Passata – the costs and who can afford it

A post from January 2021 on the cost of what looks like simple things.

27th January 2021

This costs 80p in my local supermarket in the UK, less than a £, maybe a US$ at some point in currency exchange. It’s their essential range but at 80p they are still making a profit from it. Made from Italian tomatoes that have been sieved removing the skins and seeds it is then placed in a glass container and shipped to the UK unless the process is based on the tomatoes being shipped to the UK first in some other container. If so was it reusable? Either way there’s a lot of resources and energy used to get a value product for the consumer to buy. So there are a lot of resources and energy being used to bring this passata into my home but at what cost to the environment? Then there’s the question of the economics. I can afford to buy it but there are millions of people in the UK even who could not and the UK represents <0.1% of the global population. So would this product ever be “affordable” in terms of human labour, resources and environmental costs for all of the 7.8 billion humans who would like to consume it? If we take the Ethiopian clothing workers, earning roughly 80p a day, to fill our high streets and internet with cheap environmentally damaging tat, it is clear that our economic models are completely wrong and that unless the price was a magnitude cheaper that they would never be able to enjoy passata.

Our links

Our Teemill shop site for our organic cotton clothes and bags, https://junagarh-media.teemill.com/.

My author page where you can discover more about my books, https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B07D3ZTQ1L.

This is our website for all our photography and my books, https://www.junagarhmedia.co.uk/.

We are also on Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/21104365@N06/.

Also on Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/junagarh_media/.

Our Etsy shop https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/JunagarhMedia.

Leaving the lights on, polluting the planet, polluting the night

I posted this almost a year ago. It’s quite simple really, the more we leave lights on, the more fossil fuels are burnt and the subsequently the planet heats up. We need to reduce our fossil fuel emissions by 50% before the end of this decade.

13th January 2021

Leaving the lights on when not necessary is wrong on so many levels. Doing so pollutes the environment and pollutes the night. Every light left on causes wood, coal, oil or gas to be burnt increasing atmospheric CO2 and enhancing climate change, or it causes a bit of radioactive waste to be produced lasting thousands of years, or it wastes renewable energy and resources causing unnecessary environmental loading and resource extraction. Your pocket and bank account may be able to waste planetary resources and cause significant pollution but the planet and its environment cannot. Just remember also that there are countless humans out there who haven’t the ability to squander like you or your society might be doing. This lack of lighting severely restricts the progress of many individuals and societies especially in terms of the education of children. Finally, beyond the human centric view of the world it is important to consider that before two centuries ago the night was mostly dark but now humans have invaded and polluted it with no consideration for the creatures whose domain is the darkness. We need to give back the night just as much as rewild the wilderness.

Our links

Our Teemill shop site for our organic cotton clothes and bags, https://junagarh-media.teemill.com/.

My author page where you can discover more about my books, https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B07D3ZTQ1L.

This is our website for all our photography and my books, https://www.junagarhmedia.co.uk/.

Our Etsy shop https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/JunagarhMedia.

We are also on Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/21104365@N06/.

Also on Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/junagarh_media/.

2021 the year we must accelerate the recognition of human rights

I posted this on the 1st January this year, for me a year that sees the last few hours draining away. How have human rights fared in the last 12 months? Not well at all really. Can we really say that we have made any progress at all? I personally cannot say regarding any progress although looking at what has been happening in America regarding a woman’s right to an abortion it would appear that we are going in the wrong direction.

1st January 2021

Human rights are being trampled on all over the world with environmental protesters, journalists, those of different skin types and ethnicity suffering but perhaps most of all it’s the female gender that suffers the most. Forced into relationships and married while still children is an abuse too far while many adult women suffer violence and even death at the hands of men. There’s a general global imbalance where females of all ages are looked upon as not being equal and this needs to end. Many women do not have control of their bodies and therefore it is important that in 2021 we end child bride marriage and make sure that all women have access to contraception. Despite the corona virus the world’s population increased by 80 million in 2020. That’s the equivalent of creating 8 countries the size of Switzerland in population terms in just 12 months, something that is totally unsustainable. The very recent victory of women in Argentina to have access to abortion is a step forward but we have a very long way to go. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-55475036

Our links

Our Teemill shop site for our organic cotton clothes and bags, https://junagarh-media.teemill.com/.

