Source: Talk the Walk
By United Nations Environment Programme; UN Global Compact; Utopies; 2005
Synopsis: Green products right now only command 1 – 4% of market share. Market demographics break down along relatively predictable lines. The task of sustainable companies is to communicate effectively the alleged superiority of their products.
Reflection:
Two semesters ago, I took my first marketing class through the MBA program. Hate is too strong a word, but dislike not strong enough. It just seemed so utterly unimportant in the face of the problems I was learning about in other classes. I wrote off marketing as a necessary evil in my education.
Imagine my surprise then, when I was reading this document and getting excited about marketing. Every page, I was thinking of a cycling related product and how I would sell it, and then I had a minor epiphany. Despite the possibility its powers can be used for the wrong reasons (I’m thinking the booming SUV market of yore), marketing is just another form of education. At least, it can be. This becomes more important when we consider the value/behavior gap, the 5 to 70% of people (depending on location) who say they’re ready to purchase products for ethical reasons, the reality that sustainable products now command between 1 and 4% market share, and the proportion of buyers who identify lack of knowledge of sustainable products as a factor in choosing conventional products (I know I’ve seen numbers put to this, but I couldn’t find them despite my exhaustive 30 second search).
Example: Bike shops the world over stock little blinky LED lights so that motorists will know when they’ve run over a cyclist. The cheapest ones (both in price and quality) start at under 10 bucks. Last year, Blackburn came out with a new system dubbed the Flea. These are tiny lights, smaller than a book of matches and almost as light, but brighter than any lights of comparable size. On top of that, they are rechargeable via an ingenious magnetic charger that attaches to any 1.5 volt battery (think AAA, AA, C, D). The Flea taillight goes for around 25 bucks. I was having a hard time selling them, despite their performance advantages, until I saw an ad from Blackburn. It showed a pile of batteries, the batteries you would run through a conventional light over its projected lifetime, along with the price of those batteries, and compared it directly to the lifetime cost of the Flea, which was significantly less. Well, armed with this knowledge and my remarkable charm, I renovated my sales strategy and had customers challenging each other to fistfights for the last light on the shelf. Sure, and that’s why the bike shop closed…
The truth is, sales did go up, but not as much as you might think, and it corroborates perfectly what this source shows. People may be willing to pay a price premium for sustainable products, but only if it is framed properly. I think that frame should be monetary for two reasons. One, it’s not subjective, and two, Americans understand money far better than life cycle analyses and ethical arguments. Once sustainable products have been proven on terms we’re used to, they’ll have a much better chance of taking over market share from conventional products, and consumers will be open to claims based on other criteria.
Today's Big Question:
Can we rely on free market capitalism to push people toward sustainable behavior?
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Sustainable Consumption
Source: Sustainable Consumption: Facts and Trends
By: World Business Council for Sustainable Development
Synopsis: It is the conclusion of the WBCSD that current patterns of consumption are not sustainable. In order to move toward sustainable consumption, they look at several dimensions of consumption including: global drivers of consumption, consumption patterns and impacts, the role of the consumer, the role of business, challenges and options for change.
Reflection:
First, this is an important piece of literature for somebody with my professional goals. I found something on every page that I knew could be used to make a business more sustainable. Because I can’t touch on everything, I’m going to touch on the items I thought were most important.
With respect to drivers of consumption, I thought an important point was that, as societies become more affluent, the proportion of income that goes toward food and housing tends to stay the same, while spending on transportation and telecommunications tend to rise the most. This is probably over-interpreting the data, but it seems as affluence rises, we lose sight of necessities. I commonly hear this in reference to organic food prices. A gallon of organic milk can cost more than twice what a standard gallon costs, and people write it off as too expensive. In reality, food had never been so inexpensive. As we’ve gotten richer, and food is increasingly being taken for granted, we’ve forgotten that high quality food is a necessity and probably should cost more than our cell phone plan.
Falling into the Engagement Via Guilt category, I nonetheless found the statistic that it would take five Earths to sustain the world’s population at U.S. levels of consumption to be interesting, considering that this is the direction China and India are heading.
In the section on Consumption Patterns and Impacts, there were several good points, the first being reference to services provided by our ecosystems. Because those ecosystems have always been there, we’ve taken them, and their function, for granted. Somewhere out there is a person who would argue that we can perform those services with technology, but at what cost, and how effectively? Recognizing that the services provided by natural systems have value that can be quantified monetarily is the first step in framing the issue in terms we pay attention to.
Next, I appreciated that they recognize the power of market forces. Like it or not, capitalism is what we’re dealing with, and people are willing to consider sustainable products, if not demanding them outright. Where there is an opportunity to make money, a business will supply that demand.
Possibly the most exciting section concerned innovation. Several things are clear: controlling population is a daunting task, so population is going to continue to grow (for now). At the same time, the world as a whole is becoming more affluent, and that means greater overall consumption. Resources are finite, so what do we do? We need to innovate to de-couple production from resource consumption. Mmmmm…innovation. We like innovation. We’re good at innovation. We put men on the moon and made robots that fit in our blood vessels for crying out loud! I’m picturing something like the scene in Apollo 13, when Houston finds out the CO2 scrubbers are busted. They dump out a box of parts and a mandate: make it work. Except in my vision, it’s not Houston, but Ford or Nike, and it’s not a box of parts, but a dumptruck full of “garbage.” Sure! We can me a car out of old computers and bicycle innertubes! You need shoes? Well, whattya got? Oh, those tubes from the center of the toilet paper roll and plastic shopping bags! We’ll have a pair for you next week! This is a challenge to which we can rise.
Finally, they take a look at the role of the consumer and the role of business. Perhaps most importantly is what I’m going to call the “Talk the Talk Phenomenon.” Many surveys show there is a disconnect between what people say about their sustainable habits and what they do, which is no surprise. Talk is cheap, and I would be amazed if that disconnect didn’t exist, but talk is not what’s going to lead to sustainability. We need to identify what’s keeping people from walking the walk, and they’ve begun that in this document. What is clear is that people will purchase sustainable products only if all other variables are equal, which presents further opportunities for innovation. And of course, all this will be pretty close to moot without education. As a society, we’ve been spoiled, and it’s time we got used to the idea that it can’t last. Being spoiled, we’ve had the luxury of blind consumption. Well, it’s time we started paying attention to what we’re buying, and education and marketing are part of that process.
From the perspective of the business, our greatest tool will be the life cycle analysis of the product. Now, I don’t know exactly what that means, other than it’s an attempt to account for ALL of the costs that go into a product and what happens to it after it’s used.
The last thing I’m going to do before calling it a night is introduce the first of many Big Questions. Like those mentioned in the introduction, these are questions that don’t have answers but get at the heart of the matter. Most of the time, the answer isn’t what’s important; the asking is, and I'm going to try to ask one in every post. Without further ado:
At what point would we rather knowingly face the demise of our culture rather than further sacrifice our conveniences?
