Another Inconvenient Truth

I've watched "An Inconvenient truth" several times now, and it never fails to galvanize me to action. I was already very concerned with the environment, sustainability, and the future of the human race, and like most people, I've always thought I was pretty responsible in those regards. But I keep finding room for improvement. At a minimum, I want to rush out and buy more energy-efficient appliances and light-bulbs (my refrigerator sounds like a '56 Buick in the middle of the night, my clothes washer like a 1920 Model T), and in more extreme moments I want to do even more (for example, selling everything and making a commitment to live out of a backpack while I design and build the electric vehicle that will CHANGE THE WORLD!!! Okay, perhaps a bit extreme).

Obviously, there has to be a balanced approach to reducing one's carbon footprint, and it has to be attainable for everyone, rich, middle class and poor alike.

Make no mistake, some of the lowest-income people I know dump great volumes of pollutants into the atmosphere. Why? Because their appliances are old, second-hand, and inefficient; because even compact fluorescent bulbs seem expensive compared to incandescents; and because they drive old, poorly maintained vehicles that were gross polluters in the first place.

It doesn't take a great mind to realize that poor folk have more immediate concerns than saving the planet from global warming. They aren't going to lead the way to a cleaner, greener future. The simple truth is that the poor are recipients of the world's hand-me-downs, and if we truly want everyone on board with efforts to cut emissions there has to be a completely new paradigm from which to hand down "low-carbon-footprint" products.

All of this may seem like a no-brainer, at least until we do a little personal examination. We aren't just talking about cars and appliances here, after all, are we? For lack of a better term, we're talking about inheritance.

Suppose for example that a well-off American consumer purchases a high-end DVD player. Pretty innocuous, right? But what have they "inherited"? For this example, let's assume a product assembled in Japan with 70% of its electronics made in Taiwan and China. And although mass-quantities of each component are made and shipped in bulk (which mitigates impact somewhat), let's not minimize the environmental consequences of the creation of each capacitor, semiconductor, diode, resistor, transformer, transistor and rare-earth permanent-magnet motor in that DVD player. The environment within a factory manufacturing something as ordinary as circuit boards is (not may be... is) saturated with a stew of deadly chemicals, all of which had to be mined from the land or created in chemical plants and shipped (via petrol-burning conveyance) to the factory. The factory further boils, melts, solders, catalyzes and pressurizes those chemicals to create its components, which it then crates and ships (via petrol-burning conveyance) to the assembly plant in Japan. From Japan, the finished product is (you guessed it) crated and shipped (via...I'll spare you) to scores of ports worldwide, at which pallets are divided and further shipped to distribution centers, one of which finally supplies the retail store where our consumer purchases his shiny new toy, one of six DVD players in his thirty-five hundred square foot home.

In our example, the toxic nature of the components themselves, and of the manufacturing and shipping processes, are one part of the inheritance attached to the end product. The toll taken on the lives and health of factory workers in China, Taiwan, and Japan is another. But how well do you really believe the components are washed before becoming part of the finished DVD player? Have you ever opened a consumer electronic device and given it a smell? Unpleasant, isn't it? We can add the toxic fumes carried through the air of our consumer's home to the inheritance attached to the device. Was the new DVD player a gift for a child's bedroom? Hmmm. Lucky kid.

Now let's assume that a few years later a brilliant "must-have" technology replaces that DVD player on billboards and print ads across the land. It's owner takes the old player (and its five brothers and sisters) and sells or gives it away (or worse yet, dumps it in a landfill). For our purposes, let's assume that a minimum-wage earner ends up with the DVD player. Can the environmental history of the product be erased (as if only the first purchaser is responsible for its legacy) because the product is second-hand? Of course not. In our society we spread the blame for rampant consumerism from the top down, but we all end up sharing the guilt. And the consequences.

Now, let's go back and imagine that the wealthy person who purchased the DVD player is the proud CEO of a large company, one which has made great strides toward cleaning up its environmental impact. He drives a Lexus, but it's a hybrid (as is his wife's Prius), "'cause hey, we gotta be eco-PC these days, right?" The two of them are very proud of their efforts to be green. The measures they've taken alleviate a great deal of uneasiness about the size of their home (over three-hundred million BTUs to heat it for one year), her expensive jewelry (full of blood diamonds), the brand-name fashions made in Pakistani and Bangladeshi sweatshops, and his new home theater system (with components from China, Japan, USA, Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore). How can we blame them? Billions are spent on advertising each month to convince them that they never have enough and that what they have is inferior to the new best thing.

Imagine for a moment a river of commercial goods and services flowing into, and out of, the lives and home of our wealthy family. Cars, remodeling materials, energy and fuel, landscaping products and maintenance, clothing, furniture, electronic goods, jewelry, concert and theater tickets, airline travel, food, water, toiletries and more. It's easy to see these items entering the lives of the family and being consumed, worn out, discarded, or passed on to new owners.

You don't have to try very hard to envision tons upon tons of... stuff passing through the lives of those people over a period of years, do you? A trip to a landfill would quickly convince anyone that the "consumer footprint" (I thought I invented the term, but Google proved me wrong), and its associated carbon footprint, of our capitalist economy has a dark underbelly. We're slowly choking to death on our own filth.

So what can we do? The answer is manifold, it's different for each one of us, and we certainly can't lay all the responsibility (or blame) at the feet of the rich. It falls to each one of us to examine our consumer footprint . How much do you and I own, maintain, fuel, eat, drink, throw away? Where does it come from? Where does it end up?

It also falls to each of us to decide whether we really believe the future of the planet is worth saving, if not for us personally then for our children or the children of those we love (if you come to the conclusion that your actions don't matter, or that you simply don't care, please remove yourself from the planet immediately. Yes, I'm serious).

And it falls to us to say, "NO! I don't need what you're selling. I have enough!" Rich or poor, that is the greatest challenge facing anyone in a capitalist society today.

I wish you all the best in your efforts.