Frankie and Yusra: Blog 2- It is no secret

Frankie and Yusra

It is no secret that as time progresses, the human impact changes our planet drastically. This impact includes our effect on biophysical environments, biodiversity, and our planet’s resources. According to Margaret Robinson- “The multidimensional issues of poverty, health, overpopulation, resource depletion, food and water scarcity, political instability, and destruction of the biosphere are all connected. (Robinson, p.44, 2014) This comes to show that every action we take on this planet, has a eventual effect on the environment around us. Just one look at the difference of the earth years ago compared to today, will show the effect we have- and how it’s changed through history.

The planet as a whole is our support system and can only handle so much, and it all ties to population and production. Over the years the population has grown, consumption has grown, and rapid use of technology has grown- thus stripping the earth away of it’s valid sources.. It’s all a historical series. First, we started off as homo-sapiens who migrated in search of food. Eventually, agriculture was born and this was the tip- because humans began to stay in one area to domesticate and grow crops. Because of this revolution, population grew steadily. Then, a new revolution surfaced, the Industrial era, with the usage of fossil fuels. Lastly, health and medical procedures improved and mortality dropped. None of this is “wrong”, because as time goes on we must advance and help to create better life. The problem occurs when we take advantage of our resources and become wasteful, increasing our impact in an unhealthy manner.  Our population is growing and our demands are increasing. In fact, “If all humans on the planet lived with the standard of living enjoyed by people in the United States and Canada- we would need 4.5 more planet Earths even if the population did not grow at all.” (Engelman, 9, 2013) Our population and amount of production (especially here in North America)- has a drastic effect compared to other countries in the world, because of the way we choose to live. The environmental impact that ensues, is a direct product of human population, their consumption, and use of technology.

As we learned from Malia Brown’s presentation, the fashion industry is the second most polluting industry on the planet.  This stems from the excessive production of fast fashion.  Take Zara for example.  Zara’s business model is to deliver “up-to-the-moment fashion” (inditex.com).  This basically translates to “fast fashion”, since the process of designing, manufacturing, and shipping is constantly circulating, and takes a lot less time than a designer’s ready to wear collection.  Zara sends out new designs every two weeks.  This is a lot more often than a place like H&M or Forever 21, where they come out with a summer collection and leave it for an entire season.  Zara is a solid competitor with affordable up to date trends, however the fast fashion industry is jeopardizing the environment and the workers that make the clothes. 

If Zara is putting out clothes every two weeks, the process is never really able to stop.  They outsource about half of their production to factories in Asian countries, and the other half of production is done in factories in Spain, where the company originated.  A company that isn’t solely produced in China might sound great, but the working conditions in the factories as well as the practices that go on inside aren’t so great.  One of the absolute most shocking things that I still think about every single day is how many gallons of water it takes to produce one pair of jeans. It takes 1,800 gallons to make one pair of jeans.  This alarming statistic honestly keeps me up at night.  I feel guilty every single time I put on my jeans in the morning.  These fast fashion companies produce denim on a mass scale.  If they’re producing 100 pairs of jeans (lowball) every single day for the course of 7 days, they’ve wasted over 1 million gallons of water.  This would be a lot less disturbing if these companies made an effort to clean the water afterwards.  But, they don’t.  They dump it back into the body of water they got it from.  Most times, this water is the water people drink, cook with, and bathe in.  We most likely can’t think what life would be like if we had no clean water to drink or bathe in. 

The solution for most isn’t to stop buying fast fashion all together, but to limit how much we buy.  While the things are inexpensive and cute, there is a much darker reason why your new shirt was $2.