Consenting Lemons

 "No dogs were harmed in the filming of this episode. A cat got sick, and someone shot a duck. But that's it."

The Simpsons, Season 3, Episode 19, "Dog of Death"

I want to shop ethically; I want to live my life without harming the environment or exploiting others. This may be an admirable aim but the fact of the matter is that I simply don't have the time to research every purchase before I make it; I have a life to lead, revision to be doing and a blog to never update. I feel that when I buy a product, I should not just be paying to take it away but also to have the company, with it's wide resources, perform the ethical due diligence on my behalf. Sadly but predictably, this idea is not well placed in our capitalist system so I need another way to short the honest wheat from the sinister chaff.

This issue has been rattling around my consciousness for a while now, I purchased the Better World Shopper app to identify "good" companies and this has steered me away from a few unethical purchases as well as surprising me with a few genuinely decent companies that I always thought were just, well, companies. Sadly, "over 1000 companies" is not nearly enough, particularly not if those companies were selected for US consumers; I'm just not covered, how am I to know if my Pimms is topped up with Schweppes (drained from the veins of South American orphans) or Schweppes (massaged from consenting lemons by well-paid farmers with full health insurance), where for that matter do the Pimms, strawberries, oranges, lemons, cucumbers, mint (fucking mint, getting in the way of the deliciously marinated fruit) and apple come from?!

I had a minor mental battle with myself (both me and myself knew what the outcome would be but sometimes it's nice to pretend there are dilemmas in your life) when choosing between Ethletic Hi-tops or GODDAMN BATMAN Converse:

May have some child Sweat on them, from when they are handled in Shops.

The former won out and even if the renewable Amazonian tree rubber soles of my Ethletics have already worn out, the same can't be said for the non-renewable English neuro-rubber soul of my mind.

The issue has become yet more focused today as I was linked to an article about how evil iPhones are and whilst I'm sure this applies to most other tech, the words were particularly poignant as I read them on the small iPhone screen in front of me; the battery is damn-near fucked and it'll need replacing soon. The truth is, I've become so accustomed to the dissonance that arises when considering the source of tech components that I was genuinely surprised to be presented with an alternative; I'll certainly hang on to see if ADzero can live up to it's potential.


All of these examples may sometimes seem bleak, there may be no strong public or political will to change the situations, there may even be stigma for swimming against the tide; nonetheless, I feel optimism that things can get better through the little changes I make, along with influencing others to make those changes. 
One area where my confidence is low - along with my knowledge - is that of chemicals for scientific experiments, many chemicals must be mined and there is plenty of room for exploitation before anyone gets to transfect cell culture with the processed and purified product. As I research the area and my knowledge grows, I may rationalise my use of unethically-sourced chemicals as a necessary evil to reduce greater harms elsewhere - whilst this may be the case, it is a highly seductive idea and I should tread carefully.