“It’s much more important to change your leaders than your light bulb.”
-Tom Friedman, author of “Hot, Flat and Crowded”

The impetus behind my book, The Virtuous Consumer, was to learn how to avoid sweatshops and child labor. At that time — as a new mom — I was less aware of environmental issues, but well-versed in social justice concerns. I wanted to ensure that I was not clothing and equipping my kids on the backs of other moms, dads or children. The info was hard to find…and still is.
Fortunately, as the green movement continues to gain steam, there’s an increasing concensus that environmental issues ARE civil rights issues. That lack of concern about harming the planet goes hand in hand with a cavalier attitude about the people we with whom we share it.
Whether those people live next door or on the other side of the globe doesn’t matter. Their problems are our problems; their struggles mirror our own.
Which is why I still agonize over how to avoid sweatshops and child labor. It’s a grey area, for sure. The argument that putting a kid out of work doesn’t mean he’s going to show up tomorrow, face scrubbed and eager, ready for school. Rather, it frequently means less income for his family and a more dangerous, lower-paying job for him. But we have to press onward and hold firm to our principles. A child without an education is sentenced to a life of poverty and exploitation. We all have a right to live with dignity and purpose.
A recent article is eye-opening. To read it, click here:
http://www.alternet.org/workplace/83767/?page=entire

Opponents to genetically modified food — food which has had its DNA altered — have long dismissed arguments that the planet needs GM crops to help solve the problem of international hunger. In spite of the UN itself noting that world hunger is a problem of food distribution, not food production, companies that produce GM seed (such as Monsanto) keep trotting out this hunger argument in order to position themselves as the corporate version of Mother Teresa. However, a study out of University of Kansas takes this argument down yet another step (or two) by revealing that GM crops yield less per acre than conventional and seem to be unable to take up certain nutrients from the soil.
Sadly, most of the soy and corn grown is already genetically modified, unbeknownst to most consumers. And a quick read of most food labels reveals that soy and corn is in almost EVERYTHING. Indeed, food writer Michael Pollan (”The Omnivore’s Dilemma”) calls us “processed corn walking.” Funny but true. Because companies aren’t required to let consumers know, most of us eat it without understanding the implications or being able to make an informed choice. You’ll see it on labels as soy protein, soy flour, soy protein isolate, lecithin, isoflavones, corn-flour, syrup, starch, masa and gluten, among other ingredients such as aspartame, dextrose, fructose, monosodium glutamate, and xantham gum.
To find out more about genetically modified food, visit www.organicconsumers.org/gelink.cfm
And to read the full article on the recent University of Kansas study, visit http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/13/8405/

No less an authority than Faith Popcorn, the pop-culture seer, has pegged “underconsumption” as the next big thing. She notes a shift toward more budget-conscious, environmentally-sensitive spending and declares an end to “the era of conspicuous consumption.” She calls this new wave Karma Capitalism and suggests that consumers are becoming aware of the impact of their purchasing choices.
She sounds suspiciously like me…except for that cool new phrase, Karma Capitalism. Wish I’d thought of that one!

I often feel sheepish — as author of a book, column and Web site dubbed The Virtuous Consumer — that I’m promoting consumption. In truth, I simply recognize that sometimes the path to a better, healthier, more just world takes us through the mall. However, a recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper by former Sierra Club U.S. president Adam Werbach, puts it better than I ever have:
“While this movement will have many faces, it will use a platform that is a daily practice for most of us – shopping. While political activism is at best a biannual pursuit, shopping is a regular activity for most people on the planet, and if trends continue, for virtually everyone… I’m not calling for you to get off the farm and into the mall. Engaging people as consumers, as people who shop, allows us the possibility of building a billion-person movement. People don’t need to join a listserv or pay a membership fee to join. They won’t get a newsletter or a membership card that they need to stuff into their wallet. And no wall calendars. But how do we bring our aspirations for the world into what we buy? This is the billion-person question.
Every product you buy should be a gateway to a personal sustainability practice. The first step is developing your own personal practices. The second step is asking the stores where you shop to start carrying products that support your practice. And the third step is sharing your practice with you friends. It all starts with you.”
To read the entire article, visit: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/09/EDJ7102JMK.DTL

Consider these words:
“Consumption without need is the hallmark of addiction, and “consumerism” is defined as “the equating of personal happiness with the purchasing of material possessions and consumption.” The pattern of out-of-control consumption in the United States, which per capita consumes 70 times more than India, with three times the U.S. population, is not qualitatively different from the well-known patterns of behavior of substance abusers. In fact, it looks as if the United States just finished with the worst binge of its life and is now cresting the peak of a wicked crash.”
Wow! Rarely do I read/hear something that puts our consumer culture into such clear focus. Perhaps when we start looking at our trips to the mall for things we don’t need as what they often (not always, but certainly often) are – an attempt to assuage some indefinable hunger – we’ll take a detour toward a park or woods and feed our souls instead.
For the whole article, click here:
http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/82013/

Rachel Carson’s groundbreaking book, Silent Spring, exposed the dangers of pesticides on many bird species. Fortunately, the banning of many of these pesticides along with legislated protection of these species allowed birds, such as the peregrine falcon and bald eagle, to recover. But Latin America, eager to grow those fruits we crave in the dead in the winter, still use many of these banned pesticides. And now, ornithologists are blaming that for a serious decline in songbirds. According to an article that ran in The Independent (UK), “Ornithologists say another silent spring is dawning across the US as birds are being poisoned by toxic chemicals or killed as pests in their winter refuges across South and Central America as well as the Caribbean. They say that many species of songbird will never recover, and others may even become endangered or extinct if controls are not put in place or consumer habits changed.”
To read more, click here: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/american-songbirds-are-being-wiped-out-by-banned-pesticides-804547.html
Clearly our love of out-of-season produce is just plum-loco!