Lauren your POST does indeed highlight both a Climate and Evironmental issue, the impact of over population, resource extraction, pollution etc is having an effect on our planet. And I think the biggest cause and effect is population, second to that education and then recycling of what we have already discarded. It is a shameful world we live in when it is easier and cheaper to throw away goods and when they are made to fail and not be repaired just replace them again and again.
The population of the planet is like unrestrained consumer credit, the planet itself is the debt...
...one day like the consumer/economic crash, there will be a day when the party is over and the debt collecters will turn up demanding payment.