Consumerism and Sustainability: A Behavioural Issue or a Fancy Misnomer?

Abstract

We as humans have spent the least time on earth (on percentage basis) but have ensured stamping our existence too hard on this planet, the ecosystem and most significantly, the coming generations. In the past few decades, we have blissfully developed a lifestyle that boasts of consumer-centric abundance and is so myopic in its outlook that it fails to recognize humans as a part of this planet and its ecosystem. Ironically, we do have a celebrated World Environment Day or an Earth Hour every year that is simply ritualistic and short-lived. With each passing day, we leave no stone unturned to be the sole living being on the planet only to forget that we can’t live without the other elements of nature that make life possible. This paper is an attempt to understand Sustainability in the context of human behavior and its plausibility.