Reply #1: Not meaning to be a smartass or insulting, but this is one of those "Well, d'uh" articles

[MadHound]

Of course we're chewing through the planet at an unsustainable rate. Hell, our entire economy, along with those of many other countries, is based on consumption. You can't grow your economy unless everybody goes out and buys, buys, buys like good little lemmings. And what we're suffering from now is the hangover after that huge binge.

It's truly sad what we've become. Most products seem to be made with a built in expiration date, be it electronics, cars, or clothes. Then we've got an entire industry devoted to getting the American public to buy more. A nine hundred square foot house is no longer good enough for a young couple starting out, now they need a 2900 square foot house. No longer is a 33 inch TV good enough, but now you need 72 inches. No longer is having a stereo system enough, now you need an "entertainment center", with all the big bucks that implies. On and on it goes.

Meanwhile, in a sad sign of the times, you can hardly find any sort of repairmen anymore. Your blender die, gee, thirty years ago you go in and for a small sum you would get it fixed. Now the repair bill (and most of the cost is in parts) is almost, if not greater than the cost of a new item, so most people simply chuck their barely used stuff and buy more new stuff.

Most stuff these days seems to have built in obsolescence. Electronics tend to die within ten years, small appliances about the same. Gone are the days when your vacuum cleaner lasts for forty years, your radio last for fifty, your car last for twenty years or more. Instead, you are expected to replace these sorts of items every ten years or so, after all, gotta keep that economy going.

And frankly, you can't work on your own stuff any more. This started happening to cars about twenty years ago. The engine is arranged that you can't even change your own oil anymore because you can't even get to the oil filter anymore.

This is what happens when you base your economy on consumption. We've absolutely got to get away from this consumption based economy. First of all, as we see right now, it isn't healthy for our country and our society, and as this article points out, it isn't healthy for the planet