From China, with Love

With the US congress moving closer to pass legislation banning imported products made with child labor (click here) it's should come as a shocker that people are concerned about where and how the shit they buy is made.

From Core77.com "US-based Baggu thinks so and they're leading the charge with an assortment of beautiful and reusable bags that are "Ethically made in China," according to the tag on each bag. Their phrasing probably seems like a smoke screen to skeptics who want to support their local economy and are dubious of Chinese imports."

Plus with software like Good Guide's iPhone app, continues to empower us with instant product information that will make us all more ethical consumers.

Except there's one problem, and it's not with "ethical consumers". If you actually clicked on the link in the very first paragraph you would've been directed to a link to an artcile regarding how some corporations are worried about the impact on their bottom line legislation banning products made with child labor would have. Really? Talk show host Rachael Maddow sums it up best starting around the 3:20 mark:

The Great Water Debate.

Forget oil. Water is our greatest resource. Recently I came across an article from Core77.com (click here for that article) about a bunch of design students from Savannah College of Art & Design who are engaged in helping a nearby vacation destination, Tybee Island, reduce its water consumption to preserve a local aquifer.

Digging deeper I found an article on the SavannahNow.Com about the same issue (click here for that): "Tybee needs such innovations because the state has mandated it and other coastal communities reduce water usage. The aim is to protect the area's main source of drinking water, the Floridan aquifer, which is threatened with saltwater contamination from overuse. To do its part, Tybee has to find ways to cut back 44,000 gallons a day starting in the new year. The beach showers already have been shut off, then restored as foot-washers to meet current water use limits."

But back up for a minute. The central issue of the these two articles are WATER and CLIMATE CHANGE. Global climate change is not just affecting water supply on a tiny island off of Savannah. It's a global issue that will affect not just geology, but politics. Remember the film Chinatown?

Digging deeper I remembered an article I came across a while back from the Guardian about a suppressed, yet leaked, report commissioned by the Pentagon on the national security implantation of global climate change. (click here for the entire article). The Pentagon is no wacko, liberal group, generally speaking it is conservative. The report was commissioned in 2004 by influential Pentagon defence adviser Andrew Marshall and written by CIA consultant Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall of the California-based Global Business Network. The report is bleak, to say the least.....In all honesty, the shit is depressing. Some key points:

-"the planet is carrying a higher population than it can sustain. By 2020 'catastrophic' shortages of water and energy supply will become increasingly harder to overcome, plunging the planet into war. They warn that 8,200 years ago climatic conditions brought widespread crop failure, famine, disease and mass migration of populations that could soon be repeated."

-"Coastal states like Florida and California face a water crisis not only from increased demand, but also from rising temperatures that are causing glaciers to melt and sea levels to rise. Higher temperatures mean more water lost to evaporation. And rising seas could push saltwater into underground sources of freshwater" (refer back to the first paragraph - on the Savannah design students).

-"An imminent scenario of catastrophic climate change is 'plausible and would challenge United States national security in ways that should be considered immediately', they conclude. As early as next year widespread flooding by a rise in sea levels will create major upheaval for millions."

-"major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world."

And, now some videos on water, climate change and it's implications: