I had the opportunity to visit China this year, my first visit after four years since the Covid pandemic broke out. One of my biggest impressions during my two-week stay in my hometown Guangzhou was the widespread electric vehicles (EV) running in the city. I took more rides in an EV in Guangzhou than in any other city in America. From private sedans to ride-hailing cabs, I saw home-made brands of EV competing speed and battery longevity with one another. Tesla probably is the most well-known foreign EV brand yet in China. But how clean can technology be?
Let us travel to Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in this documentary report, and learn about the making of EVs and the dirty business of advanced technology.
In “The Silicon Valley of Dreams” by scholars Pellow and Park, I learned that the electronics industry is toxic. The authors wrote: “The roots of this industry’s chemical base are in the military, petrochemical, and agricultural sectors—the biggest polluters on earth.” As electric and semi-autonomous cars require increasingly sophisticated chips, the extraction of ores, minerals and non-renewable resources will never end. Not to mention, the US government is determined to bring back chip manufacturing to American soil. I wonder how many innocent, underprivileged lives will lose their life working in the chip industry. How many of them will truly have a wellbeing guarantee in the fanfare that promises new jobs in a “clean industry”?
These are a few questions bothering me:
—Why do governments emphasize on economic growth instead of ecological wealth?
—Why climate mitigation activities, including reducing our wants and demand for excessive materialized needs, are less appealing to individuals?
—Why do we tend to politicize climate action?
These are only starters. I have more questions during my search for mindful living. In Guangzhou, I saw how the Internet of Things (IoT) was integrated in people’s everyday life. Literally, you cannot live well without a smartphone in a Chinese city. Of course, driving an electric vehicle is only an option for middle class Chinese people; the quantity of vehicles on the road is not reduced. On the opposite, the Downs-Thomas Paradox is still at play. That is, improvements in the road network can make congestion worse if improvements make public transport more inconvenient or if it shifts investment.
I told my friends in Guangzhou that American cities have fallen behind in EV market not because the gas at the pump is relatively cheaper than Canada or the UK, but the infrastructure to charge EVs is still in its infancy. Tesla superchargers used to work only for Tesla EVs. That is similar to Apple Inc.’s lightning cable which is only for Apple devices. Until early this year, Tesla opened up more chargers in its nationwide network to non-Tesla vehicles. But without Chinese competitors in the US EV market, American consumers may still have some years to suffer from high prices of electric vehicles and the inconvenience of charging them.
As for the development of the lightning cable, I have to give a shoutout to a European Union law to reduce e-waste. The law requires phone manufacturers to adopt a common charging connection by December 2024. And the 2023 iPhone 15 models feature the universally accepted USB-C connectors instead of lightning cable.
I saw plenty of futuristic looking EVs in Guangzhou. But I don’t quite understand why the EV gets hot inside because of the clear sunroof. This is a common problem for any EV, and not just Tesla alone. In the dog days of summer, if the EV is parked outdoors exposed to the sun, the interior of the car gets hot soon. The car owner usually has to start the cooling system of the car remotely before entering the vehicle. Doesn’t the cooling waste battery energy? This is a big warning to those forgetful parents who might leave babies inside a car. We do not need more tragedies in the clean technology.
As we approach the end of 2023, how far are we to achieve the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals? I am pleased to find this video from our local leader on climate action.
Are you curious about your carbon footprint? The EPA has a website for conscious global citizens like you to find out household carbon footprint. Check it out. Carbon Footprint Calculator
The more we educate ourselves about the lifecycle of our Internet of Things, including EVs and mobile devises, the better we may do more to achieve ecological wealth. Yes, ecological wealth is positive growth for generations to come.
“Many scholars and pundits have proclaimed this era of high technology the ‘Information Age,’ [. . . ] each of these claims conjures up images of high-tech society liberated from the constraints of nature—space, time, gravity—that have defined the boundaries of all previous civilizations. Natural resources—particularly land, minerals, fuels, and water—are necessary factors for our survival and are the root input factors in the global economy. [. . . ] We are as natural resource—dependent as human society has ever been.”
—“The Silicon Valley of Dreams” by David Naguib Pellow and Lisa Sun-Hee Park
This year’s Academy Awards was “history-making” as the Best Actress winner Michelle Yeoh said. I watched only bits and pieces of the ceremony but I was moved by the speeches on that night. This year’s Academy Awards was a major recognition for Asian representation on the silver screen. I thought to myself, if only we could spread this recognition for Asians in Hollywood to every facet of our society. After all, everyone has his/her own immigration story in this Land of Opportunity.
Nevertheless, in this Land of Opportunity there are all kinds of vices. One of them is called anger. From the Chinese spy balloon to the TikTok hearing, China becomes the target of anger by the Americans. Hyperdrama outshines substance. If statesmen are empowered to reason and reform, negotiate and compromise for the best interest of people as they claim, I’m bewildered by the weakness of our elected officials and political appointees. They’re expected by their people to resolve conflicts and narrow differences on domestic issues and world affairs. The reality is they’re overpaid and yield little results. The reality is Asians, ethnic Chinese in particular, bear the brunt of paranoia against China. People who look like Chinese or have Chinese heritage could easily become victims of hate crimes. The land of opportunity now becomes the land of conspiracy.
https://youtu.be/eQcQrFkBSuQ
How threatening can China be? I received a flyer recently from a Republican senatorial candidate, on which one item of the agenda was “stop transferring wealth to communist China.” This item is misleading the public. American people have brought so many goods from China to save money. Wealth inequality in the U.S. —and around the world for years—is that the very rich are getting even richer, and the poor are harder to get out of debt. I thought I was back to the early 20th century in the first Red Scare period. If history repeats itself, only the people in each episode of history have changed. If every American has her own immigration story, I’m now seeing the repeated history of a Red Scare unfolding before my eyes in the Land of Opportunity. I bet few American officials and civilians who advocate for a China boycott understand China at all. I’m saddened with tears running in my heart.
I like analyzing characters. If a fictional character thinks China is a threat, my theory is first, this character has unfathomable fear. Fear is a natural and primitive human emotion. It requires high emotional intelligence to quell it. This fictional character apparently falls short of a normal person’s emotional intelligence. Second, she could be ignorant of China. As philosopher Ibn Rushd said succinctly, “Ignorance leads to fear, fear leads to hatred, and hatred leads to violence. This is the equation.” Third, this character may have been a victim of a physical or psychological trauma associated with China or Chinese people; thus, she cannot come to terms with her past.
