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Study details the negative environmental impact of online shopping
Frequent shopping for single items adds to our carbon footprint.
10 July, 2020
Photo by George Frey/Getty Images
- A new study shows e-commerce sites like Amazon leave larger greenhouse gas footprints than retail stores.
- Ordering online from retail stores has an even smaller footprint than going to the store yourself.
- Greening efforts by major e-commerce sites won't curb wasteful consumer habits. Consolidating online orders can make a difference.
<p>Walmart <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/7/7/21314767/walmart-plus-grocery-delivery-amazon-prime-membership-loyalty-program-walmart" target="_blank">recently announced</a> plans to battle Amazon in the massive online shopping market. At $98/year, Walmart+ offers many of the same perks, including same-day grocery delivery, as well as discounts at Walmart gas stations, one of the few things Amazon cannot offer (yet). Of course, it lacks the entertainment perks of Amazon Prime, such as the automatic subscription to numerous TV shows and movies.</p><p>Another important distinction: Walmart is offering discounts on fossil fuels while Amazon has <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-creating-fleet-of-electric-delivery-vehicles-rivian-2020-2" target="_blank">promised</a> to create a fleet of 100,000 electric delivery vans in order to become completely carbon neutral by 2040. That said, Walmart does <a href="https://corporate.walmart.com/esgreport/environmental#climate-change" target="_blank">have plans</a> for reducing its carbon footprint as well. Unfortunately, these ambitious plans likely won't impact harmful consumer habits, which are rooted in the conveniences that online retailers offer. </p><p>Earlier this year, a <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.9b06252" target="_blank">study</a> from researchers in the Netherlands, Sweden, and the UK, published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, confirmed what many expected: online shopping is worse for the environment than going to the store yourself. This contradicts previous research championing online shopping. </p><p>While Amazon boasts of its greening efforts, the corporation's current protocols are horrendous. Many packages are glorified Matryoshka dolls. I recently ordered a three-inch cable that arrived wrapped in two boxes, padded by three layers of brown wrapping paper and plastic. </p><p>There seems to be no uniform shipping policies. Some books arrive in white padded envelopes, others in thin brown envelopes, some in boxes. While supply chain management is tricky, a company cannot both claim to be environmentally friendly <em>and</em> notoriously unreliable. Online retailers bank on convenience, not being stewards of nature. </p><p>The researchers investigated production distribution disparities in fast-moving consumer goods (FMCGs), such as personal care and home care products, between physical stores, "bricks and clicks" (fulfillment via physical store deliveries), and non-store-based e-commerce sites, known as "pure players." They conclude that the latter considerably increases greenhouse gas (GHG) footprints. </p>
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQ0ODQ0Mi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0NzM2NjkzNn0.aFgxj8Ahqqulac7YUz8BI-erwlguufaS8USZE8wjjkU/img.jpg?width=980" id="9ea0e" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="522b395495c97cd24b9f731850b2f911" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="piles of cardboard inside recycling warehouse" />
A pile of recycled cardboard sits on the ground at Recology's Recycle Central on January 4, 2018 in San Francisco, California.
Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
<p>A large part of the reason is speed. In a competitive market, pure players use the equation, <em>speed + convenience</em>, to drive adoption. This is especially relevant to the "last mile" GHG footprint: the distance between the distribution center and the consumer.</p><p>Interestingly, the smallest GHG footprint occurs when you order directly from a physical store—even smaller than going there yourself. Pure players, such as Amazon, are the greatest offenders. Variables like geographic location matter; the team looked at shopping in the UK, the US, China, and the Netherlands. </p><p>Sadegh Shahmohammadi, a PhD student at the Netherlands' Radboud University and corresponding author of the paper, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/26/tech/greenhouse-gas-emissions-retail/index.html" target="_blank">says</a> the above "pattern holds true in countries where people mostly drive. It really depends on the country and consumer behavior there."</p><p>The researchers write that this year-and-a-half long study pushes back on previous research that claims online shopping to be better in terms of GHG footprints.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"They have, however, compared the GHG emissions per shopping event and did not consider the link between the retail channels and the basket size, which leads to a different conclusion than that of the current study."</p><p>Online retail is where convenience trumps environment: people tend to order one item at a time when shopping on pure player sites, whereas they stock up on multiple items when visiting a store. Consumers will sometimes order a number of separate items over the course of a week rather than making one trip to purchase everything they need. </p><p>While greening efforts by online retailers are important, until a shift in consumer attitude changes, the current carbon footprint will be a hard obstacle to overcome. Amazon is trying to have it both ways—carbon-free and convenience addicted—and the math isn't adding up. If you need to order things, do it online, but try to consolidate your purchases as much as possible.</p><p>--</p><p><em>Stay in touch with Derek on <a href="http://www.twitter.com/derekberes" target="_blank">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/DerekBeresdotcom" target="_blank">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://derekberes.substack.com/" target="_blank">Substack</a>. His next book is</em> "<em>Hero's Dose: The Case For Psychedelics in Ritual and Therapy."</em></p>
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Education vs. learning: How semantics can trigger a mind shift
The word "learning" opens up space for more people, places, and ideas.
