Overconsumption is costing us the earth and human happiness

[kpete]

Overconsumption is costing us the earth and human happiness

Story of Stuff creator Annie Leonard's new book examines the high price of the western world's obession with all things material

.....

"It turns out our stuff isn't making us any happier," she argues. Our obsessive relationship with material things is actually jeopardising our relationships, "Which are proven over and over to be the biggest determining factor in our happiness once our basic needs are met."

Leonard calls upon wider research to argue the sociological and psychological consequences of our all-consuming epidemic, including that of Tim Kasser and Robert Putman. Kasser identified a connection between an excessively materialistic outlook and increased levels of anxiety and depression, while Putman argues we're paying the ultimate price for our consumeristic tendencies with the loss of friendships, neighbourly support and robust communities. Together they suggest we are witnessing nothing short of the collapse of social fabric across society.

Part of the problem, according to Leonard, is our confused sense of self. We've allowed our citizen self to be dwarfed by a relatively new reflex action – consume, consume, consume. "Our consumer self is so overdeveloped that we spend most of our time there. You see it walking around – we usually interact with others from our consumer self and are most spoken to as our consumer self. The problem is that we are so comfortable there that when we're faced with really big problems like climate change, we think about what to do as individuals and consumers: 'I should buy this instead of this.'

more:
GREAT audio:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/21/overconsumption-environment-relationships-annie-leonard

[Oregone]

1. Invisible hand of capitalism will help us live in space magically before we kill earth

I read it here. Hope you like Tang

[handmade34]

2. Rev. Billy

is one of my favorite people working this issue

http://www.revbilly.com/