Guest blog #28: Scott Wagnon's thoughts on population

(My last post generated a lot of activity on Facebook.  I also received an email from my labmate Scott Wagnon, whose detailed response to the post is below as a guest blog post.)

 

I feel as if Darshan downplayed the role population plays on environmental issues.  Where I wholeheartedly disagree with the unnamed professor (and I know Darshan does, too) is that race is a factor in the interconnection between the environment and population.  Environmental impact is something that is caused and felt by all age, race, gender and socioeconomic demographics.  I know and recognize that certain slices of the demographic pie contribute and/or are impacted more significantly than other slices, as Darshan mentioned in his post.  

 

From any perspective, it is just and right to advocate on behalf of people whose rights have been impacted, whose voice cannot reach a broad audience, or whose voice may not have the same impact as ourselves as wealthy, "educated" people.  But the simple fact remains that we--all of humanity--cannot have tens of billions of people consuming a few resources, as much as we--all of humanity-- cannot have a few people consuming tens of billions of resources.  Population control via family planning through various birth control options, abstinence, and education (see Darshan's post on the "entitlement" of having children, and the short discussion generated); increases in efficiency; and reduced consumption of resources are three equally important ways to reduce the impact of the choices we make.    

 

Those of us, such as Darshan and myself and likely you, who have been empowered with the means to make and enact such choices, should especially look at every aspect.  As Darshan pointed out in his post, wealthy, "educated" people--us--often consume the most.  (On a side note, I use "educated" because I wonder how smart we really are based on certain decisions that we make as a society... having to look no further than our collective treatment of the environment.)  If we--the large consumers, including myself :/--choose not to have large families, use less resources, and use resources more efficiently, we're fostering a culture where the environment is valued not as a commodity, but as something for all of humanity to enjoy.  We live in a finite world, so barring our expansion beyond this beautiful planet, all of humanity must always remain mindful that Earth can only sustain a finite population at even the smallest necessary levels of resource consumption.  We are all effectively one family altering our common home, for better or worse, through the choices we make.  I hope we all continue to make better choices.

 

~Scott Wagnon

Guest blog #23: Adrianna Bojrab on GoodGuide and choice

While making any sort of transaction in the American marketplace, everyone must inevitably make decisions between competitor companies and products. There are so many elements to consider! I consider energy efficiency, whether or not the manufacturing company supports the American economy and labor force, whether environmentally sustainable practices are employed, the content of ingredients--organic and non-toxic...etc. These make up a portion of the criteria I use to evaluate competitor products and companies while making a purchase, ensuring that my purchases reflects my ethical concerns, preferences and values, specifically health and environmental impact. These are also the elements that make up my personal filter on GoodGuide.com. 

GoodGuide is a relatively new (it started in 2008) online database that aids consumers in making more informed decisions in the marketplace, providing an easy, comprehensive and novel approach to product review. University of California-Berkeley Professor Dara O’Rourke, the co-founder and chief sustainability officer of the company, has said that his mission is to make it “easier to find products that are safe, healthy, green and socially responsible.” GoodGuide is funded by social venture investors, traditional venture capitalists and partnered with an extensive network of NGOs, academics and largely traded companies.

How does GoodGuide work? Researching products and their origin can be an incredibly lengthy and time-consuming process. GoodGuide employs a crew composed of chemists, nutritionists, environmental life cycle assessment experts and toxicologists, who have analyzed over one hundred and twenty thousand products (household, personal, food, etc…), and the companies behind the product. They also use information based on over a thousand different sources--the companies themselves, governmental databases about the policies and practices of big publicly traded firms, private research firms, NGOs, policy practices, political partisan endorsement, media sources, and academics.  

Once analyzed, the product analysis is broken down into three main sub-scores: 

1. Human health impact (how the product affects the physical body)
2. Environmental impact (how the product is produced, manufactured, supply chain, potential consequences, raw material origin, distribution, sale and disposal of product), and
3. Social responsibility (impact on society the product or company has).    

The product is then assigned a rating ranging from 0-10, the highest score indicates superb performance, and the lowest indicates subpar performance.

