Our population is consuming about 30% more trees, fish and fossil fuels than the planet can regenerate. How big a hole can we dig before we can't get out of it? Kai Ryssdal talks with Jared Diamond, a geography professor at UCLA.
Kai Ryssdal begins our series with a visit to the Port of Long Beach. You could say it's the mouth of a consumer economy that's getting hungrier and hungrier. He talks with the port's Art Wong about its continuing growth.
If a port is the mouth of America's consumer economy, the landfill is the other end. Tess Vigeland reports on the people and places wrestling with the question of what to do with all the waste.
Globalization's delivery of goods to consumers depends on intricate choreography of container ships, trucks, trains and other heavy equipment. The scale is breathtaking. But so are the side effects. Sarah Gardner reports,
What if everybody in the world consumed like the "average" American family? Sean Cole went in search of that family to find out how much they consume in a given week or month. He didn't have to look too far.
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