Science Friday - Degrees Of Change: Climate And Fashion. Sept 20, 2019, Part 1

Episode Date: September 20, 2019

Climate change has been trending in the news recently—and if there’s one industry out there that knows something about trends, it’s the fashion industry. Long known for churning out cheap garments and burning through resources, some fashion labels like fast fashion giant H&M are now embracing sustainable fashion trends. But can this industry—which is responsible for 8% of global carbon emissions—really shed its wasteful business model in favor of one with a lower carbon footprint? Marc Bain, a fashion reporter at Quartz, Maxine Bédat from the New Standard Institute, and Linda Greer, global policy fellow with the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs talk with Ira about the industry’s effort to reduce its climate impact. Plus, a check in on the Trump administration's rollback of the Clean Air Act waiver, and more of the week's biggest climate headlines.  Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

This is Science Friday. I'm Iroflato. The climate is changing, and because we need to deal with it now, we open the next chapter of our series, degrees of change. Our series explores the challenges of a changing climate and how we as a planet and a people are adapting to the crisis. And it's produced this week as part of the global collaboration covering climate now. Coming up, we'll talk about how the fashion industry is rebranding itself in the era. of climate change, but first we check in on the gatekeepers, the decision makers, the controllers of the purse strings. President Trump is wrestling with the state of California over who gets to define auto-emission standards for the state, California or the federal government. This week,

his administration dealt a provisional blow by rolling back a waiver that allowed California to set stricter regulations than the federal government, thus encouraging automakers to follow their lead. The president tweeted that as a result of the move, quote, older, highly polluting cars will be replaced by new extremely environmentally friendly cars. How's that going to work exactly? Scott Waldman is the White House reporter at E&E News in Washington. Welcome back to Science Friday. Thanks for having me, Ira. Extremely environmentally friendly cars by loosening the regulations. Unpack that for us, Scott. Well, cars are just by the nature of technological innovation getting more and more environmentally friendly already.

But the Trump administration is going after the Obama administration's plan to reduce, excuse me, the Obama administration plan to increase fuel efficiency of vehicles. And the Trump administration is rolling those back so that cars won't get as much per gallon of gas in the future as they would have under the Obama plan. So it's certainly suspect if he's claiming that their plan is better than Obama's in terms of the impact on the environment. But haven't the four car companies already who agreed to this, said they're going to go along with it anyhow voluntarily? Yeah, that's right. And that's interesting. The actual companies themselves want to go with the Obama administration plan or something closer to it. They, of course, were critical of the Obama administration plan, but then worked out a deal with the Obama administration to make cars more fuel efficient.

I think it's really the oil and gas industry, the American Petroleum Institute, that is driving the Trump administration to roll back these emissions, it's not the car companies themselves. All right. Up next, we've talked about how the White House was assembling a, quote, a climate review panel with the goal of discrediting the accepted science of climate change. Now the panel is no more? That's right. It sort of got killed off, and we talked about that last time, it got killed off a couple months ago. But notably, Will Happer, Emeritus Princeton professor who was driving this at the National Security Council. He resigned last week after Bolton resigned.

He insisted that it wasn't a result of Bolton's resignation, but rather that he had always planned to leave in a year, which I believe is true. However, he would have stayed on if this plan had moved forward. And what killed it off was pressure within the White House itself. Larry Cudlow was pressing against it. The president's science advisor, Calvin Drogamire, was also pressuring to have this plan killed off. And as was the campaign. They didn't want basically a panel that would reflect on straight up science denial to be another point for Democrats to attack them on the campaign trail leading up to 2020. Another story you wrote about is how former Secretary of Defense James Mattis is now talking about climate change.

Yeah, and it's notable. And for his whole career, he has viewed climate change as a threat. He says it does threaten national security. You know, he operates purely outside of politics in this realm. And since he has left the White House about a year ago, he has been vocal about this, and particularly recently he has a book that he's published, that he's promoting. But he's said a couple times that this is, you know, a major problem. and we need to address it as a national security issue, which is actually indirect contradiction to what the White House is claiming.

So we've always heard that the Pentagon thinks of it as a threat to national security, and now James Mattis is backing that up. That's right. And there was a study recently that showed he is going to be an influential voice on this issue. It shows that voters look to both military leaders as well as, believe it or not, Republicans on climate. issue just because there's simply more voters on that side that could be swayed. I'd like now to turn to the climate strike at kicking off today around the world. Here's what it sounded like today as marchers made their way down Broadway in New York City as far as the eye could see. And I want to bring on someone who's been studying who's turning up for

these protests here in the U.S. and what that might mean for the next election. Dana R. Fisher is the author of the forthcoming book, American Resistance. and a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland. Welcome to Science Friday, Dr. Fisher. Thank you for having me, Ira. You've been studying the Youth Climate Movement and Fridays for Future, and you've been out there surveying people today in D.C. What are you finding?