For instance, if you grow up in a war zone just as devastating as Ukraine today, how can you forgive the invader that turns your homeland into rubbles, your family scattered or dead, and you now a refugee? Last century China has been through much political turmoil before and after Communist took over the government. China was also once invaded by the imperial Japanese army. During that period, the ancestors of today’s Chinese and Taiwanese people fought together against Japanese. And later after the attack on Pearl Harbor, American soldiers joined forces with Chinese armies against Japanese invaders.
If by the judgment of today’s political correctness, will this historical event be labeled as the shame of the US for uniting with China for global peacemaking?
Will the world history follow what the Taiwanese ruling party does to remove China from the history textbooks and misinform the next generation of world citizens about the contribution of Chinese as a huge ethnic population to world peace?
This is my 14th year living in America. I’ve read and listened to too many immigrants’ stories in the Land of Opportunities. Many of them are from Greater China. There have been a great number of Chinese people exiled to America on the grounds of political asylum. Many of them are filled with anger and hatred toward the Chinese leadership. This is not uncommon. America is a hotbed of dissidents. Seldom do I find a happy immigrant story in which the protagonist sings higher praise of her birth country than her adopted homeland—the Land of Opportunity. Simply, if you like your motherland more than America, why did you emigrate? This is why immigrants have their dreams to create and build a new society that is better than their birth country. And yet, this supposedly a new and hopeful society is now facing divergence in last fifteen years.
I cry for those innocent Chinese immigrants who are discriminated against by China haters. But I’m still proud to say I’m ethnic Chinese in front of those who have doubts about China, those who spread conspiracy about a China threat, and those who make personal gains from demonizing China in their brainwashing propaganda.
I’m thankful that I received my higher education in America. American education enables me to understand why native-born American people cherish American exceptionalism. American exceptionalism is the idea that the United States is uniquely virtuous. In other words, America’s values, political system, and history are unique and worthy of universal admiration. Can America still uphold this moral high ground today?
Here are two current affairs that show me otherwise.
1. Hong Kong national anthem saga
It’s not the first time that organizer of international sports events played a protest song instead of China’s national anthem during ceremonies for Hong Kong sports team and for Hong Kong athlete. The latest mishap occurred last month at the ice hockey world championships in Sarajevo. A Cantonese language protest song released in August 2019 has long been mistaken for Hong Kong’s national anthem on Google search. Apparently, there is no human brain involved in fact-checking throughout the web search engine optimization. Since last December, Hong Kong government has pressured Google Inc. to change its search results to display China’s national anthem. The tech giant refused, alleging the company “do not manually manipulate organic web listings to determine the ranking of a specific page.”
Imagine that if this is a TikTok search glitch for glorifying Jan 6 US Capitol riot, can the public accept the same response from Google for TikTok to dodge the Congress grill? After TikTok hearing, Mr. Zuckerberg from Facebook may have smirked at his milder treatment in a Congress grill? Not to mention that Mr. Chew from TikTok is Singaporean and his wife is Taiwanese. While Mr. Chew was facing the music at the U.S. Congress, Tim Cook from Apple Inc. received warm welcome in his China visit. China or the U.S., which is showing off its exceptionalism toward innovation and opportunity?
Does the US Congress expect tech giants to regulate themselves internally on data collection and usage? How much corporate social responsibility from these tech giants do customers buy in? Technology always goes faster than law enforcement. The Congress hearing opened my eyes about how shallow our lawmakers understand the ethical issues in technology beyond ideology and geographic borders. This Congress hearing also highlights the depth of China phobia in Washington. Perhaps all non-China-based tech companies will need a quasi-party secretary-like watchdog on data privacy that can report directly to the US Congress.
We’re on a Red Scare groundhog day. As Dickens wrote, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” This is the predicament of my Chineseness.
When big tech companies do not end falsehood and conspiracy, and when governments are slow to enforce laws to regulate tech malpractice in general, we human beings are indeed manipulated by our smarter-than-us devices and algorithms. When professional ethics and the four cardinal Platonic virtues—prudence, fortitude, temperance and justice—are missing in our decision making, there will be no distinction between humanity and machines.
“The Wealth of Nations” is often considered the bible of capitalism, but what draws my attention to the author Adam Smith is his another great work before the publication of “The Wealth of Nations.” In his book “The Theory of Moral Sentiments,” Smith defined four virtues—prudence, justice, beneficence and self-command—as this:
“Prudence moderates the individual’s excesses and as such is important for society. It is respectable, if not endearing. Justice limits the harm we do to others. It is essential for the continuation of social life. Beneficence improves social life by prompting us to promote the happiness of others. It cannot be demanded from anyone, but it is always appreciated. And self-command moderates our passions and reins in our destructive actions.”
In my mind, a man’s morality comes before his wealth. So was the sequence of publication of Adam Smith’s two great works. Sadly, today’s American leaders in public service and business seem to have gone the opposite direction of Smith’s four virtues.
2. Avatar in reality
In the movie “Avatar: The Way of Water,” the audience saw an intelligent whale-like species named Tulkun. A whaling vessel led by Captain Mick Scoresby hunted Tulkuns to extract an anti-aging serum. The entire whale hunting operation was like a public-private cooperation. Military forces were on site driving helicopters and vessels. Advanced military technologies were used to hunt Tulkuns. The picture reminded me of the accusation from the US officials for China stealing US technology to supply its military. I can’t say this is not happening but I dare to ask which country in the world does not allow advanced technology first to apply to national defense?
The US, first and foremost, does not easily unveil or commercialize its advanced defense technology. Many space projects at NASA are funded by the federal government, for instance. And yet, the projects are partnered with the US military. The US Space Force is the sixth branch of the U.S. Armed Forces. So, can you see how closely the research and development of technology is associated with government?
This comes back to my earlier question about if American exceptionalism is still unwavering. The Chinese military will have the first access to advanced technology. So will the US military. When the US sell arms to Taiwan, isn’t the US also selling indirectly advanced technology to China? Most countries, including the US, do not consider Taiwan a sovereign state. In China’s narrative, Taiwan is an inseparable part of China. Taiwan’s trade with China is far bigger than its trade with the US. Who knows if Taiwan will need to appropriate millions of dollars from China trade to pay US for unwanted weapons?
