The Dark Shadow Shrine

embrace the darkness; that you may see the light nestled within it......

Monday, September 28, 2015

Exercise consumer power to fight the haze

Click HERE
Like the previous post, this article is useful for qns on ethical consumerism.
Consumers have the power to influence business directions through their wallet at the cashier, just as they can influence political directions and govt decisions by voting at the ballot box during elections.
There is thus this suggestion that we should boycott products associated with errant companies who are responsible for burning the forests that gave us the haze. Hit them where it hurts most -- their profit margins.
But like the previous post on the Volkswagon scandal, sometimes firms can lie; or the labels that claim that a product is environmentally-friendly may actually not be so -- either because it's a case of lying (green-washing') or a case of loopholes in the labelling administration. PSPO-certified (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil) palm oil products are supposed to be ok, but as mentioned in the link above, it has been found that  "fires have since been found on the land of some of those who supply palm oil to the RSPO members."

Interesting expression:
"those responsible are morphing and adapting, so we need to morph and adapt our strategies."

About the need to constantly re-invent new solutions as the problems are constantly altering their nature too to outsmart the solutions in place to combat them.....recall the Chinese proverb about 'dao4 gao1 yi4 chi3, mo2 gao1 yi2 zhang4 (as the forces of good take one step forward, the forces of evil will also be raised by a notch). So if we are complacent and not careful, it will be a cat and mouse game where the mouse is forever elusive and on the run....to catch the mouse, we need to be two steps ahead of it, i.e. outpace it. See this in the context of terrorism, mutation of bacteria in the face of anti-biotics, creation of superweeds and superbugs in GM technology, and other associated solutions offered by technology to tackle the problems we face.....