Reduce Consumption And The Environment

How to Reduce Consumption There is a cause and effect with our society and its role with the environment. The idea is centralized around the question of what our society does to create or worsen problems concerning the environment. For the most part of human history, we have lived as hunter-gatherers until about 200 years ago when the industrial age begun and countries began to develop machinery to extract resources at a more efficient speed and less labor-intensive, which lead to an explosive economic boost as well. While things such as water or forestry are renewable, due to human activities and the rate of extraction renewable resources may longer be an option. It is believed by many scientists that people have overshot earth 's capacity …show more content…
However, where there is a problem, there ought to be solutions. In order to limit consumption, yet still maintain economic growth, we must look at changing business policies, educating members of society about different ways to help protect the planet, and how one person can make a difference. I=PAT: the environmental impact(I) reflects a society 's population(P), its levels of affluence(A), and its level of technology. In hunter-gatherer societies, people were submissive to the environment because they did not have the means to forecast weather, or create explosives to blow up mountains for raw materials at the rate we do. Instead, they had to live and depend on the land to provide resources. One could say, people of past civilizations would be in awe if were to see the amount of production we have currently because with our means of production, we don 't have to worry as much about pests eating our crops with pesticide use nor do we have to wait for rain to collect freshwater when we can pump out …show more content…
TED Talks is an example of a platform for change where speakers will present issues to an audience, thus imparting knowledge and the power to change people’s minds. In class, we watched a video of Dan Barber and his speech on how to keep fish on restaurant menus via Ted Talks. It was both instructive and powerful in that the audience seemed very taken by what he had to say. He introduced a concept of an ecological business model that would replace what he says is a ‘business in liquidation,’ which describes today’s common agricultural methods of farming intensively and depleting natural resources. So, reverting farming industries to restore instead of deplete would help lower imported raw materials for consumption as it would be practicing a closed loop production. A potential downside would be that businesses wouldn’t be able to maximize production and profit as it does today, but long-term wise, those losses would be replaced. And that is a business model everyone should get on board