GoodGuide doesn’t stop there; now available is a transparency toolbar that you can install onto your browser free of charge, and utilize your personal filter and GoodGuide ratings on e-commerce sites in the online marketplace. Thus, when you are browsing, the bottom portion of your screen will show how the product matches up to your personalized filter, the GoodGuide rating, and a suggestion of alternative products that can better meet your standards, along with pricing and consumer ratings. Additionally, the new, cost-free Smartphone app (iPhone and Android) scans the barcode of a product, and retrieves all of the online information straight to your phone. Your preferences and filter can virtually be used wherever you go.

Impact.  GoodGuide empowers consumers by showing exactly what their capital is supporting, leading to smarter, healthier and more environmentally friendly purchases.  Why does this matter? Essentially, as more and more consumers start to employ GoodGuide into their daily lifestyles, we will see a gradual change in the marketplace. Consumers’ preferences will become more defined, and large retail and manufacturing companies will feel the pressure and incentive to supply and meet the standards of this new market demand, by “making more environmentally sustainable [products] and producing them using ethical sourcing of raw materials and labors,” say's O'Rourke. O’Rourke sees GoodGuide as “a more transparent and sustainable marketplace that cuts through marketing and advertising,” revealing the truths through the multilayer process and numerous players that go into the raw material, production, labor, politics, supply chain, manufacturing, distribution, marketing and sale of a product. O’Rourke hopes to see GoodGuide send a signal to companies to “business as usual means business as sustainable."

~Adrianna

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Click here for more thoughts on choice, and here and here for more thoughts on the political consumption that Adrianna writes about. You can find previous guest blog posts from Adrianna here and here. Also, she writes wonderfully for The Michigan Daily.  

On "resources"

I come back to the use of words and how words shape our thoughts, and the meanings we prescribe to the world around us. I have had particular trouble with the use of the word "resource." When one mentions the word, anyone's gut would say that a resource is something that is drawn upon and used whenever wanted. I wanted to see how the authorities of English define the word, and so I did a basic search to see how different dictionaries define the word "resource." Here's what I found.

"A stock or supply of money, materials, staff, and other assets that can be drawn on by a person or organization in order to function effectively" ~Google definition search

"A country's collective means of supporting itself or becoming wealthier, as represented by its reserves of minerals, land, and other assets" ~Google definition search

"Something that one uses to achieve an objective, e.g. raw materials or personnel; A person's capacity to deal with difficulty; To supply with resources" ~Wiktonary

"A resource is any physical or virtual entity of limited availability that needs to be consumed to obtain a benefit from it." - ~Wikipedia 

"Personal attributes and capabilities regarded as able to help or sustain one in adverse circumstances" ~Oxford English Dictionary

Such definitions say a lot about how we view our surroundings and people. When something is coined a "natural resource," we implicitly state that it is only in its use that that particular thing in the environment is valuable. Also such a definition draws dangerous boundaries between our actions and their effects. We fail at recognising the important role that something serves without its explicit use. Even when we conserve a resource, we imply that we are saving it for later use. Now, if someone's goal is to prolong the use of something, conservation makes sense. The concept of sustainability has been morphed into one of sustainable "development," with conservation being one of the key pillars of development. But this is only a stepping stone to where we need to be.

What conservation may result in is just a slower use of a resource, without leading us to question the behaviours that lead to consumption and degradation. We operate then with the same broken cycles of existence. The notion of a resource then is dangerous. The essential thing that the definition of "resource" connotes is that things are limited, because we live in a finite world.

Professor Larimore said last night at dinner that Native Americans don't have the notion of "resource." This is something Derrick Jensen would agree to. Rather than view something as solely for the benefit of humans, things have worth and importance in themselves, and have unique positions in ecology, each with their own energy, their own role. When something is "used" by humans, there is a responsibility in the end for that thing to end up back so that someone or something else can "use" it. The notion of a resource then, would be counter to Native American philosophy. Think of the things that you consider "resources" in your life. How would the way you interact with them change if you no longer called it a "resource?"

Blind and/or psychopathic

Today, I want to write in response to a comment I received on my post The chink in the armor, a couple of days ago. Here is the comment.

"Kyle, as you may have gathered from the rest of the blog, Darshan wants to replace corporations with a pre-industrial anti-human "society," or, ideally, with the extinction of humanity. He doesn't want to live in a world with complex things like cars and computers--he wants to live in a world where rocks are afforded the same status, dignity, and moral weight as humans. Everything he ever writes expresses a deep hatred for humanity and freedom, and a love of totalitarian destruction of civilization."

