ATS1309 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Extinction, Political Ecology, Consumerism
Document Summary
Lecture 8: mass consumption and waste: malthusianism. Population growth will ultimately outstrip resources future doomed to scarcity: species extinction caused by human race, waste no way to cope with, cornucopia. May help recovery of fish stocks: waste spectacular decline in waste when government/firms/institutions work methodically together, political ecology. Consumption and consumerism: consumption: use of matter, things and space for human-oriented ends. Production is the economic process of making goods and services and consumption is the utilisation of those goods and services. In a capitalist economy and social organisation, we think of consumption in exchange terms". Consumption required commodities to be produced for our use. Driven by cultural change and by economics e. g. credit, shorter product lifecycles, marketing, rising disposable incomes: consumerism: a cultural orientation that perceives that meaning and purpose can be derived from the things that one consumes. Trends in global consumption: mass increase over time in the spending on goods and services.
