Reflection C - Consumerism

Consumerism has become the core of global society and as an industrial designer, my products should follow Okala strategies that will reduce and ultimately reverse the damage that has already been done. Fortunately, the message has been heard and businesses have started to take action to satisfy the guilty conscience of society.
Consumerism being an external factor that drives product sales, is not necessarily essential to sell products. As a designer, ethical products that serve a need in society will drive sales in it's own right. Marketing may become redundant once people start buying what they need and not what society constitutes the consumer's wants are.
In terms of BP not having fault in it's carbon footprint and blaming it on the consumer who buys the petrol, in my opinion, is incorrect. Petrol consuming cars have dominated the entire automobile market. Only recently have we seen a niche re-emerge; the clean alternative fueled cars eg. electric, water, solar, kinetic power etc.
Consumers have basically one choice when it comes to purchasing an affordable car of their aesthetic choice; the market is monopolized by petrol consuming cars. BP creating 'wind farms' is just a ploy to ease the guilty conscience of society. It is not addressing the bigger issue; the carbon footprint of fossil fuel usage. 
Consumerism is an idea, a man-made force that drives an imaginary god called the 'economy'. If you take away marketing and if products were seen exactly for what they are, then consumerism would not be an issue. Consumerism would be just what it is;

The promotion of the interests of consumers. The preoccupation of society with the acquisition of consumer goods.

Consumerism isn't the demon. The issue is, that consumerism has been exploited by greed of humanity and thus become a problem.

"Society needs to change the way it thinks..."
Society is a word that has been abused and misunderstood. Society is not regarding each individual person and their conscience; society is a mass of people held together by an idea. This idea currently happens to be consumerism. People agree that buying is good, and it is. Buying keeps business going. The problem is that businesses have limited options in the manufacturing and materials used in their products. 
In my opinion, we need to revolutionize the manufacturing and material processes of the world to imitate the processes of biological systems. This is also known as; biomimicry. For example, a common example is the humble garden orb spider, which produces a web stronger that steel in temperatures below 25 degrees and with very little bio-matter and water. The spider's carbon footprint is very in the negative values. Humanity as an organism should benefit the it's ecosystem on which it depends on, rather than causing it harm.