Of course any thoughts contradictory to the status quo trample on the freedom of those who have benefited most. These are the "free" who have given themselves and their kin the "freedom" to destroy. Such sentiment comes from a deep psychopathy - of remorselessness, of insensitivity, of violence.

Freedom is a contradictory notion because we afford freedom to those most powerful, and then oppress other people to deal with the situations we've created for them. No better example than Delray in Detroit, where years of neglect and injustice by the powerful have put people in a situation they cannot escape from. In essence, the freedom of the powerful takes away from the freedom of the not-so-powerful. Many might say that people are free to do as they please. If someone doesn't like where they live, they can pack their bags and move away. Such thought comes out of either an ignorance of the world, or a knowledge that those being oppressed cannot be let free, because if they are, they might tell everyone else of the reality of their situation, making others want to take the powerful down. So instead, the powerful act innocent about the state of other people's lives and the environment, and live their lives as if nothing is wrong. Such an existence is devoid of even the basic moralities we would hope anyone to have.

In general, we are always told we have "freedom". We are free to vote and choose leaders to serve us. We are free to spend money in the way we choose to. But that’s where the train stops, because all the while, we have created behemoth structures and organisations, and even larger problems. When it comes to addressing these bigger issues, we are intimidated, beaten down and told that the problem is too big for each one of us to address. In a sense, we are told to make choices for ourselves, and just forget about the bigger picture. I've realised that we are given freedom when that freedom serves in the interest of behaviour that inevitably leads to ecological harm, but if we were to take a stand against this, we are labeled “tree-huggers” and “job-killers.” There is then an inherent contradiction between independence of choice, and the powerlessness to solve big social and environmental problems. We have the freedom to “consume” but not the freedom to change what it is that drives ecological degradation. 


Our right to freedom does not allow us to freely destroy. There is almost a libertarian sense that I get from hearing some people speak, how entitled they are to their possessions and belongings. What they fail to notice are the extreme injustices that lead to their entitlement. Those that support large corporatism are those that have benefited most from it; they aren't the ones living in Delray or Sumpter Township or Fox Township or the Niger Delta. When you disaggregate the costs and benefits, a feature of large corporatism, you disaggregate your ability to perceive wrongdoing. Or maybe it is the other way around. Actually, that's probably how it is.

People have today been enslaved because of circumstance. Many people actually believe that "working in sweatshops is better than what they would be doing anyway." How do we come to accept this? Why should sweatshops be the best people can be afforded? Because there is a hierarchy of power in this world. People at the top would not have it any other way. They want to keep you and me from speaking up against the injustices we are inflicting on the environment and people living in that environment. This is the corporatism that must fall.

And so my intention is a resolute take down of a system of society that on its face is one based on concepts of "justice" and "equality", but in the end is one of a subtle yet debilitating oppression, and the complex web of corporatism and government, the way we've structured them right now, does exactly that. The "humanity" we've created for ourselves blasts this Earth and its people to smithereens. This is not the humanity I subscribe to.  

One thing no one can argue with is the physical finiteness of this Earth. Conservation of mass, energy, and atoms dictate it. What this means is that if there is 100 of something, and I take one of them, there are only 99 left. Yet we act as if we can take all 100 with the blind faith that there are 100 left. Unfortunately, such people do not understand basic truths about nature. This is the physical world. Well, what about the emotional world, the spiritual world? There is luckily an infinity here, because we can always be kinder, we can always be more just, we can always show more love. What limits us is just the breath in our body.

The problems we face are of our own doing. Cutting down trees remorselessly for biofuel plantations and blasting through soil to get to tar sands are a rape of the Earth and its people. They are a result of mental and emotional constructs of society and economy influencing our physical presence in this world. And the only way they can be fixed is by fixing the source of the problems - this society, this culture. This is a culture that is founded on benefits for some, costs for other, and a privileged dishonesty about these costs. Thest costs move beyond just cost on human lives - this culture is oppressive and violent.

I like to ask myself the following. At what cost am I able to live the way that I do? Taking coal from underneath the ground inevitably degrades the ground, because we are incapable of doing anything benign. We are incapable of not leaving a trace behind. Instead, we pillage and plunder, and we'll blow the tops off of mountains. And the people that are doing the blowing up do not care, because they aren't the ones living in the valleys of West Virginia. They are probably living in their suburban homes, with their well-manicured lawns and big cars. They likely produce two trash cans full of toxic waste a week. No one would live in the place they degrade. Only psychopaths have the ability to somehow convince themselves that they are working in the best interests of other people, when they clearly are not.

