Tag Archives : consumption

Ever wonder how much power your TV, microwave, or cell charger uses, and how? All of us likes being lazy and that is why with newer technologies the designers keep coming up with products that do things for us smarter and faster. But they all consume more and more electricity and to keep all the gadgets running we have to keep generating more and more [...]

While corn-based biofuel, particularly corn-based ethanol, has been touted to be the most viable alternative to petroleum and other fossil fuels, the production of such grain-based alternative has sparked many a debate as to its supposed environmental sustainability. Food crop displacement is just one of the trade-offs in the burgeoning ethanol industry. Nowhere [...]

There is a popular notion that to effectively solve climate change and other environmental ills, the problem of ‘exponential population growth’ has to be necessarily solved. Strict birth control is touted to prevent doomsday. In the past, there had been concrete efforts to stem the burgeoning human population on the planet. Forced vasectomies [...]

Eighteen centuries ago, the population of the world was only approximately 200 million. Today, it is 34 times that number. The ever-ballooning human population is deemed as the single biggest problem facing the planet. ‘There are nearly 7 billion humans alive today, twice as many as there were in 1965, with 75 million more being added each year. UN [...]

There are indicators of socioeconomic well-being, and all these are materially measured. They may all contribute positively to a person’s comfort, convenience, mobility, freedom, and further opportunity in life. On the other hand, these material manifestations are not distributed equally in society. That is why if these provide advantage to one person [...]

When income does not go to savings, it generally ends up in the realm of consumption. The principle of consumption rests on the concept of disposable income. When one has more income to spend, he has the bigger opportunity to consume. Consumption is rather attractive and tempting, at times. In a free world, there really is no barrier to consumption [...]

The current crisis presents an advantage. It gives us food for thought, introspection, and discussion. There are those who prefer to be detached from the present moment and look further. There are some who believe that this crisis can be a unique opportunity to dismantle the status quo and fight to change the rules of the system. This crisis has many [...]

Ethical responsibilities of consumers pertain to the ethics of consumption. Brinkmann and Peattie (2008) found that “Consumer researchers and ethicists alike seem interested in how freedom of choice is handled, how information is handled, and how choices are made, using more or less rational criteria.” This means that consumer behavior is greatly [...]

The minute you decide to get a new TV for your living room, the first question that pops up in your head is- which one should I go for, LCD or plasma TV? Then you start comparing the prices, the companies, specifications, offers and what not. But, it’s not just the one-time investment price we need to consider while buying a new television. What’s [...]

The BUY NOTHING DAY awareness ad campaign comes at a perfect time when the whole world, especially the US, is in economic recession. It’s a call to action to save money and natural resources. The campaign, thus, asks people to consume less. The campaign runs after Thanksgiving precisely to convince people not to indulge in frantic and frenzied shopping [...]