You might be surprised to find yourself in the company of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos in the world’s richest 1%. This has big implications for planetary survival.
According to new research, the demand for products with cultural connotations can result from an appreciation of the culture in question, a desire for discovery… and its simple omnipresence.
‘Nostalgic consumption’ has been on the rise throughout lockdown bringing us the comfort and certainty of better times. But can we use it to build a more sustainable future?
It is easy for people in the industrialised world to blame population growth elsewhere for environmental damage. But increased consumption is just as important – if more confronting.
We are addicted to consumption during these holidays, which leads to a massive amount of landfill waste. Giant retailers like Walmart could help the problem, but they haven’t.
Many businesses are capitalising on the rise in experience-seeking with new and expensive ways to make memories – and many of them are just as damaging for the planet as products.
July 29, 2019 is ‘Earth Overshoot Day,’ a date coined by the nonprofit Global Footprint Network to publicize overuse of Earth’s resources. But their estimates may actually understate the problem.
Lisa Oberlander, Paris School of Economics – École d'économie de Paris and Ximena Játiva, University of Fribourg
New research indicates that rising temperatures can push those who prefer sweets to drink more sugary beverages, not water. This has significant implications for public-health policy.
Peter Newton, Swinburne University of Technology; Christina Ting, Swinburne University of Technology, and Wendy Stone, Swinburne University of Technology
Australian cities are world-leading – in the worst sense – for resource use and greenhouse emissions. China-born residents have embraced these consumption patterns, which is bad news for the planet.
Despite the myth of consumption as an ethereal, wasting disease, the more prosaic truth is that the Brontës likely infected one another with tuberculosis.
Matthew Flinders Professor of Global Ecology and Models Theme Leader for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Flinders University