Not to mention if Taiwan can afford the arms sale given the fact the economy of the island is declining after the ruling party boycotts mainland China, and the climate crisis will first impact self-ruled islands like Taiwan. Water scarcity is aggravating the island which boasts to be Asia’s biggest semiconductor manufacturer. But chipmaking is a thirsty business. The US is already in high debt. Is it the best interest for the American people to defend a resource scarce island?
There are also many immigrant stories in Taiwan as locals can trace their ancestral hometowns in mainland China.
Recently a friend from Arizona asked me about my view on Taiwan Strait tension, I immediately thought of a verse from a most cited Chinese poem by Cao Zhi (曹植). This 2nd century poem read: “本是同根生，相煎何太急？” in Chinese. It means beans and bean stems originated from the same long root, why should rush to boil it? Brothers and sisters should be caring for one another and coexist harmoniously instead of harming one another for personal gains. Well, I didn’t think my friend understood Chinese classics. I told him that in the eyes of Chinese people, the tension is domestic; but in the eyes of the US, the tension is global.
My concern goes to how social media and journalists report the facts, not opinions, about happenings in Taiwan. Sadly, today’s reporters seem to mix their views into facts, and algorithms often pick on the most extreme views of stories. Without professional ethics, any publisher who posts stories online is also the expeditor of false news and conspiracy.
Do you remember I mentioned earlier in my character analysis for why China haters become who they are? One of the possibility is my character may have been a victim of a physical or psychological trauma associated with China or Chinese people. Children and young people, in particular, who have experienced trauma have little space left for learning. When a character refuses to learn and refresh her impression of old knowledge, misconception brings about miscommunication, and it might lead to confrontation.
Well, I’m sure there are Chinese people in this category living in Taiwan and elsewhere who grew up with a family story of revenge and hatred of Chinese communists. They could be the innocent kids then who fled to Taiwan with their families. Today, Taiwanese commentators like comparing Taiwan Strait tension to Ukraine war. I must say our world has already lost a generation of promising future in Ukraine. Seeds of anti-Russian sentiment are sowed in their young mind, and perhaps in their future children and grandchildren, too. For that, this Chinese is in sorrow.
History would need to be rewritten if one denies Chineseness in the blood of Taiwanese people. In fact the diaspora of the Chinese people and even the adopted Chinese children of non-Chinese parents all have this unique Chineseness in them. We cannot define what an American look like because so many Americans have different ethnic backgrounds. We also cannot distinguish the ancestral background by origin of an ethnic Chinese. We should give ourselves a chance to learn from one another and appreciate others’ goodness not vice.
A few months ago when I first visited a Thai restaurant after staying homebound for so many months, I found it a bit distasteful that I was offered plastic straws with water. I used to like drinking almost everything in a restaurant with straws. In fact, that’s a very American thing. Just like a customer is often offered hot tea in a Chinese restaurant in China even though it’s on a sweltering hot day. I never say no to straws in America, nor do I say no to hot tea in China. Now, the UK will ban not only plastic straws but single-use plastic cutlery and plates this October. When will a similar plastic ban reach ashore across the pond?
The Covid-19 pandemic has changed how I value the quality of life with less material waste. Three years ago I read a study saying an estimated 1.6 billion disposable face masks ended up in our oceans in 2020. That amounts to roughly 5,500 tons of plastic pollution, and it will take more than four centuries for the single-use plastic to decompose in the ocean. In fact, health care remains one of the largest waste-producing sectors. Do you still remember the disposable personal protective equipment (PPE), the single-use surgical gloves, the medical masks, goggles, and many other necessary supplies that are no longer strange to us? Thanks to the mass media covering how we combat Covid-19 in the past years. Single-use plastic is omnipresent in health care as well as in our everyday life—just like that straw offered to me free.
What am I going to do about my plastic waste? I no longer use straws when I dine in a restaurant. I prefer cooking to ordering take-outs. I know there are many like-minded people making much bolder change for a consumer’s world with less single-use plastics. They are whom I dub “the sane doers.” The EU legislators have taken a much earlier step than the US and the UK. Back in 2021, the EU banned the sale in EU markets of ten plastic products including plastic bottle caps, cutlery, straws and plates, as well as Styrofoam food and beverage containers. I remember my last visit to Europe before the pandemic, I brought my own utensils and reusable shopping bags. That was only out of my precautious nature. I’m not sure if I should bring my own reusable lunch box and travel mug next time when I visit Europe. But I welcome this idea.
American patrons enjoy Chinese take-outs. Yet I don’t think the Chinese restaurants realize how much money they could save if they encourage their loyal customers to return and reuse these plastic food containers. I think many restaurants that offer delivery or take-out in America should factor in how much money they waste in single-use plastic. A friend of mine once said the food containers in her house could replace her porcelain plates and bowls. She often ordered take-out and she served her own cooking with what’s convenient to carry for her. Well, if she has a business mind, she might resell them to food vendors.
Starting from October 2023, British retailers, takeaways, food vendors and the hospitability industry will not be allowed to sell single-used plastic plates, trays, cutlery, and some types of polystyrene cups and food containers. Travelers, are you ready for this change? BYOB, an acronym of “Bring Your Own Bottle,” may have a new eco-friendly meaning. With no mistake, if I travel across the pond, I will continue to BYOU, bring your own utensil.
(I went to a Starbucks store one day and saw this sign. Every small step adds to a positive change.)
Try These Planet-Positive Tips:
** Switch to a reusable cup
** Take only what you need
** Try a nondairy beverage
** Opt for an e-Gift card
And. . .
Straws & Utensils Upon Request at Starbucks!
In English, a good egg is someone who is good and kind. On the opposite, a bad egg is someone who is bad and dishonest. This is what I learn through reading. Eggs are common in English idiom mainly because of its wide availability in our daily life. What if eggs are not available in our community store? What could be the best replacement for eggs?
Since the H5N1 bird flu was first detected in U.S. poultry in February 2022, the virus has led to the loss of a record 58.6 million poultry across 47 states. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a weekly update on the affected birds. The severity of the bird flu epidemic is comparable to that of the COVID-19 pandemic among humans.
In Europe, more than 48 million domestic birds in 37 countries were slaughtered in 2022 in order to contain H5N1 avian influenza. Two reported cases in Cambodia are linked to bird flu. However, scientists clarified recently that a teenager who died after being infected with bird flu did not have the widely circulating variant that causes mass deaths in wild and domestic birds globally. How can we not raise higher awareness of the zoonotic diseases? They are infections that are spread between people and animals.