06 July, 2020
- The terms 'education' and 'learning' are often used interchangeably, but there is a cultural connotation to the former that can be limiting. Education naturally links to schooling, which is only one form of learning.
- Gregg Behr, founder and co-chair of Remake Learning, believes that this small word shift opens up the possibilities in terms of how and where learning can happen. It also becomes a more inclusive practice, welcoming in a larger, more diverse group of thinkers.
- Post-COVID, the way we think about what learning looks like will inevitably change, so it's crucial to adjust and begin building the necessary support systems today.
<p><em>This video is part of <a href="https://z17.global/" target="_blank">Z 17 Collective</a>'s <a href="https://bigthink.com/future-of-learning/" target="_self">Future of Learning</a> series, which asks education thought leaders what learning can and should look like in the midst and wake of the coronavirus pandemic.</em></p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<a href="https://bigthink.com/future-of-learning/" target="_blank"><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzM4MjI4Mi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwNDYwMTAyNH0.HcyXGsDebKwteIO_Z3ByjC802bN88sPB9pZ3N4AbGcs/img.jpg?width=980" id="716e9" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="87df982fdc1b016667a0bfb7b65719a3" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt=""></a>
</p>
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Will the future be 'Mad Max' or 'Star Trek'? Coronavirus offers clues.
Jordan Hall speculates on the fate of the species.
11 March, 2020
Photo by Antonio Masiello/Getty Images
- Neurohacker Collective co-founder, Jordan Hall, believes we might be heading toward a "Star Trek" future, though "Mad Max" is entirely possible.
- As human systems become more complicated and interconnected, the harder they are to fix when something breaks down.
- COVID-19 offers insight into the dangers of introducing too much complexity to a globally-connected species.
<p>The flood is coming. The elders, who have lived along this riverbank for generations, tell us it's time to move on. <em>We've been living here for a long time. The water has been good, the feeding has been good, but the flood is on its way. We need to go</em>. You travel across wilderness; you cross the valley. Your new home is raw. There's no infrastructure, but there's also no flood. You dig in and get to work.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"That would be was the best-case scenario."</p><p>Jordan Hall and I are <a href="https://www.earthrisepodcast.com/academics/82-the-uncertain-fate-of-america-with-jordan-hall/" target="_blank">talking about</a> the coronavirus, but really, we're discussing America and by extension the world. There are many orders to our conversation, which makes sense given Hall's incredible polymathic mind. The co-founder of <a href="https://neurohacker.com/people/jordan-greenhall" target="_blank">Neurohacker Collective</a> (and formerly <a href="https://medium.com/@jordangreenhall" target="_blank">Jordan Greenhall</a>) is somewhere in "the hills of Texas," taking time out to chat about the future, which today is both far from now and right now. We're trying to suss out if that means, as he has written, that we're careening toward "Mad Max" or heading into a "truly amazing future" akin to "Star Trek." At the moment Hall is optimistic, which is good, given that he's aware of how quickly small iterations can cause tidal waves. </p><p>When you author diametrically opposed potentialities about the future of the species, readers want context. The timing of our conversation is fortuitous; we have plenty of context in the form of COVID-19. Italy is <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/11/italy-passes-10000-coronavirus-cases.html" target="_blank">shut down</a>, the stock market is a <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stock-rally-build-asia-strong-214413978.html" target="_blank">confused boomerang</a>, and for some reason my friends are asking for advice about their children or parents on Facebook—not exactly the most trusted forum for credible scientific evidence. Over the past week I've witnessed rants about government-created viruses, Democratic hoaxes, and oregano oil rooting out the virus like an exorcism. The collective intelligence seems to drop an IQ point every time someone logs