Material aspects of the ecological dialogue are the foci of Chapters 2 through 5 in the first of the book’s three sections. You would find materialist arguments about the environment easier to follow than the ideological issues taken up in Section II, so the author begins with these more accessible issues in order to better invite you into the topic.

Chapter 2 begins this focus with an exploration of why we consume more than we need to survive. The chapter describes how social-psychological desires for status and social connection propel the materialism of modern life. Among the theories of material desire discussed are:

Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory;
Sahlins’s theory of the original affluent society;
Veblen's theory of conspicuous consumption, conspicuous leisure, andconspicuous waste;
Hirsch's theory of positional goods;
The social constitution of environmental power;
The roles of sentiments and community in consumption;
The dialogic interaction between interests and sentiments, and between concerns for status and for social connection, in material desire; and,
The treadmill of consumption.

Included are discussions of:

The role of advertising in creating wants and needs and manipulating desires;
Green advertising;
The “spirited” or sentimental qualities we often find in our material possessions;
Survey evidence on the dubious relationship between consumption and happiness;
The time crunch that traps us in a cycle of work and spend; and,
Commercialization of childhood.