I am reading a very interesting book by Mark Freedman titled: Hot, Flat and Crowded . The book reviews how the global society has evolved into a planet that has an increasing temperature, is connected on global scale through information and transportation infrastructure and is combined with an increase in population. Freedman argues that the world is ‘virtually’ shrinking due to increased mobility and information sharing through the World Wide Web. Here is a link to an excerpt of the book , definitely worth a read.
On Sunday night at the family dinner table we had an excellent discussion about the impacts of a global community. Our 11 year old daughter does not know life without this global connection. Her school is a picture of our global community, products on our store shelves are from all over the world and the information comes from all corners of our planet. There is an increased sense of comfort knowing at some level we are all connected. It reminds me of the movie with Will Smith, Six Degrees of Separation . There is a line in the movie that basically says that it is comforting to know that everyone in the world is so closely connected but at the same time can be frustrating to understand. I believe that due to mobility and the internet we are a lot closer than ever before and we rely on each other to a larger degree than we can comprehend.
However, this higher, broader outreach comes at a cost – the environment. Although we can use new technology to help us communicate without snail mail and gas-based communications, on the flipside reporting and other advancements have helped us become better stewards of the environment. Conversely, we are now consuming goods from all over the world which need to be transported here. Due to the relatively low cost of goods movement and the cheap labour costs to produce the goods there is a good business model for globalization but the model does not include environmental consideration. At the dinner table we discussed the trade-offs we as a family and community need to make on a daily basis. I suggested we run a family experiment, for the month of February we are going to attempt to not purchase anything made in China.
Why China? China is the symbolic poster child for the new global economy and the flat world we live in. We did not choose China because we don’t enjoy their products or appreciate their involvement in the global community. We chose China for the symbolic nature.
When we were making this decision, our daughter was very concerned, as she had been saving up to buy some books through a school program. We presumed that the books were made in China, after a passionate discussion I asked our daughter to bring to the table 5 books she recently read, to determine where the books are printed.
To our surprise not one of the books was made in China, four from the USA and one from Singapore. More learning for all of us.
So, starting February 1st we started a journal, we will write down the date, item we wished to purchase and how we overcame the obstacle of not purchasing products made in China. I think this will be a very informative experiment which will allow our family to better understand how we are affected by a global economy.
I will report back in March, stay tuned.
