Popular “Good” Lifestyle Myths
I’ll be quick on this one – feel free to do research on the side.
What to Cut from my Diet?
Main point is that the best way to help the environment depends on what you’re trying to battle.
Most inhumane treatment of animals = Chickens
Chickens are definitely not happy during their average 6 weeks of life. The average chicken lives in a cage with a bunch of other chickens, all bathing in stress hormones and probably crazy. I did an experiment once raising chickens to see how sensitive they are to life style conditions. I was a child so this wasn’t the best experiment but basically I had 4 chicks who I provided love and care with, holding them every day and just paying attention to them. The other four got all the needed things to live but just didn’t get physical contact or attention. These four died in 5-8 days. So chickens are sensitive to life style and they’re not happy at all.
Alternative: Don’t eat them, become whatever the name is for someone that eats everyone but chicken.
Most damage to the air = Beef Cows
Google this one, their fumes aren’t great for our world.
è Alternative Don’t eat them or donate some cash to organizations who combat their carbon emissions. Research these well, they’ll basically replant portions of the rainforest but just make sure that the portion that was going to be replanted wouldn’t have already been so without your $$.
Most unsustainable commonly produced food = Chilean Bass
These fish can live up to 30-40 years and the ones you consume have to be at least 10 years old. Super unsustainable.
Alternative: Don’t eat them, instead eat squid. Yup, these can mature in a couple of months and their max lifespan is 5 years. These are super cheap, tasty and easy to cook. So have it.
Sweat-shop Free & Fair Trade --> Not that great
The thing with sweat shops is that we think about all the horrible conditions that the people work in – which are definitely real – and then decide they’re the worst thing in the world. Well they’re not. Many people want to work at these sweatshops. They are one of the best sources of employment in the area – people move to where they are and applications are often competitive to get in. Other occupations include: prostitution, drug trafficking, human trafficking or no job. So think again when you buy things that are “American Made” and “Sweatshop Free” if your interest is giving jobs to the US economy where are employment laws force better conditions than those found in developing nations – then good for you, keep buying from places like closed-down American Apparel. But if your goal is to help some of the poorest people on this earth, then don’t fool yourself into thinking that buying sweatshop free stuff is doing anything.
An ideal alternative is buying things from local craftsmen and empowering them to be able to be economically independent/ stable enough to not need sweatshops. This will cost you more money, careful research here is needed to make sure the people are actually treated appropriately/ better than sweatshops.
With fair trade – the simple fact is that the companies who can afford to get this are those who are more well off. Like Ben and Jerry’s. They have a ton of money so they can afford to be fair trade. Fair trade is more of a branding/ marketing device than something that helps people. Research has shown that fair trade farms actually give less money to local workers and have little to no impact on their working conditions – check out Peter Singer’s work for hard stats.
Alternative: Instead of spending that extra $4 on ice cream, chocolate or coffee put it in a savings fund and then donate it to an effective charity.
Moral: Don’t just try to look good, spend the time researching your actions to actually do good. After all you’re already spending money, might as well spend it effectively and get a good deal on helping others.