Maths shows the nature of 'tipping points' for climate and eco crises

by University of Reading
APRIL 16, 2019

Snow-Covered Northeastern United States. Credit: NASA

Humans need to be wary of breaching a 'point of no return' that leads to ecological disaster such as loss of rainforests or irreversible climate change, according to the most detailed study of its kind.

The thin line separating the Earth's current climate from a frozen one – the so-called snowball state—has been explored in new research led by the University of Reading that combines mathematics with climate science

Researchers analysed how random events and human action could combine to reach a tipping point, where one natural state transitions to a very different one.

The findings, published today in the journal Physical Review Letters, can be applied to the Earth's climate, landscape features or ecosystems like a rainforest to aid our understanding of how they can be altered or destroyed after reaching a point of no return.

Valerio Lucarini, Professor of Statistical Mechanics at the University of Reading and lead author of the study, said: "Changes in climate or catastrophic declines in natural features like forests all happen in a fashion similar to a journey in a mountain region. These states are like two valleys divided by a mountain pass, which must be crossed in order to move between them.

"Pinpointing this dividing line has allowed us to better understand when we are likely to see transitions in the natural world. This helps outline a safe operating space, enabling us to tailor our behaviour to remain within this and to realise when a transition could occur. Cutting down trees, damaging ecosystems or altering the climate could all cause us to stray too close to a tipping point, risking dramatic and irreversible change."

The new research builds on a previous (2017) study published in Nonlinearity by the same authors, which used a dynamic method to identify the tipping point between two competing states. That study led to an unprecedented understanding of the global stability properties of the climate and was featured as a highlight of the year by the IOP Science journal that published it.

The new study aids our understanding of the Earth's climate tipping points. The Earth flipped multiple times between a warm and snowball state about 650 million years ago, preceding the beginning of multicellular life.

The team used random fluctuations to simulate an approach to such a tipping point, showing at what point a transition from one state to the other becomes likely.

This can be applied to natural features like the Amazon rainforest. The rainforest experiences fluctuations caused by fires, drought or human-caused deforestation, but is able to regenerate up to a certain point. The research could help us to judge the point at which a forest would become unable to absorb these events and begin an unstoppable decline, allowing us to act accordingly to preserve it.

The team now plan to apply their findings to a real-world climate transition that can be seen today, analysing the processes that lead to the start and end of the monsoon season in parts of the world, or those responsible for different circulation regimes in the Atlantic ocean.

Professor Lucarini said: "Crossing a tipping point relies on a combination of random events that accumulate to produce the transition.

"Human action might be insignificant when the tipping point is far away, but could be the final straw as we approach it. Understanding this context is crucial to judging when we might topple into a new state."

SUBCULTURAL THEORY, DRIFT AND PUBLICITY: HOW A CONTEMPORARY CULTURE OF ADOLESCENCE RELATES TO DELINQUENCY 
by Adam Monroe Stearn 

ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION 
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Criminology and Criminal Justice in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Northeastern University, January, 2012

 Abstract
In order to understand adolescents, criminologists have looked to cultural theories of adolescence. These cultural theories emphasize adolescent norms and values and draw on the term subcultural to denote how delinquency can be explained among segments of youths. They tend to focus either on impoverished inner city youths or youths without any class affiliation. Few studies have examined the extent to which adolescent subcultures exist in the middle 7 class and what these subcultures might look like. The subcultural study of adolescence has also shifted from criminology to the realm of sociology resulting in the role of delinquency all but being ignored. Thus, theorists are left to wonder: The extent to which middle class subcultures exist, and what role delinquency plays in them? The current research addressed this question by focusing on both qualitative (content of personal web pages) and quantitative (survey questions) data. The website postings come from a current social networking site and provide the researcher with personal descriptions, written interactions with other youth, and descriptions of delinquency. The survey questions stem from a survey conducted among adolescents in a largely affluent community. Both data sets were drawn upon to relate adolescent subcultural identities. In addition, the analyses examined self 7 reported delinquency and the relationship between identity, delinquency, and experiences within the various life domains, such as the family unit, peer groups, and school. The results of these analyses suggest that the average adolescent residing in a middle class neighborhood identifies with multiple subcultures while at the same time stressing his or her individuality. In addition, the adolescent drifts in and out of these subcultural identities based on the life domain he or she is in. Finally, deviance—most commonly the consumption of alcohol and marijuana—is communicated by the subcultures’ members as was demonstrated by the behavior’s publicity.

SOCIOLOGY/CRIMINOLOGY SUBCULTURE STUDIES

SUBCULTURE THE MEANING OF STYLE

DICK HEBDIGE 
(PDF) BOOK

SUBCULTURE THE MEANING OF STYLE

IN THE SAME SERIES The Empire Writes Back: Theory and practice in postcolonial literatures Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin Translation Studies Susan Bassnett Rewriting English: Cultural politics of gender and class Janet Batsleer, Tony Davies, Rebecca O’Rourke, and Chris Weedon Critical Practice Catherine Belsey Formalism and Marxism Tony Bennett Dialogue and Difference: English for the nineties ed. Peter Brooker and Peter Humm Telling Stories: A theoretical analysis of narrative fiction Steven Cohan and Linda M. Shires Alternative Shakespeares ed. John Drakakis The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama Keir Elam Reading Television John Fiske and John Hartley Linguistics and the Novel Roger Fowler Return of the Reader: Reader-response criticism Elizabeth Freund Making a Difference: Feminist literary criticism ed. Gayle Greene and Coppélia Kahn Superstructuralism: The philosophy of structuralism and post-structuralism Richard Harland Structuralism and Semiotics Terence Hawkes Dialogism: Bakhtin and his world Michael Holquist Popular Fictions: Essays in literature and history ed. Peter Humm, Paul Stigant, and Peter Widdowson The Politics of Postmodernism Linda Hutcheon Fantasy: The literature of subversion Rosemary Jackson Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist literary theory Toril Moi Deconstruction: Theory and practice Christopher Norris Orality and Literacy: The technologizing of the word Walter J. Ong Narrative Fiction: Contemporary poetics Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan Adult Comics: An introduction Roger Sabin Criticism in Society Imre Salusinszky Metafiction: The theory and practice of self-conscious fiction Patricia Waugh Psychoanalytic Criticism: Theory in practice Elizabeth Wright

DICK HEBDIGE

SUBCULTURE THE MEANING OF STYLE

LONDON AND NEW YORK

First published in 1979 by Methuen & Co. Ltd Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002. © 1979 Dick Hebdige All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data available Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data available ISBN 0–415–03949–5 (Print Edition) ISBN 0-203-13994-1 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-22092-7 (Glassbook Format)

GENERAL EDITOR’S PREFACE

IT is easy to see that we are living in a time of rapid and radical social change. It is much less easy to grasp the fact that such change will inevitably affect the nature of those disciplines that both reflect our society and help to shape it. Yet this is nowhere more apparent than in the central field of what may, in general terms, be called literary studies. Here, among large numbers of students at all levels of education, the erosion of the assumptions and presuppositions that support the literary disciplines in their conventional form has proved fundamental. Modes and categories inherited from the past no longer seem to fit the reality experienced by a new generation. New Accents is intended as a positive response to the initiative offered by such a situation. Each volume in the series will seek to encourage rather than resist the process of change, to stretch rather than reinforce the boundaries that currently define literature and its academic study. Some important areas of interest immediately present themselves. In various parts of the world, new methods of analysis have been developed whose conclusions reveal the limitations of the Anglo-American outlook we inherit. New concepts of literary forms and modes have been proposed; new notions of the nature of literature itself, and of how it communicates are current; new views of literature’s role in relation to society flourish. New Accents will aim to expound and comment upon the most notable of these. In the broad field of the study of human communication, more and more emphasis has been placed upon the nature and function of the new electronic media. New Accents will try to identify and discuss the challenge these offer to our traditional modes of critical response. The same interest in communication suggests that the series should also concern itself with those wider anthropological and sociological areas of investigation which have begun to involve scrutiny of the nature of art itself and of its relation to our whole way of life. And this will ultimately require attention to be focused on some of those activities which in our society have hitherto been excluded from the prestigious realms of Culture. Finally, as its title suggests, one aspect of New Accents will be firmly located in contemporary approaches to language, and a continuing concern of the series will be to examine the extent to which relevant branches of linguistic studies can illuminate specific literary areas. The volumes with this particular interest will nevertheless presume no prior technical knowledge on the part of their readers, and will aim to rehearse the linguistics appropriate to the matter in hand, rather than to embark on general theoretical matters. Each volume in the series will attempt an objective exposition of significant developments in its field up to the present as well as an account of its author’s own views of the matter. Each will culminate in an informative bibliography as a guide to further study. And while each will be primarily concerned with matters relevant to its own specific interests, we can hope that a kind of conversation will be heard to develop between them: one whose accents may perhaps suggest the distinctive discourse of the future. 
TERENCE HAWKES

