# The Transparent Travels of Tailoring: Following the Carbon Footprints



## medwards (Feb 6, 2005)

From today's New York Times on informing consumers of the origins of their clothing and the travels they take before purchase:

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/10/fashion/10ROW.html?_r=1&ref=fashion&oref=slogin


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## Frog in Suit (Mar 27, 2007)

*Travels of tailoring*



medwards said:


> From today's New York Times on informing consumers of the origins of their clothing and the travels they take before purchase:
> 
> https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/10/fashion/10ROW.html?_r=1&ref=fashion&oref=slogin


I would venture to say that the price of a bespoke suit would appear much more reasonable if one were to factor in the environmental cost.

After all, the only long-distance travel would be that of the wool (from Australia, probably, to a mill, say in the U.K.) then everything would happen in a limited area (from the cloth merchant, likely to be found in central London, to Savile Row --or in my own tailor's case, Sackville Street -- where the suit would be made on the premises or close by).

Thank you Medwards, for giving me yet another justification for bespoke (as if I needed one) :icon_smile:.

Frog in Suit


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## medwards (Feb 6, 2005)

Happy to be of help. :icon_smile_big:


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## whistle_blower71 (May 26, 2006)

Frog in Suit said:


> I would venture to say that the price of a bespoke suit would appear much more reasonable if one were to factor in the environmental cost.
> 
> After all, the only long-distance travel would be that of the wool (from Australia, probably, to a mill, say in the U.K.) then everything would happen in a limited area (*from the cloth merchant, likely to be found in central London*, to Savile Row --or in my own tailor's case, Sackville Street -- where the suit would be made on the premises or close by).
> 
> ...


The merchant may be in central London but the cloth probably ain't!
I think only Smiths and W Bill have central London warehouses.
Dormeuil are in Paris and Scabal in Brussels!

*W_B*


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## medwards (Feb 6, 2005)

I suppose the fundamental question is whether customers do -- or should -- care about the enviromental impact and related "carbon footprint" of the clothing they buy.


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## misterdonuts (Feb 15, 2008)

medwards said:


> I suppose the fundamental question is whether customers do -- or should -- care about the enviromental impact and related "carbon footprint" of the clothing they buy.


Interesting question but going beyond the realm of the vendor and into the whole life cycle of a garment, the carbon footprint of the manufacturing and distribution cycle is only part of the story.

About a year ago, there was an article in IIRC International Herald Tribune how machine washable garments like T-shirts and such have a considerable environmental impact in terms of the carbon footprint resulting from washing and tumble drying as well as other polluting factors such as soap suds. I no longer remember whether it was implied or explicitly stated, but garments like a men's suit, which presumably get laundered infrequently with intermittent steaming / pressing have a much lower environmental impact over the entire lifecycle.

So, off we go to our tailors (and don't wash that underwear)!!


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## medwards (Feb 6, 2005)

misterdonuts said:


> About a year ago, there was an article in IIRC International Herald Tribune how machine washable garments like T-shirts and such have a considerable environmental impact in terms of the carbon footprint resulting from washing and tumble drying as well as other polluting factors such as soap suds. I no longer remember whether it was implied or explicitly stated, but garments like a men's suit, which presumably get laundered infrequently with intermittent steaming / pressing have a much lower environmental impact over the entire lifecycle.


This article, perhaps?


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## misterdonuts (Feb 15, 2008)

Could be... but not sure. I seem to remember a focus on clothing specifically rather than a variety of things and remember that, most likely because of that focus, sending the link to the article to my tailor with some cheeky comment. In any case, the idea is indeed covered by the article you found, so mission accomplished!


