October 21, 2021 - 3:15pm
We have smallish children, and as a result our house is full of plastic tat. Dolls, action figures, weird toys that light up and make noises and get played with precisely once. So I can immediately sympathise with Adrian Chiles’s suggestion that we need to stop buying stuff. “Our ridiculous addiction to acquiring more possessions is stuffing up the planet,” he says.
I want to push back against the idea, though. For two reasons. One, the manufacture of all that stuff, although it creates a lot of unsightly clutter that fills up Western houses, doesn’t actually contribute all that much towards climate change. And two, us buying all that plastic tat is a large part of why people in relatively poor countries are not as poor as they used to be. If we were to stop buying the cheap Disney-branded toys, it would cut off a large supply of money from rich people to poor people.
First, the climate change contribution. Energy use in industry makes up about 25% of total global carbon emissions. That’s a lot. But how much of that is needless tat bought by affluent Westerners? Only a small fraction, I think. It would presumably mainly come under “other industry” (10.6%), but that also includes things like car manufacturing and mining. Only about 12% of the UK’s total imports are “material manufactures”, i.e. actual physical goods for purchase, and the bulk of our carbon emissions are from heating our houses and driving our cars. Also, locking up hydrocarbons in plastic toys rather than burning them to power our cars at least sequesters them away — the carbon in your kids’ toys is not in the atmosphere.
And the stuff we buy from overseas has, I think, a disproportionate effect in redistributing money from the rich world to the poor world. Before writing this sentence I went and grabbed the first random piece of tat I could find. It said “Made in China”. So I then went and looked at how much of Chinese GDP is manufacturing, and according to the World Bank it’s about 26%. For Malaysia it’s about 22%. For Bangladesh, 19% (and growing rapidly), mainly clothing and textiles.
Not all of that is manufacturing crap toys and cheap garments, of course: China in particular has an increasingly large high-tech manufacturing industry (do iPhones count as “stuff”?). But it’s a large amount of it, driven heavily by demand from the West. And it has led to huge improvements in those countries. To stick with the same three: Malaysia’s GDP per capita has gone up by 160% since 1990. Bangladesh, 220%. China, about 1,000%. Life expectancy in those three countries has risen dramatically in the same time (especially in Bangladesh). Child mortality has dropped dramatically too.
(A note: I included Malaysia in this because I assumed it was roughly comparable, but in fact it has been a lot richer for a long time, I think mainly because of its raw materials like oil. I have kept it in, rather than switching to some other country like Indonesia, because that felt like I would have been cherry-picking my examples.)
This is not to say that our buying plastic crap is the only thing behind these improvements. But it’s definitely a major factor. Bangladesh’s booming economy over recent years is widely accepted to be driven by its garment trade, although it’s now diversifying into IT and finance services.
None of this means we have to simply accept that carbon emissions from manufacturing will continue unabated. There is a growing movement to finance sustainable manufacture in countries like Bangladesh, for instance, and supporting that seems a good idea. But buying goods manufactured in poorer countries sends money from the rich to the poor, and we should be careful about trying to stop that, because it might well do more harm than good.
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SubscribeIt does no one any good to not acknowledge that China is a military, political and economic rival and threat. And the vast majority of cheap tat, as well as a lot of high end stuff, is all coming from China. China is no longer poor, doesn’t need supporting in this way, and is now in fact predatory, on both the west as well as on other much poorer countries – eg raw materials out of Africa.
You should qualify this advice if you feel strongly about it by saying: ‘buy cheap crap in the west, which is not from China’. Which of course is not remotely practical, for two separate reasons: (a) we can no longer do without both cheap and expensive crap from China – our civilization would collapse, and (b) cheap crap from other countries will in all likelihood have been put together from basic crap, bought by those countries – from China.
This is by far the worst piece I’ve ever seen on Unherd. I’m actually shocked at how poorly thought out it is from someone who’s generally a considerate writer, it reads like a regurgitated Matt Yglesias column.