Covid-19 caused by SARS-CoV-2 has been classified as a zoonotic disease. The World Health Organization has stated some key facts about avian flu on its website. Humans can be infected with avian, swine and other zoonotic influenza viruses. Climate change and rising temperatures can lead to the spread of zoonotic hosts and vectors, increasing the risks for human population to infect zoonotic diseases.
All viruses mutate but not always at the same rate. Which goes faster—virus or vaccine? If bird flu poses a risk to our consumption of poultry and eggs, will humans next invent vaccines for animals and food as well? Will you eat eggs that are vaccinated?
Farm birds in U.S. are vaccinated against other infectious poultry diseases, such as fowlpox. But to vaccinate hundreds of millions of birds against bird flu, how many humans will get involved? I’m sure they are good eggs who fight for the poultry kingdom. But I also know these humans have bills to pay and food to buy. With the increase of the egg price, will some families feel burdened as their selection of food become fewer? I learned early this year in some parts of America a dozen eggs cost near five dollars.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the price of eggs was up 138% in December 2022 from a year prior, to $4.25 a dozen. For that, I wonder if the price gouging is the result of bad eggs. Or is it the true reflection of the equilibrium of demand and supply in the market?
As author David Graeber wrote in his book “Debt: The First 5,000 Years,” “Commercial profit was seen as legitimate only as compensation for the labor that merchants expended in transporting goods from one place to another, but never as fruits of speculation.” Eggs are considered locally produced goods. How far are our eggs transported from poultry farms to our dining table? I doubt the bad eggs in price gouging are chicken-hearted if regulations are weak.
The Covid-19 pandemic surely becomes a good excuse for suppliers to raise prices. Perhaps the increasing extreme weather patterns, too. Who knows the next mega-storm will be the blame for a price hike on some necessity goods? In the end, all consumers have to bear the cost of higher production costs, inventory, shipping and business overheads. Well, if that’s the case, be a smart consumer; and don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
If you type “trash bin” in your search engine, you’ll find a number of trash bins in various sizes and shapes. In my household, I have at least one bin to every room, from bathroom and kitchen to study and bedrooms. Last month the repair of my damaged condo by water pipe burst finally came to fruition. As I was moving out of the condo temporarily to give way to the remodeling crew, I realized the thirteen-gallon kitchen trash bin had to stay in the vacant house. Even if I wouldn’t produce trash during my absence, the remodeling crew would. We, literally, cannot live without a trash bin.
If you visit any Home Depot store or ask the associates at the lumber section, you’ll notice that the Husky contractor trash bags are one of the popular items in the store. The shelves that carry these items go empty as soon as the shelves of plastic water bottles, which are also quickly sold out, in the store. As we make our homes beautiful, we overlook our trash as being more or less not-in-my-backyard (NIMB). Homeowners should know construction trash should be disposed at different designated sites away from municipal waste dumpsters. However, knowing is one thing, doing is another. And law enforcement on homeowners’ and contractors’ not doing the right thing in this country is nearly nonexistent.
Why would I say that? I saw contractor’s trash bags in the dumpsters in my community before. I also saw contractors who dumped their black trash bags into the trash bins of the Home Depot. How often do you pay much attention to the trash you dump? I learned from a store associate at the Home Depot during my checkout that there were thieves who hid the tools in trash bags and collected them from the trash bins when they left the store.
What about all those unwanted cardboard boxes and medicine bottles that have the consumers’ names and addresses in the labels? Do you scratch out your personal information before you toss your boxes and bottles?
When I was in grad school learning about global sustainability, I was aware of how wasteful the packaging industry was. I remember before COVID-19 I saw in residential communities in China piles of empty boxes discarded near the dumpsters. That nightmare happened later on in my community in Northern Virginia. I believe the same nightmare happens everywhere now because while e-commerce is booming, our single-use packaging materials are also on the rise exponentially. Not to mention the retail giants contributing to excessive shipping emissions. I hope the relentless version of “Made in USA” under the Biden Administration will shed light on the accountability of all players in the free market in terms of their handling of waste.
We cannot live without trash bins. It’s a myth that other nonhuman species also produce waste but their waste tends to have little negative impact on our shared environment. But human’s waste, if not carefully categorized, does do damage to our environment. The recent oil spill in the Philippines seas has caused local villagers feeling nausea and dizziness. Marine biologists say some 89 acres of coral reef, mangroves and sea-grass are at risk from the oil spill. Even if we have a gigantic trash bin to collect the entire oil spill, where should we dispose the waste? In early March, the United Nations members have agreed on a unified treaty to protect biodiversity in the high seas. This year marks the 50th anniversary of US’s Endangered Species Act. Well, if humans do respect biodiversity, humans should do the fair share to create a better environment for both humans and nonhumans, no?
This is a ten billion dollars question. How to reuse our waste? Please do not send it away to other countries though. A report shows Canadian companies illegally shipped at least 2,300 metric tons of waste overseas last year. Aside from being mindful of what I am throwing away into my trash bin, I learn that my county recently began accepting food scraps for composting. That’s a small progress. If only more households are knowledgeable about composting and regular pick-up services are available, I believe our soils will be healthier and landfill methane will be cut significantly too. Who knows, perhaps if you dig deeper in your own trash bin, you’ll turn trash into treasure.
“On the one hand, one of my own most important environmental ethics is that people should always be conscious that they are part of the natural world, inextricably tied to the ecological systems that sustain their lives. [. . . ] On the other hand, I also think it no less crucial for us to recognize and honor nonhuman nature as a world we did not create, a world with its own independent, nonhuman reasons for being as it is.”
—William Cronon, author of “The Trouble With Wilderness”
Chile’s Atacama is the graveyard of fast fashion. (Image source: The Buenos Aires Times)
Last year during my moving into a condo, I packed several bags of old clothes and even new linens. I had no idea the house had stored so many textile goods until I did a thorough inventory. Out of sight, out of mind. You can say that again. In the end, I had to donate a majority of them to the American Red Cross. But my experience made me wonder how much clothes do we throw away in a lifetime? We dump fast and we also replenish fast. Why so fast? Don’t you bond with your belongings?
My closet has been pretty stable for more than a decade. Unless old clothes don’t fit me only then will I consider buying new ones. I’m blessed that I know how to sew. I tend to sew my worn clothes to extend their life span. After all, I’m sentimental and superstitious to believe it’s difficult to find clothes that I like and at the same time fit me. I knew nothing about fast fashion until I visited a few landfills in China, Ghana, Pakistan and India. I was never disappointed to see mounds of textile waste at these sites.