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## Kav (Jun 19, 2005)

Wool,cotton,silk,linen, leather,horn,mop,brass or iron nails and shoe shanks, gold,silver. Many of these materials have potential issues with extraction, be it a water thirsty cotton field or overgrazed sheep station with displaced native species. But once they enter the finished stage, superior lifespan, local preservation of the growing environment, ie MOP beds and preservation of sustainable, traditional crafts, ie Sam Hober vastly counterbalance initial impacts. Meanwhile, petrochemical, or dead dinosaurs and Ginko trees metamorphised into black sludgy stuff that burns have short lifespans, are inferior in wearability and function, are produced in sweatshop conditions and wind up in landfills with virtually nil degradation lifespans. I tell you, next time I monkeywrench a bulldozer it's going to be in a wool suit. I may wear a pink shirt ( least visible colour at dawn and dusk) and wear socks over my AE's to blur my footprint. SAVILLE ROW FIRST!


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## fullgrain (Jan 5, 2007)

> I suppose the fundamental question is whether customers do -- or should -- care about the enviromental impact and related "carbon footprint" of the clothing they buy.


It's a bit gimmicky, but I think anything that focuses attention on how and where clothes are made is to the good. Given how this forum tends to lean right politically, I find it interesting how it often has common ground with many issues traditionally associated with the left--conservation and reuse of resources, appreciation for artisanship over mass production, good wages for workers and craftsman, support for local, USA and union-made goods. Seems that are many makers supported by this forum that would satisfy both sides of the aisle.


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## mafoofan (May 16, 2005)

Any environmental costs saved by more localized production in the case of English bespoke are offset and far exceeded by the additional financial cost of the clothes themselves. You don't _need_ a $4000 suit. To help the evironment, you'd be better off buying a $200 suit from Sears whose parts have been all over the world; then, you could do $3800 less in labor or contribute that amount to the development of more efficient technologies.

People don't seem to get that luxuries are inherently 'bad' for the environment, even if the damages are less obviously associated.


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## JibranK (May 28, 2007)

True, but that is factoring in opportunity cost to the bespoke equation. If you do that, then weigh the externalities of the forgone opportunity (in this case, Sears suit) as well.


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## mack11211 (Oct 14, 2004)

The enviromental sensitivity argument was made by the narrator of that BBC Savile Row doc, though I don't recall any of the tailors or reps mentioning it.


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## Alexander Kabbaz (Jan 9, 2003)

fullgrain said:


> It's a bit gimmicky, but I think anything that focuses attention on how and where clothes are made is to the good. Given how this forum tends to lean right politically, I find it interesting how it often has common ground with many issues traditionally associated with the left--conservation and reuse of resources, appreciation for artisanship over mass production, good wages for workers and craftsman, support for local, USA and union-made goods. Seems that are many makers supported by this forum that would satisfy both sides of the aisle.


 You raised this issue which, sadly, may end up moving this thread over *there* ... but you provide no basis nor time frame for your claims.

And I cannot let revisionist history pass unchallenged, to wit:

It was neither Johnny Appleseed nor "the left" which began the major reforestration programs here in the U.S. It was the vast right-wing conspiracy known as the lumber and paper corporations. It was not "the left" which founded the National Park Service to preserve our virgin territories. It was, among other conservatives, Horace Albright, president of U.S. Potash Company. Other early members of this right wing conservationist movement included Thomas Malthus (_Essay on the Principle of Population_) and John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club and chief environmental advisor to President Theodore Roosevelt. These and other Republicans were the true founders of environmentalism in these United States.

It was not until the 1962 publication of Rachel Carson's _Silent Spring_ that "the left" saw the use of a _cause celebre _and conveniently began to include the environment in political platforms. This eventually led to a total ban on the production of DDT ... and the deaths of many millions from malaira ... but I digress.

Time frame is important.


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## medwards (Feb 6, 2005)

So to undigress and keep the thread *here*, does -- or would -- knowing this information (the "carbon footprint") about an item of clothing, affect your purchase decision?


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## Alexander Kabbaz (Jan 9, 2003)

medwards said:


> So to undigress and keep the thread *here*, does -- or would -- knowing this information (the "carbon footprint") about an item of clothing, affect your purchase decision?


