Consumerism: A threat to mankind

Today, we witness three classes of human society in the world, and these are: developed, developing and poor nations. Every human being is equal while taking birth in this planet. Nature has never made any distinction between man and man. Man is supposed to be the highest level of nature’s gift. He has highest intellectual powers and a rational mind to analyze the surroundings.

Developed nations are in deep troubles due to their ‘don’t care for others’ attitude. Many are presently facing a threat to their lavish and vainglorious living styles. They have been blaming developing and poor countries for this kind of situation for many years. They feel that poor as well as developing countries have been responsible for the present crisis. More particularly the Americans feel that their “American Dream” is getting in serious problem. In 1995, there was some discussion on the theme of American Dream. It was expressed there: “We are fully aware that due to our excessive consumption and wasteful practices many in the world are facing difficulties. May be due to this, the social balance in many countries will be in seriously affected. Our propaganda media are constantly and fully occupied to spread the culture of consumerism. The US is now attempting the lowest level of industrial democracy”.

Many young people are attracted to migrate to developed nation and more particularly to the US for ‘enjoying’ the life style of luxury, individualist approach, wasteful practices and ‘don’t care attitude towards others’. It is like a haven for all these migrants. This is the dream of life of young people across the globe. They want to migrate to these countries at any cost. This has become the culture of these so-called developed (sic) countries. They migrate leaving behind their parents who had educated them and given cultural lessons from the childhood. This does not matter for them.

Today, we witness three classes of human society in the world, and these are: developed, developing and poor nations. Every human being is equal while taking birth in this planet. Nature has never made any distinction between man and man. Man is supposed to be the highest level of nature’s gift. He has highest intellectual powers and a rational mind to analyze the surroundings. It is therefore expected that he will follow the nature’s laws. But the selfish mind keeps him away from these noble thoughts. He becomes greedy to ‘enjoy’ the life. Due to this, the human society is presently facing not only a situation of its survival but also of the survival of the planet itself. The speed at which the depletion of natural energy resources taking place, it is expected to have no stock of such resources after a few decades. This had worried many scientists around the world during the last five decades.

In around 1970s, a ‘think tank’ of scientists and experts from concerned fields was formed to take stock of natural energy resources and the rate of consumption by a growing population. This was later called “The Club of Rome” since it started from the city of Rome. They collected vast data of five basic elements and their trends to assess of the life of such materials. These were: population growth, industrialisation, food production, pollution, and consumption of non-renewable natural resources. The data available from world’s major consumption-centres were simulated by using the high-powered computer equipment then available with MIT institute of the USA. The details of this model were presented in a book, The Limit To Growth published in 1972. This books was made available in 37 world’s major languages, and copies sold so far exceed twelve millions. It shows very clearly the importance of its contents. What were the major findings of the study?

1. If the trend of material consumption then seen were to continue at the same pace, the limit of growth of this planet will be reached sometime within the next one hundred years, i.e. roughly around the year 2070.

2. If material consumption and other growth elements are arrested, the resources might last only for some more time.

The amount of their increases each year follows a pattern that mathematicians call exponential growth. Let us be clear at this point that such high consumption of natural resources was mostly restricted to America, USSR, Japan, and some European countries. China and India have later joined the club of these high-consumption-growth countries from around 1980-90. Their present level of consumption is now getting close to that of developed countries. China’s population has grown from 850 million in 1970 to 1.25 billion in 2000. It is still rising. China’s oil consumption will grow six fold in next thirty years. Had their present data been considered at the time of simulation, the span of resource availability would have been less than one hundred years, say 60-70 years. In other words, the end of non-renewable natural resources could take place within the next 30-40 years (2040?). This estimated period of one hundred years was based on the estimated levels of natural resources as available in 1900. The estimated stock levels were doubled just to be on safe side in estimating the stocks.

This study was followed up after a gap of thirty years and these scientists had unequivocally endorsed the first findings. The scientists’ original research work was criticised by many. Ironically, the conservative but influential British financial weekly, The Economist, which remains a critic of The Limits To Growth, produced a supplement on ‘Development and Environment, on March 21, 1998, which presented the data on the extent of environmental destruction in the Third World. It warned the developed countries by saying, “If they fail, they will be risking not just the health of their citizens but also possibly the health of capitalism too. The people might start to assume, wrongly, that capitalism and foul leaving conditions are natural bed fellows”. No body from the developed nations had shown any concern to this warning. The President of the USA had refused to sign the Kyoto declaration on environment safety. This shows only their arrogance. Australia’s last elections were fought on the issue of environment’s safety alone, which was ignored by the earlier government. The new leader, who took the charge of the country’s affairs last year, signed the Kyoto declaration immediately after assuming the power. Arrogance of the US government in this respect still continues. New president of the US is still not fully committing himself to stop excessive damage to the natural energy resources. He is making some vague statements in this regard.