Why so fast? Do you know how much water, energy, chemicals, raw materials and labor are used in producing clothes that only been worn a short life span?
Today’s garments are made from a wide range of substances, including synthetic fabrics, fabrics sourced from plants and animals such as leather and cotton, chemicals for the fabric dyeing, processing, and finishing techniques, and various materials such as metals, wood, and plastic for hardware (buttons, zippers, buckles, clasps, etc.). The petroleum-based fibers are found in four main fabrics—polyester, acrylics, nylon, and spandex.
So, if you check out the fiber content label attached to your sweater or trousers or bags, these names are not strange to you. As author Jared Diamond said, “All modern societies depend on extracting natural resources, both non-renewable resources and renewable ones.” I often wonder if we will run short of natural resources to make clothes. I’m concerned about materials made from synthetics that can take centuries to break down. According to Ellen MacArthur’s study, the degradation process of cotton in a landfill can take up to five months and polyester up to 200 years.
Come to think of it, slow fashion is trendier. So, what is slow fashion? Forbes magazine explains succinctly. Slow fashion is clothes with trendless designs and premium, long-lasting quality. Only sustainably sourced, non-toxic substances are used in the making of such clothes. I don’t think shoppers will be against the idea of bonding an intimate relationship with slow fashion and indirectly doing good deeds for our society and the environment. Why so fast? Life is short indeed. Putting on a lasting clothing is to enjoy the beauty of becoming.
The Covid-19 pandemic has changed how we look at fashion. Since we can’t feel the actual sample and try it on, consumers tend to buy, buy, buy and return, return, and return via online shopping. Why so fast? If you’re a store receiver, aren’t you annoyed about the seemingly non-stopping returns and restocking from the same customers? You might wonder if they’re ever satiable.
Do you know the textile industry produces nearly 120 metric tons of carbon emissions every year, which accounts for 10 percent of the world’s total carbon emissions? Online shopping does tilt the scale in favor of the fast fashion businesses; but if you are sensitive to trends and conscientious, you will join the slow fashion movement like tens of thousands of ethical consumers in South Korea and elsewhere. I also hope more Chinese textile manufacturers will spread the seeds of sustainable consumption around the world. If “decoupling” is a hot buzzword, then decoupling economic activity from the consumption of finite resources is a win-win solution for humans and the planet.
I’ve never been to the Atacama Desert in Chile. But I can find stunning images of it on travel websites. I’m also learning that a beautiful site now has become the dumping ground of fast fashion. Tens of thousands of tons of unwanted clothing from Europe and the US are being dumped in the desert every year. South America, or precisely the world, is losing the pristine Amazon rainforest. Are we also losing our beautiful Atacama Desert, replacing it with mounds of fast-fashion fabrics that are usually non-biodegradable?
Slow fashion is more than a movement. Slow fashion is a healthy lifestyle. Slow fashion enables renewable resources to regenerate and provide humans with sustainable materials. Slow fashion empowers human creativity and conscience. Slow fashion exudes one’s outer beauty as well as her inner beauty through deeds.
If you are a sane doer, why not take the time to build a relationship with your clothes? Why not brag about your oldest collection in the closet? Why not learn to sew and repair clothes? Your efforts in giving a second life to used clothes and saving water and energy to recycling your clothes are the value you don’t see but is accruing in your taste of fashion. In the Year of the Rabbit, may you have a big bounce like a bunny to find your trendy slow fashion brands!
“To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.”
This week I had an unexpected wondrous encounter on my way to work. It was before dawn. As I was driving slowing on a quiet community road, three deer—one of them was relatively smaller—were crossing the road carefully. As soon I spotted them, I stepped on the brake and slowed the speed of my car. Watching the deer crossing the road so close, I felt so surreal as if seeing a genie popping out of a bottle. As I slowly cruised my car passing them, I saw the leader of the pack watching me vigilantly amid the darkness of the woods. Later I realized perhaps the deer wasn’t drawn to me but the headlights of my car.
Seeing deer looking for food in the woods near where I live used to be common. That was before the notorious “Transform 66 Outside the Beltway” project kicked off in late 2017. I used to wait for the county bus to the nearest metro station for my daily commute. The deer usually appeared before dawn in the woods that separated the bus terminal and the I-66 motorway. Just before the pandemic started, the landscape changed significantly. By then, I no longer commuted to my office located in District of Columbia. Trees were cut down; flowerbeds and lawn on the sidewalk became sand and gravel. At one point, at the sight of bare roads, dusty air, watery potholes and incomplete cement infrastructure, I felt like being in a homeland torn by war.
A few days ago in the new year, I walked the same path that led to the woods. I noticed rainwater was overflown from the stream, damaging the path that I normally took. I realized that the nearby road expansion project had not only changed the topography of my familiar community but also left a hidden flood and soil erosion problem. A number of tall trees were toppled because of disease and road construction.
It is wintertime. The scrawny trees without leaves remind me of the season. Without the lush woods, I’m able to see farther and hear much more from afar. I look faraway. A steel bridge emerging from the blue sky. The buzzing of vehicles on the high bridge was clear and crisp. That is the new toll road on I-66. Its birth only reminds me of how close I am to the site where wildlife has lost their habitats to humans. I miss the lush woods that buffer the noises in our community. If winter is here, spring won’t be far behind. But by springtime, we won’t have as many trees as we used to have. Some part of the woods has given way to human habitats and now the billions-dollar road project.
To my disappointment, the road expansion project does not include a firm plan for the extension of the orange metro line of the District-Maryland-Virginia metro system. Instead, what could have been the space for a metro line above ground, or a maglev train which is a more cost-effective and efficient mode of transportation, now is becoming a toll lane for the already congested interstate 66 highway system.
Have you heard of the Downs-Thomas Paradox? The paradox states that improvements in the road network will not reduce traffic congestion. Improvements in the road network can make congestion worse if improvements make public transport more inconvenient or if it shifts investment. Generally speaking, during peak hours there are more cars—no matter whether they are electric vehicles or not—on the road. They will generate more carbon emissions in total than in the off peak hour. But more highway lanes encourage more cars on the road at any given time of the day. In other words, increasing highway capacity means increasing carbon emissions. Not to mention there isn’t enough infrastructure yet for superchargers for electric cars along the busy highway.