We act far from "civilised" in the true meaning of the word. We act in ways that are indicative of moral and spiritual voids, ones that we feel we must fill with materialistic junk and physicality. The culture we live in depends on the Earth more so than any other culture in history. We use almost every element on the periodic table, we extract more and more petrochemicals and cull virgin forests and use more water than ever before. Exposed here is a deep contradiction that the privileged seem to not want to appreciate. In their efforts for "conservation," they use. In their use, they degrade. Technology as we conceive it is founded fundamentally on use of material, not on personal development and education. And yet it is a culture that degrades this Earth exponentially and categorically.

Things don't have to be this way. If we were to take a deep look around us, to observe, and really observe, and think about the complicated systems at play, we can boil much of this ecological injustice to very simple things, but things that would take diligent effort, thought, and consciousness to address. Or we can buy into what those that are privileged want us to think - that just because you are afforded the luxury of a car or computer or home, that things are good everywhere else. Of course, people have a tendency to surround themselves with people that are similar to us - similar in socioeconomic status, people of similar skin colour, people of the same political leanings. Perfect. This is what the oppressors want us to be like. They do not want us to think about what is wrong, they do not want us to look to the other side. Delray is cut off by I-75. Landfills are placed many miles from where we live. Africa is several thousand miles away. Sweet. Out of sight, screw what is happening there. This is a reality we are forced to believe. A reality of mirrors. We see ourselves, and then others like us. We do not see the other side.

And by the way, if you are going to bash my writing and thoughts, at least have the courtesy and courage to tell me who you are.

On framing: consumption vs. trash

Having been involved in environmental activism on campus for years now, the issue of the framing of issues is never too far from my mind. Framing the issue in the right way without compromising on your values can lead to more persuasive arguments. Today's post is on the issue of framing. Case study: consumption vs. trash.

Consumption is complicated. As defining a feature as it is in our behaviour, consumption is vague in its physicality. Consumption is solely an action. It is not something that we can touch or smell. The fact that we can't feel consumption, but rather that its existence is conveyed through the exchange of physical objects, makes it more of a mental and emotional characteristic. At the same time there is indeed a spectrum of consumption, and some consumption must occur to stay alive - with each breath I am taking I am consuming oxygen. Furthermore, many of us think that consuming leads to a happier and more meaningful life, and maybe it does - I can buy a cell phone so that I can keep in touch with my family. At the same time, we live in a society in which people are judged by their consumption habits such that they have physical objects to show for them. Therefore, it may seem very difficult to persuade people to stop consuming.

Yet the dire state of our environment is plain for all to see, and consumption has played an all too heavy hand in this state. There has been ever-increasing talk about how we live in a "materialistic" and "consumerist" world, and that we need to "consume" less if there is any hope that we avoid catastrophic climate change, or if there is any hope that we move to a more sustainable world. Probably more often than not though, we have been told that we need to consume "differently" - we are now being persuaded to buy "green" cars and "environmentally friendly" computers, which are, of course, purely oxymorons. The issue of consumption has been skirted to make us feel less guilty about what we buy. All of this increased consumption is to aid "progress" and "development;" I've written about previously, the concept of sustainability has been consciously morphed into that of "sustainable development," or in a sense, "sustainable consumption."

On the other hand, we have the problems that are borne of consumption, trash being on of them. "Trash" is both an action and an object. Trash isn't something vague or unnoticeable; it is not emotional or mental (although for me it has become so). Rather, trash is a physical manifestation of a mental and emotional construct - consumption - just like the objects we consume are physical manifestations. The objects we consume may be adding some "value" into our lives, but unless you are dealing in the business of trash, trash adds no value to what it is you consume. Instead, trash is a nuisance. Trash is felt and experienced viscerally; the fact that trash is visceral therefore makes it a wonderful metaphor of ecological degradation perpetrated by humans.

To me, the problems of trash, consumption, climate change and unsustainability are one and the same. Yet in order to have a broader impact, and in order to motivate individual action to aid the environment, what may be the appropriate framework to help guide more people? The connotations of consumption may not be wholly negative. In a sense, there is no way I can stop consuming physical things in existence in nature, particularly air, water, and food. But trash has only negative connotations associated with it. More importantly, adequately addressing trash necessarily addresses the issue of consumption - minimizing trash and waste minimizes consumption automatically. Gone are the issues of deciding whether or not to buy product X because it may be greener than product Y. The fact that trash is the result of that consumption choice obviates any need for further thought.

