Feeding Consumption

Building fast food joints, restaurants, bars, building places for people to socialise is not a bad thing, but it is worth considering how all that food gets there. We are in an era of globalised food production, no more do we have to wait for fruits and vegetables to be in season, it is shipped in refrigerated containers from anywhere in the world where particular produce grows. The problem being that as consumers we are accustomed to being able to order whatever we fancy at the restaurant with no conception of the processes involved to be able to have that particular food on the menu, as though there are neat rows of trees, crops growing somewhere in the world without having an impact on the existing ecosystem when in reality to meet growing demand, deforestation is happening on a global scale, online magazine Livescience cites that since 1600 we have cut down one half of the world’s forests.

Historically this would have been about ship building or house building but now it is about food production, and with the global population expected to peak at eleven billion, this situation is only going to get worse. From clear cutting in the amazon to slash and burn practices in Sumatra, local people are destroying the rainforest to make a living, unaware of the global consequences, or if they are aware, they feel that they have no choice because they need to make a living.

Clear cutting is when large swaths of land are cut down all at once. A forestry expert quoted by the Natural Resources Defense Council describes clear cutting as "an ecological trauma that has no precedent in nature except for a major volcanic eruption." Burning can be done quickly, in vast swaths of land, or more slowly with the slash-and-burn technique. Slash and burn agriculture entails cutting down a patch of trees, burning them and growing crops on the land. The ash from the burned trees provides some nourishment for the plants and the land is weed-free from the burning. When the soil becomes less nourishing and weeds begin to reappear over years of use, the farmers move on to a new patch of land and begin the process again.

Not only is deforestation a means of growing cash crops for a short period of time, it is also used to raising livestock so that we can buy our burgers in McDonald’s which presents a double whammy for the environment, not only are we reducing the planet’s ability to produce oxygen we are increasing water consumption, increasing greenhouse gas emissions, along with filling the soil with pesticides and chemical fertilisers that leech into the ground water.

Most educated people know that trees absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen through photosynthesis, we all need clean air to breathe but it is as though everyone thinks that what they are doing will not matter because there are still trees elsewhere. As we are at the moment, climate scientists are saying that the surviving forests cannot absorb the carbon dioxide that we are pumping into the atmosphere.

It is not only the world’s forests, but the oceans that play a major role in oxygen production, through microscopic organisms, such as plankton, the problem is that we are filling up the oceans with so much plastic waste that plankton is dying off, affecting marine life and impacting on the food chain that contributes to the seafoods and fish that people seem to enjoy in restaurants in every new development. Couple this with overfishing in many areas, illegal fishing in others where controls are trying to be implemented locally, our global food store is running down, and what is left we are harming.

The combination of deforestation, industrial farming, environmental pollution, is leading to the destruction of the ecosystem so that we can eat convenience foods. Add to this illegal poaching of wild animals, either for their ivory, bushmeat or simply hunting for sport, whether we like it or not we are all contributing to a global catastrophe though our choices of where and what we eat.


Work in progress on Is Architecture Enough? The Journey Beneath the Surface of Architecture Continues...the follow up to Do We Need ARCHITECTS? A Journey Beneath the Surface of Architecture, available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble published by Xlibris.

Buy More Stuff!

With the emphasis on ‘Buy More Stuff!’ Commercial development feeds Consumption, generates waste, and causes traffic congestion and increases greenhouse gas emissions. Malls are usually populated with stores selling stuff that we do not need. For some shopping is a leisure activity, retail therapy, to the rest of us it is a necessary evil. We only go shopping when we need something, and endure the mall experience only when there is no alternative.

Historically malls and hypermarkets bring together all the products and produce under one roof and are situated out of town and away from public infrastructure with the effect of killing off trade in the town centre, effectively rendering them ghost towns with high streets populated with abandoned retail units and charity shops. All the while perpetuating the need to drive where previously everything was local and within easy reach. The result being increased traffic congestion on the roads, increased greenhouse gas emissions and the global problem of climate change linked to pollution.

Historically centres of production have shifted from established industrial towns and cities to where the labour is cheapest, meaning that industrial exploitation is undertaken on a global scale, it is cheaper to ship in our everyday products from south east Asia than it is to manufacture it locally, and the waste? That is somebody else’s problem. What do we care if there are toxic lakes in China because they have no way of dealing with the waste products from our electronic gadgets?

All of this also means that energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions take place in somebody else’s country, but the earth does not discriminate, the emissions go into the atmosphere and are distributed globally in acid rain, floods and extreme climatic events.

The greatest consequence of globalised retail is the packaging, we buy products that have been transported from half way around the world, meaning that is packed in plastic because at the moment it is that cheapest way of producing it, to prevent it being damaged in transit, when we make a purchase it is usually presented to us in a plastic bag that invariably has only one use then it is discarded along with the packaging, when we throw something away, there is not really an away, it has to go somewhere.

In some nations, the waste is recycled, or incinerated to recover energy through the combustion process, although there are greenhouse gases that have to be managed. In most cases it is sent to land fill site or simply dumped where it is though that nobody will see it, at the side of the road, on a patch or undeveloped land wherever they see fit, meaning that when it rains it gets washed into the streams, rivers and ends up in the sea, to create great garbage patches in the oceans, that kill off marine life, pollute our beaches the problem being that it gets broken down into small fragments, but does not biodegrade, so it is very difficult to clean up, gets consumed by marine life, and finds its way into the food chain.

All of this from being asked to plan a new shopping mall? Well, yes, each time we follow the same brief to meet perceived demand, we are adding to the same problem but what is the answer?

Work in progress on Is Architecture Enough? The Journey Beneath the Surface of Architecture Continues...the follow up to  Do We Need ARCHITECTS? A Journey Beneath the Surface of Architecture, available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble published by Xlibris.