How do we balance environmentally ethical consumerism with a healthy global economy.?

Question

For instance. Everytime I eat asparagus it has come way down from Peru via 18 wheeler. That leaves a huge carbon footprint. Many say grow all your own vegetables. That solves the carbon problem but cuts out a means of subsistence for poor areas of Latin American countries. I'm well aware that many of the share croppers there receive unfair wages to begin with. But it seems that not buying their produce would impoverish them even more.

How do we solve this problem and balance commerce with eco-friendly consumerism?

Answer 1

Great question! I believe the way to go is not to stop buying, but to choose what you buy carefully, then you are still contributing to the economy and others livelihoods, but you are supporting the businesses that are benefiting the planet and operating ethically. eg. buying solar panels and locally grown organic food. In this way 'good' businesses will grow, employ more people, and businesses that exploit the earth or people will phase out. I think part of what needs to be phased out is the incredibly inefficient 'global' way food is consumed so that people can have consumer choice and eat out of season produce all year round.

I agree that the one of the BEST things that you can do IS to grow your own vegetables, because no tractors, transport, chemicals etc has to be used, straight from the garden to you.

The low consumption, grow your own and environmentally friendly life is also CHEAPER. You are focusing on only buying what you need, buying long lasting products rather than cheap and nasty products, riding a bike instead of using a car, vegetable seeds are very cheap, solar hot water heaters pay for themselves after 4 years then after that you have free hot water etc.

The money you save from living like this can be put towards helping the people of impoverished nations in a meaningful way, such as donating to a charity like Oxfam that works with communities to become self-sustaining, grow their own food, promote fair trade and human and workers' rights. Find good charities/organistions that work effectively and don't waste all their money in administration.  Or you don't need to work as much so with your spare time become an active member of an organisation that works to promote the values you care about.  I believe this would have to be a more effective way of helping the world's poor than buying food they have been paid a few cents to harvest that has contaminated their local rivers.

Answer 2

Go organic. Go energy efficient. Go alternative fuels. Plain and simple. Sure if we do this, prices will rise and possibly sky rocket, but inflation won't last forever.

Answer 3

Build more Nuclear Power. Then we have the power to supply our needs. We also have power that does not produce CO2 that can supply the power needs to make Hydrogen, charge batteries, if we want to get off more coal, oil, and gas.

Answer 4

I think the biggest problem with globalization is the basic concept trends toward centralized control systems and totalitarianism. The concept has been forced on us by the large multi-national corporations to expand their markets to sell more stuff and make more money at the expense of the planet and the majority of the people for the huge benefit of a very tiny percentage of economic elites that control thousands of times more wealth than they deserve.

In your first line you used the key word "consumerism". That is the problem! We now have unsustainable consumption patterns that have been created that can never ever be environmentally balanced.

Untill a majority of people take a serious reality check and admit life wasn't that bad a few years ago without some of the things we have today at great expense to the environment, like out of season foods from the other side of the planet!!! We deserve what we will get, a dying planet that will take us with it.

Change must start with the individual at the local level, and work out. Not at the global level and come back as that is the trap we have already fallen into. As you can see in a place like Yahoo Answers, not too many people want to be told how to live their lives and sense that their freedoms and choices are being taken away. Too bad they have been easily dupped by the corporations that thrive on unsustainable consumerism and have become their proxies against change... but the bigger they come, the harder they fall as history has always shown.

No progress will ever be made as long as people either deny reality or are allowed to rationalize things away.

Like so many other things in life, it takes a lot more strength and wisdom to say NO, NEVER AGAIN, than to say yes and just be carried along in ignorant bliss.

What breaks my heart is that those who will pay the highest prices for these crimes against the planet happening today are not yet here. They are the generations beyond this horrizon.

Answer 5

The message is easy but very few people want to hear it.

Be self sufficient yourself as possible. The concepts of Consumerism and the Free market do not work, can never work. Their sole aim is to take money from the masses to give to the powerful few, it is NOT to disperse it amongst the masses. The arguments for better technology, Fair Trade, supply and demand etc are, well,  wrong.