It would if it were demonstrated to be true. For example:


NYT said:


> Patagonia estimates the total carbon dioxide emissions generated along that route to be 15 pounds (about 10 times the weight of the jacket itself).


Factless. Without evidence. Not that such failings ever stopped _The New York Times_.

Let's try one. Fully loaded, the cargo jet weighs aproximately 250 tons (fact). It contains 100,000 pieces of Zimmerli underwear (fact is, the average jet could easily hold five times that).

If the entire jet were to |POUF!!!| magically morph into CO2, that would yield 5 pounds per garment.

Let's assume that at least 400,000 pounds of jet aircraft remains intact through the modern science of non-morphing metal. Oops! We're down to 1 pound per garment. And that assumes the entire load of 100,000 pounds of jet fuel becomes CO2.

Perhaps one of our more knowledeable engineer members could take this calculation from assumption to fact.



NYT said:


> Moshe Gadot, a president of Bagir, a company that makes $200 to $300 suits for Sears, J. C. Penney and The Limited, says that that sort of information should be more available to consumers. Bagir is developing a label for suits, like the machine-washable styles sold at Sears under the Covington label, that shows the carbon dioxide emissions next to a downward pointing arrow - kind of like the Energy Star rating you would find on a refrigerator.
> "There will be a hangtag that says 'This suit was produced with 15 kilograms of CO2,' " Mr. Gadot said.


 I am not seeking to discount the environmental impact of garment transportation.

On the other hand, merely counting the politically and pragmatically relevant buzzwords in Mr. Gadot's short quotation might make one think (horrors!) that this could be a typical rag trade Public Relations stunt.


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## Kav (Jun 19, 2005)

I don't want to rain carbon ash on your BBQ, but I am a former crewmember of SEA SHEPHERD, Julia Butterfly Hill slept in the sleeping bag I provided for two years, I stood in the group hearng Eddward Abbey speak before the symbolic cracking of the Dam to list the briefest, and admittable in court bits of my enviromental resume. Care for the environment is not the exclusive political ball of any one group, political philosophy or extraction industry practising astro turfing. If this bogey man 'liberal-left' seized the issue, it is only because the conservative-right let them, or worse, abrogated responsibility and commitment. I will not wear a chicom made hair shirt of plastic to satisfy anybody elses chicom made yardstick of social responsibility. I have always worn natural products as much as possible, and my goal is to piss on Charles Hurwitz MTM black suit while wearing a Navy Bespoke after telling him I just took over Pacific Lumber.Do you think I should wear a Sam Hober green grenadine, or green shot thai tie with it? I've already settled on the square.


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## Alexander Kabbaz (Jan 9, 2003)

Kav said:


> Care for the environment is not the exclusive political ball of any one group, political philosophy or extraction industry practising astro turfing.


 And never has been. I was merely trying to mitigate the countervailing myth by pointing to the origins.



Kav said:


> If this bogey man 'liberal-left' seized the issue, it is only because the conservative-right let them, or worse, abrogated responsibility and commitment.


Did the VRWC let the issue be hijaacked? Without question and demonstrating absolute stupidity as they are often wont to do.

Have they abrogated responsibility? Perhaps in the forum of public relations. I see no evidence of same in the forum of public policy.


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## Kav (Jun 19, 2005)

Actually, environmental stewarship on Turtle Island ( that's ***** speak for North America) and it's impact on contemporary american democracy can be thanked largely to the great Iroquis confederacy. Aside from many lessons of Democracy that impressed the colonists they gave us the 'seven generations' principle. The argument is mute. It is my observation people who boast of past laurels are the first to clear cut the present ones.


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## Alexander Kabbaz (Jan 9, 2003)

Referencing quasi-ancient history illustrates nothing in relation to the current manifestation. As for which, the argument may well be moot but it is most certainly not mute.


