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Fashion contributes to 10 percent of humanity's carbon emissions
Fast fashion has a devastating impact on the environment. Here's what you need to know before heading to Zara this holiday season.

- The fashion industry is responsible for an alarming 10 percent of all of humanity's carbon emissions.
- Eighty-five percent of all textiles are trashed each year, ending up in a landfill or incinerated.
- By wearing one item of clothing for 9 months longer a person can actually reduce his or her carbon footprint by 30 percent.
'Tis the season to be shopping. Across the country, Americans are flocking to malls, outlets, department stores, as well as online retail sites to get their loved one's gifts this holiday season.
But this ritual of consumption has had a devastating effect on the planet, and particularly when it comes to fashion. The fashion industry is responsible for an alarming 10 percent of all of humanity's carbon emissions, thanks largely to the business model known as "fast fashion" that has come to dominate this century.The Fast Fashion Model
Image source: live.staticflickr.com
Back in the 1980s, the average American only purchased about 12 new articles of clothing every year. But in 1993 the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) made it much easier to import clothing by abolishing a quota system that had limited the number of items that could enter the U.S. and giving rise to fast fashion. The aim of this model is to make trendy clothes off the runway quick, cheap, and disposable. Think retailers such as H&M and Zara. They make their money by squeezing the time between trends, frequently filling their stores with new collections of cheap clothing that breaks down quickly enough for shoppers to come in for the next collection. In 2016, The Atlantic reported that the average American buys 64 new articles of clothing per year.
Of course, fast fashion has democratized fashion by making clothing more affordable and giving rise to greater variety. But this comes at a grave environmental cost.
Making Fashion is an Environmental Disaster
Photo Credit: REUTERS / Mohamed Azakir
In 2015, textile production contributed to more CO2 emissions than all international flights and maritime shipping combined. For instance, making one pair of jeans produces as much greenhouse gases as driving a car more than 80 miles.
This has to do with the materials used in the production process.Take the water-intensive crop cotton for example. It takes 2,700 liters of water to make a single cotton shirt, enough for the average person to live on for two-and-a-half years. Worse yet are synthetic fabrics like polyester, spandex, and nylon, which use nearly 342 million barrels of oil. According to World Resources Institute, producing polyester — a kind of plastic found in around 60 percent of garments — emits two to three times more carbon than cotton. Furthermore, washing these clothing items sends as many as 500,000 tons of microplastics into the ocean each year. That's estimated to be about the equivalent of 50 billion plastic bottles. Overall, microplastics are estimated to compose up to 31 percent of plastic pollution in the ocean.
Another popular fabric used is viscose, a silky material that comes from fiber derived from wood pulp using extremely unsustainable and chemically intensive production methods. As much as 70 percent of the wood harvested is wasted while the other 30 percent ends up in the garments that we wear.
Furthermore, making and dyeing textiles involves the use of toxic chemicals which often are discarded by being dumped into lakes, streams, rivers, and ditches poisoning local communities. Garment manufacturing is responsible for 20 percent of all industrial water pollution around the globe and ranks in as the world's second-largest polluter of water.Where Fashion Goes
Finally, there's what happens to the clothes when we are done with them. Although we are buying more clothes than ever before, we are keeping them for half as long. Shockingly, 85 percent of all textiles are trashed each year, ultimately ending up in a landfill or incinerated. The average American throws away 80 pounds of clothes per year. That's about one garbage truck of clothes being burned or sent to landfills every second!
Even if you donate your clothes, they still often get dumped. What charities can't sell or give away are sold by the ton to buyers in the developing world and still end up in landfills in those countries. Perhaps you've seen in-store recycling bins with retailers like H&M implying that the old clothes you bring in will be recycled to make new clothing. But less than one percent of their clothing is actually recycled to make new clothing. That's because the blend of fibers that make their clothes don't break down easily.What Can Be Done
Maybe the most important thing we can do is to simply buy less stuff by wearing the clothes that we already have for longer. Incredibly, by wearing one item of clothing for 9 months longer a person can actually reduce his or her carbon footprint by 30 percent. Some companies, such as Patagonia, actually ask that you send in a damaged item of clothing for free repair rather than tossing it and buying something new.
