Production and Consumption : The Cause of All

Courtesy of UN Environment 

Climate change has been the talk of the town in recent years. Although there are some big names who think it’s a hoax, the fact shows otherwise. An unprecedented number of nature related disasters consistently occurred in recent years: tsunami, an unbearable heatwave in the summer and an unbearable cold in the winter, draught, ocean full of plastics, poor air quality and many more. 

If we go back and see what really takes us here and the explanation has to be the process of production and consumption. 

Ever since the industrial revolution, life has been considered to be easier and easier as we no longer had to endure the workloads of people who had lived before us. The invention of machines make the process of production even better. The repetitive jobs that used to be done by humans now replaced by machines which sound very good indeed. However, as anything in life that has to be a trade-off. But what do we have to trade for a more humane job?  

The machine can’t function without a support from electricity power. And what do use to generate electricity power? Majority of countries still use coal and oil to do so. Therefore trade-off for using coal and oil is an environment which gets worse and worse everyday. As human beings are very much dependent on nature, once nature is affected human’s life is also affected. The use of coal and oil cause air pollution. Sooner or later the poor air quality will become a problem for human beings. Unless we change our production method, air quality will get worse and eventually human beings will be fighting over oxygen. In jakarta the campaign to use a mask when you are outdoor has been started. What would be a worst nightmare than having to cover your nose every time you are in the outdoors. 

That’s just the power. We haven’t talked about how we produce our food. We have come along the way with food. Unlike the old days where we have to make food from scratch, now we have processed foods which are packed with single-used plastics. By the way, before we talk about how bad single use-plastics are, can we all agree that processed food also contributes to the environmental degradation? O.K., great! Now, poor waste management in most countries make the idea of using of plastic which were once a fantastic ideas turn to be a major catastrophe. Now when we turn our TV or read news, we are always exposed to how bad our ocean have become and many whales are dead packed with kilos upon kilos of plastics inside of its body. 

Those are just two examples of our bad production practices. Of course there are endless examples out there. 

What about our consumption? Similar to our production practices, we also do the same with our consumption. The planet earth is densely overpopulated and to meet the consumption needs of this overpopulation we use more natural resources than it can afford. According to “An EEA analysis of nine EU Member States (representing 268 million of the EU's total 501 million people) has found that the majority of key environmental pressures caused by total national consumption can be allocated to eating and drinking, housing and infrastructure, and mobility.”

Now knowing that the future of our environment is very dependent on us, what do we do to pay off what has already happened? And yes, we need to change our production and consumption practices. Government should use the alternative for the power supply as not to use the ones which obviously damage the environment. It is not an easy process; thus the small effort always count. At the individual level, we have to also be mindful of how we live our life. Make sure that we do not overuse foods with single-used plastics. Make sure that we use public transport as opposed to using personal car. Eventually, we have to watch our carbon footprint making sure that it is at the lowest possible.