6 ms·

Very interesting, didn't expect it to be that high. Another thing I came across recently : The fashion industry is responsible for 10 % of annual global c

Very interesting, didn't expect it to be that high. Another thing I came across recently : The fashion industry is responsible for 10 % of annual global carbon emissions. Source : https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2019/09/23/costo-moda-medio-ambiente https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2019/09/23/costo-m...

ECA_stax 6y ago
this is a much more depressing number. steel and cement are necessary to the development of all nations, designer clothes are not.
- teruakohatu 6y ago
  Fashion refers to all clothing. "fast fashion" (cheap disposable clothing) probably produces a lot more emissions than designer clothing.
- cameldrv 6y ago
  This seems unlikely. Clothing is about a $1.3 trillion market, against a world GDP of about $80 trillion. I doubt that an industry that's 1.6% of GDP is contributing 10% to carbon emissions. Also, as pointed out below, the "fashion industry" includes all clothing. Beyond food and water, I'm not sure what would be more necessary than clothing.
  - darawk 6y ago
    The overwhelming majority of clothing produced is totally unnecessary. The fast fashion industry produces an insane amount of clothing, way beyond what is necessary for utilitarian purposes. I don't doubt that it causes that much CO2 emission, especially if you factor in the shipping cost from the places that manufacture it.
    - rowanG077 6y ago
      I believe this is generally true of any utility. We can all live of soylent or something instead of moving around foods that spoil easily for example. We could all also live in large concrete block where everyone has a small room and houses don't exist. All of that would be hugely more efficient but I doubt you or many other people would like that.
      - minerjoe 6y ago
        A bit of an excluded middle - soylent or what we have now, a massivly wasteful and inneficient food system. I, and many others, would argue that localization and diversification of the food system is the missing middle here.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- Pfhreak 6y ago
  Garments that are high quality are designed to last and be worn for a long time. High end selvedge jeans might run a couple hundred bucks, but they will last a decade. I suspect cheap, disposable clothing is driving much more emissions.
  - BossingAround 6y ago
    > High end selvedge jeans might run a couple hundred bucks, but they will last a decade. Is there any data supporting this? Because while I think this is our intuition, i.e. "it's expensive therefore it's better quality," I wonder if there's any way we could verify this other than anecdotal evidence.
    - teruakohatu 6y ago
      You see the British aristocracy wearing 30+ year old shoes that look as good or better than they did when they were new. I think it is common sense that emissions are far lower for extreme-luxury clothing that can be repaired and is timeless verses disposable clothing that last one or two years.
      - BossingAround 6y ago
        We're not talking extreme-luxury clothing here though. We're talking Ralph Lauren vs H&M, or something similar. What the British aristocracy wears is probably hand-made stuff by world-class artisans. What Ralph Lauren makes is mass produced in either Europe or China, so it's a much closer comparison to H&M (not to mention still within the reach of an average person in a rich country)
      - ValentineC 6y ago
        I'm not sure if jeans that are torn/blown out can be seamlessly mended the way shoes can be.
  - Waterfall 6y ago
    Low end selvedge denim lasts longer than a decade and even low quality denim lasts. You don't wear stuff out of fashion though, it would be like wearing the best of the 90s. You're also assuming that the clothes get worn. The cheaper stuff may just be worn as much as the high quality stuff or that they continue to be used.
- Waterfall 6y ago
  Clothes are discarded but can be turned into rags or donations. Don't feel bad, I bought some very nice stuff for cheap and I didn't hurt the environment more. I'll just drive these wonderful finds I got for $5 30 miles home in my Hummer.
thinkloop 6y ago
So the biggest polluters are food, clothing and shelter - I'm seeing a pattern here...
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  Yes, but the question is, how much of these emissions come from the basics, and how much from extravagance?
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    The question is how do you define extravagance? Ask someone in a middle class suburb of the US and you will get a different answer than the most of the rest of the world. The biggest extravagance is space. Having space (I.e. detached houses) has a knock on effect of increased emissions of everything. Increased energy usage to transport mass increased distance.
- ant6n 6y ago
