Consumption and the Environment

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Consumption of products and services can affect the environment in a number of different ways. It’s important to realize that every product at some point in its life cycle, whether directly or indirectly, contributes to environmental issues such as climate change, pollution, and resource depletion. Not only does the production, processing, and consumption of products require extracting and using natural resources; factories need to be built and run using more of these resources. These factories in turn emit greenhouse gases and create pollution and waste which all contribute to climate change (Shah). Consumption in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing; after all, economic growth is measured by gross national product (GNP) – the total goods and services produced by a country in a given year. The problems with consumption lie in how and what resources are being consumed in the process, overconsumption, and waste. Take bottled water for instance. It requires the energy equivalent of over 17 million barrels of oil to produce the plastic bottles for 31.2 billion liters of water, the amount purchased by Americans in 2006 (Pacific Institute). Even more energy is consumed in transporting the bottled water to the consumer, cooling it in stores or at home, and in the recycling process. It takes twice the water than what is contained in each bottle to manufacture it, so one full liter of water essentially requires 3 liters of water to produce. Manufacturing one ton of plastic bottles produces around 3 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2). The process for creating the plastic bottles for water is clearly inefficient. Furthermore, it can be argued that purchasing bottled water is wasteful when you consider that you can get th... ... middle of paper ... ...tal impacts of beef: habitat conversion. (n.d.). WWF. Retrieved December 10, 2013, from http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/footprint/agriculture/beef/environmental_impacts/habitat_conversion/ greenercars.org | automobiles & the environment. (n.d.). greenercars.org | automobiles & the environment. Retrieved December 10, 2013, from http://www.greenercars.org/guide_environment.htm Pacific Institute: Research for People and the Planet. (n.d.). Pacific Institute. Retrieved December 9, 2013, from http://www.pacinst.org/publication/bottled-water-and-energy-a-fact-sheet/ Shah, A. (n.d.). Effects of Consumerism. - Global Issues. Retrieved December 7, 2013, from http://www.globalissues.org/article/238/effects-of-consumerism World Population Awareness. (n.d.). WOA!! World Ovepopulation Awareness. Retrieved December 10, 2013, from http://www.overpopulation.org/solutions.html

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