I like to think of myself as a politically aware consumer, e.g. I always buy the ecological eggs because — though a little more expensive — it helps my appetite, and I feel like I’ve done a little good. I’m sure a lot of you have small conscience boosting habits of such nature. However, after a weekend of watching Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s Home, as well as Robert Kenner’s recently premiered Food Inc., I have a feeling that — though applaudable — thinking about the chickens isn’t quite enough. We have to think bigger — much bigger, as in planet-size big, and I’m not talking about Planet Hollywood here. To be able to turn this thing around, it’s essential that thinking about the environment becomes more than a trend among champagne socialists — or a lifestyle for the odd Greenpeace activist or two — this has to become mandatory for passing the decent person test.

The problem with tying the survival of our ecosystem up on this dental-floss string of hope however, is that most people forget to think about these things because they aren’t reminded to, there’s simply no reason why they should change their lifestyle based on theories dully expounded by god denouncing scientists when no effect of this so called global warming is visible. In my opinion, we should expand this discussion from being primarily elitist, and start relinking us city dwellers and nature, facing people with the implications of their actions, and hopefully make them reconsider the way they consume before the environmental implications start splashing at the gates. Since I’m hesitant to dropping the whole city idea, a more subtle — yet plausible — way of making this reconnection could be to implement a graphical peephole of information regarding the product we’re purchasing, and its effects on the environment — i.e. giving transparency. These things have to be presented easily digestible, so that it takes no effort to understand the points presented. To illustrate the sort of transparency I’m talking about, here is a cropping from a visualization in GOOD Magazine on the amounts of water we use, directly as well as indirectly. For example, it takes up 1,500 gallons of indirect water use to create one pound of beef, while filling a bath tub takes approximately 35 gallons of direct water use.

Visualized this way (do click on the above image to study the full visualization), I am able to effortlessly decode the presented knowledge on my water footprint, and worth noting this is knowledge that presented in a scientific report wouldn’t have gotten the slightest glimpse from this pair of blue eyes. I suggest implementing this sort of transparency on the products we buy, by putting information on the environmental effects of a product, on the product — just as you would put an image caption under the image it relates to, not in the back of the book where no one would find it.

It’s not a new idea to put information on packaging — if for example you buy a piece of meat, you’ll be able to read on the packaging that it’s ecologically produced (unless of course it isn’t, that doesn’t sell meat so no reason to waste ink on that), the weight of the meat, which country it was produced in (unless it was produced in an unfavorable country, in that case we skip that part as well), and if they’re nice they might even tell you how many minutes to cook it. Companies tell the part of the truth that sells — which is quite reasonable really, people do it all the time as well, e.g. you wouldn’t start a conversation with a nice gal by telling her about your freshly picked up STD. But telling a story about a happy, green grass fed, massaged, Mozart listening cow, when you’re really selling lumps of miserable, grey soy bean eating, meat chopper listening cow, is like bragging about your new two storey loft apartment, truth being you live with your mom. And I’m not saying that it’s not okay to live with your mom — even considering that you’re 35 years old, and can’t sleep until she feeds you warm milk with honey, while gently stroking your forehead — I’m just saying you shouldn’t tell stories that aren’t true. And the same thing applies to companies, and since certain companies for obvious reasons try to stay non-transparent, the curtain has to be pulled up by someone in a higher place, so that we as consumers can judge from facts — not fiction — whether we want to buy the product.

To a full overview on GOOD Magazine’s Transparencies series, click here.

For a wonderful project on the rising water levels caused by global warming, projected directly onto the walls of Bristol, England; click here.

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