Consuming and saving to consume

so unless you are buying a low-end piece, you would not expect a total breakdown after 13 months, so way pay thirty of more dollars? Think twice on what you need, enjoy what you choose and keep some pocket money for a candlelight dinner!

Consume and make changes

There are hundreds of minor consuming changes that can be made which will help to conserve resources with little, if any impact on our overall lifestyle. But if its impact you are aiming for, then truly the sky is the limit to what you can do. Once people are prepared and actually keen on reconciling environmentally adverse consumerist behaviour with a personal commitment to transform their own and society's affluent-type of lifestyles into more sustainable practices, a whole economic order can start to budge! Such a shift requires access to information along with awareness of social and political responsibilities.(4) By engaging in collective changes in consumer behaviour, by associating and cooperating with like-minded consumers, ideas become actions, distinctly political in nature. As informed consumers already know, no less is needed to make a significant shift towards an economy that's attuned to environmental capacities as well as potentials. As informed consumers who make a difference, you know how to spread the word on sustainable consuming.

So far from preaching to the converted, arguing in favour of genuine and sustained changes in patterns of consumption needs to become a permanent trait of our lifestyles as such. Just as wearing an original fur-coat is today is largely socially frowned upon, driving an SUV primarily for in-town use may one day soon be seen in a similar light. Feeling ridiculous may not prompt all wasteful consumers to reconsider their choices; but if it comes along with a progressively increasing price tag, many now careless consumers may take pride in switching to alternatives, and as they save their own resources they simultaneously will become part of more benign mode of consuming North of the Rio Grande.

References: -----------

(1) A fun website where to test how deep one's environmental footstep is in comparisons with the average consumer can be found at http://www.myfootprint.org. By taking the Nature Challenge of the Suzuki foundation, suggestions on how to make simple changes daily lifestyle habits and routines are made: http://challenge.davidsuzuki.org.

(2) Last year, the renowned Worldwatch Institute published a special edition of its annual report on the "State of the World" The 2004 report examined in great detail how we

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