My author page where you can discover more about my books, https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B07D3ZTQ1L.

This is our website for all our photography and my books, https://www.junagarhmedia.co.uk/.

Our Etsy shop, https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/JunagarhMedia.

We are also on Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/21104365@N06/.

Also on Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/junagarh_media/.

Those that have too much dumping what has been exploited

I posted this just over a year ago before last Christmas. It’s time, way over time, that we took responsibility for our individual lifestyle and what and how much we consume. We all need to see the bigger picture.

16th December 2020

First world economies work on exploiting third world workers and their environment because otherwise scenes like this would not occur. If workers were paid a similar minimum working wage in value terms to first world workers then world trade would have to slow down. We would have to repair, reuse and recycle what we consume and not just dump it outside a closed charity shop for others to scavenge over. Our first world economies have no values for the destruction of the environment they cause nor of the pollution that they leave behind in far away lands. These places are remote from the bright glossy marketing of these goods in their consumerist palaces of shopping both on the street and on the internet. Time to change our ways and start paying the real price.

Our links

Our Teemill shop site for our organic cotton T-shirts and bags, https://junagarh-media.teemill.com/.

My author page where you can discover more about my books, https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B07D3ZTQ1L.

This is our website for all our photography and my books, https://www.junagarhmedia.co.uk/.

We are also on Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/21104365@N06/.

Also on Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/junagarh_media/.

Our Etsy shop https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/JunagarhMedia.

Passata – the costs and who can afford it

This costs 80p in my local supermarket in the UK, less than a £, maybe a US$ at some point in currency exchange. It’s their essential range but at 80p they are still making a profit from it. Made from Italian tomatoes that have been sieved removing the skins and seeds it is then placed in a glass container and shipped to the UK unless the process is based on the tomatoes being shipped to the UK first in some other container. If so was it reusable? Either way there’s a lot of resources and energy used to get a value product for the consumer to buy. So there are a lot of resources and energy being used to bring this passata into my home but at what cost to the environment? Then there’s the question of the economics. I can afford to buy it but there are millions of people in the UK even who could not and the UK represents <0.1% of the global population. So would this product ever be “affordable” in terms of human labour, resources and environmental costs for all of the 7.8 billion humans who would like to consume it? If we take the Ethiopian clothing workers, earning roughly 80p a day, to fill our high streets and internet with cheap environmentally damaging tat, it is clear that our economic models are completely wrong and that unless the price was a magnitude cheaper that they would never be able to enjoy passata.

Leaving the lights on, polluting the planet, polluting the night

Leaving the lights on when not necessary is wrong on so many levels. Doing so pollutes the environment and pollutes the night. Every light left on causes wood, coal, oil or gas to be burnt increasing atmospheric CO2 and enhancing climate change, or it causes a bit of radioactive waste to be produced lasting thousands of years, or it wastes renewable energy and resources causing unnecessary environmental loading and resource extraction. Your pocket and bank account may be able to waste planetary resources and cause significant pollution but the planet and its environment cannot. Just remember also that there are countless humans out there who haven’t the ability to squander like you or your society might be doing. This lack of lighting severely restricts the progress of many individuals and societies especially in terms of the education of children. Finally, beyond the human centric view of the world it is important to consider that before two centuries ago the night was mostly dark but now humans have invaded and polluted it with no consideration for the creatures whose domain is the darkness. We need to give back the night just as much as rewild the wilderness.

A decade to make the necessary changes – 3652 days

The decade, from the start of 2021 to the end of 2030, will be a defining one for those people alive today and depending on what reductions we make in terms of fossil fuels, many generations into the future. We have 3652 days if you count from the 1st of January and the two leap years of 2024 and 2028. To some that may sound like a lot of days and to others no time at all. It would be difficult enough if we managed to stabilise the human population but we are far from doing that. Much of the reason for current increases in our total number are the lack of women’s rights, the inequality between women and men and the lack of access to contraception, family planning, abortion and not forgetting the issue of child brides and child mothers.

