Overconsumption: the elephant in the room for environmental protection

Global warming and other environmental issues are debated and discussed passionately on various regional, national, and international forums. Environmental protection has become a buzzword for many political establishments and every government is pledging some audacious milestones that they claim will help our efforts to protect the environment. However, no one or very few are talking about one of the major problems that contribute to all our environment-related problems, the elephant in the room, "overconsumption." I understand why people don't want to discuss overconsumption. This is because the discussion about overconsumption will expose almost everyone involved in the conversation. Every country, its leaders, and all celebrities talk about environmental protection all the time but do nothing to minimize their consumption habits in their private lives.  

How does it make sense when a person living in a mansion, having multiple homes, traveling in a private jet or a full-size plane, having an oversized wardrobe and other consumables, and living an exuberant life advise common people to scale down their consumption habits. These leaders and celebrities advise us to cut our fuel consumption, shift to electric vehicles and use solar for our electricity, recycle everything, and reduce our carbon footprint. How many people will believe that such a person is serious or sincere about environmental protection when they contribute heavily to destroying it? Will anyone take seriously this message? Look at all presidents and prime ministers, or other heads of state, see how they live and travel, calculate their carbon footprint, and compare that with common people from those countries to see who is causing the actual environmental damage. Preaching others is easy, but practicing what you preach is where the real test begins. Personally, I try my best to limit my consumption of fuel and other consumables, but I am not a minimalist, and I know that my efforts have negligible impact on the overall environmental issues but I try my best anyway because that's all I can do.

Overconsumption is a problem at every level. No recycling company or manufacturer or business is going to tell us to consume less. They are only going to tell us what to do after we consume so that their business interests remain sound and we feel less guilty. Recycling single-use plastic doesn't help as much compared to reusing it multiple times before dumping it in a recycle bin. Using solar energy or electric vehicles doesn't help as much as reducing our energy consumption or driving so that we use less fuel no matter what's the source. If these heads of state are really serious about environmental protection they should lead by example before preaching to their countrypeople. Consuming an astronomical amount of energy and resources under the name of security or a privileged position is not an excuse. And if you are doing that, then at least stop preaching to others, it sounds ridiculous and hypocritical. To all others, who really care about the environment and want to do something about it, please check your consumption habits and make necessary changes. Each individual can make a difference. It is easy to preach, but what we do is what really matters. Let's be doers and not hypocritical preachers. 

Thank you for reading and please share your views on this topic. 

©Vinay Thakur,  Vinay can be reached at thevinay2022@gmail.com  

Climate change - a real problem or false propaganda?

Recently I attended a talk at a local ACS (American Chemical Society) section meeting about Global warming. The talk was not the usual one where they tell you about the harmful effects of global warming and climate change. Rather, this talk was about how this whole theory of global warming and climate change is flawed and how this is overhyped by some groups of scientists and organizations (including the UN) to misguide people. It was an interesting talk and it was more interesting to attend it in the local ACS section because as far as I know officially the ACS supports the hypothesis of global warming and comments about its harmful effects in all its editorials and publications. It was interesting to see that they invited a speaker who not only questioned this entire theory but also called it a total hoax. Actually, this is the true spirit of science. Every view should be welcomed, and every voice should be heard, doesn't matter which theory they propose or oppose, they just need to show the relevant data to prove their hypothesis, and the scientific community can debate about it. It really doesn't matter whose theory or hypothesis is being challenged, the name or the status or age of the scientist shouldn't matter only the data should matter.

Climate change is a very popular subject nowadays for debates and discussions. I guess it has become as controversial and sensitive as religion or the existence of god, people argue very passionately for or against this issue. Climate change covers many aspects related to the effect of human actions on the climate of our planet. Global warming is just a part of it, no doubt it has received the most attention, and this is why it is widely debated and questioned. People who try to object to climate change mainly target the issue of global warming. They claim that data presented in support of global warming is wrong or unreliable and that global warming is a completely natural phenomenon that we don't have to worry about. By questioning data for global warming its opponents try to question the phenomena of climate change. Many try to claim that both climate change and global warming are not real issues or problems but false propaganda by some elite group of scientists. Both sides who support or oppose global warming produce lots of data to support their claims and both claim that their data is reliable and the other side's data is incorrect.  

All these issues can be debated and discussed, actually, debates and discussions are the best way to solve such disputes. But I don't think there can be any dispute about the impact of human behavior on our climate. We can clearly see it and even feel it in many places. We are producing enormous amounts of waste by our uncontrolled consumerism, and this waste is bound to have some effect on our environment. We can clearly see the effects of deforestation, water, and air pollution, and poor management of waste in many parts of the world. This has also created many health problems for people. High levels of water and air pollution, and health hazards associated with them are clearly because of human behavior. Climate change doesn't mean only global warming, it means the effect of our actions on the general health of this planet. Continuous abuse of the earth and its resources under the name of development is having an impact on its health. We can definitely debate or discuss the severity of climate change and the steps required to tackle this problem but I think it would be very wrong to assume that human behavior is not having any detrimental effect on the climate of this planet. I hope supporters and opponents of climate change engage in some meaningful discussion, just playing a blame game is not going to help anyone. After all, we are talking about the entire planet here, the only place in our galaxy where we know that life exists. Let's get serious about this issue and try our best to keep our planet in good shape, this will be the greatest gift we can give to our future generations.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]