The whole problem is about separating the ownership of the land from residents of the land. This separation means that Global Corporations have control over food production and distribution through availability and price. They hold purchasers to ransom as over time there are no alternatives. Secondly by displacing the original land occupiers you are holding them ransom too.

To give a really simple scenario, Farmer Fred owns a 20 Acre farm. He can no longer make a living from his farm because Global Corporations (supermarket in this case) have lowered the prices too much by using cheap labour in another country which has less stringent Environmental and Health and Safety laws.  

Now Farmer Fred can not compete. He needs money as he can not 'opt' out because of the way his society has been constructed to ensure that the money stays with the powerful elite (In UK, the Government's Community charges are a good example)

So a Global corporation buys the land from Farmer Fred. He is happy too. Farmer Fred of course now has to buy all of his food from the supermarket. Now all this seems fair at this point, doesn't it?

So when does all this money raised by the Corporations' more efficient systems go? The large corporations are amassing vast sums of money, that has no relation to the few pennies that everybody else earns to that of a company director. So the price mechanism does not work.  It is not distributed by supply and demand, if it was there would be less global poverty, not more as there is now. These global corporations demand lower and lower prices for goods from producers and the price to the customer continues to rise.

Many people who used to grow their own food or use locally grown food no longer have ownership of that land. Commercial Agriculture then sets the new food prices. This is replicated around the world, these Corporations are global.

Each time you give a company your money you are handing over control and power. In time, as they own more and more of our income and eliminate the competition these global corporations will be able to rapidly raise prices. That is how the system works. They are already influencing Planning legislation see the Ban Tesco campaigns link below.

Fair Trade seems like a good idea. However, it is only a slightly better way of exploiting the environment and other people. Whilst there efforts now provide a better, sometimes even a living wage, they are still not receiving a decent benefit of their labour or time. The very best Fair Trade wholesalers/importers make at least double the amount of money that the producers does for each item and the retailer makes at least double the amount of money he purchased the item for.

Not only that our Fair Trade producer now lives in a community that is controlled by the ownership of land by  Global corporations. He may get slightly more for the product he made but he is paying a LOT more for his foodstuff because the local production has been eliminated by the competition (The Global Corporation). And the situation is getting worse, year on year.

In Environmental terms the less we buy the better, if we must buy it then buy local and seasonal. Asparagus is really easy to grow at home. You plant it once and it will continue to produce spears for twenty plus years. Grow your own, buy local seasonal foods.

What about the poverty experienced by the Fair Trade producer? If there is no demand for really cheap imported goods in the developed world, then the developing world can become self sufficient too, to satisfy their local demand with local supply. The best thing we can do is take the £ out of the pocket of Global Corporations by not giving them it in the first place.

Answer 6

Your point is well stated.

I think there are many opportunities out there for creativity. Competent entrepreneurs should be able to make a good profit and benefit all of us by finding viable solutions. Then they have to developing them, manufacture, and sell them.

That would help the economy while going green.

The down side is, it will not be a quick solution.

Start NOW!

Answer 7

Basically we can't.

Growing your own food is a start.  Latin American countries need to disengage from free trade agreements and use their own land to feed their populations.  We help Latin America more by standing solidly with their Union movements and advocating workers rights - which raises wages - than we do by buying exploitative produce.

I have come to believe, now, that it is about creating beacons of sustainability.  People know that their lifestyles are unsustainable and damaging, but they do not know how they can change.  So they agitate.

But it is beacons of change that we need, to show that change is possible.  To forge paths ahead.  Many are engaged with such work.  Permaculture. Deep ecology. Spiritual recognition of interdependencies.

Going green as not another commodity you buy at a supermarket, not that I wish to decry anybodies good efforts, but going green is every dollar spent, and its about cultivating sustainability which removes reliance on money, and an economic system which is fundamentally flawed and destructive.