By: World Business Council for Sustainable Development
Synopsis: It is the conclusion of the WBCSD that current patterns of consumption are not sustainable. In order to move toward sustainable consumption, they look at several dimensions of consumption including: global drivers of consumption, consumption patterns and impacts, the role of the consumer, the role of business, challenges and options for change.
Reflection:
First, this is an important piece of literature for somebody with my professional goals. I found something on every page that I knew could be used to make a business more sustainable. Because I can’t touch on everything, I’m going to touch on the items I thought were most important.
With respect to drivers of consumption, I thought an important point was that, as societies become more affluent, the proportion of income that goes toward food and housing tends to stay the same, while spending on transportation and telecommunications tend to rise the most. This is probably over-interpreting the data, but it seems as affluence rises, we lose sight of necessities. I commonly hear this in reference to organic food prices. A gallon of organic milk can cost more than twice what a standard gallon costs, and people write it off as too expensive. In reality, food had never been so inexpensive. As we’ve gotten richer, and food is increasingly being taken for granted, we’ve forgotten that high quality food is a necessity and probably should cost more than our cell phone plan.
Falling into the Engagement Via Guilt category, I nonetheless found the statistic that it would take five Earths to sustain the world’s population at U.S. levels of consumption to be interesting, considering that this is the direction China and India are heading.
In the section on Consumption Patterns and Impacts, there were several good points, the first being reference to services provided by our ecosystems. Because those ecosystems have always been there, we’ve taken them, and their function, for granted. Somewhere out there is a person who would argue that we can perform those services with technology, but at what cost, and how effectively? Recognizing that the services provided by natural systems have value that can be quantified monetarily is the first step in framing the issue in terms we pay attention to.
Next, I appreciated that they recognize the power of market forces. Like it or not, capitalism is what we’re dealing with, and people are willing to consider sustainable products, if not demanding them outright. Where there is an opportunity to make money, a business will supply that demand.
Possibly the most exciting section concerned innovation. Several things are clear: controlling population is a daunting task, so population is going to continue to grow (for now). At the same time, the world as a whole is becoming more affluent, and that means greater overall consumption. Resources are finite, so what do we do? We need to innovate to de-couple production from resource consumption. Mmmmm…innovation. We like innovation. We’re good at innovation. We put men on the moon and made robots that fit in our blood vessels for crying out loud! I’m picturing something like the scene in Apollo 13, when Houston finds out the CO2 scrubbers are busted. They dump out a box of parts and a mandate: make it work. Except in my vision, it’s not Houston, but Ford or Nike, and it’s not a box of parts, but a dumptruck full of “garbage.” Sure! We can me a car out of old computers and bicycle innertubes! You need shoes? Well, whattya got? Oh, those tubes from the center of the toilet paper roll and plastic shopping bags! We’ll have a pair for you next week! This is a challenge to which we can rise.
Finally, they take a look at the role of the consumer and the role of business. Perhaps most importantly is what I’m going to call the “Talk the Talk Phenomenon.” Many surveys show there is a disconnect between what people say about their sustainable habits and what they do, which is no surprise. Talk is cheap, and I would be amazed if that disconnect didn’t exist, but talk is not what’s going to lead to sustainability. We need to identify what’s keeping people from walking the walk, and they’ve begun that in this document. What is clear is that people will purchase sustainable products only if all other variables are equal, which presents further opportunities for innovation. And of course, all this will be pretty close to moot without education. As a society, we’ve been spoiled, and it’s time we got used to the idea that it can’t last. Being spoiled, we’ve had the luxury of blind consumption. Well, it’s time we started paying attention to what we’re buying, and education and marketing are part of that process.
From the perspective of the business, our greatest tool will be the life cycle analysis of the product. Now, I don’t know exactly what that means, other than it’s an attempt to account for ALL of the costs that go into a product and what happens to it after it’s used.
The last thing I’m going to do before calling it a night is introduce the first of many Big Questions. Like those mentioned in the introduction, these are questions that don’t have answers but get at the heart of the matter. Most of the time, the answer isn’t what’s important; the asking is, and I'm going to try to ask one in every post. Without further ado:
At what point would we rather knowingly face the demise of our culture rather than further sacrifice our conveniences?
Monday, February 8, 2010
The World Trade Organization
Source: Invisible Government
By Debbie Barker and Jerry Mander, International Forum on Globalization
Synopsis: Economic globalization hasn’t been scrutinized by any institutions without an interest in portraying the consequences as anything but positive. One of the goals of the WTO is a removal of legislation to benefit free trade, possibly at the cost of human rights, workers’ rights, environmental protection, etc. For a variety of reasons, the WTO has become a global governing body, allowing issues of trade to dominate all others. The source then goes on to look at the effects of the WTO on the environment, agriculture, food, public health, culture, intellectual property rights, finance and investment.
Reflection:
At the risk of over-sharing, I’d like to tell you a short story. Several years ago, I briefly dated a woman who met most of the benchmarks of my dream woman. I was falling for her, she did not feel the same, and it ended. At that time, I had a close relationship with God, and I prayed daily for Him (sorry women, God to me was a male) to ease my heartbreak. I’m an avid reader, and often escape into books, so I went to an author I love, Daniel Quinn, and picked up one of his books I hadn’t read, The Story of B. Daily, I read that book and it found every chink in my Christian fait, and nightly I prayed to a god that was becoming increasingly hard to believe in. Finally, one night, I tried to pray, but it no longer felt like anybody was listening.
Not since that life-altering moment have I felt so conflicted. I was raised by hardworking people who believe that hard work begets rewards, and that governments, while not necessarily evil, are huge, ponderous, inefficient entities whose regulation results in disastrous unintended consequences. My parents are Republicans in the traditional sense of the word. I’m reading Atlas Shrugged because my mother told me it was one of the most important books she’d ever read.
Now, I’m reading resources like this one, which present some pretty good arguments that, without some kind of regulation, free market capitalism is going to bring about the end of the world. And now, like some double agent in the room of smoke and mirrors, I find myself wondering what and whom to believe. I read about the potential environmental effects under the influence of the WTO, and I hear my father, whispering over my shoulder to find out who signed the paychecks of the authors. I read about the evil agribusiness giants patenting plants and animals, and I wonder what Ayn Rand would think. Without launching into a diatribe about epistemology and the evils of monetary influence on research, and in an effort to not just lay in the corner in the fetal position, sucking my thumb, I’m going to take it on faith that what we’re reading has been scrutinized, that those doing the scrutinizing were considering interests beyond the bottom line of their personal savings accounts, and that the scrutinizing was based on more than the ideals of some tree-hugging neohippies. Whew, glad to get that off my chest.
In any case, the WTO as depicted in this document is the quintessence of why Business As Usual is not sustainable. For decades, the purpose of our economy was to maximize profit at any cost, and it seems that’s the aim of the WTO. We’re now learning that dollars and cents cannot be the only bottom line considered, although it may be possible to quantify, albeit incompletely, the bottom lines of ecological integrity and social justice using dollars and cents. While only tangentially related to this resource, criticism of capitalism is part of sustainable business management, and as such, relevant. I'll come back to this frequently throughout the semester, I'm sure.