How big a problem is it? Possibly it’s as big as burning fossil fuels. Many included myself see it as one of the larger human elephants in the room. In the 366 days of 2020 the world’s head count increased by let’s call it 80,000,000 despite the extra deaths due to the pandemic. So in 2020 an extra 10 Switzerlands were created, https://www.worldometers.info/demographics/world-demographics/. So in general, even though the fertility rate is falling and we assume that the pandemic will pass we can apply the same number of additional people being born for this the crucial decade in human history. It’s an uphill struggle to meet the Sustainable Development Goals as it is but at the rate humans are reproducing we would create another 100 Switzerlands by the end of 2030, 800,000,000 people. Now you could argue it would be less but even if it was 600,000,000 extra people they would still need food, water, shelter, education, energy, in some form, infrastructure, jobs, medicine, household goods etc. Not all within the next 10 years but it is easy to see how unsustainable it is since we cannot provide these things for the current 7,800,000,000 humans. It should be noted as a generalisation that countries where women do not have rights such as access to abortion are also those from which migration in search of work for example are the highest, https://www.statista.com/chart/13680/the-legal-status-of-abortion-worldwide/?utm_source=Statista+Global&utm_campaign=ec3b7da732-All_InfographTicker_daily_COM_AM_KW49_2020_Th_COPY&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_afecd219f5-ec3b7da732-310309078. Therefore women’s rights and inequality are one of the largest human elephants in the room. What happens in what remains of the 3652 days of this decade will come back to haunt the human race for a long time in the future. It is time to change because we are too many, we take too much.

2021 the year we must accelerate the recognition of human rights

Human rights are being trampled on all over the world with environmental protesters, journalists, those of different skin types and ethnicity suffering but perhaps most of all it’s the female gender that suffers the most. Forced into relationships and married while still children is an abuse too far while many adult women suffer violence and even death at the hands of men. There’s a general global imbalance where females of all ages are looked upon as not being equal and this needs to end. Many women do not have control of their bodies and therefore it is important that in 2021 we end child bride marriage and make sure that all women have access to contraception. Despite the corona virus the world’s population increased by 80 million in 2020. That’s the equivalent of creating 8 countries the size of Switzerland in population terms in just 12 months, something that is totally unsustainable. The very recent victory of women in Argentina to have access to abortion is a step forward but we have a very long way to go. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-55475036

Abandoned shoes – the haves and the have nots

This is a supposedly festive season that in English refers to the period leading up to Christmas and the end of the year. Somehow a Christian festival has and is being increasingly mixed with a capitalist binge fest when gifts must be exchanged with no thought as to the human and environmental exploitation that takes place in their construction. Yet at this time of year there will be many going without basic standards of an equitable life while the products of their labour and their environment fill the shops and internet with glossy packaging, marketing and advertising that those in the first world must have no matter what the cost. “No matter what the cost” because few of those consuming know the real cost of their actions. Here’s an example, dumped shoes outside of a London charity shop. If we could trace their origin back to where they were produced we would probably find many workers being exploited and perhaps not even having shoes as good as the ones here that have been so carelessly thrown out by those that have no inkling of where they came from. A world that is truly one of the haves and the have nots.

Those that have too much dumping what has been exploited

First world economies work on exploiting third world workers and their environment because otherwise scenes like this would not occur. If workers were paid a similar minimum working wage in value terms to first world workers then world trade would have to slow down. We would have to repair, reuse and recycle what we consume and not just dump it outside a closed charity shop for others to scavenge over. Our first world economies have no values for the destruction of the environment they cause nor of the pollution that they leave behind in far away lands. These places are remote from the bright glossy marketing of these goods in their consumerist palaces of shopping both on the street and on the internet. Time to change our ways and start paying the real price.