Chivers completely sidesteps all the arguments that the anti-globalization movement has made for over a decade about the societal costs of the race to the bottom in global manufacturing. From forced and child labor going on inside dangerous crumbling sweatshops, toddlers left behind in the countryside while their mothers reside in factory dorms, to rich western companies lobbying for no labor, safety, environmental or wage regulations lest they leave the country.
The myopic focus on climate change means all the other catastrophic environmental problems caused by cheap disposable junk being shipped around the globe and destined for a landfill within months of being manufactured go unmentioned. Do the terms fast fashion and forced obsolesce sound familiar?
I highly recommend Chivers check himself on this issue and pick up a good book on the high costs of cheap junk, there are many, and Geoffrey Miller’s great book Spent, in which he explains the evolutionary origins of the consuming instinct and why it needs to be be restrained by society.
I thought he only wrote science articles badly. Now it’s clear – he is lazy . It was really a v v bad article.
“ arguments that the anti-globalization movement has made for over a decade about the societal costs of the race to the bottom in global manufacturing”
Quite. I’m sure people living in towns that once prospered through garment manufacturing are c**k-a-hoop that their wealth is transferred to the poor of Bangladesh. Must warm their hearts as they pass by the boarded up windows and betting shops on their local high street.
arguments that the anti-globalization movement has made for over a decade about the societal costs of the race to the bottom in global manufacturing”
So, the stupid algorithm has flung me into quarantine. Repeated below with an edit to remove the ‘trigger’ word
Quite. I’m sure people living in towns that once prospered through garment manufacturing are cockerel-a-hoop that their wealth is transferred to the poor of Bangladesh. Must warm their hearts as they pass by the boarded up windows and betting shops on their local high street.
It is important to support countries like Bangladesh and giving them money will just not work. However, there is one caveat. (I feel really embarrassed even to say this on this hallowed site but here goes…)
There was an interesting documentary made by the BBC, featuring Stacey Dooley, which looked at the pollution caused by cotton processing in Bangladesh. They do not have control of water and rivers like we do in the UK, so they were just allowing the effluent from the industry out into rivers – resulting in various cancers, death of wild life, etc. This is one of the reasons why the goods are so cheap, as well as the low wages of course.
NO.
The entire consumerism mentality is a very unhealthy one. Filling much of your life energy in getting, and then managing, stuff is a wretched waste. Humans should be driven by higher purpose – you remember, the old ones like family, community, charity, fellowship, duty, obligations, intellectual, aesthetic activity – sport and play and being a Good Person, and a good citizen.
The plastic thing its self is no issue, till it becomes that thought equivalent to a louse. One louse, and then it is lice, and then all one can focus on is those lice all over your scalp…. ‘Camel’s Nose under the tent’.
Remember 1500 years ago when pope Gregory listed the 7 Deadly Sins? (well you should if you claim to be educated, but you moderns……)
Not there is no murder, worshiping golden calfs kind of stuff – but just seeking pleasure, self, stuff, and not being a good person. Envy, Greed, Lust, Gluttony…. that need for stuff – and Chivers says more of it the better as it raises the GDP of Bangladesh – which it may, but at the cost of becoming a greedy stuff worshiper.
You are wrong because you assume that all humans are like you – educated, well read, motivated, full of ideas.
I am like you but I’m surrounded by people who think I’m weird and boring. (OK, maybe I am). I eat a balanced diet, weigh every day, barely watch TV, read UnHerd, run 40 miles a week for enjoyment, read books on politics, philosophy, etc.
My family, my colleagues, my neighbours live to meet and share meals and drinks. Most are seriously overweight. Most read The Daily Mail or The Sun. Most get very excited if they buy a new camera, they change their cellphone every two years, they constantly buy new clothes. This is what life is all about today. Everybody talks about their latest car, computer, holiday, surround-sound TV. Everybody has to see the latest movie as soon as it comes out. Many have already set out their Christmas decorations.
So you are wrong to preach about what somebody should do unless you give them a ‘fun’ alternative to fill the week. This is not a matter of choice – “it is life, Jim, but not as we know it.”
“I am like you but I’m surrounded by people who think I’m weird and boring. (OK, maybe I am). I eat a balanced diet, weigh every day, barely watch TV, read UnHerd, run 40 miles a week for enjoyment, read books on politics, philosophy, etc.”
