Consumerism In America

The way Americans treat our planet has changed dramatically over the years. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, our impact on the planet has been mostly negative. The United States in particular has not been treating our planet well. Environmentally speaking, The United States is not doing a very good job compared to other countries because of the way we treat our environment, our high rate of consumerism and that fact that our basic moral and social values differ from other places around the world. The United States does not look good from an environmental standpoint compared to other countries. If every other country consumed at the rate the United States does, we would need three to five planets. That’s a lot of garbage and “stuff” to place on other planets. Another fact is that in just the past thirty years we have used up 30% of the planets natural resources. This is a mind-boggling statistic and very hard to imagine. In sixty years time, if we don’t change the rate at which we consume and the way in which we consume, the earth will have very few natural resources left for us to take. Our high rate of consumerism is a major part of this problem. The rate at which we consume has changed over the years. Today, an average person consumes twice as much as …show more content…
We have different morals and values and just a different way of living life. On average, most Americans spend three to four times more hours shopping than our European counterparts. This is important because it shows how much more we consume and how much more we value consuming than everyone else. This also proves that we could definitely make a difference if we consumed less. Another fact is that the average house size in America has doubled since the 1970’s. This shows that although people once lived fine with less space, Americans now want larger homes with more space to put all the stuff they