  Transportation and heating are in there as well
- burntoutfire 6y ago
  Clothes industry has long stopped being about clothing and moved to stroking egos instead (infinite stream of money in that). It is even reflected in the name change ("clothing" -> "fashion").
akira2501 6y ago
That was my biggest take away from the Biosphere documentary, as it was the concrete used in it's construction that eventually led to the abundance of CO2 and lack of O2 in that closed system. We'll clearly have to use something else for building moon bases.
- pmiller2 6y ago
  I don’t think it’s clear at all that concrete wouldn’t work for a moon base. I can definitely at least imagine that there might be some CO2-scrubbing technology that might be practical on the scale of a moon base that wouldn’t be if scaled up to the entire planet Earth.
- pjc50 6y ago
  The good news is that there's very little calcium carbonate on the moon, so you'll have to build it out of something else. Probably thermally fused silicates.
- onion2k 6y ago
  Why would a moonbase need to be a closed system? What would stop it scrubbing the CO2 and venting it in to space?
  - vaccinator 6y ago
    Eventually, you could convert all O2 to CO2 and be left with nothing?
  - curryst 6y ago
    Does the vacuum of space generally require a closed system? And venting the CO2 is bad for the same reason that the heat death of the universe is bad; at some point you have converted all of the usable stuff into useless stuff and have vented it somewhere that you will be unlikely or impossible to be able to recover it. If we do that, we will have to resupply the O2 in some way other than converting CO2 back to oxygen. Either shipping new gas to the moonbase, or having the moonbase convert organic material on the moon to O2 (which sounds a lot more expensive and difficult than having plants scrub CO2 into O2 for us). This is also not to mention the other valuable things were venting with the CO2 (heat for one; I assume keeping a moonbase at a livable temperature would be a struggle). Your scrubber also has to be able to replenish the gas while it's venting, or you risk having rapidly fluctuating pressures in the moonbase. Which is going to be uncomfortable for living things, and will require whatever the moonbase is made out of to be able to handle those changes in pressure (again, I imagine having pressure that fluctuates like a bounce house with a group of sugared up children in it is less than ideal). It's not hard to imagine a non-rigid structure like the base from The Martian bouncing off the surface of the moon when it rapidly constricts from venting CO2 and then rapidly inflates as the O2 replenisher kicks on. It would become a massive bouncy ball in 0G.
manfredo 6y ago
Statistics on how much CO2 something emits can vary wildly. For instance, meat consumption has high CO2 emissions when you include the CO2 emitted by transporting grain to feed animals. But most typical studies would include that under emissions due to transportation. Hence why you can have some studies claiming meat accounts for a double-digit percentage of emissions while others claim that all agriculture contributes to ~3% of emissions. The citation for this claim doesn't seem very robust. It links to the Ellen MacArthur foundation website, but just to the front page. After some of my own Googling it looks like it's coming from this publication [1]. This study drew up some estimates on the amount of textiles produced and discarded as well as a simple conversion of 4.7 Kg of CO2 for every Kg of textiles produced. The source for this ratio of CO2 to kilogram of textiles simply says "McKinsey Analysis"/ 1. https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/assets/downloads/publications/A-New-Textiles-Economy_Full-Report.pdf https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/assets/downloads/pu...
- austhrow743 6y ago
  I’ve always wondered how much standardisation there is in reporting these types of numbers, particularly with regard to countries, albeit not enough to actually look in to it. Say Australia digs up some coal, ships it to China, it’s used to power factories and smelters to produce goods, then those goods are shipped to and used by Americans. Is there consensus on who the pollution from burning coal gets tied to? Or does it vary per report and article?
  - my123 6y ago
    It gets tied to China, for better or worse.
  - tinco 6y ago
    It goes to China, because it is the one that can change it. But that's when you're looking at the output of countries. What you could also do is look at the output of individual persons, and then you could more easily attribute the CO2 to the American. Sustainable energy without the hot air does this, it's a great book though I've heard it's somewhat outdated now.
Waterfall 6y ago
Doesn't matter. The rags companies get clothing and Africa imports tons of clothing for free. The clothes aren't all just made and discarded, they often have a second life.