(Thank you to Professor Johnson and Dr. Shriberg for planting these ideas in me.)

Guest blog #15: Caroline Canning's thoughts on recycling

"I was surprised to hear that Ann Arbor’s municipal recycling plant is only a 15-minute drive from the Michigan Union.  For some reason, I imagined that the plant would be in a far away place, that it was a huge facility, spanning acres, molding our plastics into new creations.  Yet, when we got there, it was more like a large warehouse at the end of a road of landfills.  And, rather than creating new products, the plant sells sorted materials to other companies to reuse them.

Offloading materials

Conveyor belt

About to be compressed

Bales of materials waiting to be shipped off

As the five of us hopped out of the car, we were greeted by a huge pile of trash at the front of the plant.  It didn’t smell too strongly, and we proceeded inside to our tour.  Ann Arbor runs an outreach center that aims to educate its citizens about recycling, so we watched a video about the plant and its new single stream capabilities.  I think it’s great that the city is proactive in educating its citizens about what happens to their waste.  The intern told us that since July, when Ann Arbor made the switch to single stream recycling, the plant has seen almost a 20% increase in the amount of recyclables they receive.

Outreach center

 We then proceeded to take a tour of the machinery. Among the high tech sensors that help sort the waste, workers tediously pick out items and toss them into bins and onto other conveyor belts.  What I first noticed was the loud noise, and in a matter of minutes, I could feel a headache coming on.  The other thing I realized was that it was pretty chilly, even on a lovely day in Ann Arbor.  Okay, so by lovely I mean it was in the 40s and the sun was shining.  Even so, I couldn’t help but think that it was usually much colder, and the working conditions, to put it bluntly, kind of sucked.

Listening to music, and hopefully enjoying themselves

After the tour, Darshan and I talked about two things that piqued my interest: Why is it that we desire recycling, but forget about the people who are actually working at these facilities? How does the recycling plant balance being in the “business” of “doing good” for the world?

Although I didn’t talk to any of the workers, I suspect none of them were especially excited about working at a recycling plant.  We whisk our trash away and forget about it, and never think about who is handling it after.  It would be an interesting project to interview the workers about their jobs, and really delve into what they think about it.  For me personally, I don’t aspire to sort recyclables, but I would like someone to do it.  Is this selfish?  What does it say about the structure of our society?  When caring for the environment, shouldn't we be caring for each other as well?

Keeps coming, keeps coming

 People gravitate towards recycling because it makes them feel good about helping the planet and using fewer resources (in some sense).  But we forget that recycling is actually a business, and the Ann Arbor plant is run by a corporation.  Ann Arbor is unique in her recycling ways.  Due to the fact that the city owns the plant, and that it is in close proximity to the city and the other locales that feed it materials, it is actually more profitable to recycle than trash our waste.  But would the city really try to motivate us if it wasn’t earning a profit?  Sadly, probably not.  Instead of dwelling on a pessimistic view, it does say something that A2 creates an environment conducive to recycling.  However, if we used less resources all together, there would be less to recycle, and profits would fall.  So even though the idea of recycling is usually linked with consuming less, a revenue threshold exists that needs to be maintained.  What I therefore struggle with is the contradiction between business and the environment.  From a recycling plant perspective, are we supposed to stop consuming?

Waiting to be fed into the recycling machines

Overall, the recycling plant was thought provoking and (for lack of a better word) cool experience.  I would encourage anyone to go check it out, you can arrange for a tour like we went on and be back on campus in a little over an hour.  Check out their website: www.recycleannarbor.org"

~Caroline

Be affected differently

We live in a world of excess and overload, particularly here in the US. We have the bounties of nature converted into objects, pollutants and identities that we use to create images for ourselves and our culture. The excess that we live in is not only the excess of production, but the excess of want. Of course, objects and pollutants wouldn't be produced if we absolutely did not want them to be produced. We would not condone ecological degradation if masses of people thought it wasn't right. This cycle of production and want is self-propagating and self-propelling, and it is pointless to think about what comes first - our desire for the lifestyles that cause ecological harm and social injustice, or the ability of others to convince us that these very lifestyles are meaningful and needed. Yet, as Rock, Paper, Sanity mentioned in her post yesterday, we construct our personal identities around consumption given the stimuli (ads) provided by those who wish for us to consume their produce. What this tells me is that we are affected by these stimuli, and we have been socially trained to be affected. This social learning defines the acceptability of actions and behaviour, but it is plain to see that these very behaviours have proven disastrous for nature. I am also confident in saying that for those who are the producers, the motives move nowhere beyond those of personal profit. What we are left with is cluttered closets, minds with attention deficit and rivers full of contaminants. We are left with overload.

