Ethical Shopping Means More than Comparing Price

[polak]

Locally grown in a place like Alberta is almost ALWAYS worse for the enviroment.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by polak

Locally grown in a place like Alberta is almost ALWAYS worse for the enviroment.

Yup, the lowest energy input is to grow things in the highest yield area of the earth (usually somewhere poor so it's mostly manual labor) and ship it here. The energy used by those massive cargo liners is nearly insignificant to the whole process. You produce more C02 driving to the grocery store to pick up your produce than was produced getting it there from all ends of the earth.

[Table 5]

I hope my mom is buying my underwear from an ethical place.

[Cowperson]

Originally Posted by Ducay

I'd love to see the selection at the store that sells 30% locally grown.

There are only so many items you can grow commerically in a hothouse in Alberta.

And even then, I'd love to see what they're paying the foreign help at harvest time. (For seasonal crops)

An Alberta-certified Farmers' Market means that 80% of the products sold there are produced or somehow sourced in Alberta.

Like the Millarville Farmers' Market, opening June 15.

Cowperson

[CaramonLS]

Originally Posted by Ducay

I'd love to see the selection at the store that sells 30% locally grown.

There are only so many items you can grow commerically in a hothouse in Alberta.

With over 1,000 local vendor partners throughout the United States and Canada, roughly 30% of the produce sold by Safeway annually is local.

Link

And even then, I'd love to see what they're paying the foreign help at harvest time. (For seasonal crops)

I can't speak for all of them, but roughly 12-14 dollars per hour + affordable housing.

[Ducay]

Originally Posted by CaramonLS

With over 1,000 local vendor partners throughout the United States and Canada, roughly 30% of the produce sold by Safeway annually is local.

Consindering where Safeway has locations (BC, US West Coast), that isn't surprising. But guarantee that in Calgary 30% isn't Albertan grown, Taber can't make that much corn...

[Vulcan]

I take a more selfish view of buying Canadian or N American. A guy gets up, puts on his underwear made in Indonesia, his socks make in India, his pants made in Thailand and his shirt made in Pakistan. Walks out of the house in his Italian shoes to his German car while making a phone call on his Chinese cell to his provider which off loads his call to a call centre in India. Drives to the Employment office while wondering why he can't find a job.

[polak]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

I take a more selfish view of buying Canadian or N American. A guy gets up, puts on his underwear made in Indonesia, his socks make in India, his pants made in Thailand and his shirt made in Pakistan. Walks out of the house in his Italian shoes to his German car while making a phone call on his Chinese cell to his provider which off loads his call to a call centre in India. Drives to the Employment office while wondering why he can't find a job.

He's going to need a little something more then a job on a manufacturing floor to afford all of those things if they were made here.

[Thor]

Childrens little fingers make the best high quality ties however, so really I cant be a part of this.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by polak

He's going to need a little something more then a job on a manufacturing floor to afford all of those things if they were made here.

Maybe he's the engineer who designs the manufacturing plant or the construction worker who builds it or the supplier of the machinery or the road builder to the factory.

Too add, at one time factory jobs were the mainstay of the middle class and such a worker could afford a house in the burbs and a car and a wife who didn't need to work.

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

Maybe he's the engineer who designs the manufacturing plant or the construction worker who builds it or the supplier of the machinery or the road builder to the factory.

Too add, at one time factory jobs were the mainstay of the middle class and such a worker could afford a house in the burbs and a car and a wife who didn't need to work.

Why do some North American's hold up such a small window in time (1940s-1970s) as how things have to or should be? Could it be that the period of time you reference is indeed the aberration to human history as opposed to times today?

How do people in third world country's get work if the first world closes their markets to them?

[jammies]

I steal all my underwear. And not from the store.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

Why do some North American's hold up such a small window in time (1940s-1970s) as how things have to or should be? Could it be that the period of time you reference is indeed the aberration to human history as opposed to times today?

How do people in third world country's get work if the first world closes their markets to them?

And I don't see how a drop in our working and living standards has to be excused when our technical progress has increased multifold.

People in the third world don't lack for markets. They make up the first and second largest countries in the world. As has been shown by the recent event in Bangladesh these workers aren't being treated with dignity by foreign owners but are being exploited.

[Dion]

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

Why do some North American's hold up such a small window in time (1940s-1970s) as how things have to or should be? Could it be that the period of time you reference is indeed the aberration to human history as opposed to times today?

