Fine you want line by line?
ruisleipa wrote:
The average American consumes more than his or her weight in products each day, fuelling a global culture of excess that is emerging as the biggest threat to the planet
Let's see. I'm an average American. So far today I have consumed two eggs, two pieces of sausage and two pancakes. I had the Wall Street Journal delivered to my doorstep. Since I weigh 280 lbs we're at perhaps 140th of my weight so far. If you want to include the hog that was slaughtered to make my sausage and the chicken that was cooped to give me my eggs and the wheat that was harvested to give me my pancakes and the coffee that was farmed to give me my coffee and the tree that was cut down to give me my newspaper etc... it still doesn't add up because they weren't killed or harvested solely for my use. Nor were any of them non-renewable resources. The rest of my day looks very similar to what my morning has entailed.
The second half of the sentence, ignoring the obvious misspelled word, is nothing more than drivel designed to incite and scare the reader.
I will put all future misspellings in bold italics as well.
Erik Assadourian, the project director who led a team of 35 behind the report, said: "Until we recognise that our environmental problems, from climate change to deforestation to species loss, are driven by unsustainable habits, we will not be able to solve the ecological crises that threaten to wash over civilisation."
Aside from the fuel that I burned driving around to get my breakfast this morning and to drop my gf off at work, none of the items that I've 'consumed' today are nonrenewable. No rain forest was chopped down because the piece of pig I consumed was more than likely from the Carolinas. The tree that was chopped down to make my newspaper came from a tree farm in the US. Also designed to incite and scare the reader.
The world's population is burning through the planet's resources at a reckless rate, the US thinktank said. In the last decade, consumption of goods and services rose 28% to $30.5tn (£18.8bn).
Oooh, lump goods and services together, good on ya. What is a service and what resources does it use to perform a service? Those pesky computer users! How dare they! How dare people use the services of a bank or a hotel or (god forbid!) an auto mechanic! Also, conveniently ignore the fact that the only non-renewable resource this planet has is fossil fuels. Minerals? Check. Forest products? Check. Animal products? Check.
The consumer culture is no longer a mostly American habit but is spreading across the planet. Over the last 50 years, excess has been adopted as a symbol of success in developing countries from Brazil to India to China, the report said.
How dare people not want to live in caves or drink a Coke. How dare they!
China this week overtook the US as the world's top car market. It is already the biggest producer of greenhouse gas emissions.
Yes, we should force the Chinese to be poor forever instead so they don't burn stuff. Never mind that they were burning wood for fuel instead of oil and that wood produces greenhouse gases as well. Oil, and oil companies are the devil.
Such trends were not a natural consequence of economic growth, the report said, but the result of deliberate efforts by businesses to win over consumers.
Morons. Economic growth and the creation of wealth is wholly tied to the amount that a population consumes. The more a population can buy, the wealthier it is. If people were limited to a few purchases a year they would be poor.
Products such as the hamburger – dismissed as an unwholesome food for the poor at the beginning of the 20th century – and bottled water are now commonplace.
Yeah, poor cows. We should all be vegans eating organic produce only instead. Completely ignore the fact that our planet can only sustain maybe half of it's current population using wholly organic means of production and that the soil is depleted quickly. And shit, bottled water is evil because it's better that people drink from the local river polluted with chemicals and animal feces. It's better for them, makes their immune system strong.
The average western family spends more on their pet than is spent by a human in Bangladesh.
Yeah? Maybe in actual dollar amount, but the cost of living is a lot cheaper in Bangladesh.
The report did note encouraging signs of a shift away from the high spend culture. It said school meals programmes marked greater efforts to encourage healthier eating habits among children. The younger generation was also more aware of their impact on the environment.
Cool. They've managed to brainwash kids in the very same way that they bash parents for taking their kids to Sunday school and religions for trying to do the same with prayer in school and they bash nationalism for having the national anthem and pledge of allegiance played before classes start. Of course, it's the parents job to teach their kid healthy eating habits and to be more environmentally aware but I'm glad they take it upon themselves to indoctrinate youth to their own beliefs.
There has to be a wholesale transformation of values and attitudes, the report said. At current rates of consumption, the world needs to erect 24 wind turbines an hour to produce enough energy to replace fossil fuel.
Sounds groovy to me. Wind turbines are inefficient, the worlds level of wealth is rising and the population is increasing. Couple the three together and this is nothing more than a throwaway statement designed to incite and anger the reader.
"We've seen some encouraging efforts to combat the world's climate crisis in the past few years," said Assadourian. "But making policy and technology changes while keeping cultures centred on consumerism and growth can only go so far.
"If we don't shift our very culture there will be new crises we have to face. Ultimately, consumerism is not going to be viable as the world population grows by 2bn and as more countries grow in economic power."
In the preface to the report, Worldwatch Institute's president, Christopher Flavin, writes: "As the world struggles to recover from the most serious global economic crisis since the Great Depression, we have an unprecedented opportunity to turn away from consumerism. In the end, the human instinct for survival must triumph over the urge to consume at any cost."
More apocalyptic drivel. I'm done with this trash.