Another thing you can do is to thrift shop. If everyone bought one used item instead of new this year, the amount of CO2 emissions saved would be equivalent to removing half a million cars from the road for a year. Finally, as the holiday season is in full swing and many are still scrambling to buy gifts for loved ones, you might consider gifting experiences or something hand-made rather than store-bought garb.- How e-commerce sites wreak havoc on the environment - Big Think ›
- Manmade objects now weigh more than all living things on Earth - Big Think ›
How tiny bioelectronic implants may someday replace pharmaceutical drugs
Scientists are using bioelectronic medicine to treat inflammatory diseases, an approach that capitalizes on the ancient "hardwiring" of the nervous system.
Left: The vagus nerve, the body's longest cranial nerve. Right: Vagus nerve stimulation implant by SetPoint Medical.
- Bioelectronic medicine is an emerging field that focuses on manipulating the nervous system to treat diseases.
- Clinical studies show that using electronic devices to stimulate the vagus nerve is effective at treating inflammatory diseases like rheumatoid arthritis.
- Although it's not yet approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, vagus nerve stimulation may also prove effective at treating other diseases like cancer, diabetes and depression.
The nervous system’s ancient reflexes
<p>You accidentally place your hand on a hot stove. Almost instantaneously, your hand withdraws.</p><p>What triggered your hand to move? The answer is <em>not</em> that you consciously decided the stove was hot and you should move your hand. Rather, it was a reflex: Skin receptors on your hand sent nerve impulses to the spinal cord, which ultimately sent back motor neurons that caused your hand to move away. This all occurred before your "conscious brain" realized what happened.</p><p>Similarly, the nervous system has reflexes that protect individual cells in the body.</p><p>"The nervous system evolved because we need to respond to stimuli in the environment," said Dr. Tracey. "Neural signals don't come from the brain down first. Instead, when something happens in the environment, our peripheral nervous system senses it and sends a signal to the central nervous system, which comprises the brain and spinal cord. And then the nervous system responds to correct the problem."</p><p>So, what if scientists could "hack" into the nervous system, manipulating the electrical activity in the nervous system to control molecular processes and produce desirable outcomes? That's the chief goal of bioelectronic medicine.</p><p>"There are billions of neurons in the body that interact with almost every cell in the body, and at each of those nerve endings, molecular signals control molecular mechanisms that can be defined and mapped, and potentially put under control," Dr. Tracey said in a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJH9KsMKi5M" target="_blank">TED Talk</a>.</p><p>"Many of these mechanisms are also involved in important diseases, like cancer, Alzheimer's, diabetes, hypertension and shock. It's very plausible that finding neural signals to control those mechanisms will hold promises for devices replacing some of today's medication for those diseases."</p><p>How can scientists hack the nervous system? For years, researchers in the field of bioelectronic medicine have zeroed in on the longest cranial nerve in the body: the vagus nerve.</p>The vagus nerve
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTYyOTM5OC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0NTIwNzk0NX0.UCy-3UNpomb3DQZMhyOw_SQG4ThwACXW_rMnc9mLAe8/img.jpg?width=1245&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C0&height=700" id="09add" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f38dbfbbfe470ad85a3b023dd5083557" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1245" data-height="700" />Electrical signals, seen here in a synapse, travel along the vagus nerve to trigger an inflammatory response.
Credit: Adobe Stock via solvod
<p>The vagus nerve ("vagus" meaning "wandering" in Latin) comprises two nerve branches that stretch from the brainstem down to the chest and abdomen, where nerve fibers connect to organs. Electrical signals constantly travel up and down the vagus nerve, facilitating communication between the brain and other parts of the body.</p><p>One aspect of this back-and-forth communication is inflammation. When the immune system detects injury or attack, it automatically triggers an inflammatory response, which helps heal injuries and fend off invaders. But when not deployed properly, inflammation can become excessive, exacerbating the original problem and potentially contributing to diseases.</p><p>In 2002, Dr. Tracey and his colleagues discovered that the nervous system plays a key role in monitoring and modifying inflammation. This occurs through a process called the <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature01321" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">inflammatory reflex</a>. In simple terms, it works like this: When the nervous system detects inflammatory stimuli, it reflexively (and subconsciously) deploys electrical signals through the vagus nerve that trigger anti-inflammatory molecular processes.