4TheRcrd Mag.

While doing some late night Saturday reading, I was unamusingly disturbed by what I reading in the premier issue of a Vancouver sustainability magazine (whose name I will keep under wraps) and in SFU’s “UniverCity News” regarding what’s going to be happening to the SFU community, at which I will soon be studying.

It seems to me that the climate change issue has recently been becoming a trend that started with the highly-acclaimed “An Inconvenient Truth”. We’ve now got Sarah Silverman producing a sequel that disturbingly mocks the entire documentary, “A Convenient Truth”. As much as I consider climate change a serious issue and I respect all that our city is doing to keep Vancouver sustainable, I think it’s ridiculous that Vancouver magazines are putting titles such as “save the planet – buy a t-shirt!” on their covers. Articles like that make it clear that consumerism has become the money-making trend of our culture.

I’ve done some research and Vancouver has some valid and simple points to which every citizen can commit and help decrease energy consumption. I agree on the simple fact that we need to decrease our lifestyle spoils when it comes to how much we consume. Then again, as I read some of the content in these sustainable magazines it appalls me to see how local Vancouver designers are banning cotton because of the pesticides it contains.

I fully support sustainable clothes that are made from organic material, but am I going to buy it if it costs fifty bucks a t-shirt? Will I buy it if the clothes look like they’re going to fall apart because they are “hand made and unique”? Or maybe if it looks paper thin and like something that grew out of a tree? No I am not, Id rather stick with my stable cotton/spandex button up shirts that I buy on sale for twenty dollars.

I remember when I went to the Epic Sustainability event at Canada Place; the ideas were good but organic shoes that cost almost three hundred dollars? I’d rather buy my shoes at Old Navy since I need to save my money for education and a roof over my head. For those who can afford it; sure, go ahead, green your closet out! But for the general population, especially young students who do care about fashion but also want to use their money wisely, the sort of quality and prices that are being introduced in new sustainable design companies just don’t mix.

If I am going to buy something for two hundred bucks or more I’d like it to last me for five years or more! Over my dead body will I stop buying cotton, because buying a three hundred dollar organically made fiber sweater (that might fall apart soon at the price of global warming) is just as ridiculous as buying a designer Bottega Veneta three hundred dollar silk scarf.

Another new lifestyle alteration that seems to tease the minds of innocent Ikea buyers is overpriced furniture made from locally reclaimed wood at the price of twelve thousand dollars for a coffee table. Again, new designs are motivating people to spend their hard earned money on organic/hand-made/local designs and technology that are really not worth the price. Companies are using the excuse of climate change to mark up prices on items.

The situation at UniverCity is profitable and good for Vancouver’s image but also has some grey areas. According to the UniverCity newspaper, almost three years ago they built the first two apartment condos on the SFU Mountain by the name of Harmony and One University Crescent. Now the community which used to consist of SFU and its student residents has expanded to a city where the trees are being cut down in order to build more apartment condos. Apparently making the community sustainable with supermarkets that will charge top notch prices for their produce will make it more expensive to pump water up the mountain but also more energy will be used to support these sustainable apartments and town home condos with their supermarkets, malls and stores. I recently heard a complaint from one of SFU’s students and from a resident at one of the buildings in the UniverCity community commenting that:

1. Students are paying a huge tuition for education and maintenance, yet SFU’s facilities are not being fixed and maintained according to what the students are paying to the point where the couches are still ripped up in the AQ .
2. The UniverCity resident was complaining that they’re paying tons of money for maintenance yet no one sees any results to the money that is being poured into keeping the community running efficiently.

So let me ask you this, is consumerism the way to go in order to decrease the progression of climate change? In a way it is. We can help by buying bikes and using our cars only on the weekend like my parents do. We can buy more energy efficient technology that might be more expensive but worth it. Turning off any equipment we don’t use in order to conserve energy is a given. We can buy cars that use up less gas. But do we really need to buy organic coffee tables for twelve grand?

Some reasonable non-consumer ways to save energy are available at Vancouver Climate Change Action Plans. Vancouver has gone far and has earned a lot of respect thanks to the people who have come up with reasonable ways to deal with the issue in a non consumer style.

When it comes to climate change continuing being a trend amongst consumerists; let’s leave it to the hipsters to start buying and wearing American Apparel t-shirts made from non-cotton material (secretly polyester). But how environmentally friendly would that be?

I guess we shall see what happens next when it comes to climate change and how exploited it will get!