on. </p><p>Fortunately, social media is not life, but viruses are. They long predate and will long outlast us. They're complex, as all nature is complex. Humans, by contrast, are complicated—Hall's terms. Sometimes, he continues, complicated animals introduce complexity through the systems they build. </p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"We need food. Back in the early days, we were simple biological organisms that gained footing in a complex environment. We then began the process of building things like early agriculture, which had the consequence of separating us from complexity, meaning that we could actually control our environment, which gave us for some period of time a significant increase in food—but at the cost of actually putting us in complicated systems that are themselves intrinsically fragile in the context of larger complexity."</p>
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="c8ce3ea151c756fad93a108d3b210b3b"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/q1_r0Q1Y6UM?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p>Systems produce unintended consequences. Pandemics begin when we first domesticate animals. Obesity is only possible when an animal accustomed to scarcity suddenly discovers excess. Twelve-thousand years ago, widespread agriculture commenced, with the eventual consequence of selecting for the highest yields, which led to monocropping. An animal primed for both scarcity (in supply) and diversity (in choice) is now being sold frozen, processed dinners. The path of least resistance wins out, consequences be damned.</p><p>Yet we're not designed to understand thousands of years, much less millions of them. We're also not socially built for nation-states, or nations, but tribes. Nations require complex trading systems; a global trading system will suffer consequences, like epidemics. The more integrated we become, the harder complicated systems fall. </p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"Speaking of the arc of history, we see our complicated systems break. Sometimes those breaks were minor and we would patch them and upgrade them; sometimes the breaks were significant, in which case the civilization would either collapse or significantly transform, and we would move forward from that point. Where we find ourselves now looks like the end of that arc."</p><p>Every system requires design criteria. Civilizations must manage energy flows, floods, viruses and bacteria, pests, and the environmental consequences of our collective actions. Add to natural complexity anthro-complexity, the impact of our complicated systems; the tertiary layer is techno-complexity, the problem of accelerating change. A feedback loop: the better our tools, the more we impact nature. The higher the price we pay. </p><p>We discuss the global impact of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/09/health/coronavirus-is-very-different-from-the-spanish-flu-of-1918-heres-how.html" target="_blank">Spanish influenza epidemic</a>, which spread despite having no social media presence. Then we pivot back to COVID-19, for which Hall contemplates three orders. First, the perception of a novel virus in Wuhan province. The Chinese government made ineffective choices, but given the nation's political system it was able to "engage in a massive iron-clad quarantine." The world's cameras all pointed at that province. Some nations responded immediately: South Korea has <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2020/03/11/has-south-korea-stabilized-its-covid-19-outbreak-infographic/#46763a2a686f" target="_blank">tested over 200,000 citizens</a>. Then you <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-testing-covid-19-tests-per-capita-chart-us-behind-2020-3" target="_blank">have America</a>. </p>
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjg3MTIwNS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMjgzNjEyMn0.SnRQ3Pzlmp23zDftiqt0uLeC1nq5hPFjugyvTDm9GyQ/img.jpg?width=1245&coordinates=0%2C74%2C0%2C117&height=700" id="a1bd5" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="add03ec381e176743aa8fcc3620e5b44" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="Captain Spock and Dr. Boyce in "Star Trek" the series" />
John Hoyt as Dr. Phillip Boyce and Leonard Nimoy as Commander Spock (Mr. Spock) in the STAR TREK: The Original Series episode, "The Cage." This is the pilot episode completed early 1965, but not broadcast until October 4, 1988.
