CARBON EMISSIONS IN THE FASHION INDUSTRY
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I bet you’ve got a light on in your house right now don’t you. Did you go to the store today? Drive to work? Good for you! Not so good for our planet. You’re producing CO2, or its well known stage name - Carbon Emissions. We hear this all the time, your ‘Carbon Footprint’ but what does that really mean and why do we even care? Okay, you twisted my arm, I’ll tell you.
Not to confuse you, but the famous term ‘greenhouse gasses’ is not the same thing.. well sort of. CO2 and several other gasses in our atmosphere make up GHG, carbon dioxide makes up about 76% of that though. Think of GHG as a category and carbon dioxide as a sub-category, along with methane, nitrous oxide, etc which makes up the remaining 24%. Carbon Dioxide is naturally emitted into the atmosphere (and absorbed) by the oceans, plants and animals. This keeps nature in balance, cycling from emission to absorption pretty evenly. Then comes humans. And humans, as humans do, mess everything up with our laziness, impatience and need for instant gratification. Now, we’re producing far more than nature can absorb. The balance is off.
Let’s keep it short and simple, thanks to EarthHero. Of the greenhouse gasses, CO2 absorbs radiation and prevents heat from escaping. What’s the excess heat causing? Good guess. Climate change. The increased temperatures, disrupted climates, melting of our ice caps, rising water levels and what will probably be at fault for the extinction of the polar bear and penguin at some point in time. But, that’s a big finger to point.
So, now that we know how bad it is, what’s causing it? Well, breathing. Our pure existence. That's because it's part of nature's cycle though right. For how we're producing copious amounts or more than our fair share, let's see what HowStuffWorks says. The ‘No Name’ of the world wide web. Having electricity, transportation and manufacturing produce excess carbon dioxide. All the things that humans like. Well who wants to stop having any of those? I cannot walk to the grocery store or cut my electricity usage, that's ridiculous. What would I do without netflix running in the background to drown out the sound of my own thoughts while I scroll on my phone for hours? Is there a way we can absorb it more quickly?
Glad you asked. No. Though plants, trees and oceans absorb CO2, we seem to be ruining all of those things, too. Deforestation is causing carbon dioxide by methods like the burning of trees while simultaneously taking away a source of absorption. What we can do is decrease our emissions. You may think, how will little ol’ me make any difference at all? But if all 8 billion and counting of us made a little difference, the impacts would be tremendous. Maybe my son will get to see a polar bear after all.
I haven’t even told you how this relates to our clothing yet. 1.7 billion tons of carbon dioxide are produced by the fashion industry each year. That’s more emissions than all international flights and maritime shipping combined globally. The World Economic Forum noted that the industry is at fault for 10% of all of humanity's carbon emissions. This could jump by 26% within the next 3 decades. The international goal by that time is to remain under 2 degrees of warming, but to achieve this, wbur states that the fashion industry would need to cut emissions by at least 80%. With clothing production up 400% in the past 2 decades, there would need to be significant changes in production considering that the percentage of emissions is set to rise, not fall.
Purchasing new or from fast fashion producers will only feed into the need for manufacturing more. Did you really need that top from SHEIN or could you borrow one from a friend? We both know you’re only going to wear it a couple of times anyways then realize the seam starts unraveling or it doesn’t fit like the picture. You know those biker shorts and high waisted mom jeans were trends in the 80s right? I bet you could find an original pair at a thrift shop that no one else has. We can make smarter choices as consumers. Absolutely switch up your wardrobe, but do it in a sustainable way.
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