{"id":8340,"date":"2020-02-24T16:39:09","date_gmt":"2020-02-24T21:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/?p=8340"},"modified":"2020-06-19T16:01:58","modified_gmt":"2020-06-19T20:01:58","slug":"our-love-affair-with-capitalism-is-killing-the-planet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/our-love-affair-with-capitalism-is-killing-the-planet\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Love Affair With Capitalism Is Killing The Planet"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

To Nancy Mezey, the root cause of climate\nchange is abundantly clear: global capitalism\u2019s demand for production and\nconsumption. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe love <\/em>to\nlove capitalism,\u201d says Mezey, a professor of sociology and dean of the Honors\nSchool. \u201cThe bottom line for capitalism is to increase the profitability of\ncorporations … and the very growth that corporations rely on causes the\ndegradation of this Earth.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In today\u2019s\npost-industrial consumer economy, a corporation\u2019s major focus is to produce as\nmuch as possible in hopes that consumers buy as much as possible, says Mezey.\nAnd thanks to advances in technology and companies like Amazon, consuming has\nnever been easier. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou could have\npurchased a car or purchased all of your groceries in just the five minutes\nyou\u2019ve been reading this,\u201d says Mezey. \u201cWe make it so easy to consume, and not\nonly do we make it so easy to consume, but we love to consume.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why? Because the act of consuming makes us feel good, says Mezey. But the never-ending cycle of overconsumption and overproduction comes with a hefty price tag: an ever-growing carbon footprint. Transportation is currently the largest contributor of anthropogenic (human-caused) greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, with energy use listed as a close second; both are due to the burning of fossil fuels. The agricultural sector is another major offender, with farms contributing 9% of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What makes\nthese figures worse, says Mezey, is that we continue to exasperate existing\nproblems across sectors because of our obsession with consumption. We cut trees\nthat absorb carbon to either build roads with heat-absorbing black asphalt (so\nAmazon can deliver our products) or to clear space for cultivating crops and\nlivestock for food. Raising animals in and of itself requires enormous amounts\nof water, crops, and land, and as Mezey points out, livestock and food waste\ncontribute large amounts of methane, which is 85 times more potent than carbon\ndioxide, and nitrous oxide, which is almost 300 times more potent than carbon\ndioxide, throughout the duration of their life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot only are we using a lot of land and natural resources, but we also create a lot of waste because everything that we consume comes with throwaway products\u2014it comes with a straw, it comes with a single-use bag, it comes with plastic and Styrofoam,\u201d says Mezey. \u201cWe supersize everything and can\u2019t possibly eat it all … so, we throw it out, and just by throwing out our food, it creates an enormous carbon footprint.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there is hope, says Mezey. Individuals, companies, and even some communities are slowly making efforts to change. New York City, for example, is attempting to adopt a circular economy, a widescale effort that aims to have no additional energy and production going into the economy, as well as no more waste going out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But\nwhile that\u2019s a step in the right direction, Mezey points out that the biggest\nchange that needs to happen is a cultural one. Individuals must recognize the\nproblems that exist with regard to Americans\u2019 overconsumption in order to affect\nchange across the larger political and economic systems. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cScientists tell us climate change is happening. We know that we have the technology to reduce our carbon footprint. We just have to convince people,\u201d says Mezey. \u201cTo ignore people\u2019s hearts and minds is really a dangerous thing, and I think that\u2019s really where we\u2019re at right now. We can\u2019t ignore people\u2019s hearts and minds, so we have to convince people that climate change is real.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next, read Part II of this series: The Art of Sowing Doubt<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A sociologist’s perspective. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":8321,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"image_focus":"","hide_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"thumbnail":"\"\"","catString":"Uncategorized","issue":"Spring 2020","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8340"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11091,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8340\/revisions\/11091"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}