The industrial activities release pollution at such a rate that the environmental pollution absorption mechanisms become saturated. Its speed is much faster than the nature’s recreation cycles. Industrial activities if continued at the present rate, a large quantity of natural resources is expected to deplete without giving any fore warning to human beings. Investments cannot keep up with depreciation in energy-proving resources. It will result in collapse of industrial activities permanently. With this collapse the agricultural and services activities like hospitals, computers, chemicals and fertilizers etc, too collapse as these are by now made dependent on the industrial growth. This is quite serious since the population would suffer immensely. One of the authors of the above referred book states very categorically, “We have tried in every doubtful case to make the most optimistic estimate of unknown quantities, and we have also ignored discontinuous events such as wars or epidemics, which might act to bring an end to growth even sooner than our model would indicate.” Due to all these factors, pollution is rising very rapidly, causing an immediate increase in the death rate and steady decline in food production.

Due to immense pressure from the West, many Asian and African countries are falling into an irreversible trap laid by the West in the name of ‘development’. They have developed an inferiority complex if others do not call them a developed nation. India is one such country. We are blindly following the most dangerous economic model of the West. The word ‘sustainable development’ was coined a few decades ago because till then it was found that their economic model was certainly ‘unsustainable’. When the things are going out of control and the future danger to mankind is clearly visible, the West has now started talking about sustainable development.

The scientists did not just call for a reduced level of consumption of resources. They said that humankind needs to re-evaluate its exploitative attitude towards humans and the Earth itself. Today the world’s richest 20 per cent of the population consume about 86 per cent of goods and services, over half its energy and over half of fish and meat. It is doubtful whether these rich people are willing to take the warning seriously. ‘Enjoy today, will worry tomorrow’ is the attitude of the rich people and their nations. The model designed on such mindset of the “developed” people is being replicated by the Congress-led UPA government.

Signs on climate condition are clear:

• Sea level has risen 19-20 cm since 1900.

• Polar glaciers are retreating at much fast speed unexpected earlier.

• First Global assessment of soil loss based on many experts’ studies found that 38 per cent or nearly 1.4 billion acres of currently used agricultural land, has been degraded.

• We are releasing wastes and pollutants at much faster rate than the Earth can absorb them or render them harmless.

• Since Green Revolution had started in 1960s, agriculture activities have been consuming more fossil-based fertilizers and pesticides. When one adds in the oil used for processing and packaging foods and refrigerating and shipping them long distances, the activity accounts for almost twenty per cent green gas emissions.

• IPCC report says that snow on mountains, polar areas could ultimately be reduced by 60-70 per cent in a matter of a decade. This will create huge problems of water availability, crop production etc. Supreme Court of India has very recently given an ultimatum to government to vacate seats if it cannot solve the water problems of India.

• BBC News of April 21, 2009 reports, “From the Yellow River in Northern China to the Ganges in India to the Colorado river in the US, the US scientists say, that the major sources of fresh water for much of the world’s population are in decline”.

• Pollution is not an accident, and it is also not a market-failure. It is the way the consumerism system works.

James Gustave Speth, an environmentalist and Dean of Yale University has put the entire blame for this dangerous condition for the mankind’s future on capitalism itself. Capitalism has been too destructive and taken the human beings so far down the road to catastrophe and one of the first tasks facing any sincere government will be to apply immediate brakes to consumerism. John Miller of Press Action says, “Capitalism, the systemisation of greed, selfishness, subjugation, and exploitation camouflaged by the narcotic of consumerism, the irresistible illusion of equal opportunity for all, and its ostensible compatibility with liberal democracy, has seduced hundreds of millions of people into ignoring its contradictions, injustices, and malevolence. Consumerism has inflicted deep wounds upon the Earth and is the persistent infection that must be eradicated to avert the sixth mass extinction, the ongoing torture and murder of billions of non-human animals, an acceleration of climate change, further economic collapse, mass starvation, severe shortage of potable water, perpetual resource wars, and a host of other catastrophic events”.

The consumerism-oriented West has provided US $ 4,100 billions, still counting, to save the share market (Casino centres) during the last one year, but has spared only thirteen billions US Dollars for saving the ecological balance. This only shows their carefree lifestyle at the cost of large population of the world.

Time to Reverse the Process
It is absolutely essential to save not only the human beings but also the planet itself from total extinction; we have no choice but to look at our Hindu living styles and cultural values. These provide appropriate ecological balance for all the species including the human beings. Vedic books advise us aparigraha, i.e. moderate consumption of materials provided by the nature to mankind. No other religion and ‘ism’ teaches this kind of balanced living. The mother Earth is not treated by Hindus as provider of raw materials for human consumption. But we treat it as not less than a God. It is time for nationalist political parties to develop an economic model based on Hindu way of living and its culture. Such radical action would only help us to overcome the present catastrophic conditions created by capitalism and put the entire mankind at the point of vanishing permanently.