ECA_stax 6y ago

this is a much more depressing number. steel and cement are necessary to the development of all nations, designer clothes are not.

teruakohatu 6y ago
Fashion refers to all clothing. "fast fashion" (cheap disposable clothing) probably produces a lot more emissions than designer clothing.
cameldrv 6y ago
This seems unlikely. Clothing is about a $1.3 trillion market, against a world GDP of about $80 trillion. I doubt that an industry that's 1.6% of GDP is contributing 10% to carbon emissions. Also, as pointed out below, the "fashion industry" includes all clothing. Beyond food and water, I'm not sure what would be more necessary than clothing.
- darawk 6y ago
  The overwhelming majority of clothing produced is totally unnecessary. The fast fashion industry produces an insane amount of clothing, way beyond what is necessary for utilitarian purposes. I don't doubt that it causes that much CO2 emission, especially if you factor in the shipping cost from the places that manufacture it.
  - rowanG077 6y ago
    I believe this is generally true of any utility. We can all live of soylent or something instead of moving around foods that spoil easily for example. We could all also live in large concrete block where everyone has a small room and houses don't exist. All of that would be hugely more efficient but I doubt you or many other people would like that.
    - minerjoe 6y ago
      A bit of an excluded middle - soylent or what we have now, a massivly wasteful and inneficient food system. I, and many others, would argue that localization and diversification of the food system is the missing middle here.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
Pfhreak 6y ago
Garments that are high quality are designed to last and be worn for a long time. High end selvedge jeans might run a couple hundred bucks, but they will last a decade. I suspect cheap, disposable clothing is driving much more emissions.
- BossingAround 6y ago
  > High end selvedge jeans might run a couple hundred bucks, but they will last a decade. Is there any data supporting this? Because while I think this is our intuition, i.e. "it's expensive therefore it's better quality," I wonder if there's any way we could verify this other than anecdotal evidence.
  - teruakohatu 6y ago
    You see the British aristocracy wearing 30+ year old shoes that look as good or better than they did when they were new. I think it is common sense that emissions are far lower for extreme-luxury clothing that can be repaired and is timeless verses disposable clothing that last one or two years.
    - BossingAround 6y ago
      We're not talking extreme-luxury clothing here though. We're talking Ralph Lauren vs H&M, or something similar. What the British aristocracy wears is probably hand-made stuff by world-class artisans. What Ralph Lauren makes is mass produced in either Europe or China, so it's a much closer comparison to H&M (not to mention still within the reach of an average person in a rich country)
    - ValentineC 6y ago
      I'm not sure if jeans that are torn/blown out can be seamlessly mended the way shoes can be.
- Waterfall 6y ago
  Low end selvedge denim lasts longer than a decade and even low quality denim lasts. You don't wear stuff out of fashion though, it would be like wearing the best of the 90s. You're also assuming that the clothes get worn. The cheaper stuff may just be worn as much as the high quality stuff or that they continue to be used.
Waterfall 6y ago
Clothes are discarded but can be turned into rags or donations. Don't feel bad, I bought some very nice stuff for cheap and I didn't hurt the environment more. I'll just drive these wonderful finds I got for $5 30 miles home in my Hummer.

thinkloop 6y ago

So the biggest polluters are food, clothing and shelter - I'm seeing a pattern here...

