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Money
in Community: Our Money, Our Lives What is the impact of our spending on others and on the environment? How can we move from individual to individual in community, from personal to social, from your money and your life to our money and our lives. It is a step we all take but usually without awareness of the impact of our actions. This short piece is a beginning guide to help us take that step with more awareness. (This is an exceprt from A Study Guide on Money, Society and the Planet , a guide for the book Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin (New York: Viking Penguin, 1992). The study guide is available to download for $6 in PDF format at Simple Living.net.
The products we buy and use are part of a web of relationships that begins
with where we choose to keep our money.
We have seen that money represents our life energy.
It also represents our exchange power in the market.
It has no intrinsic value other than what we choose to give it in the
social context where we live and work.
It can be used to enhance the value of that social context for all who
live in it or it can be used to destroy the bonds that hold us together.
It can also be used in ways that destroy the environment that is the
basis of all life or in ways that protect and sustain that environment.
The choice is ours, but we often make that choice unintentionally
because of our lack of knowledge. Most of us put a portion of our money in
checking or savings accounts at a bank or credit union.
Which institution we choose is often a matter of convenience rather
than the result of asking whether the practices of the institution are
consistent with our values. Several years ago I chose a small branch of a savings
bank that I passed on the way home as a place to keep a small amount
of my money. I chose it primarily for location and in order to have
electronic access through automatic teller machines. A short time after I opened the account, Meridian Bank
bought the savings bank.
A year or two later, Core States bought Meridian Bank and closed the
branch where I opened the account.
Then, First Union bought Core States.
My original institution is now a large interstate banking operation.
In the course of the various mergers, many branches closed and
thousands of employees lost jobs. Many communities lost their local branches.
The money that I keep in that account now feeds into a massive system
so that my money could be used for loans to businesses or individuals far from
my home, with impacts of which I am unaware.
Our money system operates so that banks
create money by loaning the money that customers place on deposit.
This process is repeated many times using the same original deposit.
The result is that fees for use of the money (interest paid to the
bank) are multiplied many times as the money is used over and over again.
Banks decide how and when to loan the money.
Some banks are locally based and committed to reinvesting their
deposits in the community where they are located.
Others are interstate or multinational, taking money from one community
and making loans outside that community, resulting in a negative cash flow
from the community. Most of the money I have for ongoing
expenses is in a local credit union where I formerly worked.
The money in that credit union provides loans for members.
The credit union employs several people and is a part of the community.
It is an institution supported by members of the community and existing
to support its members. As a sign on the wall says, “We are not a bank.”
Many credit unions exist around the country to serve the communities
where they are. If
they are designated as community development credit unions they can accept
deposits from non-members whose intention is to provide resources for that
community. Many people drink coffee, yet few
recognize that some coffee supports community and good environmental practices
and other coffee supports exploited labor, high profits for a few and is grown
in a way that destroys the environment. Coffee grown in Central America in the traditional way
under the shade of a forest supports the ecology of that forest which provides
a home to over 150 species of birds.
These include common North American birds like the wood thrush and the
ruby -throated hummingbird. The
shade grown coffee forest has a species diversity significantly greater than
any other agricultural land and exceeded only by undisturbed tropical forest.
Coffee grown by many large corporations is grown on land cleared of the
forest. Its cultivation
takes large doses of chemicals whose residues return to coffee drinkers. These
chemicals include several banned in the U.S. because of harmful health and
ecological concerns. Much coffee
is grown by small farmers. Often
these farmers can barely survive because their product is traded as a
commodity and is subject to the great variations in price of the international
market. Some are part
of cooperatives that have arrangements with importers to provide a fair price. By buying fair trade coffee we can help assure that the
farmers are able to receive a price that is fair.
We can choose which coffee we buy and ask our local grocery store to
carry shade grown and fair trade coffee. Bananas are part of 40% of all trips to
the grocery store and comprise 2% of store profits.