Photo by CBS via Getty Images
<p>Onto the second order. "Well, I guess, today," Hall says, laughing, the day the stock market craters.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"Suddenly you begin to realize that a phenomenon at the first order spills over into other seemingly disconnected modes of the larger cultural milieu. It turns out that when governments are shutting down entire regions and people are choosing not to go to work, that has impact on the economy. An event that occurs in one system can very easily spill over into other systems, which by the way has feedback."</p><p>For the third order, we peer ahead to October, making me question <a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2020-03-10/coachella-rescheduled-postponed-stagecoach-october" target="_blank">Coachella's rescheduling</a>, as if we didn't learn anything from the Spanish influenza. (Most of the 30-50 million people died the second year.) Sometimes our optimism does more bad than good. Hall picks it up, portending the possible.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"It turns out that we're in an economic depression <em>and</em> the virus has blown through our medical system <em>and</em> we've actually got 25 million people who are sick. Think about the degrading factor there. We've got a situation where the ability to make effective, nuanced choices at the political level is being degraded, both sociologically—people are panicking—and even practically. Many of the people who are leadership positions could themselves be sick."</p><p>A decade ago Hall was asked to consider questions of asymmetric warfare and global terrorism. His response? Get rid of the Pentagon. Minor tweaks won't solve an issue that requires a comprehensive systemic reboot, whether via a President Trump or President Biden. The flood is coming. </p><p>Still, Hall concludes, "Star Trek" is possible, more so than "Mad Max." We are optimistic animals, by nature, no matter how complex or complicated. He easily transitions between theoretical models and the model playing out in front of us. That doesn't make any of this easy. We have a lot of work ahead. </p><p>Hall compares our upcoming struggles to homesteading. We might have to fire up very old muscle memories, and soon—plowing and digging and planting. There is precedent: the Jews breaking ground in Israel; many wanted to leave given the work required. Yet they endured. Maybe, just maybe, things won't be so complicated when we reboot. </p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"The ability to make meaningful change at the individual level, and at a collective level, is always premised on being in a particular disposition. Some people refer to as the liminal space, a moment of clarity. You're an addict, you will not make changes, you will continue to take the shortest path, the easiest path, which unfortunately is the path to self-destruction. Something about reality, nature, hits you hard enough: a rock bottom event that gives you a moment of clarity. In that moment of clarity you actually can make really significant change."</p><p><span></span>--</p><p><em>Stay in touch with Derek on <a href="http://www.twitter.com/derekberes" target="_blank">Twitter</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/DerekBeresdotcom" target="_blank">Facebook</a>. His next book is "</em><em>Hero's Dose: The Case For Psychedelics in Ritual and Therapy."</em></p>
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Is the global economy sexist?
Answer: When 22 men make more money than all of the women in Africa, an Oxfam study says absolutely.
06 February, 2020
Spencer Platt / Getty Images
- Worldwide, women and girls contribute an estimated $10.8 trillion to the global economy for care work that they are not paid for.
- Women around the globe do more than 75 percent of all unpaid care work.
- Women make up only 18 percent of cabinet ministers around the world and 24 percent of parliamentarians.
<p>You may have heard the news that <a href="https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/#450c1fa7251c" target="_blank">the richest 22 men</a> in the world have more combined wealth than all 325 million women in Africa. This is according to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/jan/20/worlds-22-richest-men-wealthier-than-all-the-women-in-africa-study-finds" target="_blank">a widely reported</a> recent Oxfam study that highlighted how global economic inequality is intimately tied to gender and race. </p>
Gender, division of labor, and pay
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjY2MTQyNy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxOTU5NjI4N30.g0sjLCM4n0GvUA0C4E1ptf4dWk6ZD5xn2mGbWZGKDVs/img.jpg?width=980" id="846f9" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="da5f2848d995b014a380687f202c428e" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />Source: Time to Care Report, Oxfam