Oh well, a better man than I. I aim to eat a balanced diet and fail miserably; weigh myself daily and sigh; read UnHerd and sigh; try to do three gym sessions a week (but rarely manage more than one); buy books on politics and philosophy, then half finish them; and frequently spend my evenings lying down on the sofa watching Talking Pictures TV or Quest with a nice glass of bitter. How did it come to this? I blame society, etc., etc.
Very good. I think myself that WW2 was the cause. The deprivation was so bad then that the peace was a time to party. People were desperately thin and often very unhealthy. If you put on weight and had rosy cheeks, people used to say, “You look well.” Somehow, wellness went arm in arm with overeating.
This attitude has persisted through the generations and parents today dare not refuse their children sweets and pastries because it is like depriving them of a right.
The same thing goes for possessions. Everyone now has a right of possession. The European definition of poverty says that everyone must be able to have a modern mobile phone and computer – they even wanted to include a dishwasher but that was omitted finally. This right of possession means that you demonstrate your success in life by your possessions. If you don’t have the latest App you have failed in your peer group.
Your life sounds truly joyless. Some people enjoy their lives, who are you to say what they enjoy is wrong? You’re straying dangerously close to the Puritans of old in my opinion, believing that because you don’t enjoy something nobody else should either. Or maybe it’s a simple case of snobbery, the things you complain about are too low brow, the people that enjoy them should educate themselves?
Thanks Sanford
It is a very similar style of writing, even describing himself as a European immigrant to the States in another comment
Yeah maybe he got ‘offed’ from Unherd and then has reincarnated – maybe he will give us a subtle clue ! Lets watch out – will be fun.
Yes, capitalism and consumerism have added work to economies all over the world and they can buy their own amount of cheap tat with their money too.
Dilemma: Do I buy the airfreight green beans from Egypt because they really need to export – or from UK to support the home economy. One of each haha!
What is overlooked here though is how did the West get so wealthy as to be able to buy all this stuff so that we appear to be the materially richest humans ever? By running currency through the photocopiers since the 1970’s is how. Most of what we have is actually living beyond our means to generate. It trickles to us via artificial levels of wealth, govt spending and assistance, corporate borrowing, house price borrowing, consumer credit, business subsidies, mass education, mass healthcare.
Despite large taxes, our governments do not take in enough to cover what we want to have and what they spend. It will not end well.
This is exactly what the energy transition needs. Cost-benefit assessments of decarbonisation.
The damaged caused by poverty far exceeds all but the most extreme negative effects of climate change and greatly magnify the vulnerability of poorer nations to extreme weather.
This doesn’t mean we should do nothing, just that we need a less dogmatic, more pragmatic approach to climate change.
The problem is comments like “But how much of that is needless tat bought by affluent Westerners? Only a small fraction, I think.*; the operative words are “I think”, this doen’t fill me with confidence that a proper cost-benefit analysis has been done.
“The” energy transition is a phony fait accompli which assumes that governments can produce reliable energy by decree.
In reality this means funneling public resources to wind power projects and burning “biomass”, while penalising hydrocarbons.
As we’re finding to our cost, this has made Europe vulnerable to blackouts and worse.
Forcing this kind of “political electricity” (a phrase I picked up in Denmark) in developing countries will push then backwards into poverty, leading to far greater environmental devastation than anything the climate can do.
Totally agree, Tom.
“Cheap tat” is mostly used to describe stuff other people buy that we disapprove of . It’s amusing to hear people who have never done heavy manual work or who don’t have kids lecture the rest of the population on what they shouldn’t buy.
But these days even tradesmen use cheap Chinese tools. They do the job
.
If they don’t, then they don’t buy them again.
Bangladesh is particularly interesting. Not too long ago considered a complete basket case.
Now becoming more prosperous, which has led to a lowering birthrate which is approaching that of first world countries. Unlike their analogous twin to the West, Pakistan.
What about when a country, China in particular, uses its wealth to oppress and destroy others?
Buy cheap crap has absolutely no link to climate change.