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Staying Local

Interesting essay about the not so clear winners and losers from doing right by environment. Being able to recycle used cotton and other bio-degradable material to spin fiber that works the same as cotton sounds like a good idea yet it may not be good for everyone.

If that level of efficiency is ever achieved, it might help save the planet — or it might not. The most likely outcome is that it would save the asses of fashion companies facing an environmentally and politically uncertain future. It also might complete what the industrial revolution started more than 200 years ago, by fully consolidating fashion’s supply chain into the world’s large cities. That could make rural life even more untenable for millions of farmers around the world who rely on cotton for their livelihood. But at that point — for better or, quite possibly, for worse — those farmers will no longer be the fashion brands’ responsibility.

Reading this made me think about the impact of reducing consumption of everything one person at a time. If a vast majority of people who currently shop for clothes several times a year decided to hit the pause button for a year or two, that would hurt businesses. At the very bottom of the food chain though is the same set of poor cotton farmers in the third world that would be the worst hit from consumers doing the "right thing". It seems as if the rural economies should decouple from global corporations so they become masters of their own destiny. 

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