Now, we need to go one step further to help defend our environment. As an extension of our concerns, we might become more aware of the consumer driven causes of environmental damage. In fact, there should be a special relationship between the commodity that has caused the destruction and how we view the use of it. If global warming is your focus, then fossil fuel use either in the form of gasoline or coal would be your associated consumer issue. You might even become very conscious of how much fossil fuel your family uses and take steps to reduce their use.
Consumerism is an important factor in our issues.
Voting with our dollars has become as powerful as voting. We break the bonds of corporate control over our lives, when we make conscious decisions about how we spend our money. This is the mindset that controls our lawmakers and is destroying our environment. It is our purchases that give them the profit to make those outrageous campaign contributions and hire the advertising staff to keep us convinced that we need more and more despite the fact that we already consume more than any other nation on earth in the history of the world. Our own brand of consumerism is an important ingredient of our image.