Human Production and Consumption Habits

Human Production and Consumption Habits

As the most intelligent, creative, and resourceful species ever to inhabit this planet, human beings have continually transformed and reshaped their physical environment to suit their needs. A substantial part of that process has always involved consumption of natural resources. Today, the global population faces several different crises resulting from irresponsible over-consumption and irresponsible production habits without due regard for complex long-term consequences.

The Industrial Revolution radically changed human life throughout 19th century Europe and in North America. Industrialization allowed the fastest spread of the benefits of modern life ever seen. The mass production methods and processes made possible by electric and gasoline-powered machinery allowed virtually all of the modern conveniences that changed the quality of everyday life for millions of people in the last two hundred years. However, as early as a few decades after the spread of industrial technology to cities, various negative consequences emerged.

The industrialized cities of the late 19th century were filthy and dangerous, largely because of the byproducts of totally unregulated industrial production processes (Attfield, 2003). Factories and production plants spewed out heavy smoke and toxic materials in great plumes that entered the atmosphere and heavily polluted the air. Larger particles of soot floated down, often forming a light coating on any exposed areas. During the 20th centuries, the nations of the so-called "First World" developed measures to regulate and control the pollution attributable to fossil fuels but that did not address consumption issues (Attfield, 2003).

By the dawn of the 21st century, human consumption habit in relation to fossil fuels had resulted in a pending energy crisis (Attfield, 2003). The existing supplies of fossil fuels are finite and humans have consumed them so voraciously for the last two centuries that we are rapidly approaching their depletion. In the meantime, we have not sufficiently developed alternate energy technologies. In the last few decades, nations that were too poor to benefit from the Industrial Revolution have begun dramatically increasing their consumption of fossil fuels as larger proportions of their populations become able to afford modern conveniences. As a result, societies in China (in particular) are now experiencing the exact same problems once experienced by European industrial cities immediately after the Industrial Revolution (Poiman & Poiman, 2007).