources is one of the biggest problems our society will face in the twenty-first century.
Our use of natural resources affects the environment in many ways. Our use of natural resources has impacts that go far beyond simply using materials that are in limited supply. The environment is affected at every stage of the chain of extraction-processing-manufacturing-marketing-consumption-disposal.
The harvesting of raw natural resources directly impacts the environment through mining, timber cutting, construction of dams, and the like. Then the raw materials must be made into a usable form, such as metallic ores into more pure metals. This is an energy-intensive process that typically results in air and water pollution as well as unwanted or even toxic by-products. Next, to produce specific consumer products like clothes, camcorders, or skateboards, further manufacturing processes are needed. These manufacturing processes also use energy and often generate pollution. Then the final consumer products need to be transported and stored, which again involves additional inputs of energy and materials and has further environmental impacts.
Finally, the products must be packaged and marketed to us, the public. This involves still more natural resource use and more environmental impacts related to packaging materials, billboards, print ads, and so on. Packaging and advertising contribute significantly to the cost of a product and to its overall environmental impact as well. In the United States, discarded packaging materials alone account for about 35% of household trash. Print advertising in catalogues, fliers, magazines, and newspapers also contributes significantly to household trash.
When we actually purchase an end product, is the chain of impact finally complete? Not yet! If using the product we have bought requires gasoline, batteries, or electricity, the production and use of these generates more pollution.
At some point, whatever the item - be it a few ounces of packaging that holds a fast-food meal for two minutes, or a two-ton automobile that lasts for years - we throw it away. But really, there is no "away." Something must be done with the stuff we no longer want. That can cause problems. A lot of our trash is just plain dangerous. Even common household products like paint, batteries, and cleaning supplies are often toxic. Also, the sheer volume of trash we produce is a problem in itself.
In some parts of the U.S., trash is incinerated or burned. Incineration produces air pollution, and the ash left behind is toxic. In other areas, trash is buried in landfills. That has problems, too. Landfills require huge tracts of land. Pollution problems often develop around older landfills. Newer landfills are built to stricter health and environmental standards. However, both landfills and incinerator ash must be carefully monitored for hundreds of years into the future.
How much is enough? Of course, some products we buy are necessary to our health and well-being, or improve the quality of our lives. We need clothes and stoves and so on. And who would want to give up books and music and other things the enrich our lives? The question of concern is, at what level of consumption are we using up our natural resources and our environment for things that we don't need and that don't really enhance our lives?
The developed countries of the world hold 25% of the world's population, but consume 75% of all energy, 85% of all wood products, and 72% of all steel produced.
Americans consume the most of all, even more than people in other developed countries. For example, we consume about twice as much energy per person as the British, French, Swedes, Norwegians, or Japanese. Our consumption of other resources is also high. In Fact, from 1940 to 1976, Americans consumed more minerals than did all of humanity up to then. And our consumption rate for most resources is still rising.
Commercialism impacts the environment. Our consumption rate reflects the level of commercialism in our culture. Over the last few decades, advertising has gradually helped convince us to make changes in our lives. Ads surround us. They encourage us to want more and buy more, often regardless of our true needs. Commercialism stimulates artificial wants, and satisfying these wants means consuming more material goods and thus increases resource consumption and environmental impacts.
Ads suggest that we should want things that are newer, faster, fancier, more fashionable, a different colour, larger or smaller, just like what everyone else has or different from what everyone else has. This perceived obsolescence is used to stimulate us to buy more. The classic example of perceived obsolescence is fashions in clothing. The same approach is used when makers of computers, stereos, cars, an other products tempt us with new products even though the older versions serve our needs well. A related approach, planned obsolescence is used by makers of other products. For example, some toys, equipment, calculators, small appliances, and other items are built to last only a short while. When broken, these items are not able to be repaired but must be replaced. Finally, purveyors of fast food and prepared foods tell us that life will be easier and more fun if we eat their highly processed and packaged foods.
A healthy environment and a supply of natural resources are basic to our well-being. The basic premise of almost all ads is that we will be happier if we have this, too. Companies with products for sale would like us to believe that, since their profits increase when we buy their products. Yet our well being and happiness are not necessarily dependent on having more and more and more material goods. Our long-term health, happiness, and well-being are dependent on a healthy environment, as well as on our relationships with family and friends.
Does commercialism foster a culture of waste - a culture in which we are encouraged to make choices that are fundamentally at odds with our need to conserve natural resources and care for the environment? It seems that the typical American lifestyle involves always wanting more. When we live in highly consumptive lifestyle, we use more resources and create more pollution. Many environmental problems are tied to our rate of consumption of material goods and thus of natural resources. The most basic method of caring for our environment is to conserve natural resources and use them wisely.
© Center for the Study of Commercialism, Washington, D.C.
