King Cotton.

Up until now I had no idea the scale of cotton production around the world.  Like many consumers, I just had not thought about it at all.  I go to the store, and there are clothes there to buy.  According to the reading, "Cotton production involves about 20 million farmers who completely depend upon cotton production and another 30 million farmers who include cotton into their rotation scheme."  As with all farming there is conventional farming which uses pesticides and fertilizers, and organic cotton which uses neither.  Water consumption is a large concern with cotton because in order to increase yields, farmers use extensive irrigation systems.  I do not believe that we can convert all cotton farms back to organic, but with some help, the industry can become more responsible farmers.

Not surprisingly, China is the largest producer of cotton, accounting for "24% of total world production."  What I did find surprising is that "100% of the farm sizes are less than 6 hectares."  While the US accounted for "19% of total world production" and "10% of the farms are 20-100 hectares and 90% are greater than 100 hectares."  This is quite a difference!  And for reference, one hectare is 2.47 acres.  Now, where the real concern is with this is when water use is factored in.  In China, there are "14 million farmers directly involved in cotton production" and in the US, there are "25000 farmers."  This has an impact with how quickly water conservation issues can be spread and implemented.  China currently irrigates nearly "100% of all of its cotton", while the US irrigates "41% of all its cotton."  Now in the cotton video, it says that many farmers are beginning to utilize more targeted watering techniques.  I do believe that some farmers are doing this, but I question how widespread it is, since the video makes it seem like all farmers are doing it.  These new techniques are very capital intensive, so they will not necessarily be applied in a widespread manner in China, where the techniques are needed more urgently.  One thing that China does have over the US is that they do have the monsoon season, which the rainwater can be stored and used at a later date.  This is, like the man in video stated, "it just makes good business sense!"

One thing that is a little concerning to me is the genetically altered cotton.  This was pioneered by the company Mosanto, which put "glyphosate...into cotton for the first time in 1987."  Now this does not concern me as much as GM corn, since we do not eat cotton, but I think more studies must be done in order to find what kinds of effects it has on our environment.  A good thing about the GM cotton is the obvious fact that it needs less pesticides, or none at all.  This protects the environment.  Also, as stated in the video, scientists are working on making cotton more drought resistant.  This means less water for the plants overall. The one scientist said the he "wants to cuts cotton water consumption in half...but it will be 15 or 20 years before we get to that point."

Overall, the video was quite optimistic and maybe too much so.  I do not think this is a bad thing, as it is supposed to be inspirational for the consumer.  This inspiration will help consumers be more educated on their choices and behaviors concerning cotton production.  It was briefly mentioned in the video, and was extensively talked about in the readings last week is that consumer cleaning does account for a large portion of the energy and water that is consumed in relation to this industry.  Empowered consumers can make a difference!

It's all about moderation.

My dad always used to say "it's all about moderation" and that applies to many things in life, including the things that we use everyday.  So when we make decisions about what material to specify or which product to use, we must use our best judgment.  Whether it is a new material or a tried and true product, it must be able to achieve the task we need it to do, in a sustainable way.  This means making tough decisions sometimes, and not always the obvious ones.

First and foremost, a product or material must be durable.  Time and time again designers and clients think only about the immediate present, but do not design or plan for the future.  Take for instance the decision to pick a brick facade or a vinyl siding.  Sure, the vinyl is cheaper and looks nice now, but it will only last maybe 20 years.  Brick on the other hand is more expensive but has an indefinite lifetime.  Also, that brick can be recycled and reused, the vinyl siding cannot.  It goes straight to the landfill.  According to this weeks reading, it is now "obvious that it is no longer enough for a designer to consider the environmental impact of products only during the time these goods are being used.  Responsibility now extends to the product's entire life span."  In this instance, brick would be the "natural" option to go with, and the siding being the synthetic option, since the vinyl is made from petroleum.

Now, let's take this same example from another angle.  Say that the vinyl was made in such a way that it could be melted down and made into new siding.  This is exactly what the cradle to cradle program has suggested.  It gives recycling a new lease on life.  According to the C2C doctrine, "This means petroleum-based synthetics(technical nutrients) that can be recycled perpetually and safely."  The vinyl siding may actually be more sustainable than the brick to make and use, since when you tear a building down some bricks are likely to break and it is a very labor intensive process.

Another thing that needs to be considered is efficiency in manufacturing and production.  According to the reading, only 7% gets into products at all, only 1% into durable products, and only 0.02% into durable products that later get recycled, re-manufactured or reused.  Thus, U.S. materials flow is about 99.98% pure waste."  It is like you have lost the race before you even got started.  Companies can do this, and a few are leading the way.  Take for example Ikea out of Sweden.  They have committed to going 100% powered by renewable energy.  This takes demand off of the grid from power systems that are almost comparably inefficient.  They are working with suppliers to use less and healthier materials.  They have designed their packaging to fit flat into your car so you don't have to rent a truck to get it home.  Ikea is a very large company, and they impact the lives of millions of people.  If more companies took the initiative that Ikea has taken, must less waste will be made, and we will have more materials for the new generation.