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## Teacher (Mar 14, 2005)

Alexander Kabbaz said:


> You raised this issue which, sadly, may end up moving this thread over *there* ... but you provide no basis nor time frame for your claims.
> 
> And I cannot let revisionist history pass unchallenged, to wit:
> 
> ...


While most of your points are true (other than the left not being involved with environmentalism until 1962), it must be remembered that the roots of modern American environmentalism grew out of leftist groups in the late 19th century. These groups manifested themselves through such widespread activities as literature, architecture, furniture design (the Arts and Crafts movement, which was decidedly more enviromentalist than it was in Britain), and later industries which never died. And while it is certainly true that Republicans of the past -- most notably Teddy Roosevelt and Richard Nixon -- were heavily involved in creating national parks etc, it was only Nixon who was really interested in environmental health. Most others were interested in preserving wild parts of America for _historical_ purposes.


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## Alexander Kabbaz (Jan 9, 2003)

Agreed. But the 19th century groups, similarly to the corporate conservative conservationists, didn't wear their environmental cause on their sleeves. My point was that 1962/Silent Spring was a watershed year in that respect as evidenced by the myth expressed in the original post with which I disagreed.


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## qasimkhan (Sep 24, 2003)

This newspaper article is soooo dated. Temperatures haven't gone up for the last decade. What is everyone panicked about?


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## petro (Apr 5, 2005)

Kav said:


> If this bogey man 'liberal-left' seized the issue, it is only because the conservative-right let them, or worse, abrogated responsibility and commitment.


Um.

No.

The Left didn't "seize" the issue, they just made it political and beat their chest about how "good" they are.

Which is what the left is best at.

Like Tibet. Bumper stickers for ~50 years and things are worse than ever.

Carson (Like Malthus and Hansen) was *wrong*. Wrong on the facts, wrong in their prognostications for the future. Instead of massive famine and starvation (Malthus) we have TOO MANY FAT PEOPLE. DDT causes some egg shells to get thinner, some a little thicker and has no impact on many. It does, however, prevent the hell out of malaria, so the left has managed to kill millions, mostly children, in developing nations that can't afford the more sophisticated chemicals that *capitalism* made available to richer countries in the west.

We have a lot of environmental problems--mercury, NO2 and Sulfur emissions, massive artificial hormones and anti-inflammatories are showing up in the water supply (which may or may not be a problem, only time will tell)--but manmade CO2 is NOT the cause of what little abnormal climate changes may have taken place. "Global Warming" is at best bad science and at worst a deliberate lie.

This whole "carbon footprint" thing is just another lie. AlGore gets shamed into buying Carbon Credits (from his own company no less) while Bush has one of the "greenest" houses in the country.


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## Teacher (Mar 14, 2005)

petro said:


> Um.
> 
> No.
> 
> ...


That's funny...most geologists and atmospheric scientists -- including those at my university -- would strongly disagree with every single thing you've said. Huh.


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## Teacher (Mar 14, 2005)

Sorry medwards...I'm afraid this just wasn't going to stay on the Fashion Forum, no matter how hard I didn't try.


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## medwards (Feb 6, 2005)

I was about to move it myself.


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## Rossini (Oct 7, 2007)

qasimkhan said:


> This newspaper article is soooo dated. Temperatures haven't gone up for the last decade. What is everyone panicked about?


Because the Holocene won't last forever, you know. :icon_smile:


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## eg1 (Jan 17, 2007)

petro said:


> Um.
> 
> No.
> 
> ...


Um, where _you _live maybe -- worldwide, not so much ...

Oh, and best you READ your Malthus before you misrepresent his ideas. You're the sort who asserts Canute actually believed he could hold back the sea.


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## Wayfarer (Mar 19, 2006)

It's threads like this killing the Interchange. :devil:


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## Alexander Kabbaz (Jan 9, 2003)

Teacher said:


> That's funny...most geologists and atmospheric scientists -- including those at my university -- would strongly disagree with every single thing you've said. Huh.


