Process CSW Members Contact CSW GA Office Faith in Action Below is the Study and Action Issue voted on by the 1999 General Assembly in Salt Lake City Utah. Irresponsible consumption endangers our future as it wastes raw materials and precious resources, depriving people in other countries as well as our own future generations. The United States and Canada, although technologically advanced countries, are among the most materially wasteful societies in the world.
Many studies note the high per-capita consumption in the United States and Canada.
The United States, for instance, is home to just five percent of the world's population, but it is responsible for 40 percent of the total consumption of global resources. In the last fifty years, the United States has consumed more resources than the rest of the world did in all previous history. Landfills and waste management are among the top environmental concerns for local communities. Some economists have joined ecologists in suggesting that by the end of the twenty-first century, given our present rates of population growth and consumption, the entire world will be short of food, water, and housing for its inhabitants. Unitarian Universalists should take the lead in alerting consumers, business persons, and political leaders to the consequences that flow from aggressive and irresponsible personal consumption.