So the over-arching theme of moderation means doing more with what you have.  It means not buying every last gadget in sight, so the factories have to use more materials and resources to make more.  It means choosing materials that will last for generations and that can ultimately be recycled to make more material.  Moderation is always the best policy.

We all live in a yellow submarine

This week I have chosen to tackle option A and argue that the garment industry is in fact guilty of contributing greatly to the depletion of our natural resources.  There is no denying that the human population is exploding and will continue to do something about it.  This is the root of all of the problems we are facing today and thus, because there are more people, more clothes are needed.  More clothes means more cotton needed, so the more land we clear and use for crops.  One of the major problems with this is outlined in the ESMA article "Approximately 60% of the ecosystem service evaluated in this assessment are being degraded or used unsustainably."  As stated in the FS article "the use of pesticides cab cause..soil degradation and biodiversity loss."  If we can not maintain healthy soil, especially with heavy pesticide use, we will no longer have good soil upon which to grow new cotton for new clothes.  In addition to the soil degradation, which in the Walsh article represented the largest environmental cost in growing cotton, water use is a major issue. 

Water, although not much of a problem here in a the United States, is very much a problem in the developing countries in which the cotton is grown and the clothes are produced.  In the FS article it is said that "Cotton is a thirsty crop.  A problem made worse by poor agricultural practices, in some cases over 10 tonnes of water are used to grow enough cotton to make 1 pair of jeans - or 6 pints of water per cotton bud!"  This water comes from wells, which comes from an aquifer.  This same water is used for drinking for the local people.  As the water is used beyond its replenishing capacity deeper wells must be drilled, causing many people's wells to run dry.  "In central Asia, inefficient water use in cotton production has all but eradicated the Aral Sea." 

One issue that is a bit more difficult to control is human consumption of the clothing.  As our society continues to exploit our desire for consumerism, the demand for more clothes grows.  In the FF reading, "Over the last two decades clothing has become increasingly affordable to everyone.  Retailers and brands have capitalized on this affordability by moving away from a 'summer' and 'winter' season to fresh collections throughout the year."  In the Walsh article they did justify additional cost to offset externalized costs within the products themselves, but not to set "green taxes" which they felt would be detrimental.  Although cost is not all of it: the trend to release clothes more frequently is a hard cycle to break.  Many designers could not stand being "behind the curve."  This is not just a problem for the garment industry, it is all industries.  So this becomes a human mindset problem, which will take as long of a time to correct as it took to set in the first place, potentially even longer.  This is certainly a heated topic in who is actually responsible.  I think that both the consumer and the industry are equally at fault.  With the current sustainability movement, I believe more and more people are becoming aware of the consequences of our actions.  The movement of the general public is like an old steam train, it take a lot of energy to get the wheels turning, but when they do begin to turn, momentum is gained exponentially.  It is best to note that like the Beatle's song "We all live in a yellow submarine", like that submarine our earth is contained, and we are all in this together.

The pin drop heard round the world

Earthquakes!  Tornadoes!  Tsunamis!  Diseases!  Famines! 

Every night you sit down and watch the world news there is no escape from hearing more and more about terrible things going on in the world.  Is it really that bad out there?  Have things gotten out of control?  Have we really screwed up this world that these things are happening?  I don't think so.

Let us go back in time to the 1500's.  Easter Island was at it's peak with about 7000 inhabitants.  By the time anyone ever found this place, it was 200 years later and the society had diminished to a few hundred.  It took settlers over 200 years to find these people, but now we can see everything going on around the world at a moments notice via satellite.  The advent of the internet in the 1980's only helped narrow the access time to next to nothing by allowing all information to be accessible almost instantly.  Now think, that society existed for 100 years before anyone discovered them, how many different disasters have we missed as well?  We did not have hundreds of weather stations or instruments of any kind of real accuracy.  We didn't have the variety of measurements either.

In the last 40 to 50 years, we have been able to take measurements with an increasing amount of accuracy.  This leads to a much better understanding of current trends, but does nothing with providing any details as to what happens in the past.  There is an old adage that says "if a tree falls in the woods, and no one heard it, did actually happen?"  I think that holds well in this situation, that there are many many more people now than there ever was in the past.  More people to see, record, tell their friends about, any kind of thing is now being witnessed and recorded.  The USGS website, in relation to whether or not there are more earthquakes now, "A partial explanation may lie in the fact that in the last twenty years, we have definitely had an increase in the number of earthquakes we have been able to locate each year. This is because of the tremendous increase in the number of seismograph stations in the world and the many improvements in global communications. In 1931, there were about 350 stations operating in the world; today, there are more than 8,000 stations..."  This relates directly to many of the recorded graphs in the Millennium Assessment that they either go back only about 60 years or so, or the technology upon with those recording were recorded from were very inaccurate or poor, as well as limited in number. 

So as with many things, there really isn't anything new under the sun.