How do people in third world country's get work if the first world closes their markets to them?

The thing that bugs me is the owners of those factories are making a fortune and paying thier workers poverty wages. We need to do a better job of making sure the working conditions are safe and that workers are paid a living wage.

[jammies]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

As has been shown by the recent event in Bangladesh these workers aren't being treated with dignity by foreign owners but are being exploited.

If only we'd live by libertarian principles, those dead workers would incline the labour market towards a "don't work for guys that'll kill you through negligence" outcome, and then: Utopia.

I might have skipped a couple steps, but the idea is sound.

[Daradon]

Originally Posted by oilyfan

So we should only buy products from countries with average incomes? And how exactly are these incomes going to rise without them selling products?

China was in the same spot a decade ago and now in some major cities the minimum wage is higher than in some southern US states. That didn't happen because China stopped selling goods.

Originally Posted by blankall

To add to this a little.

What OP is proposing is essentially a boycott of all goods manufactured in low income countries. The problem is pulling out all that industry is just going to tank those lower end economies even further and result in even worse living conditions.

As for your point that the sweat shops aren't increasing the standard of living, well that's just not true. There are hundreds of millions of people in India and China who were living below the poverty line 20 years ago, who aren't now. Both countries initially based their economies on manufacturing and agriculture.

Maybe the solution is finding companies that do use forieng labour but provide good working conditions....not really sure how you would monitor that. Perhaps cameras broadcasting feeds over the internet.

Just to respond to this a little. China and India to an extent are success stories. But I don't know if enough time has gone by to prove if they are outliers or not. Because they are very special cases.

China was going to be advancing anyway. They have a very strong government and a plan to get into the 21st century. We were hearing for about 30 years how China was an up and coming superpower.

And actually, I'm pretty sure the biggest thing for China's increase in wealth, both personal and the country, has been internal spending. Not increase in foreign investment and international corporations. But public works, the mega cities they've built, etc.

Don't get me wrong, international trade is a large block of it, but to single it out as the reason it turned China around would be incorrect.

Also, they have a huge population, which increases their international power and appeal. And that brings us to India, which also has a monstrous population. India also has a democratic (if pretty corrupt) government.

A lot of the advantages that China and India have, most of these other developing countries don't have. I don't know if we can really say globalization has been a positive influence on a lot of these countries yet. Bangladesh has been poor and in the news for aid for longer than I have been alive. It's hard to see any real improvement there.

Again, don't get me wrong, globalization can be a force for good, and having cheap labour is a good thing for both sides. It just needs to be done better than it is now.

[redforever]

Originally Posted by Ducay

I'd love to see the selection at the store that sells 30% locally grown.

There are only so many items you can grow commerically in a hothouse in Alberta.

And even then, I'd love to see what they're paying the foreign help at harvest time. (For seasonal crops)

And what the energy costs are to heat those hothouses.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Daradon

Just to respond to this a little. China and India to an extent are success stories. But I don't know if enough time has gone by to prove if they are outliers or not. Because they are very special cases.

China was going to be advancing anyway. They have a very strong government and a plan to get into the 21st century. We were hearing for about 30 years how China was an up and coming superpower.

And actually, I'm pretty sure the biggest thing for China's increase in wealth, both personal and the country, has been internal spending. Not increase in foreign investment and international corporations. But public works, the mega cities they've built, etc.

Don't get me wrong, international trade is a large block of it, but to single it out as the reason it turned China around would be incorrect.

Also, they have a huge population, which increases their international power and appeal. And that brings us to India, which also has a monstrous population. India also has a democratic (if pretty corrupt) government.

A lot of the advantages that China and India have, most of these other developing countries don't have. I don't know if we can really say globalization has been a positive influence on a lot of these countries yet. Bangladesh has been poor and in the news for aid for longer than I have been alive. It's hard to see any real improvement there.

Again, don't get me wrong, globalization can be a force for good, and having cheap labour is a good thing for both sides. It just needs to be done better than it is now.

Consdering that China and India both have about 1 billion people each, it's hard to see them as outliers.

I do, however, agree with your point that prosperity is linked to freedom and democracy.

[missdpuck]

I bought Canadian tomatoes! Florida farmland is now McMansions and condos

[pylon]

And then if you buy nothing at all form these poor countries, then they will be even worse off, because they will not even have their meager crappy income.