I believe the operative word here ought to be "many", not "most".

And if I'm recalling correctly, before 1492 those "few" who claimed the world to be round were scorned - or much worse - as heretics.

I give not much credence to "most", "many", or "few", especially in the world of academia where most polls state the liberal/conservative percentage as roughly 80%/20%.

This is not to say the world isn't warming; the cyclical melting of the polar ice caps is testimony to that. It is to say that the rush to judge this event to be something more than cyclical is both irrational and presumptuous.

As was the irrational and presumtuous over-reaction to _Silent Spring_ which, sadly, resulted in millions of deaths. No matter, being in the main African deaths, this did not effect the increase in liberal American vote totals whereas the _cause celebre _called *environmentalism* certainly did.

Sorry to bring that up, but since this thread has turned, we might as well face the ugly, factual results of the modern beginning of that widespread myth I challenged waaay back up there at the beginning.


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## Concordia (Sep 30, 2004)

Alexander Kabbaz said:


> And if I'm recalling correctly, before 1492 those "few" who claimed the world to be round were scorned - or much worse - as heretics.


Well, maybe in very ignorant circles. The Greeks had known that the earth was round a few millenia before, and the Church was very happy to go along with that, a sphere being the most perfect of all shapes.


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## Teacher (Mar 14, 2005)

Well, I'm not an expert in this field, but I have done some readings and attended some lectures. What _I_ can say is that, despite what many conservatives may claim, there is hard, factual evidence on the matter, and it is building, not waning. This is not them gosh dern lib'rals in the ivory towers: this comes from composits of hundreds, perhaps thousands of studies, done all around the world, on a great many environmental factors. These studies are published in dozens of academic journals on a variety of subjects, again all around the world. Despite the fact that the studies are on a great variety of subjects (global air temperature, global sea temperature, Antarctic ice layer studies, fossil evidence, dendrochronology, botanical histories, coral growth studies, etc.), and despite the fact that there is a great variety of people studying them, the evidence is _increasingly_ pointing towards human-induced CO2 production as a major contributing factor to today's rising global temperatures.

So it is, in fact, "most," and not "many." And just because you can dig up the fact that a majority was wrong _500 years ago_ does not make the mounting evidence go away. Ignoring it will only make us all pay dearly in the future.


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## Teacher (Mar 14, 2005)

Concordia said:


> Well, maybe in very ignorant circles. The Greeks had known that the earth was round a few millenia before, and the Church was very happy to go along with that, a sphere being the most perfect of all shapes.


Hell, it was Aristotle who came up with the concentric sphere theory, and there are some who think the genesis for that idea was around before him.


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## Alexander Kabbaz (Jan 9, 2003)

Perhaps. Just like malaria. But I don't see any comment about that.


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## XdryMartini (Jan 5, 2008)

If I were worried about carbon feetprint (a fun way of making it plural), I would live in a cave by myself and return to my primordial heritage and kill animals with a stone tipped spear. We'll use up all our oil shortly, so why worry about it. :deadhorse-a:


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## Alexander Kabbaz (Jan 9, 2003)

XdryMartini said:


> If I were worried about carbon feetprint (a fun way of making it plural), I would live in a cave by myself and return to my primordial heritage and kill animals with a stone tipped spear. We'll use up all our oil shortly, so why worry about it. :deadhorse-a:


*What an absolutely HORRIBLE thought. By myself in a cave? With no Woman?*

(The rest is fine, but I prefer my Cherokee stone war club. Seems a bit fairer than a spear.)


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## Intrepid (Feb 20, 2005)

*Wayfarer is Right !*

However, this one is impossible to resist.

There are only three things necessary to become a Liberal. One is the need to feel good about oneself, regardless of the harm that it does to others.