I don’t know if I will see fewer trees and woods as a result of the urban sprawl. I do know that housing in northern Virginia is becoming more unaffordable. You may say the disease of urban gentrification that I witnessed and lived through in China is now also happening in northern Virginia and elsewhere in American suburban areas. Not everyone is winner in urbanization. The original residents in an old neighborhood usually have to move out (and usually poorly compensated) before the new community to be built.
Recently I watched a movie in which I learned about the legacy of urban planner Robert Moses who changed the landscape of New York City through power and influence. There are many lessons learned from the NYC’s changed landscape. I wonder if power and influence of both the officials and private investors are fully in play the I-66 transformation project as well. Technology is advancing comparing to Robert Moses’ time, but the psychology of power in humans has not.
When we don’t see wildlife around our neighborhoods any more, when the path in the woods is submerged in floodwater, when our winter is abnormally warmer than what we remember, will our hardwired brains begin to awake to the fact that we are the victims of the tragedy of the commons? Nobody is winner in the human-induced climate crisis.
“‘But what we need is that the only men to get power should be men who do not love it, otherwise we shall have rivals’ quarrels. […] Who else, then will you compel to undertake the responsibilities of Guardians of our state, if it is not to be those who know most about the principles of good government and who have other rewards and a better life than the politician’s?’
‘There is no one else.’“
Plato, “The Simile of the Cave” from The Symposium
Easter Island is, in Jared Diamond’s words, “the clearest example of a society that destroyed itself by over-exploiting its own resources”.
It is eighteen years too late for me to read the book “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed” by Pulitzer Prize winner Jared Diamond. If you’re reading the first edition of this book now, you’ll find the content is a bit out of date. Nonetheless, I’ve learned a lot about the rise and fall of ancient and modern societies resulting from environmental change, climate change, hostile neighbors, friendly trade partners and the society’s response to its environmental problems. The book serves me a good reminder to love and respect the Earth. And I can’t agree more with the author that we tend to forget things.
“In modern literate societies whose writing does discuss subjects besides kings and planets, that doesn’t necessarily mean that we draw on prior experience committed to writing. We, too, tend to forget things. For a year or two after the gas shortages of the 1973 Gulf oil crisis, we Americans shied away from gas-guzzling cars, but then we forgot that experience and are now embracing SUVs, despite volumes of print spilled over the 1973 events.”
—Jared Diamond, author of “Collapse”
I don’t have very good memory. Perhaps that’s why I resort to writing. These days with the help of the smarter-than-me phone, I take photos of the events or things that prompt me to take action. But it might be human nature that out-of-sight-and-out-of-mind keeps happening to me. Even I have photos to remind me, if I don’t see them I won’t remember why I took the photos. So, I begin to make sense why in the old days people need to go to church every Sunday, why religious people say prayers at a certain hour of the day, and why on our birthdays we may have a chance to think back and compare the older self with the younger self. We need constantly to review, reflect and be reminded of in the journey of making a meaningful life.
But what if I’m living in a lie that was made before I was born?
For starter, I read a news story this week saying the oil giant Exxon Mobil’s scientists made accurate predictions about global warming in the 1970s despite leadership denial. The scientific study conducted nearly half a century ago showed from 63% to 83% of the climate change projections fit strict standards for accuracy that the globe would warm about .36 degree (.2 degrees Celsius) a decade.
So how can we hold the liars accountable for the devastating ecological and financial losses caused by fossil fuel emissions? Not to mention that the methane release from Nord Stream leaks last year is a result of man-made destruction and political lies.
We don’t physically participate in a war but we global citizens in every corner of this planet feel the pain of any war regardless of its format, scale and intent. I would like to be your reminder. The potential consequences of modern war and military activities on ecosystem structure and function are huge. And yet, humans only value fatalities tolls on humans and financial losses without giving too many thoughts on the chemicals they deploy in the air and in deep sea.
I think before we aim to destroy our so-called “enemy” in political rhetoric, we could have destroyed our food chains and habitats. To make it more current, who is going to pay for the rebuild of post-war Ukraine? Who is going to restore the marine life in the Taiwan Strait if missiles and bombs are launching from north, south, east and west? After all, Japanese, Taiwanese, South Korean and east coast Chinese people consume and export seafood in enormous quantities. Do you believe without wildlife, clean water, clean air, moderate temperature for humans we can live on for generations?
Can you tolerate noisy neighbors hammering and drilling day and night near your dwellings? You can imagine how wildlife is disrupted in their breeding season and migration routes by human military activities in our oceans and skies. This is my narrow assumption that few military and strategic think tanks in Washington, Beijing, London, Brussels, Tokyo and even Pyongyang will factor in the ecological casualties and far-reaching impact of a modern warfare in the strategic policy advocacies.
For entrée, a recent study published by the Science journal reminds us that if the world overshoots the 1.5 Celsius temperature limit, it could trigger multiple climate tipping points. So, limiting global warming to stay below 1.5 degrees Celsius requires more measures on climate mitigation as well. This winter Europeans are following government mandates to reduce energy consumption although the initial reason is not for saving the planet but to combat energy shortages. I wonder if this is a trade-off of a hot war in the continent.
Can North Americans and Chinese people take more aggressive action to reduce fossil-fuels dependence and landfill methane emissions? Municipal solid waste is the third-largest source of human-caused methane emissions in the US. Methane is also the largest component of natural gas, and natural gas leaks are predominantly methane. Carbon dioxide and methane are both critical greenhouse gases. Now, you know the liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargo ships are contributors to greenhouse gas emissions.
As author Jared Diamond pointed out in his book Collapse, “All modern societies depend on extracting natural resources, both non-renewable resources (like oil and metals) and renewable ones (like wood and fish).” I would like to remind you that sustainability means differently to different sectors and industries in a society. But to almost all societies on this planet, whether they are modernized or not, sustainability means meeting our own needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. There are many lessons learned in the book Collapse as well as other competitive works in recent years. The advances of technology should not only focus on how much more we individually can acquire natural, social and economic resources at a lower cost, but what other eco-friendly alternatives will allow us to meet our needs fairly and sustainably.
The best gift we mortals can give our unborn future generations is repair and restore our debilitating ecosystem now. We don’t need another war triggered by shortage of food and water and a pandemic. A warming climate can affect the spread of diseases worldwide.
On a personal level, we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by, for instance, simply turning off your car engine when you are waiting or running errands. Too many times I see in parking lots or curbside that drivers just let their engines running while they either sit in the car or are absent.