By Debbie Barker and Jerry Mander, International Forum on Globalization
Synopsis: Economic globalization hasn’t been scrutinized by any institutions without an interest in portraying the consequences as anything but positive. One of the goals of the WTO is a removal of legislation to benefit free trade, possibly at the cost of human rights, workers’ rights, environmental protection, etc. For a variety of reasons, the WTO has become a global governing body, allowing issues of trade to dominate all others. The source then goes on to look at the effects of the WTO on the environment, agriculture, food, public health, culture, intellectual property rights, finance and investment.
Reflection:
At the risk of over-sharing, I’d like to tell you a short story. Several years ago, I briefly dated a woman who met most of the benchmarks of my dream woman. I was falling for her, she did not feel the same, and it ended. At that time, I had a close relationship with God, and I prayed daily for Him (sorry women, God to me was a male) to ease my heartbreak. I’m an avid reader, and often escape into books, so I went to an author I love, Daniel Quinn, and picked up one of his books I hadn’t read, The Story of B. Daily, I read that book and it found every chink in my Christian fait, and nightly I prayed to a god that was becoming increasingly hard to believe in. Finally, one night, I tried to pray, but it no longer felt like anybody was listening.
Not since that life-altering moment have I felt so conflicted. I was raised by hardworking people who believe that hard work begets rewards, and that governments, while not necessarily evil, are huge, ponderous, inefficient entities whose regulation results in disastrous unintended consequences. My parents are Republicans in the traditional sense of the word. I’m reading Atlas Shrugged because my mother told me it was one of the most important books she’d ever read.
Now, I’m reading resources like this one, which present some pretty good arguments that, without some kind of regulation, free market capitalism is going to bring about the end of the world. And now, like some double agent in the room of smoke and mirrors, I find myself wondering what and whom to believe. I read about the potential environmental effects under the influence of the WTO, and I hear my father, whispering over my shoulder to find out who signed the paychecks of the authors. I read about the evil agribusiness giants patenting plants and animals, and I wonder what Ayn Rand would think. Without launching into a diatribe about epistemology and the evils of monetary influence on research, and in an effort to not just lay in the corner in the fetal position, sucking my thumb, I’m going to take it on faith that what we’re reading has been scrutinized, that those doing the scrutinizing were considering interests beyond the bottom line of their personal savings accounts, and that the scrutinizing was based on more than the ideals of some tree-hugging neohippies. Whew, glad to get that off my chest.
In any case, the WTO as depicted in this document is the quintessence of why Business As Usual is not sustainable. For decades, the purpose of our economy was to maximize profit at any cost, and it seems that’s the aim of the WTO. We’re now learning that dollars and cents cannot be the only bottom line considered, although it may be possible to quantify, albeit incompletely, the bottom lines of ecological integrity and social justice using dollars and cents. While only tangentially related to this resource, criticism of capitalism is part of sustainable business management, and as such, relevant. I'll come back to this frequently throughout the semester, I'm sure.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
The Work/Spend Phenomenon
Sources:
Take Back Your Time: Fighting Overwork and Time Poverty in America
Edited by John De Graaf
The (Even More) Overworked American
By Juliet Schor
An Issue For Everybody
By Barbara Brandt
The Incredible Shrinking Vacation
By Joe Robinson
Forced Overtime in The Land of the Free
By Lonnie Golden
The Speed Trap
By Robert Bernstein
On Time, Happiness, and Ecological Footprint
By Tim Kasser and Kirk Warren Brown
Synopsis: The trend in rising number of hours worked per year published 10 years ago has been born out with time. Technological advances predicted to put an end to work have been concurrent with this trend. Vacation time is shrinking, and Americans routinely work with fewer days of vacation than any other developed nation. In addition to the intuitive connections between hours worked and personal fulfillment or lack thereof, there is also a connection between overwork and non-sustainable behavior. Material wealth does not seem to be closely connected to life satisfaction.
Reflection: Once again, I feel I enjoy a unique perspective on this issue. I took my first job when I was 15, stocking shelves in the hardware store in my hometown. As an undergrad, I routinely worked 30-hour weeks in addition to being a full time student. I’ve been a bike mechanic, a preschool teacher, an orderly, the guy who runs the weed-eater at a state park, a nature interpreter, and since I was 15, I have never gone without a job. Until now.
Bikes are a seasonal industry, and most shops cut back as much as possible in order to stanch the hemorrhage of money during the winter. Turns out we needed to cut WAY back, so I was laid off in November and two months later it became apparent the shop was closing and my welcome, paid vacation on Uncle Sam’s dime became full-on, oh crap, what am I gonna do now? Until unemployment, I fully believed I needed a job to give my life a sense of purpose. I really like to work, and I love being productive, and I really love making money (for the security reasons mentioned in “Planned Obsolescence”). To compound the issue, my family has a tradition of being hard workers. My dad, not many years from retirement from owning his business, regularly works 50 or 60 hours a week, but feels good about it because he’s not working anywhere close to as many hours as he used to. So I went into unemployment not without trepidation.
Well, with free time, I decided to build a bed. Then I brewed a batch of beer (because the natural thing to do when unemployed is to make alcohol, right?). I read a couple of books that had been sitting on my nightstand. I rode my bike and I got back into running. And some days, I brewed some coffee and watched movies in my pajamas. Two months later, I still don’t have a job. I am looking, but I’m pretty sure I could go on like this forever. (As an indicator of the work ethic in my family, I deleted and retyped this paragraph three times because my dad might read it and I’m afraid of what he’ll think of his deadbeat kid) So yeah, I’ve got a few thoughts on the amount we work.
This is not such an easy topic, because it gets at what is arguably the Ultimate Question: what is the meaning of life? Why are we here? Most would agree we were not meant to work from when we were first able until we die, and most would agree to lead a life that in no way contributes to society (another potential PhD thesis; what do we mean by “contribute” and “society”?) is equally bad, but in between those extremes lies every shade of gray, and we are notoriously, horribly, ridiculously bad at interpreting gray with any sort of consensus.
How did we get into this race? Well, we studied that a bit in “Planned Obsolescence.” The alleged sense of security afforded by “stuff,” and the instinctual desire for more. Maybe further research by people smarter than me will bear that out; maybe it won’t. More to the point, how do we get out of this race?
It seems to me that, as a society, we want our cake and we want to eat it too. Studies cited in our resources show we don’t want to work as much, but we want more more more more more. Our culture of conspicuous consumption is at odds with our desire to work less. If everybody were willing to walk away from such excessively consumptive lifestyles, we wouldn’t be compelled to work as much. Our culture of consumption may be evidence that we value our material possessions more than free time.
I have nothing to back up this assertion other than my personal experience. Bike wrenches don’t make a lot of money. I’ve lived below the poverty line my entire life, and I love my life (I’ll grant you that I’m young, single, and without a mortgage). I own my car. I have more bikes than I know what to do with. I dress as well as I want to. I eat well. Even when employed, I’ve made time to indulge my passions. I don’t own a lot, but everything I do own was bought with hard work, a lot of research, and patience. I am walking evidence that income and material wealth are not connected to life satisfaction. One conclusion I’ve reached while embracing my existential crisis is that it would be great to have a career I love, but it is essential to have a life I love. We’ll see how much a wife, kids, and mortgage change this.
