Good Stuff?

Think of the "stuff" you buy and use in any given day. You might have a chicken sandwich and a soda for lunch. You fill your car with gasoline. You call a friend on your cell phone. At school or at the office, you print out dozens of e-mails and other documents.

Now multiply these everyday actions by all the days in the year, and by the billions of other consumers worldwide. From gas-guzzling cars to clothes made in crowded "sweatshops," the result is a significant impact on the planet and the world's people.

Consumption is one of life's great pleasures. Buying things we crave, traveling to beautiful places, eating delectable food: icing on the cake of life. But too often the effects of our blissful consumption make for a sad story. Giant cars exhaling dangerous exhaust, hog farms pumping out noxious pollutants, toxic trash heaps nudging into poor neighborhoods—none of this if there weren't something to sell.