An idling vehicle releases harmful chemicals, gases and particle pollution (“soot”) into the air, contributing to ozone, regional haze, and global climate change. Every gallon of gas burned produces more than 20 pounds of greenhouse gases. I hope this is a friendly reminder that every driver, whether you are driving a company truck or a private car, can do better for our shared planet and public health.
Last year I learned about how not to engage with shoplifting in a hardware store. You never know what will be on the body of a desperate shoplifter when her/his theft is exposed. But what if a shoplifter walks in a store with many luxury brands?
This sounds like a good short story prompt. I had the opportunity to visit a fancy design center last week. The center is a showroom for high-end earners who plan to give their kitchen, bathroom and flooring a makeover for a unique carpe diem experience.
In exchange for that experience, customers will have to spend on a five-digit price tag in the center, hiring a team of professionals from design to installation. I give a thumbs up to the salespeople for their detailed introduction. Even they admitted a good salesperson must hone their skill of storytelling. These high-earning prospect customers enjoy good-branding stories of elegance and class.
You can tell I’m not the type of customers the center is hunting for. I don’t recognize many luxury brands of kitchen and bathroom design. They are brands only familiar to a small group of customers and manufacturers. Do you remember the M-shaped Society mentioned in my writing? The concept came from William Ouchi, an American business educator. The shape of letter “M” describes vividly a polarized society with only the extreme rich and the extreme poor. The middle class in the society gradually disappears. The luxury brands of kitchen and bathroom design are for the extreme rich, the hump of the M-shaped Society.
I asked a saleswoman how her new products attract young high earners who are conscious about sustainability. Not surprisingly, she first referred to California compliance. She said her products all meet Californian environmental laws and standards. She showed me one of the stainless steel valves with a glossy galvanized finish. She explained to me that the valve enabled the user to adjust the water level from full to half of the amount. I didn’t feel impressed by this feature that she deemed innovative. Perhaps she saw my skepticism on the face. She continued, “Our brand of Victorian bathtubs is made of volcanic ash. We won’t run out of volcanic ash. In that regard, the material resource is abundant.”
Different from an iron cast bathtub, the luxury bathtub made of volcanic ash is allegedly more durable in terms of keeping the right temperature of the water in the bathtub. It’s news to me about the making of a bathtub from volcanic ash. In my reading about volcanic activities, they are linked to a high threat to public safety. If volcanic ash is that “sustainable” as the saleswoman touted, why can’t we make such a luxury brand more affordable to middle-to-low income consumers?
My reading also tells me that carbon dioxide and fluorine gases are toxic to humans and they can collect in volcanic ash. If inhaled, volcanic ash can cause breathing problems and damage the lungs of humans. So, I can’t help thinking further about the safety of the craftsmen who have handmade these luxury bathtubs made of volcanic ash. It’s likely they’re risking their life to make a living. Consumers who can afford these expensive bathtubs presumably don’t really know or even care about the danger. None of the employees in the design center, from lower-ranked designer to store manager, talked about a responsible business practice in educating and directing consumers toward a healthy quality experience in home improvement.
The discrepancy of understanding the source of consumers’ goods and their manufacturing processes is really huge in our societies. I remember a story about the risk-takers harvesting the small shellfish, also known as percebes, or goose neck barnacles, on the Atlantic coast. (Check out below video if you’d like a peep on the dining table of the rich.) The most highly prized percebes are the most dangerous to harvest, growing deep below the waterline in the Atlantic. I kept hearing the word “experience” throughout my tour in the fancy design center. I wonder how our trending metaverse, or virtual reality technology, can popularize a replica of rarity living that is unique to the rich?
At the end of my tour, I was waiting for my turn to visit the restroom. I happened to meet a Spanish-speaking cleaning lady. That gave me an opportunity to verify what I learned about the daily cleanup of the spotless kitchen and bathroom in the showroom. The cleaning lady was happy to work there because she could imagine how her fancy kitchen could be look like. She showed me how she would like to roast her chicken in a cabinet for a built-in oven. That luxury brand kitchen design is listed as a six-digit price tag. I asked her if she used special clean products to clean the counter top. She nodded her head and smiled. I joked, “So the chemicals in Walmart won’t work in this kitchen, right?” She grinned wider to affirm my guess.
When I say elites push our societies toward contributing more of a carbon footprint to our shared planet, I review the Diderot Effect that makes sense to me about the interrelationship between a human being’s consumption of natural resources and services and her sense of social identity. Our identities are tied to our clothes, gadgets and even fengshui of our furniture. Any fiction writer will tell you if you know your character well enough, you’ll utter as your own the character’s taste for life via scene setting, dress code and self-expression. My visit to a fancy design center certainly gives me fantasy and imagination for my characters. But as a sustainability advocate, the expensive, fancy appliances of the design center make me grim about how we educate ourselves and future generations to lead a balanced life in responsible sourcing and consumption.
We have only seven years left to achieve the UN’s 2030 Agenda for sustainable development. How much can we confidently accomplish for the 2030 Agenda? This year, making COVID-19 manageable and covering financial losses from climate change could make headlines. And last year UN’s COP15 on biodiversity ended with a landmark agreement to halt and reverse nature loss, including putting 30 percent of the planet and 30 percent of degraded ecosystems under protection by 2030. It’s time to roll up our sleeves!
Some world leaders once said the year of 2022 is the year of healing. Well, to me, it’s more than that. A few months ago, I experienced my once-in-a-lifetime leak. A pipe burst in an apartment above my condo and leaking water, damaged most of my flooring and ceiling.
I just moved into this condo six months prior to the leak. The moment when I walked into the flooded condo to rescue as many personal items as possible, I thought of my childhood in those floods that filled our house after torrential rains. (Thank you for reading my memoir!) Water cascaded from the ceiling, shattering the glass ceiling light fixture and triggering the fire alarms to beep and blink nonstop. I felt like being in a tropical no man’s land with water dripping from the ceiling in a cave and humidity overwhelming me.
I also thought of the flood zones in New Orleans that I visited four years after Hurricane Katrina took place in 2005. A sense of helplessness erupted in me as I alone soaked the wet floor. To my astonishment, my water leak experience in the United States has been a long haul. After five months’ waiting for repair, I still hear no word from the building management about when my condo will be repaired. I was a flood survivor in my childhood but my experience can’t help expedite the repair of my dwelling.
What I have learned is the delay that complex bureaucracy and red tape cause in the flood insurance industry. I am disillusioned with the building management but I haven’t lost my cool.
