of species . The most famous of all animal extinctions caused by us is probably that of the passenger pigeon : once flying over North America in truly enormous numbers , pigeon flocks blocked out the noonday sun for days . But they were wiped out by hunting and deforestation . The very last one , a female named Martha , died in a Cincinnati zoo in 1914 .
Can we stop our consumption growth ? Will we ever reach a point where most of our desires are met ? Where we do not feel the urge to keep consuming more and more , year after year ? After all , we can only eat so many meals , wear so many items of clothing , live in so many houses , drive so many cars , take so many holidays .
Not so , says Alfred Marshall , one of the world ’ s greatest economists . In his Principles of Economics , published in 1890 , he argued that reaching a saturation point in what we want is not how humans are configured . He wrote : “ The uncivilised man indeed has not many more wants and desires than the brute animal ; but every step in his progress upwards increases the variety of his needs . He desires not merely larger quantities of the things he has been accustomed to consuming , but better quality of those things .” Or as the Rolling Stones sing : “ We
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