Take Back Your Time: Fighting Overwork and Time Poverty in America
Edited by John De Graaf
The (Even More) Overworked American
By Juliet Schor
An Issue For Everybody
By Barbara Brandt
The Incredible Shrinking Vacation
By Joe Robinson
Forced Overtime in The Land of the Free
By Lonnie Golden
The Speed Trap
By Robert Bernstein
On Time, Happiness, and Ecological Footprint
By Tim Kasser and Kirk Warren Brown
Synopsis: The trend in rising number of hours worked per year published 10 years ago has been born out with time. Technological advances predicted to put an end to work have been concurrent with this trend. Vacation time is shrinking, and Americans routinely work with fewer days of vacation than any other developed nation. In addition to the intuitive connections between hours worked and personal fulfillment or lack thereof, there is also a connection between overwork and non-sustainable behavior. Material wealth does not seem to be closely connected to life satisfaction.
Reflection: Once again, I feel I enjoy a unique perspective on this issue. I took my first job when I was 15, stocking shelves in the hardware store in my hometown. As an undergrad, I routinely worked 30-hour weeks in addition to being a full time student. I’ve been a bike mechanic, a preschool teacher, an orderly, the guy who runs the weed-eater at a state park, a nature interpreter, and since I was 15, I have never gone without a job. Until now.
Bikes are a seasonal industry, and most shops cut back as much as possible in order to stanch the hemorrhage of money during the winter. Turns out we needed to cut WAY back, so I was laid off in November and two months later it became apparent the shop was closing and my welcome, paid vacation on Uncle Sam’s dime became full-on, oh crap, what am I gonna do now? Until unemployment, I fully believed I needed a job to give my life a sense of purpose. I really like to work, and I love being productive, and I really love making money (for the security reasons mentioned in “Planned Obsolescence”). To compound the issue, my family has a tradition of being hard workers. My dad, not many years from retirement from owning his business, regularly works 50 or 60 hours a week, but feels good about it because he’s not working anywhere close to as many hours as he used to. So I went into unemployment not without trepidation.
Well, with free time, I decided to build a bed. Then I brewed a batch of beer (because the natural thing to do when unemployed is to make alcohol, right?). I read a couple of books that had been sitting on my nightstand. I rode my bike and I got back into running. And some days, I brewed some coffee and watched movies in my pajamas. Two months later, I still don’t have a job. I am looking, but I’m pretty sure I could go on like this forever. (As an indicator of the work ethic in my family, I deleted and retyped this paragraph three times because my dad might read it and I’m afraid of what he’ll think of his deadbeat kid) So yeah, I’ve got a few thoughts on the amount we work.
This is not such an easy topic, because it gets at what is arguably the Ultimate Question: what is the meaning of life? Why are we here? Most would agree we were not meant to work from when we were first able until we die, and most would agree to lead a life that in no way contributes to society (another potential PhD thesis; what do we mean by “contribute” and “society”?) is equally bad, but in between those extremes lies every shade of gray, and we are notoriously, horribly, ridiculously bad at interpreting gray with any sort of consensus.
How did we get into this race? Well, we studied that a bit in “Planned Obsolescence.” The alleged sense of security afforded by “stuff,” and the instinctual desire for more. Maybe further research by people smarter than me will bear that out; maybe it won’t. More to the point, how do we get out of this race?
It seems to me that, as a society, we want our cake and we want to eat it too. Studies cited in our resources show we don’t want to work as much, but we want more more more more more. Our culture of conspicuous consumption is at odds with our desire to work less. If everybody were willing to walk away from such excessively consumptive lifestyles, we wouldn’t be compelled to work as much. Our culture of consumption may be evidence that we value our material possessions more than free time.
I have nothing to back up this assertion other than my personal experience. Bike wrenches don’t make a lot of money. I’ve lived below the poverty line my entire life, and I love my life (I’ll grant you that I’m young, single, and without a mortgage). I own my car. I have more bikes than I know what to do with. I dress as well as I want to. I eat well. Even when employed, I’ve made time to indulge my passions. I don’t own a lot, but everything I do own was bought with hard work, a lot of research, and patience. I am walking evidence that income and material wealth are not connected to life satisfaction. One conclusion I’ve reached while embracing my existential crisis is that it would be great to have a career I love, but it is essential to have a life I love. We’ll see how much a wife, kids, and mortgage change this.
Planned Obsolescence
Source: Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America
by Gene Slade, 2006
Synopsis: Made to Break takes on a phenomenon so intertwined in our patterns of consumption that we take it completely for granted: planned obsolescence. For a variety of reasons, but spurred mostly by comptetition between Ford and GM in the ‘20s, and fueled by overproduction allowed by increasingly sophisticated manufacturing techniques, competition in the U.S. means that products go through regular changes that may or may not actually make for a better product, with the purpose of convincing people they need to buy newer and better on a regular basis.
Reflection: I very much looked forward to this source. My day job is assembling and fixing bicycles. Like any technology-driven industry, bikes are subject to planned obsolescence. Every time a component manufacturer adds another speed, ensuring customers need to buy a new drivetrain for their bikes, we hear about it. It’s obvious that our patterns of consumption aren’t sustainable, yet my standard response to customers complaining about needing to buy more “stuff,” is that bikes are undeniably “better” than they’ve ever been before, and they will continue to get better. While reading this piece, I came up with the following questions:
1. What does better mean?
2. How much better do we need our things to be?
3. Better at what cost?
4. Accepting an analogy between biological and technological evolution, how has our world changed to act as a driving force of technological evolution?
5. Agreeing that biological evolution is inevitable, is technological evolution inevitable?
6. What is it about humans that makes us susceptible to pressure (dare I say manipulation?) from ads?
Starting from the top, here are some of the things I cite as being better with modern bicycles: due to a better understanding of ergonomics, bikes are safer and more comfortable than ever before. With increasingly better materials and manufacturing, bikes are more efficient than ever before. Due to the trickle down effect inherent in a tech-driven industry, bikes are cheaper than ever before. Clearly, with minimal change to wording, these arguments could be made about cars, computers, and sewing machines. I think we might agree that better in most cases means safer, more comfortable, more efficient, in some way decreasing the amount of work we must do, or decreasing our perception of the amount of work we must do. We’ll explore the latter in greater depth later.
This puts us in a vulnerable position. Can anything be too safe? Too comfortable? Too inexpensive? Accepting the above definitions of better, there is no limit to how far planned obsolescence can take us. Only a fool would buy a car designed and manufactured to be less safe. Note that durability is not featured above. I struggle with this. “They don’t make ‘em like they used to” is a common comment in bike shops, and I’ve always concurred, because they make them better now. After reading this source, it occurs to me that an unintended consequence of planned obsolescence is the belief that widgets today must be inferior, because if they weren’t, we wouldn’t need a new one every year. This is the realm of psychological obsolescence mentioned in the book, and again, it illustrates that this issue lies in our perception of reality.
