We eat too much meat, not because we need the nutrition, but because many centuries of history have taught us that meat consumption has higher status. We put chemicals on our lawns, not because we need a lucious lawn, but because of the status it affords us among our friends and neighbors. On and on and on. We all are because we accept a lifestyle based so much upon status. Producers display their status by their capacity to purchase billboard space.
Drivers display their status through the size and in efficiency of their automobiles.
We need to get beyond blame and into new lifestyles that are environmentally sustainable. For that, economics must begin to develop a concept of sufficiency, of enough. There are many, many environmental organizations in the United States and around the world. Some of the most important environmental organizations are local ones. The Wilderness Society was founded in 1935 by a group of men who wished to begin to preserve wilderness in the United States.