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

MANY people have assisted in different ways in the writing of this book. I should like in particular to thank Jessica Pickard and Stuart Hall for generously giving up valuable time to read and comment upon the manuscript. Thanks also to the staff and students of the University of Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, and to Geoff Hurd of Wolverhampton Polytechnic for keeping me in touch with the relevant debates. I should also like to thank Mrs Erica Pickard for devoting so much time and skill to the preparation of this manuscript. Finally, thanks to Duffy, Mike, Don and Bridie for living underneath the Law and outside the categories for so many years.

INTRODUCTION: SUBCULTURE AND STYLE

I managed to get about twenty photographs, and with bits of chewed bread I pasted them on the back of the cardboard sheet of regulations that hangs on the wall. Some are pinned up with bits of brass wire which the foreman brings me and on which I have to string coloured glass beads. Using the same beads with which the prisoners next door make funeral wreaths, I have made star-shaped frames for the most purely criminal. In the evening, as you open your window to the street, I turn the back of the regulation sheet towards me. Smiles and sneers, alike inexorable, enter me by all the holes I offer. . . . They watch over my little routines. (Genet, 1966a)

IN the opening pages of The Thief’s Journal, Jean Genet describes how a tube of vaseline, found in his possession, is confiscated by the Spanish police during a raid. This ‘dirty, wretched object’, proclaiming his homosexuality to the world, becomes for Genet a kind of guarantee – ‘the sign of a secret grace which was soon to save me from contempt’. The discovery of the vaseline is greeted with laughter in the record-office of the station, and the police ‘smelling of garlic, sweat and oil, but . . . strong in their moral assurance’ subject Genet to a tirade of hostile innuendo. The author joins in the laughter too (‘though painfully’) but later, in his cell, ‘the image of the tube of vaseline never left me’. I was sure that this puny and most humble object would hold its own against them; by its mere presence it would be able to exasperate all the police in the world; it would draw down upon itself contempt, hatred, white and dumb rages. (Genet, 1967) I have chosen to begin with these extracts from Genet because he more than most has explored in both his life and his art the subversive implications of style. I shall be returning again and again to Genet’s major themes: the status and meaning of revolt, the idea of style as a form of Refusal, the elevation of crime into art (even though, in our case, the ‘crimes’ are only broken codes). Like Genet, we are interested in subculture – in the expressive forms and rituals of those subordinate groups – the teddy boys and mods and rockers, the skinheads and the punks – who are alternately dismissed, denounced and canonized; treated at different times as threats to public order and as harmless buffoons. Like Genet also, we are intrigued by the most mundane objects – a safety pin, a pointed shoe, a motor cycle – which, none the less, like the tube of vaseline, take on a symbolic dimension, becoming a form of stigmata, tokens of a self-imposed exile. Finally, like Genet, we must seek to recreate the dialectic between action and reaction which renders these objects meaningful. For, just as the conflict between Genet’s ‘unnatural’ sexuality and the policemen’s ‘legitimate’ outrage can be encapsulated in a single object, so the tensions between dominant and subordinate groups can be found reflected in the surfaces of subculture – in the
styles made up of mundane objects which have a double meaning. On the one hand, they warn the ‘straight’ world in advance of a sinister presence – the presence of difference – and draw down upon themselves vague suspicions, uneasy laughter, ‘white and dumb rages’. On the other hand, for those who erect them into icons, who use them as words or as curses, these objects become signs of forbidden identity, sources of value. Recalling his humiliation at the hands of the police, Genet finds consolation in the tube of vaseline. It becomes a symbol of his ‘triumph’ – ‘I would indeeed rather have shed blood than repudiate that silly object’ (Genet, 1967). The meaning of subculture is, then, always in dispute, and style is the area in which the opposing definitions clash with most dramatic force. Much of the available space in this book will therefore be taken up with a description of the process whereby objects are made to mean and mean again as ‘style’ in subculture. As in Genet’s novels, this process begins with a crime against the natural order, though in this case the deviation may seem slight indeed – the cultivation of a quiff, the acquisition of a scooter or a record or a certain type of suit. But it ends in the construction of a style, in a gesture of defiance or contempt, in a smile or a sneer. It signals a Refusal. I would like to think that this Refusal is worth making, that these gestures have a meaning, that the smiles and the sneers have some subversive value, even if, in the final analysis, they are, like Genet’s gangster pin-ups, just the darker side of sets of regulations, just so much graffiti on a prison wall. Even so, graffiti can make fascinating reading. They draw attention to themselves. They are an expression both of impotence and a kind of power – the power to disfigure (Norman Mailer calls graffiti – ‘Your presence on their Presence . . . hanging your alias on their scene’ (Mailer, 1974)). In this book I shall attempt to decipher the graffiti, to tease out the meanings embedded in the various postwar youth styles. But before we can proceed to individual subcultures, we must first define the basic terms. The word ‘subculture’ is loaded down with mystery. It suggests secrecy, masonic oaths, an Underworld. It also invokes the larger and no less difficult concept ‘culture’. So it is with the idea of culture that we should begin.

UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME

A 28-year-old mayor is giving his city’s poorest residents $500 a month, but he thinks there are still obstacles to rolling out basic income in the US

Marla Aufmuth/TED

Mayor Michael Tubbs speaks at the TED 2019 conference.

ARIA BENDIX
APR 24, 2019, 

At 28 year old, Mayor Michael Tubbs is spearheading a basic income pilot in his hometown of Stockton, California.

Tubbs said the program, which distributes$US500 monthly stipends to the city’s poorest families, is already showing signs of success.

The mayor believes basic income could be a solution for cities of all sizes and income levels, but he doesn’t consider it a panacea to poverty.

One of the challenges of basic income in America, he said, is that people find it hard to empathise with those who don’t share their appearance.

At age 28, Michael Tubbs easily qualifies as a political wunderkind. He’s received two degrees from Stanford, interned at the White House, secured a $US10,000 donation from Oprah for his city council campaign, and been endorsed as a mayoral candidate by former president Barack Obama.

He also grew up in Stockton, California, a city he describes as “a place people run from rather than come back to.”

Read more:An entrepreneur who’s running for president explains how he’d give every American $US1,000 a month and solve the ‘fake news’ problem

After being elected mayor of Stockton in 2017, Tubbs began floating a radical basic income policy to get the city back on track. The program is now more than two months underway and showing signs of success – but Tubbs thinks there’s a reason why it hasn’t caught on in other parts of the US.

Unlike homogeneous Scandinavian countries, Tubbs said, America has struggled to contend with widespread racial and economic diversity. This lack of empathy, he said, may have slowed our willingness to consider a universal basic income policy.

What sets Stockton apart is a combination of vision and desperation – a city on the brink of collapse and a mayor willing to try something drastic to hold it together.
Basic income policies have gained favour in Europe, but less so in the US 




In February, Stockton began distributing $US500 monthly stipends to its poorest residents through a basic income policy, which essentially pays someone for being alive. The policy’s critics claim that it reduces the incentive for people to find jobs, while supporters say it helps lift families out of poverty.

The idea has mostly gained favour in Europe, where both Finland and Barcelona havelaunched basic income trials, and Sweden has set aside around $US325,000 for a pilot experiment. In 2017, the city of Ontario, Canada, also adopted a basic income program for around 4,000 participants, though the trial was cancelled about a year later.

As mayor, Tubbs piloted the first major basic income program in the US. The decision would have been considered bold for a seasoned government leader, let alone the one of the youngest in the nation.

But Tubbs said he didn’t give much thought to whether his idea would be controversial. “My team was more nervous than I was,” he said. “I honestly will tell you this, I didn’t really see much risk.”


What made him nervous, he said, was how untenable Stockton’s impoverished neighbourhoods had become.
Stockton’s basic income pilot is showing small signs of success


The child of a teenage mother and incarcerated father, Tubbs grew up poor in an underfunded school system. As a college student, he lost a cousin to gun violence. In his lifetime, he’s had more men in his family sent to jail than to college.

In 2012, Stockton became the first city in the US to declare bankruptcy. Today, about a quarter of its population still lives below the federal poverty line. As mayor of a city that had essentially hit rock bottom, Tubbs was excited by the prospect of trying something different to combat inequality.