Tackling the biological/technological evolution analogy, and what has changed in the world to act as a driving force in technological evolution: first, and maybe most obviously, there can be no evolution without overproduction. If a need exists, but the market is not saturated, there is no competition. You can churn out an adequate product, one that offers no advantage whatsoever over other, similar products, and consumers have no choice but to accept it. With the Industrial Revolution (I think. My knowledge of socioanthropology is only slightly deeper than my knowledge of law) and increases in production, consumers were for the first time faced with choices, and it then became important to offer a superior product. This doesn’t, however, address the question of when more durable ceased to be a competitive advantage, and the source does a good job of tackling this issue.
Businessmen and women have never been stupid, and recognized immediately that, if their widget lasted for 50 years, repeat purchases would be infrequent. Thus, durability ceased to be a competitive advantage, and became a competitive weakness. The accompanying ad campaigns convincing us that old was synonymous with inferior were the final ingredient establishing our culture of disposability and habitual consumption. At the time, this made perfect sense. I’m sure some long-sighted individuals recognized that resources were finite, but I think it would have been much easier to believe, at that time, that we could maintain habits of conspicuous consumption forever, and it would only make our lives better. It is the perfect example of Einstein’s quote: “The problems we are faced with cannot be solved with the same level of thinking that created them.” (That may not be verbatim, but you get the gist.)
The game’s changed. We have more people on Earth than ever before, we have sophisticated measures that allow us to watch our stocks of natural capital dwindling, and it’s become clear to some that our culture of conspicuous, repetitive consumption is not sustainable.
But I’ve gotten a little ahead of myself; going back to the bio/tech evolution. Superficially, it would seem that our busier lives and increasing levels of production would be the perfect selection pressure to spur technological evolution, but I think this is a chicken-and-egg question. As we’ll see with our next source, “The (Even More) Overworked American,” there is a correlation between technological advances and hours worked per year, but causation is not clear. We’re caught in an interesting positive feedback loop, in which the ability to produce more with less effort per unit of production has simply pushed us to produce more and more and more and more, rather that producing the same amount and enjoying that free time promised to us by the advertisements. Stay tuned; we’re going to revisit this next time.
Finally, it seems I’ve been avoiding what may be the ultimate question: what is it about us that makes us susceptible to ad pressure? First, I don’t have the answer (it seems I say that a lot). I do have some ideas, based again on my impressively shallow grasp of socioanthropology. Historically, and I mean going way back, when survival was by no means a foregone conclusion, and food, some animal hides, and maybe some attractively shaped sticks and rocks were the extent of our possessions, those items were security. If you had food, you were one step closer to survival. Those sticks and rocks were one step closer too food. Those items were necessities in a sense we are incapable of grasping.
Fast forward a couple hundred thousand years, and those items get a little more sophisticated, but they still represent security. They are still a physical manifestation of survival. I think we still have this instinct. The Industrial Revolution, rise in production, and accompanying rise in consumption moved so much faster than evolution, so that instinctual part of our brains, nurtured to keep us alive through millions of years of evolution, had no chance of catching up. So today we buy our 10,000 square foot McMansions, with our six car garages full of every manner of motorized toy, and we eat our 5,000 calories a day, and we look at all of it, and we want more, because what if the fire goes out and the giant sloths move south and our beloved pounding rock breaks? We’ll die. And where would we be then?
by Gene Slade, 2006
Synopsis: Made to Break takes on a phenomenon so intertwined in our patterns of consumption that we take it completely for granted: planned obsolescence. For a variety of reasons, but spurred mostly by comptetition between Ford and GM in the ‘20s, and fueled by overproduction allowed by increasingly sophisticated manufacturing techniques, competition in the U.S. means that products go through regular changes that may or may not actually make for a better product, with the purpose of convincing people they need to buy newer and better on a regular basis.
Reflection: I very much looked forward to this source. My day job is assembling and fixing bicycles. Like any technology-driven industry, bikes are subject to planned obsolescence. Every time a component manufacturer adds another speed, ensuring customers need to buy a new drivetrain for their bikes, we hear about it. It’s obvious that our patterns of consumption aren’t sustainable, yet my standard response to customers complaining about needing to buy more “stuff,” is that bikes are undeniably “better” than they’ve ever been before, and they will continue to get better. While reading this piece, I came up with the following questions:
1. What does better mean?
2. How much better do we need our things to be?
3. Better at what cost?
4. Accepting an analogy between biological and technological evolution, how has our world changed to act as a driving force of technological evolution?
5. Agreeing that biological evolution is inevitable, is technological evolution inevitable?
6. What is it about humans that makes us susceptible to pressure (dare I say manipulation?) from ads?
Starting from the top, here are some of the things I cite as being better with modern bicycles: due to a better understanding of ergonomics, bikes are safer and more comfortable than ever before. With increasingly better materials and manufacturing, bikes are more efficient than ever before. Due to the trickle down effect inherent in a tech-driven industry, bikes are cheaper than ever before. Clearly, with minimal change to wording, these arguments could be made about cars, computers, and sewing machines. I think we might agree that better in most cases means safer, more comfortable, more efficient, in some way decreasing the amount of work we must do, or decreasing our perception of the amount of work we must do. We’ll explore the latter in greater depth later.
This puts us in a vulnerable position. Can anything be too safe? Too comfortable? Too inexpensive? Accepting the above definitions of better, there is no limit to how far planned obsolescence can take us. Only a fool would buy a car designed and manufactured to be less safe. Note that durability is not featured above. I struggle with this. “They don’t make ‘em like they used to” is a common comment in bike shops, and I’ve always concurred, because they make them better now. After reading this source, it occurs to me that an unintended consequence of planned obsolescence is the belief that widgets today must be inferior, because if they weren’t, we wouldn’t need a new one every year. This is the realm of psychological obsolescence mentioned in the book, and again, it illustrates that this issue lies in our perception of reality.
Tackling the biological/technological evolution analogy, and what has changed in the world to act as a driving force in technological evolution: first, and maybe most obviously, there can be no evolution without overproduction. If a need exists, but the market is not saturated, there is no competition. You can churn out an adequate product, one that offers no advantage whatsoever over other, similar products, and consumers have no choice but to accept it. With the Industrial Revolution (I think. My knowledge of socioanthropology is only slightly deeper than my knowledge of law) and increases in production, consumers were for the first time faced with choices, and it then became important to offer a superior product. This doesn’t, however, address the question of when more durable ceased to be a competitive advantage, and the source does a good job of tackling this issue.
Businessmen and women have never been stupid, and recognized immediately that, if their widget lasted for 50 years, repeat purchases would be infrequent. Thus, durability ceased to be a competitive advantage, and became a competitive weakness. The accompanying ad campaigns convincing us that old was synonymous with inferior were the final ingredient establishing our culture of disposability and habitual consumption. At the time, this made perfect sense. I’m sure some long-sighted individuals recognized that resources were finite, but I think it would have been much easier to believe, at that time, that we could maintain habits of conspicuous consumption forever, and it would only make our lives better. It is the perfect example of Einstein’s quote: “The problems we are faced with cannot be solved with the same level of thinking that created them.” (That may not be verbatim, but you get the gist.)
