To some degree, everyone is 'guilty' of consumer greed. We all want and buy things we do not actually NEED. None of us here NEED a computer, though it would be more difficult for me to get by on the ancient Windows 2000 thing that the University provides me with.
I see excessive consumer greed as buying things that are excessively detrimental to the environment. If I keep my aged Diesel car, that is in some way less detrimental than putting a new gas guzzler on the road, since I use biodiesel, which is renewable, in my old cars. If I buy a new car and sell my old ones, both run pretty well and are very durable, so someone would be driving them for a while, but somewhere down the chain, someone will junk another car, and that could add to pollution of the environment more than the status quo.
Buying used things is less detrimental, because it does not cause more use of fertilizer to grow more cotton or to grow or mine other resources.
I don't think Mother Theresa is anyone I choose to emulate, but maybe she did have a lighter footprint on the environment than many people do. Her main contribution to pollution was probably flying about to raise money and accept awards, but I don;t know how much of this she actually did.
I do believe that you've hit a point, XO.
UP, you probably do have some sort of consumer greed packed away somewhere in your life. One greed leads to another and before you know it, the greed seems like the norm in terms of "stuff".
The Pope's statement is what was at question here for me. So, I bring in Mother Theresa's choices-albeit extreme to most of us---uh...no, almost all of us. And sure there are consumer greed examples which tip the balance in the other direction, but overall we have all chosen to ride that wagon in some way or another. Unless you are a monk in a Monastery somewhere, sure.
You have to admit, UP, that we continue to buy what we feel we "need", when perhaps we just want becuase it is too hard to do without.....we would have make major changes in life (changes that were the norm just 25 years ago). Like buying a newspaper, talking on the landline, walking to the neighborhood store instead of driving 10 miles to the WalMart super center for our need for it ALL!
People dont' need a television set, or a cell phone, or a microwave oven, or even an extra vehicle----not to mention a computer or two. Not really. But most of us live with such "norms".
When will this world put on the brakes in terms of "stuff" that makes natural living almost impossible?
Perhaps never. That's the way of the consumer driven world in which we live.
Perhpas the Pope's statement was general overall, and indeed one person's greed is another person's norm. So where do we draw the line? We don't. This is America. Land of PLENTY FOR ALL ....YET, CHILDREN ARE NOT READING AS MUCH AT HOME AS THEY SHOULD !!
hmmmm, wonder if the Pope was referring to the consumer greed of the TV, VIDEO, and GAMEBOY which is currently ripping off the child's mind in this nation. Ya think?
Of course, then there's the lifestyle changes that are slowing creeping up. If I owned a horse, I would ride it to work. I saw that on CnN this am.
Not a bad idea.