Overload allows us very little time to think and reflect and listen. We don't have the time to adequately consider the gravity of our choices, and it seems to me that those profiting would have it no other way. Overload leaves us little time to fully engage in what it is we are doing. As soon as you sit down to read a book, your Blackberry rings with the coming of an email. Since we are responsive only to socially accepted stimuli, overload can allow us to not fully question what we experience. Therefore, we can allow ourselves not to be affected by these experiences. Overload consequently can lead to a sheltering of mind and spirit that reinforces current norms. Yet most if not all of the meaningful work that needs to be done in the world lies beyond the realm of these norms. How might we be compelled to act if we aren't affected? I propose that we be affected differently. I propose that we open ourselves up to be affected by things that haven't affected us until now. I hope that we can be affected in ways that make us question norms rather than accept them; the advertising Rock, Paper, Sanity talks about in no way affects us in ways that make us question. What is accepted has always changed over time, and it is now time that we take responsibility ourselves to change the accepted.

How much choice should we have in a sustainable world?

What our "competitive" economy has done has offered people a lot of choice. If someone is making a product or a good for a certain amount of money, other people may try to enter that business and try to produce the product for cheaper, thereby taking business away from the other producer. The first producer may then try to cut their costs, and drive their prices down. Once their prices are fairly equal, you end up with two businesses making similar products. Then they might get into the business of differentiating their products, and sometimes this differentiation may make the price of one of the products go up. What we end up with then are two businesses, making two slightly different products, that may offer you slightly different services. Regardless, we now have two enterprises making two things. We have now two choices. It is not so difficult to see how this may result in several choices. All the while, resources are extracted, in higher and higher amounts, at higher and higher rates, resulting in environmental degradation. (Of course, at the other end of the spectrum, we have a monopoly, that of course, has its negative social implications, too.)

We live in a world in which we can choose between modes of transportation. I can fly to Chicago, drive there, or fly there. We feel (and it is justifiable) that it is important to give people the choice of these options. We now have the choice of eating tomatoes in the middle of winter, and oranges thousands of miles away from where they were grown. But what I think is that it is very easy to take choice to an extreme, and we end up doing things just because we can (you can read more thoughts about this here, here and here). This results in trash, waste, degradation and downright violence, against other people and the environment. What the problem of sustainability throws in our way is the issue of limits to consumption, which necessarily will limit the choices available to people. I concede that I do not have the answer to what the choices we have should be pared down to, but I do know that this is probably not the right direction to look in, macro to micro. Rather, we should look at ourselves first, and see what it is that we think constitutes a happy and meaningful life, given the constraints the natural world puts on us. I think this is a more tractable approach.

Boycott - what is it?

During the Graham Fellows discussion from last week, several important and thoughtful questions were raised about what constitutes political consumption. As I mentioned in a previous post, the fact that I choose not to create trash, and consequently not consume products is a political consumption choice, under Ethan's definition of political consumption (not only having in mind your immediate family and friends when making a consumption choice, but also people [and I would add creatures, nature, ecosystems, land, water, air, rocks, etc.] outside of your immediacy.). But the fact that I am not creating trash and consequently not consuming makes me think that I am boycotting trash and consumption. Over the next week or two, I will be writing a series of posts on boycotts about their history, types, effectiveness, and also examples of famous boycotts and how my project fits into this framework. Today, a little history lesson of what a 'boycott' is.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word 'boycott' was first used in 1880 in The Times ('They also do not feel warranted in regarding the threat of ‘Boycott’ as one which comes within the Act.') and in 1885 in the Pall Mall Gazette ('Those who have continued to hire Chinese labour and patronize the same since the Boycott.'). Although the word was first used in the 19th century, I am sure that boycotts have been taking place for centuries (anyone want to find out when the oldest recorded boycott took place?). The word comes from the name of Captain Charles Boycott.

