Overconsumption?

Overconsumption is a term frequently used in discussions about the roots of contemporary environmental problems. Statistics about an average per capita material or energy consumption suggest a severe inequality between first and third world inhabitants. While an unambigous level of adequate consumption is challenging to define this article will put aside the difficulties arising from the choice of this terminology and rather focus on the reasons for the kind of consumption that are characteristic for many first world countires although not exclusive to them.

Source: https://www.ssb.no/en/inntekt-og-forbruk/statistikker/fbu/aar/2013-12-17

The given diagram illustrates an average of private expenditure distributed to the different sectors which might vary in its details for indivual households as well as for different countries but I would assume them to all more or less strenghten the following thesis for an average individual with a mean income above a certain threshold: a major part of expenditure is determined by consumption which might not be traced back to the bare necessity of surviving through the supply of food and shelter. Obviously, this is not very surprising and it would be ignorant and simplistic to reduce a member of a contemporary society on these ancient needs. Nevertheless, the distribution illustrates that studying the motivations for consumption might give insights that help to understand and alter it.

Being unsatisfied seems to be a very genereal root of the will for consumption. While I would argue this phenomena not to be restricted to contemporary times but maybe even be an ever reocurring particularity of mankind it certainly seems to be charectiristic to recent times in our historia. An interesting article, by a German philosopher Rüdiger Safranski, put stress on the historical relation of religion and the development of consumerism, which I will present in a free and sketchy translation:
"But lets not forget: Protestanism is half the way towards Nihilism. Religion manifested in the "outside-world" looses its significance and is being deported to the "inside-world". Here it lives on as religious moral until it looses its religiousness and only moral remains. After some time as well the moral is lost and you are left with a kind of nihilism. The contemporary form of nihilism is the consumerism. Even if you don't have a god you can still buy yourself something." 
While a historical analysis obviously has to go into more details the important point for me to note is the fundamental and almost spiritual role of consumption in our live.

Yes, I do think we consume because of unsatisfied desires. A huge amount of these desires might be unreasonably triggered by advertisements or other external or societal influences and can be overcome by undisguising their nature and making them loose their signifance. Nevertheless, I think it is important not to be idealisitic and acknowledge unsatisfied human needs as part of our lives.
Most importantly I think we should all put light on the reasons why we are unsatisfied. What is it that we are really lacking?
In this sense for me, consumerism is carrying an almost spiritual element for our society which can not just be solved through satisfaction but can only transform towards a new understanding of what gives live a meaning.