Lab-grown cotton is on its way to consumers
forbes.com
forbes.com
There needs to be some kind of programme that compensates these families to ensure that this production method doesn't make the situation worse. Could be part of a scheme where the families are paid if their child attends school.
None of the answers that actually solve the problem in good ways can be found in "more capitalism".
Kids will attend school if and only if their families send them. The expected economic value this week needs to be higher than the value of putting the kids to work. Saying that educated kids will have a higher economic value in the future is useless in the short term.
Long term, the countries that haven't gone through the demographic transition need to be pulled through it.
What makes me annoyed about statements like "this will reduce the amount of child labour used to produce X" is that they're almost never followed up with an explanation on how to deal with the fallout of the loss of income for the affected families. It's a marketing strategy to make consumers feel good about not supporting child labour, not about improving the lives of those children.
I didn't include it in my comment, but my suggestion would be to put a tax on a product like this that is used to replace the lost income of these families.
It would have to be global to reach a scale that would have the required impact, which means that it will, unfortunately, never happen.
Personally, I love natural fibers for my clothing and can't stand synthetics (other than for fitness gear), so am very interested in this development.
It’s also relatively expensive compared to the feedlot stuff in part for the reason above and in part because externalities (e.g. GHG emissions) are not priced in yet.
The promise is that on a net/net basis the lab will be better. We’ll see.
As a diabetic I get a lot of protein and calories from meat bc I don’t want a lot of carbs. I’d be much happier with lab-sourced animal proteins, especially if there were a little game from time to time. Factory farm meat lacks a lot of flavor anyway.
The latter two features are important since I get around town by bike, and am at the mercy of the weather, plus annoyed when my pants touch my bike and acquire permanent black stains. That stuff washes right out of my synthetic pants.
Meanwhile, I perceive that cotton clothing has gotten worse, most notably wearing out sooner. I probably won't buy any more blue jeans, even name brand, though it's not unthinkable that the ones I've gotten recently are counterfeit.
Fortunately I live in a casual town, and my job is "engineering casual." ;-)
I'm not sure about the relative environmental impact of a pair of cotton jeans that lasts a year, or a pair of hiking pants that lasts six years.
1: https://www.smartwool.com/shop/mens-running-socks
2: https://www.rei.com/learn/expert-advice/what-does-moisture-w...
Consider what football players wear. Nobody's wearing wool or cotton jerseys any more! Synthetics wick better, stretch better, and dry better. The biggest downside is the microplastics they make when you launder them. Supply-chain wise, they might still be better than most cotton, though.
1) https://www.patagonia.com/product/mens-tropic-comfort-natura...
1: https://www.billabong.com/crossfire-mid-submersible-shorts-1...
2: https://www.target.com/p/men-39-s-jersey-polo-shirt-all-in-m...
I try to completely avoid any synthetics and wish they were taxed into oblivion to account for externalities like polluting entire ecosystems.
Mind you, high quality synthetics are probably fine if you plan on wearing them for 20+ years.
What bothers/worries me is that fast fashion is pretty much entirely synthetics based and sells enormous quantities.
I'm oblivious to fashion, much less fast fashion ;-)
Is there an ecologically responsible way to use synthetic clothing? Natural materials are not without their environmental impact either.
But I am trying to avoid plastic clothes because of their environmental impact, and possible leachate ending up in (or through) my skin.
Wool, and cotton/wool blends work for me even in the summer. Amazingly a return to my childhood in this regard! But they are a little more work to look after than the plastics.
Well documented problem. There has been a drastic decline in production of high quality cotton over the past two decades. I think the biggest change has been in Egypt, but there was also a major shift in USA production. Lower quality cotton gets larger crops and has been more profitable. Egyptian cotton used to be high quality because a government agency forced farmers to produce the better stuff in order to maintain the reputation of "Egyptian Cotton". The political turmoil after the Arab Spring disrupted that. You can find many articles about the resulting decline in quality of cotton clothing and bed linen.