Too Vain To Be Green: Is Copenhagen A Waste?

The irony of the global environment debate, one that was recently the focus of the massive United Nations convention in Copenhagen, is that while the developed nations seem the most proactive, they are in reality looking for a way to fix all the damage they’ve done, damage that will hurt the developing nations the most. The poor nations will suffer the most and for that, for the damage we’ve done, they want to be compensated. Add the “anti-eco tax,” as we’ll call it, to the deficit. It’s no wonder America is a land of afterthoughts, for how can a nation save, preserve and appreciate if its own government runs a deficit year after year, rewarding those that strive for profits and nothing else.

Amid these issues, the new president recently announced more troops will go to Afghanistan and lesser known, that an $851 million contract was awarded to Lockheed Martin to develop submarine missiles. Less than $1 billion is hardly a lot of money in the scheme of things, but I think that money would be better spent on job creation, skills training programs, scholarships or grants.

A 20-minute or so long podcast by the BBC took listeners through the convention, from tedious sessions on the main floor to talks about green fashion. The most depressing comment one attendee made was that despite the many countries represented, the truth of the matter is that the future might be decided by the big three: the United States, the European Union and China. The financial industry works the same way and was recently exhibited in the hedge fund debate; after the UK issued news about a new tax for finance folks, France announced a similar tax. Paris officials said they wanted to earlier, but were concerned about the livelihood of the city should it prematurely impose a tax. The global backlash against impending hedge fund regulation in the U.S. and Europe is that hedgies will flock to places like Switzerland and other safe havens, perhaps Jersey and Malta. This raises the question—will there be loopholes in the green movement? The answer is— we have to make an effort and set standards and regulations before someone can evade them!

Nevertheless, we move on to comments we’ve culled out for you from the BBC podcast. The real issues at stake given our treatment, or maltreatment, of the earth, are: 1) sea level drop, the ozone layer erodes, some countries eventually face elimination, and a serious impending water crisis in a number of decades, by which time we might only have finished solving the water and sanitation crisis in most of Sub Saharan Africa and the Middle East.

On a regular basis, we all feel too busy to make drastic changes. Two designers present at the fashion events in Denmark presented the two angles regarding green fashion: do you want to cut waste before the garment is worn or after? Before means Zero Waste, according to Karina Micheal Michel, whose clothes are made of recycled products, making them zero waste. For Emma Rigby, the approach to cutting waste after wearing clothes involves tackling social norms, such as the concept of frequent cleaning of garments, which uses enormous amounts of electricity and water. Until now, the green fashion debate has centered largely on organic and alternative materials, from organic cotton to hemp and bamboo. This is likely because it is easier to choose lower-impact ingredients and green manufacturing by cutting transportation costs and usage and adding green energy elements to factories than to tell the public to wash their clothes less often.

Jacket by Padmaja Krishnan in Imagination silks & scrapes from Shared Talent India workshop

Rigby is working on a solution that will require less cleaning, but will likely face huge opposition from detergent makers that push the message that things are only clean if they are washed often and sparkling white. This is the same kind of misleading message that similar companies have sent in brainwashing folks to think that only soaps that foam clean.

Still some fashionistas are moving ahead on the many angles of green fashion. The two aforementioned women are both students at the London College of Fashion, whose Center for Sustainable Fashion has launched an international initiative that will launch in early 2010, enabling Western designers to get in touch with Indian suppliers of sustainable materials and textiles. Led by the Indian government and the UK Government Department for the Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) run Sustainable Clothing Roadmap, those involved include Indian textile suppliers, buyers, and undergraduates from London College of Fashion, Pearl Academy of Fashion Delhi and Amsterdam Fashion Institute. Shared Talent India will also feature an “Indian Sourcing Toolkit” to help connect deisgners with suppliers in India. For more information on these and other similar programs, click here.

Click here for winners of the Sustainable Fashion Awards at the London College of Fashion.

QUICK TIPS TO LIVING A GREENER LIFE
•    Use Energy Star light bulbs and turn off fans and lights whenever you leave a room.
•    Wear more layers and use less heat
•    Drive cars with high MPG rate, at least 18 mpg
•    Walk or ride a bike instead of driving whenever possible
•    Recycle and reuse all containers, including bath and body products.
•    Switch from paper towels and napkins to all cloth, assigning each family member a cloth napkin to use for the week
•    Only buy new clothes that you can wear to work. Take the money you would’ve used to buy clothes and start a savings account to fund future education, retirement or debt payments.
•    Buy fair trade, organic products wherever necessary, without GMO. This includes fair trade clothing, which might become more widely available thanks to the recent announcement from Transfair about a pilot program.
•    BEGIN COMPOSTING. This does not have to be overwhelming. Composting doesn’t mean one has to start their own compost pile or buy a composting machine. Anyone can start by using compostable plastic bags, available online and at The Container Store, and keeping waste in the freezer until it is ready to dump. Community gardens and compost piles, as well as participating composting organizations at farmer’s markets, will take your compost. The most common things to compost, which can all be bagged together, include: fruit and vegetable scraps, egg shells, tea bags, coffee grinds and paper towels and napkins. Just keep the bag out while you are cooking or doing food prep and toss waste scraps in your compost bag, instead of the trash. Use this EPA resource to find a composting spot near you. Check out this Wall Street Journal feature for a guide to the best composting machines.

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