After "Silent Spring" was published over 50 years ago, it was conclusively proven that the assumptions that Rachael Carson based the book on, were specious.

No matter. By then, the book had become a fashionable Liberal cause, and the result was the banning of DDT to combat malaria mosquitos.

The WHO keeps careful track of malaria deaths; and more people have died of preventable malaria, than were killed by either Hitler or Stalin.

However, since these deaths occur in Sub Saharian Africa, they aren't of much concern to those here that build wealth and fame by becoming self appointed representatives of "victim groups".

If Malaria spreading mosquitos are detected in the US, we use helicopters to immediately spray surrounding areas where standing water exists. No malaria here.

The people in Sub Saharian Africa don't have helicopters, and just die from malaria, in large numbers.

Fast forward 50 some years, and we have the indisputable fact that the earth warms about every 1500 years. (These are called cycles). The last century of 1 degree C of warming leveled off in 1998. Check out record snow fall in US and Canada this year.

It has been further established that the impact of the sun is the main cause of the warming cycles, on the earth.

This wouldn't be of much consequence, unless it was possible to guess that those that follow Al Gore will do as much harm over the next 50 years as the followers of Rachael Carson have done over the past 50 years.


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## Frog in Suit (Mar 27, 2007)

*Cloth merchants in London*



whistle_blower71 said:


> The merchant may be in central London but the cloth probably ain't!
> I think only Smiths and W Bill have central London warehouses.
> Dormeuil are in Paris and Scabal in Brussels!
> 
> *W_B*


Just a short, factual, answer.
Dormeuil have offices, now being refurbished, on Sackville Street, almost across from my tailor (Meyer & Mortime/Jones, Chalk & Dawson), Scabal have offices at 12 Savile Row (these are the premises which the tailor form the North of England use for London fittings), H. Lesser's website gives a N15 address. I think it is very important for the SR firms to have their suppliers close by.
Best regards,
Frog in Suit


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## Kav (Jun 19, 2005)

I'll address the poor suffering third world peoples blighted by Malaria due to Rachel Carson's little book. The world has always been a pot pourri of nice places and bad places to live. This may come as a shock, but pre colonial, sub saharan africans simply didn't live where mosquitos carried Malaria. It was the european colonists who first died en mass pushing up from the Cape into nice farming country with nice rivers and no hostile tribes. And so, once again humanity plays out our curious strategy of maxing out a local resource base, be it water, or unlivable land using DDT to kill bugs and displacing ancient patterns that work. The 'spread' of Malaria is not different than the 'spread' of three Mile Islands and Chernobles.


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## Intrepid (Feb 20, 2005)

*Very thought Provoking!*



Kav said:


> I'll address the poor suffering third world peoples blighted by Malaria due to Rachel Carson's little book. The world has always been a pot pourri of nice places and bad places to live. This may come as a shock, but pre colonial, sub saharan africans simply didn't live where mosquitos carried Malaria. It was the european colonists who first died en mass pushing up from the Cape into nice farming country with nice rivers and no hostile tribes. And so, once again humanity plays out our curious strategy of maxing out a local resource base, be it water, or unlivable land using DDT to kill bugs and displacing ancient patterns that work. The 'spread' of Malaria is not different than the 'spread' of three Mile Islands and Chernobles.


In an attempt to understand your post, I have printed it out to ponder in greater detail.

I am in the smallest room in my house, with it in front of me.

In due course, it will be behind me.


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## Laxplayer (Apr 26, 2006)

Intrepid said:


> In an attempt to understand your post, I have printed it out to ponder in greater detail.
> 
> I am in the smallest room in my house, with it in front of me.
> 
> In due course, it will be behind me.


What is so difficult to understand? 
_History shows again and again
How nature points out the folly of men
Godzilla!_


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## eg1 (Jan 17, 2007)

I believe *Intrepid* is making a not-so-veiled reference to using a print-out of *Kav's* post as _bumf ... _


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