Wearing your conscience.

From: Jim Blair (jeb_at_wisc.edu)
Date: 11/15/04 

Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 13:06:10 -0600

Wearing your conscience.

The February 2004 issue of Isthmus (the local Madison weekly
for the Politically Correct) ran a cover article titled
WEAR YOUR CONSCIENCE ON YOUR SLEEVE. All about how hard
it is to find MADE IN AMERICA clothing, and lamenting that
so much of what is for sale in clothing stores today was
made in such places as China, Philippines, Vietnam Thailand,
Singapore, Pakistan, Dominican Republic and other poor
3rd World places.

The author search in vain from Gap through Old Navy and
Woolrich to Gander Mountain and K-Mart for MADE IN USA.
All she found was in addition was Mexico, Bangladesh, and
Bulgaria on labels.

Now I could explain that several dollars a day paid in
local currency is better than subsistence farming, and
that living expenses can be much lower in poor countries,
or point out that since Globalization living standards
in most of the 3rd world are rising so fast that obesity
is replacing starvation as the main diet problem, and some
of them are now competing with the US for oil.

Instead I'll just contrast this ideal of "clothing correctness"
with the way it was viewed in the 1970's.

Remember the 70's? That was when people worried about the
environment and energy.

I was teaching a Milton College in those days, and I even
taught a course on environmental issues. The topic of
clothes in those days was discussed in terms of energy
consumption and environmental impact. The nationality of
people who made the clothes was not even raised, that I
can remember. But there was a big debate over cotton VS
synthetic fabrics. As I recall, it started when some
environmentalists made a point of wearing cotton shirts,
claiming that synthetic fabrics were made from petroleum
while plant matter was produced from sunlight.

Well yes, but petroleum (in the form of diesel fuel and
pesticides) is also used in growing and harvesting cotton.
So an article in American Scientist (I think) did a
comparison of the energy consumption of cotton VS synthetic
fiber clothes. While it was true that one pound of cotton
took less petroleum to produce than one pound of various
synthetic fabrics, the cotton clothes are heavier and so
fewer shits and pants are made from that one pound. The
conclusion was that it took about as much petroleum to
produce a cotton shirt as a synthetic fabric one.

But the cotton shirt typically does not last as long, and
so factoring in the lifetime of the clothes, cotton is
more expensive in energy terms. And if you include the
wash/dry cycle and assume that gas or electric dryers
are used, the cotton is MUCH more expensive over its
lifetime . If both are hung on a line to dry in the
sun, the cotton is just marginally more wasteful of
energy. Some blends of cotton and synthetics were
more energy efficient than clothes made from either alone.

As for cold weather clothing, animal fur was favored
in those days because it was "natural", biodegradable,
and took less petroleum to produce than either cotton
or synthetic fabrics. I did not expect that concern
for the welfare of animals would someday trump concern
for the earth, and make fur coats Politically Incorrect.
Or that providing jobs for 3rd world workers would
someday be viewed as something that Americans should
go to great lengths to avoid.

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jim blair (jeblair@facstaff.wisc.edu) Madison Wisconsin
USA. This message was brought to you using biodegradable
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