The game’s changed. We have more people on Earth than ever before, we have sophisticated measures that allow us to watch our stocks of natural capital dwindling, and it’s become clear to some that our culture of conspicuous, repetitive consumption is not sustainable.
But I’ve gotten a little ahead of myself; going back to the bio/tech evolution. Superficially, it would seem that our busier lives and increasing levels of production would be the perfect selection pressure to spur technological evolution, but I think this is a chicken-and-egg question. As we’ll see with our next source, “The (Even More) Overworked American,” there is a correlation between technological advances and hours worked per year, but causation is not clear. We’re caught in an interesting positive feedback loop, in which the ability to produce more with less effort per unit of production has simply pushed us to produce more and more and more and more, rather that producing the same amount and enjoying that free time promised to us by the advertisements. Stay tuned; we’re going to revisit this next time.
Finally, it seems I’ve been avoiding what may be the ultimate question: what is it about us that makes us susceptible to ad pressure? First, I don’t have the answer (it seems I say that a lot). I do have some ideas, based again on my impressively shallow grasp of socioanthropology. Historically, and I mean going way back, when survival was by no means a foregone conclusion, and food, some animal hides, and maybe some attractively shaped sticks and rocks were the extent of our possessions, those items were security. If you had food, you were one step closer to survival. Those sticks and rocks were one step closer too food. Those items were necessities in a sense we are incapable of grasping.
Fast forward a couple hundred thousand years, and those items get a little more sophisticated, but they still represent security. They are still a physical manifestation of survival. I think we still have this instinct. The Industrial Revolution, rise in production, and accompanying rise in consumption moved so much faster than evolution, so that instinctual part of our brains, nurtured to keep us alive through millions of years of evolution, had no chance of catching up. So today we buy our 10,000 square foot McMansions, with our six car garages full of every manner of motorized toy, and we eat our 5,000 calories a day, and we look at all of it, and we want more, because what if the fire goes out and the giant sloths move south and our beloved pounding rock breaks? We’ll die. And where would we be then?
Friday, February 5, 2010
Indigenous Impacts
Source: Inequity In the Global Village: Recycled Rhetoric and Disposable People, by Jan Knippers Black, 1999
Synopsis: Indigenous people the world over have been marginalized since…well, kind of since forever. They typically represent the poorest people on earth (as measured by GDP) and have either been ignored when considering questions of global importance, or recognized as an obstacle to progress. At risk is loss of cultural heritage, and because they have such close ties to their ancestral lands, the unique ecosystems in which they live.
Reflection:
Several years ago, when my existential crisis and I were in full embrace, I took a job presenting educational programs at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument (ORPI). My interests are varied, so I developed programs on geology, astronomy, and the philosophy of conservation. My program “To Save a Species” was about the latter.
Within the boundaries of ORPI lies Quitobaquito, which is a microecosystem consisting of a spring-fed pond of around an acre, some wetlands, and the normal riparian zone you’d expect around water, all plunked down right in the middle of the Sonoran Desert. In the water you can find the Sonoran Desert Pupfish, which can be found nowhere else on Earth. The pupfish is as indigenous a species as you can find, occupying that little pond and nowhere else, and like indigenous peoples, it has developed a host of adaptations that allow it to survive in the singular conditions of Quitobaquito.
There is a sort-of critical mass, population-wise, when talking about a species. Below a certain number of individuals, there is not enough genetic diversity to keep the species viable and hearty. 10,000 years ago, cheetahs dipped below this critical mass so that today, all cheetahs are very similar genetically. You can take skin from any cheetah, graft it on to any other, and it will not be rejected. It’s called a genetic bottleneck, and it makes a species more vulnerable. Biological staff at ORPI feared, at best, a genetic bottleneck, and at worst, extinction, of the pupfish, so serious conservation efforts were under way, including the construction of an artificial pond in which another population of pupfish could be cultivated. At this point in the program, I opened it to questions, hoping that some skeptic out there would ask the ultimate one: why? Why go to such great lengths to save such a small and insignificant organism?
Indulge me for just a moment. Let’s pretend we’re detectives, and we’re investigating a crime of such a despicable nature that failure is out of the question. If solving the case depends on knowing every nook and cranny of the house in which the crime was committed, to whom do we talk? We’d probably want talk to the person who’d lived there longest, maybe the boy who was born and raised there, spent his Saturday afternoons playing hide and seek in the attic. What if we want to know every alley and alcove in the neighborhood? We talk to the woman who’s owned the corner drugstore for the last 40 years, who’s been a fixture in the neighborhood for longer than anybody else can remember. What if we need to know the city in which the crime was committed? We talk to the beat cop who’s been watching those streets longer than any other officer. This isn’t rocket science or brain surgery. Who has more knowledge about an environment than the people who’ve been there the longest?
There is not a species on earth better adapted to the conditions at Qitobaquito than the Sonoran Desert Pupfish. In fact, it is so well adapted that to think of it as an entity apart from Quitobaquito is to view that environment superficially. The pupfish is as much Quitobaquito as the water, trees, and cattails. Such is the nature of indigenous species, human or otherwise.
We understand very well the value of organisms as they relate to us. We value things that are beautiful, or delicious, or that yield some material that is warm, comfortable or beautiful. Don’t misunderstand me. I cannot and will not pass judgment on our behavior. It is a system that has worked so well in our past that you might say it was essential for our survival. But consider for a moment the number of variables in an environment like Quitobaquito.
We can’t do it.
The known unknowns are too numerous to count, and by definition, we cannot begin to understand the unknown unknowns. Again, indulge me, because this analogy isn’t perfect, but in “A Leader’s Framework For Decision Making,” by David Snowden and Mary Boone, the authors identified four contexts in which leaders are asked to make decisions, from simple to chaotic, depending on things like patterns, knowns and unknowns, and cause and effect relationships. Any environment must fall into the complex context, in which there is flux and unpredictability, unknown unknowns, and no right answers. In such a context, a leader’s priorities are to keep the problems from getting worse, and manage in such a way that patterns can emerge.
Respecting indigenous people, protecting indigenous species and their environments is important because we just don’t know. We cannot predict the effect of losing them. Never mind moral and ethical considerations, even from the most selfish of perspectives, we don’t know if the knowledge of indigenous people or the information written in the genetic code of the pupfish, that most intimate knowledge of an environment, will be useful to us someday. But once it’s gone, there’s no getting it back, and we’ve already lost a lot.