I remember when I visited the flood areas after Hurricane Katrina, I was surprised to see houses that seemed about to collapse still remained standing after four years. I didn’t see a soul in those neighborhoods. In the baking sun, these used-to-be habitable communities looked so bleak. No wonder residents had to move permanently to neighboring states with their broken hearts. At least in a safer place on a higher ground, flood victims can rebuild their life without too much emotional baggage and fear about another hurricane may hit their new homes. After my trip to New Orleans, I wrote an essay “I’m Proud to Be a Southerner” but later I learned the title had a different connotation to the American readers. The divided sentiments derived from slavery and Civil War are so deep rooted in American contemporaries’ understanding about the simple cardinal directions. North and South in this particular geography means so different from where I came from. And now, when we talk about Global South in climate adaptation, aren’t we painting too broad a brush to refer to a population that lives in Latin America, Asia, Africa and Oceania? Where I came from in South China, it is an affluent region and technological powerhouse for the country and beyond. Where I came from in South China, locals welcome foreign investment and trades. My hometown Guangzhou, also known as Canton, was historically a major port in ancient China. When the British East India Company made Canton its major Chinese port early in the 17th century, the Canton-system trade came into being. If you have been to the southern states in America, you probably would be impressed by the big and beautiful mansions for the insanely rich people. Are these homeowners part of the global population? Don’t they have an affinity for Southern Living? Can I infer that we are all proud Southerners despite our geographic difference?
“The Chinese have discovered, and have practiced for many centuries, a way of life which, if it could be adopted by all the world, would make all the world happy. We Europeans have not. Our way of life demands strife, exploitation, restless change, discontent and destruction. Efficiency directed to destruction can only end in annihilation, and it is to this consummation that our civilization is tending, if it cannot learn some of that wisdom for which it despises the East.”
—Bertrand Russell, author of “The Problem of China“
2.
So, while waiting for my condo to repair in these months, I immersed myself in reading old books to keep my sanity. I won’t labor you to read the nonsense of the insurance problems. If there is a reform in industries, I won’t hesitate to pick these top three in the United States: pharmaceutical, telecommunication and insurance. In my mind, they are insanely abusive of consumers’ rights.
My friendly warning to the 21st century homeowners is be patient with your condominium insurance dispute. Let’s hope the future floods resulting from sea level rise or global warming-linked rain storm, which may land in your dwellings, won’t cost you an-arm-and-a-leg to rebuild your homes. If they do, let’s hope you have your sanity to stay hopeful despite the slow response and inaction from the insurance and the pertinent authority.
We aren’t saints. But we can do our best to stay sane. The cause of the leak in my condo building was a water pipe burst. The leak happened in the dog days of summer on the third floor. (Speaking of global warming, we had some extreme hot days last summer!) However, the owner of the third flood unit insisted the leak was not her property’s fault. The leak damaged two units straight downstairs of my 3rd flood neighbor. I’m one of the victim families.
The building manager immediately called the water mitigation company to stop the water leak and dry the place with high voltage electric fans and dehumidifiers. My electricity bill in the following month had an unusual hike. For ten days, all the fans were in full gear 24/7 to dry my condo. My bill went up to more than two hundred dollars from the normal fifty dollars. Who pays the bill? Me. The Victim.
I have a healthy houseplant that has kept me company for more than ten years. It died last year during the water mitigation period in my condo. For the entire week the temperature of my condo reached to as high as above 90 degrees Fahrenheit when the hot fans were blowing in full swing. My houseplant died of drought and heat. Who pays for the emotional toll? Me. The Victim.
So, to the 21st century homeowners, whether or not you have a home insurance, you need to have some emergency saving for an unexpected living crisis like what I’m experiencing. Climate change-related disasters are no jokes. And they can be insanely costly.
3.
The Covid pandemic has come to a moderate period after three years’ of social distancing and nonstop efforts of human vaccination. But I know after some years people will forget what we have experienced. Until next existential risk—another pandemic—becomes reality and pains us will we once again remember the hardships we endured.
While authorities in some countries believe they’re right to impose Covid tests only on Chinese nationals on arrival, I can’t help questioning where were these policymakers when their domestic Covid infection cases were at one point out of control in the past three years? Stigmatizing patients suffering or having suffered from Covid is a mental illness. Covid-19 may stay with us for a very long time partly because it has triggered a string of mental illnesses, from grief to depression and from anxiety to ethnic and social hatred.
As mentioned in one of my essays last year, the discrepancy between the haves and have-nots in a country—even in a state capitalistic country like China or the epitome of monopoly capitalism like the United States—is salient in terms of accessing modern technology and vaccination. I don’t think I can live comfortably with a mobile phone tracking me every 24 hours if I am Covid-positive. But do you know many US companies also track their mobile phone users without the users’ consent?
The so-called user-friendly apps on the phone entail rules and policies that the user must comply with. Well, less is more. I’m happier to live without checking my phone all the time. But how many people today can do that? Phone dependency is an addiction. Am I insane to stay away from this global addiction? Or am I among the few sane weirdo that still wear a face mask with a book in hand instead of a phone?
In the past months, I saw brain drains in Germany and Taiwan because of technological innovations. Also, a study shows at least 1,400 Chinese scientists left American institutions for China in 2021. The report found that 61 percent of the “Chinese-origin scientists,” especially young researchers, felt pressure to leave the US. It is insane to politicize climate mitigation and adaptation. Now, the political rhetoric has permeated in academia, business and almost every facet of our life. I think mass media has propelled such a salient insanity wrapped around our heads globally.
I feel relieved that in 2022 I made a sane decision. I parted ways with my career in mass media. To quote a dear retiree friend of mine from Associated Press, people in public relations have misused the technique of journalism to serve the interest of their bosses.
A society cannot progress without elites. And yet, elites also make tons of carbon footprint, more so than an ordinary folk who live on a meagre wage. While elites can move about as free as birds for a promising future, ordinary folks—if they aren’t sane doers and if they don’t have strong backing from their communities—will have to stay put to face rising living costs from inflation (Notably, history shows the prices that rise in inflation seldom drop down), stagnant wages, natural disasters and possibly ecological neurosis. Yes, in 2023 and beyond, we’ll see more mental distress problems. And I am here to learn about ecopsychology with you in this year for sane doers.
“The market is essential to progress, but it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It is a social construct whose effectiveness is determined partly by the rules of the state and partly by the values of society. It requires the right institutions, a supportive culture and the maintenance of social license. If left unattended or allowed to capture the political sphere, the market will corrode those values essential to its effectiveness.”