"Many British absentee landowners in late 19th century Ireland took advantage of famine conditions in Ireland to evict tenants from their property and to lower wages for field work. One of the worst offenders was Captain Charles Boycott (1832-1897), estate manager of the Irish lands of the British Third Earl of Erne. In 1880, Boycott evicted undesirable tenants from the Earl's estates and paid laborers only half the day wage for field work. An American journalist in Ireland and an Irish priest came up with a fitting word to describe the Irish Land League's tactic of encouraging the peasantry to stop working and producing for oppressive landlords, coining the term "boycotting." Irish peasants "boycotted" the estates of absentee Earl of Erne, forcing Charles Boycott to harvest the crops. The boycott was extended further: no merchant would service the Boycott family, and their servants disappeared. This collective social and economic ostracism forced Boycott to stop his abusive tactics.

The example of the Irish Land League and the rise of organized labor in the United States encouraged the use of boycotts as never before. Hitherto the most famous "boycott" in the U.S., before the word was invented, was in 1765, to protest the Stamp Act. As a result, Parliament repealed the act."

Next time, I will write a bit about types of boycotts.

I am trying to boycott trash and consumption.

Choice and political consumption

As you know yourself, we are faced with a multitude of choices each time we try to change our lives in some way - Which of the 23 beds that IKEA sells would be the best bed for me? Should I get 70% cocoa chocolate, or 75%? What wine will my parents like? A late harvest Chardonnay, or a Riesling aged in stainless steel? In the end, we can get flustered with the 93 kinds of cereal available in the cereal aisle of a big grocery store. How can we ever be satisfied with the cell phone we have purchased, knowing that there were 20 other models available at the same or lower price, and that in two months, the newest, most advanced G4 phone ever will be brought into the world? Brett pointed me to The Paradox of Choice in his comment on my post Doing things because we can. He said,

"...sometimes the more choices we have, the less happy we are. "Hey," one thinks, "this is a cool [fill in the blank], but it's not as cool as my friend's. Maybe I should have gotten the other [emphasis added] one at the store; maybe I should get a new [emphasis added] one." This often creates not only an endless stream of needless consumption but also a continual lack of satisfaction due to actual and anticipated buyer's remorse." 

This lack of filling our satisfaction yet continues to fill land, water and air with waste and pollution.

There is another way we can view the issue of choice as related to consumption, and that is what Ethan, another Graham Fellow, is studying by looking into what is termed as "political consumption." Generally, consumption and choice are studied in isolation, not in relation to politics. Generally, we are not thinking politically when we buy a certain product. But about 5-10% of people consume with politics and ethics in mind - how do the choices we make reflect our values, beliefs and morals? For example, many of us choose to buy locally grown, small-scale farm organic foods because we are against the political forces driving the industrial agricultural engine. So here is a loaded question that Ethan posed as a part of his dissertation work: 

When and how does the issue of choice and consumption turn into a political matter? 

Why focus on trash and waste?

Katie asked me a pointed question on Thursday, while we were talking about nuclear waste - "Some people say focusing on a problem like trash takes away from devoting energy to more significant environmental problems. What do you think?"

Trash is visceral. We feel trash. We smell it, touch it, and hear it, sometimes every day, several times a day. When we go out to dinner, we use napkins to wipe our hands. When we crack open a bottle of wine, we rip off the wrapping hiding the cork. As soon as we're done with a plastic bottle of orange juice, some of us lift lift the lid of the trash can in our kitchen and throw the bottle out. The yard of a college fraternity house is littered with plastic cups on game day. We hear the early trash collectors with their huge truck at the crack of dawn, lifting and crushing pounds of trash. A trash bin filled to the brim releases a putrid smell that just makes us want to walk away. Indeed, trash, when we are near it, suffers way less from a problem of perception than do our other friends, such as greenhouse gases. Take carbon dioxide for example. When we flip on the light switch, the light appears here, but the odorless, colourless carbon dioxide is emitted elsewhere. How many of us can visualise such an invisible threat? What does 385 parts per million mean? That means that out of a million, there are 999,615 parts of other gases. Greenhouse gases suffer from a perception problem.

But that doesn't mean that trash and greenhouse gases aren't related. The social, economic and philosophical structures in place that cause the formation of trash and greenhouse gases are the same. Trash is just a different manifestation of the same problem - consumption without limits, carelessness about the future and disrespect for the ecosystems of the present.