So where do I go from here?

The more I see how my "American way of life" is subsidized by other people's suffering, the more I am offended by the way things are. I know I can't change the world, I can't even change another person, but I can change me. I am not obligated to participate in causing another persons suffering though my actions...or purchases. Even if it is the accepted norm.

I ran across another blog quite by accident, about a week ago or so, which summarized exactly how I have been feeling for the last few months. I have reprinted one of the posts here, in it's entirety, because it's so well written and I didn't feel a small excerpt would have the same impact. I reprint it here with the authors permission. I have also given the link below in case you want to read the rest of his blog. Most of his blog is not about resource conservation, but it is some really good stuff about life and living compassionately. I recommend it as a must read. Be warned though, it is very powerful and quite an emotional read. Here is the excerpt I promised from Weblog "Spirit Poor".

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Think about the drink

I washed my hair by a mountain stream once. We were backpacking for an entire week and I stunk. So I took an impromptu bath, rinsed my hair in the stream, and watched the bubbles drift downriver.
Didn't give much thought to the hikers who would be collecting water from that same stream down below.
We live our lives with that same thoughtlessness. "I can live any way I darn well please. To hell with the rest of you."
We wouldn't say that out loud, or maybe even think it. But it's how we live.
It's what we do when we buy clothes made in third-world countries at the expense of someone else's near-slave labor.
It's what we do when we sip rich coffee grown and harvested by the sweat of people who will see almost no income for their efforts.
It's what we do when we buy products that can't be easily recycled. When we carry them home in plastic bags. When we toss away the glossy packaging and eventually the item itself with its non-degrading plastic and toxic chemicals.
It's what we do when we treat the waitress that way. Or the co-worker. Former friend. Husband. Wife. Child.
What's your trickle down? What are you dumping in the river for others to drink? What lives are impacted by your actions? Take a long, hard look downstream.

Spirit Poor: Think About the Drink

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I am aware that sometimes my blog or comments probably sound like I have jumped up on a high horse and don't know how to get off. It's really not that way exactly. At least I hope not. I do have a bone dry sense of humor that is sometimes missed or misunderstood and that often gets me in trouble. I also tend to rant about things that are really just hitting me square between the eyes and I would like to change in myself. I am truly a novice when it comes to using resources correctly so I give myself challenges and put my thoughts out there in cyberspace so I have a higher standard to live up to. But in the end, I do believe I have still missed the mark a bit.

So back to my original question, "Where do I go from here?"

I have reasonably determined that if I stay mindful of what is leaving me in the form of trash, garbage, refuse, water, wasted food, hydrocarbons, methane?, recyclables--and anything else I might have forgotten in the list-- then I will be making headway. However, having given this careful thought, I don't think it is enough to just think about my waste stream. I also must think about where what I acquire comes from.

As I look around my house I find things that most likely were made by another man's poorly compensated sweat in a third world country. There are other things too that used an extreme amount of resources to produce or probably created a great amount of pollution in their manufacture. When I buy these goods, do I not perpetuate suffering or extreme pollution and also share in the blame?

There is a hidden price for cheap goods that someone else pays instead of me. I can only live cheaply because the cost to produce my goods is kept low by cheating someone else out of the right to pursue happiness. Is that fair? I have the right to pursue happiness but those in "developing" countries don't? That's arrogant and piggish and I don't want to be that way.

I plan on being more mindful of what I purchase. I am with No Impact Man on buying used but that is not always possible so here are some points I am going to consider on every new purchase. I am sure I will revisit this list later and add to it, but this is the list for now.

1. In which country was this product made?
2. Were the persons that manufactured or assembled it paid a decent wage, and did they work decent hours? Is there a chance they were kept locked in their place of employment for long hours with no breaks? Were they forbidden to use the restroom for long periods? Is it Fair Trade?
3. How far did this product have to travel to reach me? How much oil was consumed in it's manufacture and shipment?
4. What air /water /soil pollution occurred when this product was made?
5. How many tons of resources did it actually take to manufacture any metals in the product?
6. Did anyone die to extract the resources necessary to manufacture the product?
7. How much plastic is in the product? If there is plastic, is it recyclable or will it end up in the landfill?
8. Is the packaging excessive? Can the packaging be recycled or will it just end up in the landfill?
9. How long will this product last? Can it be renewed or repaired? Is it manufactured specifically to be disposable?
10. Do I really NEED it, or do I just WANT it?
11. Does my use of this product create any additional pollution?
12. When I am through with this product will it be difficult or impossible to dispose of?
13. How long will it take for this product to decompose? Will it ever decompose?
14. Will this product harm me, or those around me?
15. Can this product be purchased from a local manufacturer instead of an importer?

Whoa, that's a big list, you might be saying. Well, it should be. I would call it mindful consumption rather than impulsive and it is what I should be practicing. If it takes me a few days or hours to determine if I should buy something...that's good! Stores are set up for impulse purchases. If I must run myself through a checklist before I purchase, I will be less prone to buy on impulse. And I do love to buy on impulse. It makes me downright giddy. Until I leave the store. Then it just makes me less rich.

Peace.

It's only fair--and it's free

Today is a rather short post because I am in the middle of packing to move. Actually I wasn't even going to do a post today but I was given a Fair Trade Manual just this morning to distribute to anyone I choose. I have put this up on one of my servers and it is free for the taking.