OK, if you’ve made it this far, stick with me for just one more paragraph. You’ll note that nowhere above have I used the terms “right” or “wrong” in reference to a behavior. If possible, you won’t find those terms used in this blog. The problem with using labels such as “right” and “wrong” is that somebody, somewhere, inevitably, will disagree with you. Right and wrong have no non-subjective basis. So, what happens when the person who is “wrong” is smarter than you? What if she is stronger than you? What if he has an army and more powerful weapons? I believe there are systems that work, and systems that do not. Time may show that a behavior we labeled “wrong” is part of a system that isn’t sustainable, and that behavior goes away. It is plausible that a repugnant behavior, like eating oysters on the half-shell, is part of a system that works. But, what if you’re smarter, stronger, and control an army, and it’s you who turns out to be part of a system that is not sustainable? How do we know which systems work and which don’t? The best we can hope for right now is to keep the problems from getting worse, and wait for patterns to emerge. Thanks for stopping by.
Synopsis: Indigenous people the world over have been marginalized since…well, kind of since forever. They typically represent the poorest people on earth (as measured by GDP) and have either been ignored when considering questions of global importance, or recognized as an obstacle to progress. At risk is loss of cultural heritage, and because they have such close ties to their ancestral lands, the unique ecosystems in which they live.
Reflection:
Several years ago, when my existential crisis and I were in full embrace, I took a job presenting educational programs at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument (ORPI). My interests are varied, so I developed programs on geology, astronomy, and the philosophy of conservation. My program “To Save a Species” was about the latter.
Within the boundaries of ORPI lies Quitobaquito, which is a microecosystem consisting of a spring-fed pond of around an acre, some wetlands, and the normal riparian zone you’d expect around water, all plunked down right in the middle of the Sonoran Desert. In the water you can find the Sonoran Desert Pupfish, which can be found nowhere else on Earth. The pupfish is as indigenous a species as you can find, occupying that little pond and nowhere else, and like indigenous peoples, it has developed a host of adaptations that allow it to survive in the singular conditions of Quitobaquito.
There is a sort-of critical mass, population-wise, when talking about a species. Below a certain number of individuals, there is not enough genetic diversity to keep the species viable and hearty. 10,000 years ago, cheetahs dipped below this critical mass so that today, all cheetahs are very similar genetically. You can take skin from any cheetah, graft it on to any other, and it will not be rejected. It’s called a genetic bottleneck, and it makes a species more vulnerable. Biological staff at ORPI feared, at best, a genetic bottleneck, and at worst, extinction, of the pupfish, so serious conservation efforts were under way, including the construction of an artificial pond in which another population of pupfish could be cultivated. At this point in the program, I opened it to questions, hoping that some skeptic out there would ask the ultimate one: why? Why go to such great lengths to save such a small and insignificant organism?
Indulge me for just a moment. Let’s pretend we’re detectives, and we’re investigating a crime of such a despicable nature that failure is out of the question. If solving the case depends on knowing every nook and cranny of the house in which the crime was committed, to whom do we talk? We’d probably want talk to the person who’d lived there longest, maybe the boy who was born and raised there, spent his Saturday afternoons playing hide and seek in the attic. What if we want to know every alley and alcove in the neighborhood? We talk to the woman who’s owned the corner drugstore for the last 40 years, who’s been a fixture in the neighborhood for longer than anybody else can remember. What if we need to know the city in which the crime was committed? We talk to the beat cop who’s been watching those streets longer than any other officer. This isn’t rocket science or brain surgery. Who has more knowledge about an environment than the people who’ve been there the longest?
There is not a species on earth better adapted to the conditions at Qitobaquito than the Sonoran Desert Pupfish. In fact, it is so well adapted that to think of it as an entity apart from Quitobaquito is to view that environment superficially. The pupfish is as much Quitobaquito as the water, trees, and cattails. Such is the nature of indigenous species, human or otherwise.
We understand very well the value of organisms as they relate to us. We value things that are beautiful, or delicious, or that yield some material that is warm, comfortable or beautiful. Don’t misunderstand me. I cannot and will not pass judgment on our behavior. It is a system that has worked so well in our past that you might say it was essential for our survival. But consider for a moment the number of variables in an environment like Quitobaquito.
We can’t do it.
The known unknowns are too numerous to count, and by definition, we cannot begin to understand the unknown unknowns. Again, indulge me, because this analogy isn’t perfect, but in “A Leader’s Framework For Decision Making,” by David Snowden and Mary Boone, the authors identified four contexts in which leaders are asked to make decisions, from simple to chaotic, depending on things like patterns, knowns and unknowns, and cause and effect relationships. Any environment must fall into the complex context, in which there is flux and unpredictability, unknown unknowns, and no right answers. In such a context, a leader’s priorities are to keep the problems from getting worse, and manage in such a way that patterns can emerge.
Respecting indigenous people, protecting indigenous species and their environments is important because we just don’t know. We cannot predict the effect of losing them. Never mind moral and ethical considerations, even from the most selfish of perspectives, we don’t know if the knowledge of indigenous people or the information written in the genetic code of the pupfish, that most intimate knowledge of an environment, will be useful to us someday. But once it’s gone, there’s no getting it back, and we’ve already lost a lot.
OK, if you’ve made it this far, stick with me for just one more paragraph. You’ll note that nowhere above have I used the terms “right” or “wrong” in reference to a behavior. If possible, you won’t find those terms used in this blog. The problem with using labels such as “right” and “wrong” is that somebody, somewhere, inevitably, will disagree with you. Right and wrong have no non-subjective basis. So, what happens when the person who is “wrong” is smarter than you? What if she is stronger than you? What if he has an army and more powerful weapons? I believe there are systems that work, and systems that do not. Time may show that a behavior we labeled “wrong” is part of a system that isn’t sustainable, and that behavior goes away. It is plausible that a repugnant behavior, like eating oysters on the half-shell, is part of a system that works. But, what if you’re smarter, stronger, and control an army, and it’s you who turns out to be part of a system that is not sustainable? How do we know which systems work and which don’t? The best we can hope for right now is to keep the problems from getting worse, and wait for patterns to emerge. Thanks for stopping by.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Blue Gold
Source: Blue Gold, by Maude Barlow, International Forum on Globalization
Synopsis: Available freshwater, meaning available for use and/or consumption, is arguably the most critical resource upon which depend. It amounts to less than one half of one percent of all water on Earth. If current trends continue, water shortage will become the most pressing issue with which we’re faced, if it is not already. The world economy of the near future, in which water will be bought, sold, and traded, has the capacity to exacerbate the problem, widening the gap between the haves and have-nots, and ensuring conservation efforts will not succeed. The source concludes with a series of principles upon which we might base future efforts to deal with this crisis.
Reflection: I’m going to start with criticism. My father, whom I love dearly, is a climate change skeptic. It is a battle that must be fought on three fronts: first, he does not accept that global climatic patterns are changing. Second, he does not accept that, if they are changing, the cause is anthropogenic. Finally, he does not accept that, if the first two points were true, there is anything we could do about it. (Note the use of the term “accept.” Issues of global climate change, peak oil, and overpopulation are phenomena that do not require belief to exist. We don’t “believe” in gravity.)
