Since I have read both logistics and energy and environmental engineering this was not news to me. The consumer society is consuming us as well but from a consumers point of view that is hard to see. When you buy your stuff you always go for the cheap one produced far away where workers work their ass of for almost nothing in return. Also you don’t see the amount of raw materials use or the energy wasted. Energy waste is one of mine personal favorite subject which I’m planning to fight in my later days as a worker in the energy business. At so many point in the chain of production energy is going to waste although it didn’t have to! But when a corporate boss is making decisions he won’t do changes in the production unless the investment will break even in less than four to five years. Since most new technology is expensive before a broader mass is using it, it will never help the society until the society helps the technology. The weird thing in all this is that the one who will benefit the most from this is the society itself but since there is just one man on the top of the hill who making the decisions for you that aint gonna happen dude!

So what to do?

I say it is extremely hard for a person who is not educated in this to separate good products from bad, it’s even hard for those of us who studies for years at a university!

In environment engineering we talk about allocation. Who will take responsibility for the waste, the dirt air and the slaves working at the very beginning and actually in the end of the supply chain (just look at Lidel in Sweden and Wall mart in the US as example of bad labor conditions). I say you are! The one consuming is the one responsible. You should pay for all the costs, all the environmental impact and all unhealth that is created during all parts of making your stuff! But for customers to be able to take that responsibility some one will have to make it clear what product is good and what product is bad. And who is going to do that? My answer is simple, one of the most powerful actors in today’s society, media. Media have to educate us on what is going on and who makes the decisions when you buy a product or flick the switch on your electronics.

Sadly most media is not up for the tasks, partly because it is controlled by people who don’t won’t them to educate since they will lose money on it. There for its back to us the consumers. Make better choices when you turn on the TV or buying a newspaper. Because as long as you watch low quality TV shows they will keep on producing them for us. The thing is we all have to pitch in. I for one have stopped reading Aftonbladet and Expressen which I consider as unserious and lying.

So now it is up to you my friend. The truth that media controls us is just partly true, if you stop watching they will not control you anymore. So be pickier on what news channel you watch and which newspaper you buy and you will reclaim your intellectual freedom. Let’s not just make it a cleaner world, let’s make it a smarter one!