Consumerism and the 21st Century

Abstract

Although people, even nations, worldwide in the 21st century want more material possessions, the United States is pivotal because (1) although it has only 4% of the world s population, it consumes approximately 25% of the world s resources, (2) a huge number of humans wish to emulate the materialistic lifestyle of Americans, (3) since the global ecological overshoot in the 21st century is at least 20%, even the present rate of resource consumption is unsustainable, (4) as the resources per capita diminish, the probability of resource wars increases, (5) the income gap between the very rich and the very poor has increased dramatically the probability of social disorder, even anarchy, and (6) in its quest for material possessions, humankind is reducing both the space and resources needed by the 30+ million life forms that constitute the planet s biospheric life support system.