Why our green lifestyle consumption is just plain simple-minded

[Skybird]

New socks made of hemp, new organic shoes, new cargo bike: buying "green" products is not infrequently fashionable and also a bit vain. Companies take advantage of this. But there are other ways to make an ecological contribution.

Anyone who is serious about sustainability, anyone who has a little idea of the consumption constraints mankind has suffered over the past 200 years as a result of doing without, would first of all have to go back to school. It's a matter of picking up the darning egg again, sinking it into the sore sock, threading the yarn through the needle and plugging the hole in the big toe.

Because around the hole, the sock is still good. Can still be used. In addition to basic arithmetic, every sustainability school should also include a holey bicycle inner tube and the knowledge of how to locate the leak in a water bath and which glue will hold the patch.

Of course, a new sock made in a jiffy is as climate-conscious as a new bicycle inner tube. But many don't need a hole to buy new socks. They rather think of saving the world with socks made of ecological-vegan hemp wool as a replacement for the still new high-tech synthetic fiber socks from the professional sports sector.

It can also be the new bamboo toothbrush in exchange for the plastic copy, test winner at Stiftung Warentest. Or the sewn organic shoes made entirely of leather and moss material instead of the still good old ones with the foamed soles. The watering can made of sheet zinc, the new bicycle because it has to be a cargo bike, the new washing machine with energy efficiency class A+++ instead of the existing one that consumes a few watts more.

It strengthens the feeling, it raises the reputation, to stand out with the hottest stuff from environmental, climate and organic production. It's not sustainable, but rather fashion-conscious and a bit vain. Globally, you can also say that it's all reckless to simple-minded. Or quite simply: If you want to "do something", it's best to do nothing. Buy nothing.

Shopping and the environment never go together; every purchase increases the consumption of resources. A group of experts of the United Nations sees in the hardly used and already again disposed goods the strongest load of the environment, unequally larger than cheap airplanes, the meat consumption, larger than the global population growth. In the figures of the Federal Environment Agency it looks like this: Food (including meat products) accounts for 16 percent of our CO2 emissions, mobility (including air travel) 20 percent. "Other consumption": 42 percent.

Take clothing, for example: Since the 1950s, the production, purchase and disposal of clothing have increased fivefold. This piles up to a 50-million-ton mountain of textiles every year - virtually none of which is recycled.

Take the electric car, for example: if you replace your used but modern gasoline-powered car with a battery-operated car today with the best of environmental consciences, you could be forced to do so again in a few years. Then with a change from the battery car to the hydrogen car. For it is not at all out of the question that battery cars will prove to be an interim solution. At the moment, the battery-electric car performs better than gasoline or diesel in terms of its lifetime carbon footprint. But when it comes to the short-term carbon footprint, the e-car doesn't fare so well; its production isn't particularly environmentally friendly, and some experts even suspect that the battery could turn cars into ex-and-hope products.

Because of their comparatively short lifespan, some banks also distrust the electric turnaround. The CEO of a regional bank in Saarland, who wishes to remain unnamed, calls the electric car a "throwaway car." He is referring to the batteries, whose durability he criticizes. And he is not alone in this. The industry portal "Incoming Mobility" also doubts the sense of "subsidies for throwaway cars" and asks: "What is an e-car still worth when it is getting on in years and the battery is deteriorating badly?"

For example, he says, the question is whether the cost of a new battery after ten or twelve years or 200,000 kilometers would not considerably exceed the value of the vehicle. There is therefore a lot to be said for continuing to drive the modern gasoline engine for a while longer, for the sake of the climate.

According to the United Nations Global Footprint Network, if everyone consumed the way the Germans do, it would take three planets of earth to provide enough resources. The attempt to give the shopping frenzy a green coat of paint does nothing to change this. On the contrary. Alibaba, the Chinese equivalent of Amazon, serves 900 million customers worldwide with 14 million products, and Alibaba also recently recognized how the rabbit runs and where it lies in the pepper: "A dedicated area was set up to showcase energy-efficient and environmentally friendly products to motivate 'green' consumption."

That's honest, albeit in a rustic way. An example from New York illustrates with stunning charm how the same issue can become a business with a sense of responsibility. The Patagonia company sells outdoor clothing and advises people not to buy it. In its very first ad, the company summed up the whole consumption-and-climate dilemma exactly: "Don't buy this jacket. Don't buy what you don't need." What happened? In the decade that followed, Patagonia multiplied sales.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)


Die Welt.

[Jeff-Groves]

I'm offering Green Mods for SH series of Games.
But don't use them.