TeMPOraL 6y ago
Yes, but the question is, how much of these emissions come from the basics, and how much from extravagance?
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  The question is how do you define extravagance? Ask someone in a middle class suburb of the US and you will get a different answer than the most of the rest of the world. The biggest extravagance is space. Having space (I.e. detached houses) has a knock on effect of increased emissions of everything. Increased energy usage to transport mass increased distance.
ant6n 6y ago
Transportation and heating are in there as well
burntoutfire 6y ago
Clothes industry has long stopped being about clothing and moved to stroking egos instead (infinite stream of money in that). It is even reflected in the name change ("clothing" -> "fashion").

akira2501 6y ago

That was my biggest take away from the Biosphere documentary, as it was the concrete used in it's construction that eventually led to the abundance of CO2 and lack of O2 in that closed system. We'll clearly have to use something else for building moon bases.

pmiller2 6y ago
I don’t think it’s clear at all that concrete wouldn’t work for a moon base. I can definitely at least imagine that there might be some CO2-scrubbing technology that might be practical on the scale of a moon base that wouldn’t be if scaled up to the entire planet Earth.
pjc50 6y ago
The good news is that there's very little calcium carbonate on the moon, so you'll have to build it out of something else. Probably thermally fused silicates.
onion2k 6y ago
Why would a moonbase need to be a closed system? What would stop it scrubbing the CO2 and venting it in to space?
- vaccinator 6y ago
  Eventually, you could convert all O2 to CO2 and be left with nothing?
- curryst 6y ago
  Does the vacuum of space generally require a closed system? And venting the CO2 is bad for the same reason that the heat death of the universe is bad; at some point you have converted all of the usable stuff into useless stuff and have vented it somewhere that you will be unlikely or impossible to be able to recover it. If we do that, we will have to resupply the O2 in some way other than converting CO2 back to oxygen. Either shipping new gas to the moonbase, or having the moonbase convert organic material on the moon to O2 (which sounds a lot more expensive and difficult than having plants scrub CO2 into O2 for us). This is also not to mention the other valuable things were venting with the CO2 (heat for one; I assume keeping a moonbase at a livable temperature would be a struggle). Your scrubber also has to be able to replenish the gas while it's venting, or you risk having rapidly fluctuating pressures in the moonbase. Which is going to be uncomfortable for living things, and will require whatever the moonbase is made out of to be able to handle those changes in pressure (again, I imagine having pressure that fluctuates like a bounce house with a group of sugared up children in it is less than ideal). It's not hard to imagine a non-rigid structure like the base from The Martian bouncing off the surface of the moon when it rapidly constricts from venting CO2 and then rapidly inflates as the O2 replenisher kicks on. It would become a massive bouncy ball in 0G.

manfredo 6y ago

Statistics on how much CO2 something emits can vary wildly. For instance, meat consumption has high CO2 emissions when you include the CO2 emitted by transporting grain to feed animals. But most typical studies would include that under emissions due to transportation. Hence why you can have some studies claiming meat accounts for a double-digit percentage of emissions while others claim that all agriculture contributes to ~3% of emissions. The citation for this claim doesn't seem very robust. It links to the Ellen MacArthur foundation website, but just to the front page. After some of my own Googling it looks like it's coming from this publication [1]. This study drew up some estimates on the amount of textiles produced and discarded as well as a simple conversion of 4.7 Kg of CO2 for every Kg of textiles produced. The source for this ratio of CO2 to kilogram of textiles simply says "McKinsey Analysis"/ 1. https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/assets/downloads/publications/A-New-Textiles-Economy_Full-Report.pdf https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/assets/downloads/pu...

austhrow743 6y ago
I’ve always wondered how much standardisation there is in reporting these types of numbers, particularly with regard to countries, albeit not enough to actually look in to it. Say Australia digs up some coal, ships it to China, it’s used to power factories and smelters to produce goods, then those goods are shipped to and used by Americans. Is there consensus on who the pollution from burning coal gets tied to? Or does it vary per report and article?
- my123 6y ago
  It gets tied to China, for better or worse.
- tinco 6y ago
  It goes to China, because it is the one that can change it. But that's when you're looking at the output of countries. What you could also do is look at the output of individual persons, and then you could more easily attribute the CO2 to the American. Sustainable energy without the hot air does this, it's a great book though I've heard it's somewhat outdated now.

Waterfall 6y ago

Doesn't matter. The rags companies get clothing and Africa imports tons of clothing for free. The clothes aren't all just made and discarded, they often have a second life.