The Time Has Come to Catalyze a Sustainable Consumerism Movement

In today's global marketplace, with its ever-diminishing resource stocks, one thing is obvious: demand is outstripping supply. And here is the conundrum: increases in living standards are tightly coupled with growth in resource consumption. We have all heard the dramatic statistic that if all seven billion people on earth lived like the average American, we would need five planets to support us. But as the consumer class in developing nations explodes, with China alone forecasted to add the equivalent of another one and a half United States to its middle class over the next 13 years, we are going to need to update that statistic soon. We must eliminate the link between the rise of the developing nations’ consumer classes and resource devastation (let us call it what it is). It starts with reimagining prosperity for sustainable consumerism…