<p>Women and girls worldwide contribute an estimated $10.8 trillion to the global economy that they are not paid for. They collectively spend 12.5 billion hours per day on unpaid care work. Care work includes occupations like child care, healthcare work, teaching, and domestic labor. Though this kind of work is often left out of national economic equations, the monetary value of it is triple the worth of the global tech industry, according to an Oxfam report. Women around the globe, particularly those who live in poverty, do more than 75% of all unpaid care work. Despite its social importance and economic value, this labor is <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/10/why-gender-and-income-inequality-are-linked/" target="_blank">persistently</a> undervalued and taken for granted by governments and companies around the world. </p><p>It manifests in different ways. In the United States, <a href="https://time.com/longform/teaching-in-america/" target="_blank">teachers</a>, nurses, child social workers, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/11/childcare-workers-cant-afford-childcare/414496/" target="_blank">day care workers</a>, and other "care" jobs, which have been historically dominated by women, are underpaid. Furthermore, on an average day, women in the U.S. spend nearly 40 percent more time on unpaid care, like household duties, than men. Zoom out to a global scale and these issues are magnified in less wealthy nations like Africa where women aren't paid at all for this work. They end up trapped in poverty, unable to get an education and achieve financial security. They are also barred from government positions in which they can influence social and economic policy.</p>Economic and political inequality
<p>Though men around the world are certainly suffering under the widening income gap and facing poverty, there is clearly a systemic gender disparity when most billionaires are men and most of the people occupying the lowest paid or unpaid jobs are women. Globally, men own more than 50% more wealth than women, and they also control government and economic decisions that could fix this system. Women make up only 18% of cabinet ministers around the world and 24% of parliamentarians. </p><p>The result has been a global economy designed by men, for men, that undervalues work done primarily by women, and especially marginalized women in already economically disadvantaged nations. </p><p>"When 22 men have more wealth than all the women in Africa combined, it's clear that our economy is just plain sexist," Oxfam GB's chief executive <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/africa-wealth-inequality-oxfam-study-davos-latest-tax-a9290791.html" target="_blank">Danny Sriskandarajah said</a>.</p><p>He noted that if world leaders care about reducing poverty and inequality, they need to invest in public services like care that make life less grueling for people with care responsibilities and hold back women and girls. Yet, closing the growing wealth gap is not on the top of the agenda of most world leaders. In fact, many of them continue to facilitate policies that widen it, such as tax cuts for billionaires, cuts in public spending, and privatization.</p>We need solutions now
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjY2MTQ1My9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1MTI0OTA1N30.Y4_QVRte-3FejugjwZWY1GDzHSP6HFu2H4p0IiiRA8o/img.png?width=980" id="1d35b" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="5dfbac298423083ef84ae718fdae6c5c" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />Source: Time to Care Report, Oxfam
<p>What it boils down to is a gendered discrimination of values in which neoliberal economic values are prioritized above social values like education and healthcare. The Oxfam report warns that aging populations, cuts in public spending, and the climate crisis will exacerbate gender-based economic inequality. Part of the solution is taxing the wealthy and learning to value care. </p><p>"Getting the richest 1% to pay just 0.5% tax on their wealth – just on their wealth, not their income – would create enough money over the next 10 years to pay for 117m jobs, in education, health and elderly care," said Katy Chakrabortty from Oxfam GB.</p><p>When we invest in social values, women are helped economically, but everyone reaps the benefits. Caregiving is going to be more valuable than ever in the next ten years. It's estimated that by 2030, 2.3 billion people will be in need of care. That's 200 million up from 2015 according to the Oxfam report. Part of this has to do with the climate crisis, which is deeply entangled with issues of human care. Over the next five years, it's estimated that 2.4 billion people will be living with water shortages. Already, women and girls are disproportionately affected by this because they need to walk further to find water to nourish their communities, adding to their unpaid workload. </p><p>By thinking beyond profit and choosing to invest in water, infrastructure, and child and health care, governments can improve quality of life and liberate laborers from hours of work per day. As of now, many of them are only bolstering a system under which billions of people, disproportionately women, are suffocating under the mass of concentrated wealth held by a small group of men who grow richer and richer. </p><p><a href="https://ousweb-prodv2-shared-media.s3.amazonaws.com/media/documents/FINAL_bp-time-to-care-inequality-200120-en.pdf" target="_blank">Read the report here.</a></p>
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3 million people move to urban areas every week. How will we meet the challenge?
Cities of the future won't just be incredibly populated, they'll also be smarter than ever.
21 November, 2019
- Globally we are adding about 3 million people to urban areas each week. Over the course of the year, this number can be equated to roughly 50 Chicagos.
- This influx of people could make everyday life in urban areas more chaotic than ever. We will need a new playbook for how cities can better handle this massive influx of people.
- With such population surges, we can use citizen-centric data—computational power—to make the infrastructure of cities run smoother and more efficiently.
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