“I came into doing the pilot without a fully formed perspective – or as fully formed as it is now – but really more out of curiosity,” he said. “If this was a solution that could work, I wanted to test it out.”

But first, he had to get constituents on board. One benefit of governing a small city, he said, is that he could explain his idea to people one-on-one.

“Every time you do something new, it’s scary,” he said. “You have to convince people that, ‘No, it’s going to be ok. We’re going to be safe. And we’ll all be better off for it.'”
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Tubbs’ basic income plan gives monthly stipends to 130 residents living at or below the city’s median income line (around $US46,000 annually). The trial is expected to last for 18 months, and the stipends are distributed through the mail in the form of debit cards.

Because participants are randomly selected, Tubbs is forbidden from knowing who they are, but he said he’s heard anecdotally that people are using their money to pay their gas and electric bills, get their cars fixed, and take their children to the movies.

“I was very excited to see it already working and making a difference in so many people’s lives,” he said. “I’m now much more resolute in this idea that, if it’s not a panacea … it should be considered as one of the many solutions to ensure that people have an economic floor.”
America has been slow to test basic income because of its struggle with diversity, Tubbs said


According to Tubbs, there’s a reason why American cities haven’t entertained the solution of basic income before. Many Americans, he said, struggle to recognise that one person’s economic mobility can benefit another – something he believes other nations have figured out.

Tubbs believes that Scandinavian countries have recognised the need for a more robust social safety net – including universal healthcare and extensive parental leave policies – which makes it easier to approve other radical interventions down the line.

One explanation for these progressive policies, Tubbs said, is that Scandinavian countries are fairly homogeneous compared to the US. “In our country, we really have to contend with this idea of ‘the other,'” he said.

In his lifetime, Tubbs has found that people often conflate appearance with commonality. When people look different, he said, they tend to believe they have less in common, making it more difficult to empathise.

In his speech last week at the TED conference in Vancouver, Canada, Tubbs said the destiny of his city is “tied up in everyone – particularly those who are left on the side of the road.” His basic income policy is a product of this thinking: that a city that works for its poorest members can work for all.

Chicago could launch its own basic income pilot

Bret Hartman/TED

Tubbs said he’s thinking more urgently about childcare now that he and his wife are expecting a baby.

With his wife expecting their first child, Tubbs said his mission to improve the lives of people in Stockton feels even more urgent as of late.

“Childcare costs are real,” he said. “We’re now looking at how are we going to save up to have somebody help us watch our child. It definitely has made me that much more passionate and that much more impatient with the status quo.”

Though Tubbs sees basic income as a solution to poverty, a city doesn’t need to be as poor as Stockton to benefit from the program, he said. The mayor also said basic income could work for larger cities struggling to combat inequality.

A task force in Chicago recently recommended that the city launch its own basic income pilot, which would provide 1,000 residents with $US1,000 monthly payments for 18 months. Tubbs said he’s shared details of his experiment with Chicago, which he sees as a natural extension of his work.

“Small to medium sized cities have a role to play in terms of pushing our democracy forward,” he said. By testing out new ideas for larger cities to emulate, he said, they just might provide the tools for building fairer societies.

Saudi Arabia's First Nuclear Reactor Sparks Fears From Experts

Experts say the nuclear reactor could go live within a year.

By Jessica Miley April, 04th 201

Google Earth images show Saudi Arabia’s first nuclear reactor is almost finished. Bloomberg reported that the images likely indicate the reactor could be producing power within the year.

The news of the near-completed reactors has sparked fears across the globe that the Kingdom plans to use nuclear technology without signing on to the international rules governing the industry.

RELATED: THE NUCLEAR LAB NO ONE KNOWS ABOUT

According to the Google Earth images the facility is located in the southwest corner of the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology in Riyadh.

Saudi Arabia has yet to sign on to the international framework of rules. The rules are insurance against civilian atomic programs being used to build weapons. Saudi energy ministry has said the purpose of the reactor is for scientific, research, educational and training purposes.

Saudi Arabia has nuclear plans

The kingdom's spokesperson has said that all necessary non-proliferation treaties have been signed and that the facility was being built with transparency. Saudi Arabia has in the past indicated it would like to develop a nuclear plant but has not revealed any plans on how such a plant would be monitored.

RELATED: IS STORING NUCLEAR WASTE AT YUCCA MOUNTAIN ACTUALLY A PROBLEM?

