The British Liver Trust said it was on the rise because British culture continues to embrace daily consumption of alcohol, fatty food choices and a lack of exercise.
Deserts are spreading in Northwest China and the American Southwest as a direct result of that fatal embrace of consumption.
But there are plenty of good examples of companies - like TaskRabbit and BlaBlaCar - that legitimately embrace collaborative consumption, value public trust, and don't dodge common-sense regulation.
Despite their obsession with social media and the appearance of food, Britons have also embraced "conscious" consumption, snapping up wonky or sub-standard vegetables and making better use of freezers to store food.
But right around Apple's announcement of the iPhone 4 last month, which distracted tech pundits from the iPad for a while, a curious thing happened: producer types embraced the "consumption machine".
Instead of just embracing the consumption of open source and ignoring the cost, we should take responsibility for it's sustainability".
By embracing conscious consumption, we can genuinely affect how products are conceived and consumed.
Meanwhile, others are eagerly embracing collaborative consumption and various digital platforms — such as Etsy and Airbnb — that have enabled the freelance economy to proliferate.
Last month, food writer and cooking instructor Julie Kelly lashed out at Top Chef judge Tom Colicchio in a Wall Street Journal piece, calling him elitist for embracing the consumption of organic, locally-grown food and better conditions for farm laborers and fast food workers.
To be a priest had a status that has been eroded, Monsignor Bergin says, by modernity's embrace of lavish consumption and secularism.
For when it comes to profligacy and the reckless embrace of material consumption over artistic and spiritual development, no people were more accomplished than Homo americanus, circa A.D. 2003.