</p><p>In rodent experiments, Dr. Tracey and his colleagues observed that electrical signals traveling through the vagus nerve control TNF, a protein that, in excess, causes inflammation. These electrical signals travel through the vagus nerve to the spleen. There, electrical signals are converted to chemical signals, triggering a molecular process that ultimately makes TNF, which exacerbates conditions like rheumatoid arthritis.</p><p>The incredible chain reaction of the inflammatory reflex was observed by Dr. Tracey and his colleagues in greater detail through rodent experiments. When inflammatory stimuli are detected, the nervous system sends electrical signals that travel through the vagus nerve to the spleen. There, the electrical signals are converted to chemical signals, which trigger the spleen to create a white blood cell called a T cell, which then creates a neurotransmitter called acetylcholine. The acetylcholine interacts with macrophages, which are a specific type of white blood cell that creates TNF, a protein that, in excess, causes inflammation. At that point, the acetylcholine triggers the macrophages to stop overproducing TNF – or inflammation.</p><p>Experiments showed that when a specific part of the body is inflamed, specific fibers within the vagus nerve start firing. Dr. Tracey and his colleagues were able to map these relationships. More importantly, they were able to stimulate specific parts of the vagus nerve to "shut off" inflammation.</p><p>What's more, clinical trials show that vagus nerve stimulation not only "shuts off" inflammation, but also triggers the production of cells that promote healing.</p><p>"In animal experiments, we understand how this works," Dr. Tracey said. "And now we have clinical trials showing that the human response is what's predicted by the lab experiments. Many scientific thresholds have been crossed in the clinic and the lab. We're literally at the point of regulatory steps and stages, and then marketing and distribution before this idea takes off."<br></p>The future of bioelectronic medicine
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTYxMDYxMy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzNjQwOTExNH0.uBY1TnEs_kv9Dal7zmA_i9L7T0wnIuf9gGtdRXcNNxo/img.jpg?width=980" id="8b5b2" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="c005e615e5f23c2817483862354d2cc4" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="2000" data-height="1125" />Vagus nerve stimulation can already treat Crohn's disease and other inflammatory diseases. In the future, it may also be used to treat cancer, diabetes, and depression.
Credit: Adobe Stock via Maridav
<p>Vagus nerve stimulation is currently awaiting approval by the US Food and Drug Administration, but so far, it's proven safe and effective in clinical trials on humans. Dr. Tracey said vagus nerve stimulation could become a common treatment for a wide range of diseases, including cancer, Alzheimer's, diabetes, hypertension, shock, depression and diabetes.</p><p>"To the extent that inflammation is the problem in the disease, then stopping inflammation or suppressing the inflammation with vagus nerve stimulation or bioelectronic approaches will be beneficial and therapeutic," he said.</p><p>Receiving vagus nerve stimulation would require having an electronic device, about the size of lima bean, surgically implanted in your neck during a 30-minute procedure. A couple of weeks later, you'd visit, say, your rheumatologist, who would activate the device and determine the right dosage. The stimulation would take a few minutes each day, and it'd likely be unnoticeable.</p><p>But the most revolutionary aspect of bioelectronic medicine, according to Dr. Tracey, is that approaches like vagus nerve stimulation wouldn't come with harmful and potentially deadly side effects, as many pharmaceutical drugs currently do.</p><p>"A device on a nerve is not going to have systemic side effects on the body like taking a steroid does," Dr. Tracey said. "It's a powerful concept that, frankly, scientists are quite accepting of—it's actually quite amazing. But the idea of adopting this into practice is going to take another 10 or 20 years, because it's hard for physicians, who've spent their lives writing prescriptions for pills or injections, that a computer chip can replace the drug."</p><p>But patients could also play a role in advancing bioelectronic medicine.</p><p>"There's a huge demand in this patient cohort for something better than they're taking now," Dr. Tracey said. "Patients don't want to take a drug with a black-box warning, costs $100,000 a year and works half the time."</p><p>Michael Dowling, president and CEO of Northwell Health, elaborated:</p><p>"Why would patients pursue a drug regimen when they could opt for a few electronic pulses? Is it possible that treatments like this, pulses through electronic devices, could replace some drugs in the coming years as preferred treatments? Tracey believes it is, and that is perhaps why the pharmaceutical industry closely follows his work."</p><p>Over the long term, bioelectronic approaches are unlikely to completely replace pharmaceutical drugs, but they could replace many, or at least be used as supplemental treatments.</p><p>Dr. Tracey is optimistic about the future of the field.</p><p>"It's going to spawn a huge new industry that will rival the pharmaceutical industry in the next 50 years," he said. "This is no longer just a startup industry. [...] It's going to be very interesting to see the explosive growth that's going to occur."</p>Smart vultures never, ever cross the Spain-Portugal border. Why?
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