Arms-control experts fear the wealthy government could try and obtain nuclear weapons. Saudi Arabia leader, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman has said he would push to develop a nuclear bomb if the country’s rival Iran did so.

This statement a little over a year ago caused ripples through the nuclear monitoring sector who fear that they may face opposition to the country if they try and access Saudis nuclear facilities.

No fuel until signatures collected

The reactor site spotted via Google Earth was sold to the Kingdom from Argentina’s state-owned INVAP SE. The Steel vessel is about 10 meters (33 feet) high with a 2.7-meter diameter which matches other similar sized reactors.

Nuclear Fuel supplies should not agree to move to supply the unit until the Kingdom has signed into new surveillance arrangements which are then required to be lodged with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna.

Monitoring body anxious to see the agreement signed

Rafael Mariano Grossi, Argentina’s envoy to the IAEA has reminded Saudi Arabia they need to sign onto the comprehensive safeguards agreement with subsidiary arrangements before any nuclear fuel is supplied. The IAEA has repeatedly asked Saudi Arabia to adhere to international rules before developing its ambitious nuclear program further.

By developing complex and binding agreements and a comprehensive monitoring program the IAEA aims to ensure that nuclear materials used in civilian power plants don’t end up going into a weapons program.

The U.S should demand that the Kingdom adopt the so-called "gold-standard agreement" before allowing any private U.S companies to invest in the Saudi nuclear program.

FASHION AS COMMODITY FETISH

Fashion production is modern slavery: 

5 things you can do to help now

Anika Kozlowski April 24, 2019

Consumers should ask: “who made my clothes” so that they remember the modern slavery conditions imposed on many garment workers. 

Fashion shouldn’t cost lives and it shouldn’t cost us our planet. Yet this is what is happening today. Globalization, fast fashion, economies of scale, social media and offshore production have created a perfect storm for cheap, easy and abundant fashion consumption. And there are few signs of it slowing down: clothing production has nearly doubled in the last 15 years.

With Earth Day and Fashion Revolution week upon us, fashion lovers need to reflect on how their consumption has an undeniably negative impact on both planet and people.

Fashion is rife with gender inequality, environmental degradation and human rights abuses — all of which are intrinsically interconnected. The Fashion Revolution campaign began because of the unresponsiveness of the fashion sector to the continuous tragedies that occur in the making of clothing, such as the death of 1,138 garment workers when the Rana Plaza factory collapsed in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on April 24, 2013.

We cannot keep chasing the cheapest labour and exploiting natural resources forever. Business as usual is no longer an option. In light of the positive change that is needed to tackle climate change and create an equitable future for everyone, here are five things you can do:

Who made my clothes?

                     Fashion production is rife with inequalities. Shutterstock

Fashion Revolution aims to bring awareness to these injustices by highlighting the hands and faces of those behind the things we wear.

Fashion: Labour intensive modern slavery

Fashion is one of the most labour-intensive industries, directly employing at least 60 million people.

Handicraft artisan production is the second largest employer across the Global South. India counts some 34 million handicraft artisans. Women represent the overwhelming majority of these artisans and today’s garment workers. The Global Slavery index estimates 40 million people are living in modern slavery today, many of whom are in the Global South working in the supply chains of western clothing brands.

Modern slavery, though not defined in law, “covers a set of specific legal concepts including forced labour, debt bondage, forced marriage, slavery and slavery-like practices and human trafficking.” It refers to situations like forced to work overtime without being paid, children being forced to pick cotton by the Uzbekistan government when they should be in school, women being threatened with violence if they don’t complete an order in time and workers having their passports taken away until they work off what it cost for their transportation to bring them to the factory, their living quarters and food.

Fashion is one of five key industries implicated in modern slavery by advocacy organizations. G20 countries imported $US127.7 billion fashion garments identified as at-risk products of modern slavery. Canada has been identified as one of 12 G20 countries not taking action against modern slavery.

The campaign Fashion Revolution highlights the labour in the fashion sector. Fashion Revolution

Colonialism and enviromental racism must be addressed if we are to tackle climate change, gender inequality, environmental degradation and human rights abuses. The poorest people on the planet and their cheap labour are exploited to make fashion clothing.

These workers are the ones who work overtime without pay and return home to contaminated toxic waterways from the factories. They suffer from diseases caused by living in devastatingly polluted areas.

