Destructive Patterns Of American Suburban Lifestyle
...out to better the methods by which they live. Different from animals, humans are never satisfied with what they have or how their society functions. It is this continual lust for greater personal gain that has frequently lead human society into problematic situations.
Even in ancient times drawing back to the great Mayan civilization in Mexico and Central America, the want to create buildings and personal items more extravagant than necessary was prevalent. Ancient Mayans maintained the practice of constructing lime floors in their buildings and courtyards. Not only were lime floors used to cover much of the ground, they were built and rebuilt on top of one another creating unnecessarily thick flooring. “It would be like saying your sidewalk needs to be two meters thick,” said Hansen, a world-renowned archaeologist who observed these findings (Ehrlich 113). Not only was this excessive use of lime a waste of the mineral, it had farther reaching detriments to the health of the surrounding environment. Near by fields were terraced for the raising of crops such as corn, squash and other vegetables. Unfortunately these fields became covered with a thick layer of clay sediment rendering the fields unusable for crops. Surrounding hills had been completely deforested in the need for firewood to feed the Mayan lime kilns and left all the clay soil free to wash down the hills and into the crop fields. It is type of careless behavior that has forever caused humanity problems with its local environments.
Over consumption is the issue that causes all of these problems. What you may be asking is what exactly is over consumption? In all simplicity, over consumption is using more material goods and doing more harm to the environment than is essential for survival. The sad fact of the matter is that a very small minority of the people on this planet account...
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