Truth and Consequences

Industrial ecology can help us understand the impact of consumer decisions

A while ago I bought my grandson, a toddler, a bright yellow wooden racing car, for just 99 cents. But then I happened to read that lead in paint makes colors (particularly yellow and red) brighter and last longer; because lead costs less than alternates, cheaper toys are more likely to contain it. I have no idea if the sparkling yellow paint on this toy car harbors lead or not

Every item we buy has a hidden price tag: a toll on the planet, on our health and on the people whose labor provides those goods. Each man-made thing has its own web of impacts left along the way from the extraction or concoction of its ingredients, during its manufacture and transport, through its use in our homes and workplaces, to the day we dispose of it. These unseen impacts are incredibly important. For instance, an ingredient in sunscreen primes the growth of a deadly virus in coral reef. Four thousand to 6,000 metric tons of sunscreen wash off swimmers each year worldwide. The dangers are greatest, of course, where the most swimmers are drawn to the beauty of coral reefs.

Our inability to instinctively recognize the connections between our actions and the problems that result from them leaves us wide open to creating the dangers we decry. Our brains are exquisitely attuned to pinpoint and instantly react to a fixed range of dangers, such as snarling animals. But our perceptual system misses the signals when the threat comes in the form of gradual rises in planetary temperature, or minuscule chemicals that build up in our body over time.

Newsweek