He is honest about how he arrived at his view. The politization (somebody let me know if that’s not a real word) of the issue and the accompanying “bleeding heart” messages have completely and totally turned him off. The most compelling evidence means nothing because he can’t tolerate the way it’s communicated. I can’t entirely blame him. The included statistics about how much water western civilization uses for luxuries like cosmetics and ice cream compared to how much developing nations use for necessities wears thin very quickly. I even found myself wanting to play devil’s advocate, and I’m almost as bleeding heart as they come. Engagement is as much a part of sustainability as conserving water and protecting biodiversity, and making people feel guilty is not an effective tool for engagement. That being said, I don’t know the purpose for which this paper was written and part of my task is to look beyond issues like this anyway, so I won’t dwell on it.
Other than the above, what struck me first was the critical state of freshwater. Water consumption is growing at twice the rate of population growth. Wow. It’s obvious and intuitive that we need it for cooking, cleaning, and sanitation, but I hadn’t made the connection between water usage and manufacturing, especially in the high-tech sector. It’s another example of blissful ignorance, but my reaction to this knowledge is hopeful. We’ve become so distanced from the items we consume that considering something like how much water was used to manufacture our computer is no longer intuitive, but it doesn’t mean that it’s meaningless. Even now, we’re seeing product branding that points out sustainable practices used in creating the product. It’s not the end of the problem, but a step in the right direction. Of course, as the article points out, 65% of our water is used as irrigation for crops. To the best of my knowledge, there is no classification for food that’s produced using less water-intensive methods.
Much was said about the commoditization of water, the buying, selling, and trading of water and water rights. This brought an interesting realization. The idea of water as a commodity seems absurd to me, but I wasn’t sure why. The article explores this reaction further. Is water a right or a need? If it’s a right, it cannot be bought and sold. If it’s a need, it can be. Food is as necessary as water, and we buy, sell, and trade food as a matter of course. Why is water different? Because historically, it hasn’t required the same amount of effort to procure it? Possibly, but I’m no anthropologist and I know people have gone to great lengths to procure water (I cite the Roman aquaducts). Taken a step further, we could try the mental exercise of considering the air we breathe as a commodity. Ridiculous. (I cite the movie “Spaceballs,” a fascinating documentary about the commoditization of air) What’s different about water? I don’t have an answer.
Disregarding the moral and philosophical considerations of water and water rights, we arrive at reality, which is that, right or wrong, water is becoming a commodity, subject to market forces. Is the bulk exportation of water financially feasible? Is this an issue the free market is capable of handling? Maybe, considering what could happen to the cost of all those products that depend on cheap or free water for production. Do we want to wait to find out? In fact, the article gets at this, pointing out that if industry was paying the true cost of water, we wouldn’t be so cavalier about its use. As far as business is concerned, success may lie in viewing this as a marketing opportunity. Pay attention to how much water is used in your company, work to reduce that amount, and don’t be shy about telling people.
I’ll wrap this up with a couple of facts.
Fact: There is no solution to the global water crisis (or any of these issue) if global population growth is not addressed.
Fact: Wars are fought for resources. Water is arguably the most critical resource. When people must choose between peace and survival, peace will lose. Every time.
Synopsis: Available freshwater, meaning available for use and/or consumption, is arguably the most critical resource upon which depend. It amounts to less than one half of one percent of all water on Earth. If current trends continue, water shortage will become the most pressing issue with which we’re faced, if it is not already. The world economy of the near future, in which water will be bought, sold, and traded, has the capacity to exacerbate the problem, widening the gap between the haves and have-nots, and ensuring conservation efforts will not succeed. The source concludes with a series of principles upon which we might base future efforts to deal with this crisis.
Reflection: I’m going to start with criticism. My father, whom I love dearly, is a climate change skeptic. It is a battle that must be fought on three fronts: first, he does not accept that global climatic patterns are changing. Second, he does not accept that, if they are changing, the cause is anthropogenic. Finally, he does not accept that, if the first two points were true, there is anything we could do about it. (Note the use of the term “accept.” Issues of global climate change, peak oil, and overpopulation are phenomena that do not require belief to exist. We don’t “believe” in gravity.)
He is honest about how he arrived at his view. The politization (somebody let me know if that’s not a real word) of the issue and the accompanying “bleeding heart” messages have completely and totally turned him off. The most compelling evidence means nothing because he can’t tolerate the way it’s communicated. I can’t entirely blame him. The included statistics about how much water western civilization uses for luxuries like cosmetics and ice cream compared to how much developing nations use for necessities wears thin very quickly. I even found myself wanting to play devil’s advocate, and I’m almost as bleeding heart as they come. Engagement is as much a part of sustainability as conserving water and protecting biodiversity, and making people feel guilty is not an effective tool for engagement. That being said, I don’t know the purpose for which this paper was written and part of my task is to look beyond issues like this anyway, so I won’t dwell on it.
Other than the above, what struck me first was the critical state of freshwater. Water consumption is growing at twice the rate of population growth. Wow. It’s obvious and intuitive that we need it for cooking, cleaning, and sanitation, but I hadn’t made the connection between water usage and manufacturing, especially in the high-tech sector. It’s another example of blissful ignorance, but my reaction to this knowledge is hopeful. We’ve become so distanced from the items we consume that considering something like how much water was used to manufacture our computer is no longer intuitive, but it doesn’t mean that it’s meaningless. Even now, we’re seeing product branding that points out sustainable practices used in creating the product. It’s not the end of the problem, but a step in the right direction. Of course, as the article points out, 65% of our water is used as irrigation for crops. To the best of my knowledge, there is no classification for food that’s produced using less water-intensive methods.
Much was said about the commoditization of water, the buying, selling, and trading of water and water rights. This brought an interesting realization. The idea of water as a commodity seems absurd to me, but I wasn’t sure why. The article explores this reaction further. Is water a right or a need? If it’s a right, it cannot be bought and sold. If it’s a need, it can be. Food is as necessary as water, and we buy, sell, and trade food as a matter of course. Why is water different? Because historically, it hasn’t required the same amount of effort to procure it? Possibly, but I’m no anthropologist and I know people have gone to great lengths to procure water (I cite the Roman aquaducts). Taken a step further, we could try the mental exercise of considering the air we breathe as a commodity. Ridiculous. (I cite the movie “Spaceballs,” a fascinating documentary about the commoditization of air) What’s different about water? I don’t have an answer.
Disregarding the moral and philosophical considerations of water and water rights, we arrive at reality, which is that, right or wrong, water is becoming a commodity, subject to market forces. Is the bulk exportation of water financially feasible? Is this an issue the free market is capable of handling? Maybe, considering what could happen to the cost of all those products that depend on cheap or free water for production. Do we want to wait to find out? In fact, the article gets at this, pointing out that if industry was paying the true cost of water, we wouldn’t be so cavalier about its use. As far as business is concerned, success may lie in viewing this as a marketing opportunity. Pay attention to how much water is used in your company, work to reduce that amount, and don’t be shy about telling people.
I’ll wrap this up with a couple of facts.
Fact: There is no solution to the global water crisis (or any of these issue) if global population growth is not addressed.
Fact: Wars are fought for resources. Water is arguably the most critical resource. When people must choose between peace and survival, peace will lose. Every time.
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