The booklet is 24 pages long and is in a PDF format. So, when you click the link it will open in your Adobe Reader. If you want to keep it for reading later, simply save a copy.

Here is the link: FAIR TRADE MANUAL

Banana, nana fofana

I made a comment about fair trade bananas a couple of days ago in my blog to to which someone responded "I was not aware of the banana farmer/worker experience". I wasn't aware either until a couple years ago when I saw a video of a banana worker holding a huge hand of bananas while another worker sprayed insecticide, dousing both the bananas and the worker. It was reported that this man ended up sterile from being doused with so many chemicals and had other ailments as well. I tried to locate that video on Youtube but was unable. I was certain it would have ended up there. I plan to keep looking for it. Undoubtedly it is floating out there on the web somewhere.

I wanted to give some of the facts about bananas that many people aren't aware. The facts may surprise you.

Fact 1: Bananas are the worlds most popular fruit. Banana are so popular sales amount to ten BILLION dollars per year. Yes that is a lot of bananas. They are the fourth most important crop after rice, wheat and maize and some civilizations still live primarily on bananas. 96% of Americans buy bananas at least weekly.

Fact 2: Bananas do not grow on trees and are really the fruit of the worlds largest herb...the Musa Sapientum. They contain more digestible complex carbohydrates than any other fruit. They are fat free. (Note: freeze bananas and then whip them into delicious smoothies in the blender.) Bananas are very low in allergen potential and make perfect baby food.

Fact 3: In Ecuador, where a great deal of bananas are grown, workers receive about a dollar per day in pay.

Fact 4: If you are a banana farmer, you are paid as little as one and a half cents for every pound of bananas you grow. Often that is less than it costs to produce the bananas.

Fact 5: Bananas are the most profitable item in the grocery store and account for 2% of the profits. Ever wonder why there are huge tables of them. Sometimes even two or three.

Fact 6: Chiquita, Dole and Del Monte control 65% of the worlds banana market. They are now beginning to offer Fair Trade bananas but it is still a very small part of their market. Chiquita and Dole alone control 50% of the worlds bananas. Only 14% of the bananas raised are actually exported. The rest are eaten locally.

Fact 7: Dangerous pesticides are applied to bananas forty times by airplane during the growing cycle. Ninety percent of this insecticide does not reach the bananas but instead drifts through the air onto the workers and nearby residents. The insecticide of choice is usually Paraquat or DBCP, which are highly toxic to humans. Growers wrap the bananas in plastic and cushion and these wrappers are then removed by hand exposing workers again to the insecticide at close range when harvesting.

Fact 8: Workers often develop severe neurological disorders such as muscle pains, nausea, dizziness, organ damage (eyes,liver and lungs, male sterility) from insecticide and fungicide poisoning.

Fair Trade

Fair Trade coffee has been on the market for years. Fair Trade bananas not quite as long. What fair trade does is add a layer of monitoring to the process to improve the quality of life for the growers and workers and puts limits on the pesticides used. It guarantees fair prices, fair wages, and safe working conditions. Personally, I go one step further and pay the ninety-nine cents per pound and buy the Fair Trade organic. Then I know I am not taking advantage of the disadvantaged and I am not exposing workers to dangerous chemicals on my behalf. The difference in cost is usually about forty cents per pound.

For more information just Google or Yahoo fair trade bananas. Here is an excerpt from one report by Human Rights Watch that gives just one small example of the banana travesty.

"Human Rights Watch interviewed forty-five children who had worked or were working on banana plantations in Ecuador. Forty-one of them began in the banana sector between the ages of eight and thirteen, most starting at ages ten or eleven. They described workdays of twelve hours on average and hazardous conditions that violated their human rights, including dangerous tasks detrimental to their physical and psychological well-being. The children reported being exposed to pesticides, using sharp tools, hauling heavy loads of bananas from the fields to the packing plants, lacking potable water and restroom facilities, and experiencing sexual harassment. Children told Human Rights Watch that they handled insecticide-treated plastics used in the fields to cover and protect bananas, directly applied fungicides to bananas being prepared for shipment in packing plants, and continued working while fungicides were sprayed from planes flying overhead. Sometimes the children were provided protective equipment; most often, they were not. These children enumerated the various adverse health effects that they had suffered shortly after pesticide exposure, including headaches, fever, dizziness, red eyes, stomachaches, nausea, vomiting, trembling and shaking, itching, burning nostrils, fatigue, and aching bones. Children also described working with sharp tools, such as knives, machetes, and short curved blades, and three pre-adolescent girls, aged twelve, twelve, and eleven, described the sexual harassment they allegedly had experienced at the hands of the administrator of two packing plants where they worked. In addition, four boys explained that they attached harnesses to themselves, hooked themselves to pulleys on cables from which banana stalks were hung, and used this pulley system to drag approximately twenty banana-laden stalks, weighing between fifty and one hundred pounds each, over one mile from the fields to the packing plants five or six times a day. Two of these boys stated that, on occasion, the iron pulleys came loose and fell on their heads, making them bleed."

Source: Human Rights Watch Report on Bananas

We have become deliberately oblivious people in our country. It is assumed that if the product is on the shelf it must be OK and certainly it was produced by kind loving people. It simply isn't true. We live in a world that finds money more important than people. What is a human life when a dollar is to be earned. I abstain from waxing religious or biblical in my blogs but the best source I can find for the motivation behind this is in the Bible in 1 Ti. 6:10. which reads in part "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil." So true.