Is American culture inherently wasteful?

We're the country of the wide open road and the big, fat car, the wide open plains and the ballooning restaurant portions. We use more oil, eat more meat, churn out more trash, and emit more greenhouse gases than any country on earth. What is it about us that makes us so, well, wasteful?

Here, a yoga master, a chef, an environmentalist blogger and an economist break it down for us.