Some Thoughts And Questions Before Greening Your New Year
by Karin Kloosterman, Jerusalem, Israel on 12.25.06
An owner of a UK-based fair trade clothing company gives an anonymous post to TreeHugger - something for us to contemplate into the New Year.
I have some questions and I'm wondering if you might be able to help me find the answer. Many of us are looking to create a new world where the environment and human rights are deeply rooted in the products that we buy. We acknowledge that our prevailing consumer culture is generally damaging to the environment and to humans, as those of us who have disposable incomes look for better products at lower prices. There are some great ideas, great brands, great people making a difference. And yet the new world we are looking for seems so far away. Brands with radical roots are sold to the highest bidder. Former-radicals become self-publicists and/or sofa-sitting multimillionaires. Is this our collective destiny?
Are we just another choice in the hypermarket of ideas where only the strongest survive? Will 'successful' alternative ideas always be forced to choose between the devil of filthy lucre and the deep-blue sea of lack of style and mediocrity? Is an alternative world even possible within our consumer culture? How do we breakdown the barriers between producer and brand, product and consumer so that we are no longer just supporting by buying, but actively engaged in the struggle towards the better world?
Peace
Anon.
Not sure if i should Amen this or just say I Hope the world reads this!
personally i live in an area were the Free market of choice doesn't exist. Quality is hard to find, sustainable business practices are non-existent, human rights vs keeping your job.
It truly is just as it is stated by Upton Sinclair
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.
It is a sad world we live in but I believe, if the majority were to try to change it for the better, we shall make it better.
Draq Wraith
Spending well is important, but the most important things can't really be bought. Well, yes, a wealthy former radical could buy up Merve Wilkinson's Wildwood forest and protect it for now, and wouldn't that be great.
But somehow we have to tackle the big stuff. Or it'll be Easter Island all over again, but on a global scale.
Perhaps the wealthier ones have a greater obligation? I don't know.
I wish Gates cared about forests and wildlife and rivers as he does about education and the digital divide and all that. Who are the patrons of the earth, if any?
The rule of law must step in when something is morally right. If organic food is best, should we impose laws that require the poorest of the poor to devote more of their income to food? Will organics be less expensive for all then if the law requires food to be organic? Would people starve?
We need enforced laws for our survival. If it's taxing carbon emissions or simply outlawing bad environmental behavior, it's what government is for. We "treehuggers," all help at the grass roots level but easter island is our course right now. It can't be voluntary any more, it has to be top-down. It's not about shopping.
We only have 8-ish years to turn our carbon emissions around. We need a global energy policy. Do any of you have children?
No I don't, but for the possibility of all I hope more people care as much as Willy Bio or whatever he goes by shouts. Should it be fire and brimestone.
I look at the problem we face as something like methane or perhaps even hydrogen. Methane has no smell, nor color. It is not noticed, however in a good mixture of oxygen it burns blue. Sadly, if there is a build up it just explodes. Now hydrogen is also without color, or odor; however it burns clear...
Either way you don't see the danger, and then your dead. I feel the danger is just as bad, there are ways to detect hydrogen, and methane. These dangers to our culture, our civilization, our way of life, and our very lives is there. Scientists, and other brave enlightened individuals have talked. But we the masses do not walk.
When is it time?