Bananas are the fifth most important agricultural commodity after
cereals, sugar, coffee and cocoa. Three large companies control two thirds of
the world banana market - Chiquita, DelMonte, and Dole. Often
banana workers are poorly paid, work long hours in unsafe
conditions and have exposure to the large amounts of pesticides
used in production. After several years of a campaign against the practices of Chiquita because
of lack of responsibility for its workers, the company signed
an historic agreement. It now has 70% of its workers
unionized, the highest in the industry.
Homero Fuentes, combined with some real progress on the ground, is a track record which is unmatched in our work in Latin America. While the road is long, Chiquita has traveled forward in a few short
years." To see the company's corporate
responsibility report which won an award in 2003 from CERES
as one of the best reports, click here. The electricity that we use is an
environmentally clean source of energy at the point of the end user.
Yet its production can have harmful environmental effects.
Coal is the largest source of fuel for electricity.
Nuclear, large hydro, natural gas and oil provide most of the rest.
The amount coming from renewable sources like solar, wind, geothermal,
small hydro and landfill gas is small.
With the deregulation of the electric utility industry, consumers are
being given a choice of electric supplier.
Pennsylvania is one of the first states to implement such a choice.
While many consumers will look at primarily at the dollar savings,
others may look at the fuel choice.
One company, Green Mountain Energy Resources, is offering three mixes
of fuel, each with differing costs and environmental benefits and none
containing coal or nuclear generated electricity.
The most expensive choice in dollars is the cleanest and consists of
solar, wind, small hydro and landfill gas.
As consumers we can choose to pay more in order to have considerably
less impact on the environment. The
effect is like water in a reservoir. By
buying green electricity we support an increase in sources that is like
providing more clean streams flowing into the reservoir.
The greater the number of clean streams flowing in, the cleaner the
water that is taken out. We also have a choice in saving
electricity through the appliances we purchase and the lighting we chose.
Compact fluorescent lights initially cost much more but they use about
one fourth of the energy of their incandescent counterparts and last ten to
twelve times longer. Over the life of the bulb the overall financial savings
is also greater. The
environmental impact of using less energy, particularly if our fuel source is
coal or oil, is considerable. Over
the life of the bulb a 15 watt compact fluorescent uses 423lbs of coal or 34
gallons of oil which results in 720lbs of carbon dioxide, a primary cause of
climate change. The impact is about four times greater with
incandescent bulbs. Appliances
also make a great impact. New
model bottom freezer refrigerators can use about half the electricity of older
side-by-side models. Newer
efficient dishwashers uses less than half the water of older models.
Front-loading clothes washers can use two gallons of water compared
with 20 for older top-loading models.
Low e windows and insulating window quilts can add additional comfort
and savings.
The clothes we wear also have social and
environmental impacts. Cotton
occupies 3% of the world’s farmland but uses 25% of all insecticides
globally. Organic cotton
clothes are available at many stores. Polyester
comes from petroleum. Some clothes are now being made from recycled polyester,
a fiber whose source is recycled plastic.
Many clothing lines utilize sweatshops where women and children are
paid below poverty level wages for long hours of work.
Some clothing manufacturers have agreed to a code of conduct for their
operations that includes independent monitoring of working conditions at their
suppliers. Most athletic shoes are produced in Asia where workers are
paid pennies for shoes that sell in the U.S. at prices above $100. The examples above are only a sampling of
the ways our purchasing habits affect the environment and the communities to
which we belong. As we
begin to have awareness of these effects we can begin the process of change.
Several good resources are available to help us with the choices.
The Council on Economic Priorities produces a guide to purchasing.
Project Equality produces a list of hotels and motels that follow equal
employment guidelines. Co-op America issues a Green Pages directory of
businesses annually. Searches of
the Internet under specific products can produce other resources. Particularly useful sites listing listed below
that include a wide variety of resources are Ecomall, the Center for a New
American Dream, and the Union of
Concerned Scientists. Remember, no shame, no blame.
