comment: >
  
  West Virginia is literally considerably wealthier than The UK let alone Spain. 
  Americans seems way more materialistic because they simply have way more money. 
  France has a GDP per Capita of 43,000, New York? $105,000.
context: I don’t think you understand what materialism is. Or what Europe is for that matter. >
  
  Or how great Europeans are at wasting less. Considering USA has twice or more co2 emissions. >
  
  During my first trip to Europe, what you said, blew me away when I witnessed it firsthand. I was staying with a friend who is rather wealthy and he had a half sized refrigerator when I asked why he didn’t have a full-size one. He replied “how much stuff do I really need to keep cold at any given time“ adding that he almost never threw away food, because nothing ever sat in his refrigerator very long. And eating at what were essentially fast food restaurants and having the drinks served in glasses, the food on plates with silverware and trays. At the end of the meal, you just carried your tray, utensils, and dishware to a little conveyor belt where everything was washed and reused. There was also no such thing as what Americans call trash day. Anything organic was composted and anything recyclable was separated, and sent for recycling. it would be easy to dismiss claims they generate half the CO2 that Americans do as hyperbole, but having witnessed it I have no doubt this is the case. >
  
  Idk a lot about EU laws but I thought that each country mostly had control over it's carbon footprint rather than the EU. Why whould we count them separately? >
  
  To compare with US, better take the EU as a whole. Doesn't make sense to compare Portugal or Estonia to the US.
  And the EU does have ghg emissions regulations. But they are not as strict as those in France, Switzerland (non EU country, but still abides by many EU laws to get access to EU single market), Sweden, etc. >
  
  Europe is not a country.
  I know some Redditors find this concept difficult to grasp, but it's true - Europe is not a country.
  As an actual European (Bulgarian, to be precise), I find it difficult to make generalized statements about other European nations. Hell, I can't even say how materialistic Bulgarians are. >
  
  I mean that’s 100% a fair assertion but it doesn’t stop the average redditor (or people doing the same thing about Americans… you say that about your country, Bulgaria of 7 million people; now the US is 330 million people
  Edit: to be clear I agree with your comment, just pointing this out >
  
  Europe : European Union
  North America : Unites States of America
  I think this is where the disconnect comes in for  some Europeans. You all realize the EU somewhat resembles the US government before its Civil War in the 1860s? Many more decisions were left up to individal (nation) states, and the federal government existed to facilitate things like trade, currency, and mutual defense. Slavery, admittedly a bad thing, was enshrined as a state's right to decide before the Civil War. 
  Conversely, in today's world, suggest that the EU, their federal government, run things like healthcare and education. Tell me how that conversation turns out. >
  
  You do realize that Europe does not equal the European Union? >
  
  Yes, but in shorthand talk, 95% of the time, when people say europe, they mean the EU part of europe. Same way that if you say America, you generally mean the United States, even though there are other countries >
  
  
  Yes, but in shorthand talk, 95% of the time, when people say europe, they mean the EU part of europe
  
  No they aren't, they're including places like the UK in there. Are you suggesting they're somehow omitting Switzerland when they refer to Europe? >
  
  This isnt an opinion, it’s simply false. >
  
  And dumb, don’t forgot that. >
  
  I live in The Netherlands. I genuinely think that people are a bit less materialistic here than in the US (although we're still quite materialistic).
  That is because education and health care are cheap and taxpayer-funded, which means that you don't need to hoard a lot of wealth just to be able to survive a medical emergency and get your kids to university. Yeah you can say that we still care about having healthcare, and we do, but due to the way things are set up we're spending much less hours / energy trying to earn a lot of money so that we can financially survive an emergency.
  Also, there's much less of a car culture here -- I have a driver's license and don't have a car, even though I could afford one and have a job, because I simply don't need it. Hence there's less focus on having a big / nice car.
  Also, income differences are smaller. A burger flipper might make something like 1500 euro per month while a senior programmer might make 4500 euro per month. In the US, those differences are much bigger. So in the US, there's more of a temptation to work long hours. >
  
  High fashion is much more a thing in Europe than America. Like is there even a single high end American clothing brand?
  Spanish people for example are well known as fashionable but like they’re largely dirt poor by American standards >
  
  For Americans even Germany is a 3rd world country lmao. According to them a country is considerable of the 1st world if you have more money to spend in luxury stuff you're not even going to use. What, you live in the happiest country in the world, your students are the most educated in the continent, your public transport is one of the best in the world, the air is super clean, there are no homeless people, poverty doesn't exist etc? That doesn't matter because there are less Bugattis in the streets so less expansive cars=poor - (I'm not taking about any specific country, it's just an example). I live in a very touristic area and I've heard a lot of Americans saying that "people here are so poor, there are no cars here!" No bro it's just that you are in a literal Limited traffic zone 💀💀💀