A Quagmire of Choices – Guest Post by Kathy Voyles
Every time we shop, every time we buy, we make a political choice whether we take the time to consider its implication or not.
If we choose to buy goods from far off tropical lands (such as snow peas or roses grown in Kenya), whether we buy goods from countries whose ideologies we disagree with, we make, like it or not, a moral choice.
I have become extremely “mindful” of late that my choices bring with them a responsibility. However, the use of my credit card or debit card involves such a huge quagmire of choices, dilemmas and judgments that it can leave you gasping.
What are the carbon footprint, the human rights implications, and the ethical and philosophical nuances? The path of production is complex and convoluted. Who benefits and who loses? Who gains and who most decidedly does not?
There are hidden surprises at every turn. Some of you may know that organic food, cooking and gardening are my particular passions so I tune into debates about the nutritional (or lack of) value of school lunches in the US. Amazingly, it is UK-based company Compass who is responsible for supplying a huge amount of school lunches in the US.
Are they responsible for such breakfast abominations as pop tarts and breakfast pizzas I wonder? And can they be deemed to be responsible for the escalating childhood obesity problem? Or is it the school’s responsibility to stop kids eating this over processed food? Or are the parents who allow their schools to continue selling such conglomerations of sugar, salt and fat? Or is the government? These are questions, which we can debate endlessly but I think I might know who is making the money!
Or another example: You may remember that little black dress made by Primark and sold for the pauper sum of £9 British pounds or some such ridiculously cheap price. It was indeed a very pretty dress with hundreds of sequins on it. The dress was a huge success and every teenager from Leeds to Edinburgh wanted it. But Primark at the time was being investigated for non-ethical practices.
Naturally, a television crew just happened to chance in on a small dwelling in Bangladesh where very young children were sewing on glittering discs on little black dresses, day, after night in the dull lamp or candlelight.
So, is purchasing such a little black dress ethical? No you might say! Yet from another viewpoint if these children were not gainfully employed and bringing in that extra rupee, then maybe the whole family’s health would suffer. Maybe that extra money will allow one of the family members to go to school, thereby increasing the life chances of all the family?
So, these daily dilemmas are incredibly complex. And then we have to face our own avaricious personalities, for we all like a bargain. Even when we have the cash to spare, we are dead keen on expounding to any willing passerby as to how little we paid for this or that. I hear myself constantly saying “And I only paid this for that! Didn’t I do well”!
Therefore my question to you, readers is a simple question of the future. Our western economies are built around a model of continual growth and consumerism. Can this be sustainable given our planet’s finite resources? I think not but maybe you think otherwise?
And now some good news: We can all do our bit to save our planet (just a bit) by buying mindfully, please check my blog, http://thelunchbox.blog.com to do your bit by buying low impact or organic food and enjoy cooking from scratch!
See also Sir Paul McCartney’s Meat Free Monday campaign – naturally he has written a song about it!