It is easy to get overwhelmed with all the choices we have as consumers
and feel powerless. This
emotional reaction produces inaction.
As we begin to make responsible choices through growing awareness,
additional choices become easier. We
recognize that we do have control and gain power in our own lives over
consumerism. Resources
57
Ways to Protect Your Home Environment and Yourself,
available from University of Illinois, Ag. Publication Office, 67 Mumford
Hall, Urbana, IL 61801
217 333-2007. Order at 800 345-6087.
A very practical guide to many different ways of cleaning up the home
environment.
Contains chapters on caring for the home landscape, using alternatives
to pesticides and fertilizers, storing and disposing of hazardous chemicals,
managing waste, protecting drinking water, protecting the indoor environment,
and conserving energy and water
The American Council for an Energy
Efficient Economy (2020 429 8873, maintains lists of the most energy efficient
appliances. They also publish a book, Consumer Guide to Home Energy Savings.
http://www.aceee.org
Boycotts
-- Information on boycotts presently active is available at http://www.coopamerica.org/Boycotts The Center for a New American Dream www.newdream.org has many resources on purchasing. Michael Brower and Warren Leon, The
Consumers’ Guide to Effective Environmental Choices: Practical Advice from
the Union of Concerned Scientists (Three Rivers Press, New York 1999).
A practical guide about choices for environmental action that have the
greatest impact. Ecomall is a web site that provides a
directory to ecologically sound products and a magazine: http://www.ecomall.com/ Richard Heede and the staff of the Rocky Mountain Institute,
Homemade Money: How to Save Energy and Dollars in Your Home,
(Brickhouse Publishing, Amherst, new Hampshire and Rocky Mountain
institute, Snowmass, Colorado, 1995).
A basic guide to energy saving in the home with applicability to other
buildings. Contains contact information on sources of additional
information and materials. The website of the Rocky Mountain Institute is also
useful, http://www.rmi.org National Green Pages, is a guide to
responsible businesses in the U.S. Co-op
America, 1612 K Street NW, #600, Washington DC 20006
202 872-5307 www.coopamerica.org
Nike boycott -- This web site provides
information on the boycott of Nike: http://www.saigon.com/nike/index.html Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA),
116 New Montgomery, Suite 810, San Francisco, CA 94105
Phone (415) 541-9140; fax (415) 541-9253 email paninfopubs@panna.org; www.panna.org/panna/ Project Equality 1999 Buyer’s Guide,
6301 Rockhill Rd., Suite 315, Kansas City, MO 64131-1117
816 361-9222 www.projectequality.org Shopping for a Better World: The Quick
and Easy Guide to All Your Socially Responsible Shopping, issued annually,
produced by the Council on
Economic Priorities, 30 Irving Place, New York, NY
10003; phone 800 729-4237; e-mail info@cepnyc.org;
http://www.cepnyc.org
or http://www.responsibleshopper.org Sweatshops -- The web site http://www.sweatshops.org/
provides information on sweatshops and products made in them. The Union of Concerned Scientists www.ucsusa.org
(Go to the site map and choose Green Living) has guidelines for purchasing. U.S./Guatemala Labor Education Project,
P.O. Box 268-290, Chicago, IL 60626; phone 312 262-6502; e-mail usglep@igc.apc.org
Mathis Wackernagel and William Rees, Our Ecological Footprint: Reducing
Human Impact on the Earth (New Society Publishers 1996).
An important book that looks at the effect of lifestyle on the earth.
How much land does it actually take to support the kind of life we live
and how much is available for all life?
The book makes real concepts like carrying capacity, sustainability,
use of resources in a graphic way and provides a method of calculating an
ecological footprint. See the web
site of Redefining Progress http://www.rprogress.org/resources/nip/ef/ef_household_calculator.html
for a means of calculating your own ecological footprint.
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