When “we,” the western world, are finished with our fashions, we export back our unwanted clothing to these nations in the Global South. These “donations” destroy these communities by filling up their landfills and deteriorate their local economies as local artisans and businesses cannot compete with the cheap prices of our discarded donations.

Transparency and traceability is key

Transparency and traceability by companies is key. Transparency involves openness, communication and accountability. As citizens of this planet, we need to demand transparency and accountability.

We can no longer afford to live the same lifestyle we have become accustomed to. According to a report by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, the fashion industry produces 53 million tonnes of fibre each year, more than 70 per cent of that ends up in landfills or bonfires and less than one per cent of it is used to make new clothes.

Fast fashion often ends up in landfills. New York, Times Square, H&M store, March 2016. Shutterstock

More than half of “fast” fashion produced is disposed of in less than one year. A truckload of clothing is wasted every second across the world.

The average number of times a garment is worn before it ceases to be used has decreased by 36 per cent in 15 years. Polyester is the most common fibre used today, as a result, half a million tonnes of plastic microfibres are released per year from washed clothes — 16 times more than plastic microbeads from cosmetics — contributing to ocean pollution.

Five things you can do now

1. Ask questions: #whomademyclothes?

Ask questions, educate yourself and act consciously. Who made your clothes? How will this product end its life? How long am I going to use this product for? Do I really need it? What is it made from? Does the price reflect the effort and resources that went into this?

2. Wear what you have

Don’t throw away your clothes, shoes and accessories. There are ways to keep them out of landfills (reuse, resell, swap, repair, tailor, donation, hand me downs). Can it be repaired? Tailored? Learn to care for your clothes, the longer we keep wearing items, the more we reduce the emissions footprint of our closet.

3. Find alternative ways to be fashionable

Buy vintage, reduce, rent, resell, reuse, swap, repair, tailor or share. Think about the impact you want to make and whether you can sustain that? E.g. reducing plastic use, using less animal products or supporting local businesses.

4. Build a personal style

Knowing what works for you, your body and your lifestyle will have you feeling fabulous all the time (regardless of what the latest “trends” are).

5. Support ethical producers — but only if you need something

You can’t buy your way into sustainability. Overconsumption has led us to an unsustainable ecosystem. We need to reconsider what are “our needs” are vs. “our wants.” The abundance offered to consumers is far greater than any need. Consider Livia Firth’s #30wears campaign which encourages consumers to ask: Will I wear this item a minimum of 30 times? “If the answer is yes, then buy it. But you’d be surprised how many times you say no.”

Author

Anika Kozlowski

Assistant Professor of Fashion Design, Ethics and Sustainability, School of Fashion, Ryerson University
Disclosure statement

Anika Kozlowski does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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Rana Plaza as a Threat to the Fast Fashion Model? An Analysis of Institutional Responses to the Disaster in Germany

Chapter (PDF Available) · January 2019 

In book: Eco Friendly and Fair: Fast Fashion and Consumer Behavior, Chapter: 1, Publisher: Routledge, pp.3-14Cite this publication

• 

  Nora Lohmeyer

  • reie Universität Berlin

  
  
  
• 

  Elke Schüßler

  Abstract

Based on an analysis of the main institutional responses to the Rana Plaza factory collapse in 2013, we find that the catastrophe produced institutional change in some areas, but has thus far failed to do so in others. We focus our analysis on Germany, which has significant garment import from Bangladesh. Specifically, we find that the majority of governance initiatives are production-oriented and not consumption-oriented. This means that they are mostly geared towards changing working conditions at supplier factories and not towards challenging the fast fashion business model and the related consumer behavior. By drawing on the ‘focusing events’ framework we outline the problem definition, policy templates, and actors behind the most important initiatives and are thereby able to offer explanations for this outcome. We conclude by outlining alternative consumption-oriented courses of action that could complement production-oriented initiatives.

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People rescue a garment worker who was trapped under the rubble of the collapsed Rana Plaza building in Savar, 30 km (19 miles) outside Dhaka April 24, 2013. The eight-storey block housing factories and a shopping centre collapsed on the outskirts of the Bangladeshi capital on Wednesday, killing more than 70 people and injuring hundreds, a government official said.

ANDREW BIRAJ/REUTERS

Canada's Joe Fresh among brands made in collapsed Bangladesh building