Well, I can tell you that there was a very big turnout here in Washington, D.C. I can tell you that we haven't yet analyze the data because they're still sitting on the tablets where we collected them, but we did get a sample of about 200 people, the crowd, and I can tell you that only about 3% of them were under the age of 12. So most of them were older, but I can't give you a distribution right now. I do know a lot about the organizers for all the events around the country, and I'm happy to tell you about that.

Please, go ahead. Well, what I can tell you about the organizers, we finished a survey of the organizers for all the events that were taking place around the country. That's 633 events that were registered across the country. And I can tell you that the people who were organizing these events, the median age for them, was 25%, 25 years old, 25% of them were under the age of 18, and about 50% of them are under the age of 25. But what's really interesting here is over 75% of the people organizing these events will be eligible to vote in 2020.

You know, listening to the sounds from the protest in New York, it so reminds me of covering protests in the Vietnam era or the civil rights era. It sounds zeroly the same. Well, what's interesting is that if you listen to those chants, you see that there are a lot of, there's a lot of discussion going on the climate movement around using more confrontational tactics, not a peaceful march, but they're talking now about shutting down. In fact, they're planning on shutting down D.C. on Monday, I don't know if they'll be successful. But one of the things I can tell you from surveying the organizers is that 61% of the organizers report in the past year having participated in direct action, which is more confrontational than a peaceful protest or strike. And that means that they're armed and available to participate in more confrontational tactics if and when they deem it necessary. So there are lots of tools of democracy that they have available to them and they'll take advantage of them if they think that progress is not being made. Well, as usual, protests in the streets bring visibility to an issue.

But what about people who say, well, the real way to affect change is to influence elected officials. Are these young people doing that as well? Oh, they certainly are. In fact, one of the things that I'm really surprised by is I just, as you know, I finished analyzing some of these data last night. And I found that the people who have organized these events across the country are more civically engaged than even the activists who were involved in the movement in summer 2019 just a few months ago. 83% of them reported contact in their elected official in the past year. that is remarkably high and statistically significantly higher than the general American population. 77% of them reported having attended a town hall meeting in the past year, which is also high.

And that's substantially higher than what the activists had reported back in the summer. Are any of these people telling you who they favor in the upcoming elections? They did today, but I haven't analyzed those data yet. So if you want to talk about that, I should have that data analyzed by tomorrow morning. All right. We'll make an appointment. Scott, any indications in the poll, whether climate is an issue for young Republican voters as well?

Yeah, I think we're definitely seeing an increase in that. And we're seeing even some groups being formed by young Republicans. There was one this week in D.C., the American Conservation Coalition, testifying on Capitol Hill about the need for Republicans to do more on this. I think, you know, if you go to somewhere like CPAC, the conservative political action committee, their annual gathering, you'll hear young people talking about how they want, young conservatives, I should say, talking about how they want their leaders to actually address

this issue. Younger voters are turning away from just straight up climate denial. And I think they're still scrambling up here in Capitol Hill to sort of learn how to basically meet the needs of the younger voters and also meet the needs of their older voters, many of whom have been convinced that climate science is wrong. You've been following politics in Washington. Ted, I'm so surprised and shocked how fast climate has risen as a political issue in just two years. I mean, I can't say that enough.

You know, I've been covering this issue for a number of years, and it's amazing that there's not one but two presidential event, presidential candidate events that we've had in the last few weeks, one on CNN and the other on MSNBC, where the, where candidates are talking just about climate. I mean, even among Democrats in 2016, this was a relatively minor. issue took a back burner to health care and immigration and other, you know, more urgent concerns at the time. So to see it really vaulted forward this way is nothing short of extraordinary.

Dr. Fisher used to be that if you wanted to get people's attention, you had to march on Washington. But it looks like now we're seeing more of these marches scattered all around the country. Is this the era of the large gathering, that era, on the mall over? Well, I wouldn't say it's over, Ira. What I would say is that nowadays a large-scale market. which will take place in multiple locations simultaneously is the beginning of activism, not the end of it. And in fact, what I talk about in my new book American Resistance is how distributed organizing,

which is made possible by all the digital tools that the young people are using so much of, but we all have access to and embrace in many ways in our lives, those digital tools are making it possible for people across the country to coordinate at such a level that they can hold an event in Valdez, Alaska today as holding an event, a climate strike, and they're using the same logo and they're using the same mobilization tools that they're using here in Washington, D.C. So that's thanks to this technology.

Yeah, so instead of having one giant crowd of people, you see hundreds of them around the country, and it amplifies the vision we see on the evening news. I want to thank all of you for taking time to be with us. Dana R. Fisher, author of the forthcoming book, American Resistance, professor of sociology at the University of Maryland,

and also Scott Waldman, White House Reporter at E&E News in Washington. Thank you both for coming on and talking about the March today. Thank you so much, Ira. You're welcome. We're going to take a break. When we come back, we're going to continue our climate change issues. Climate change has gotten trendy, at least where the fashion industry is concerned.

We're going to talk about how brands are looking to reduce their carbon footprint. Coming up after the break, stay with us. This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flato. Continuing our coverage about the changing. climate in the Degrees of Change series. It appears now, if you just heard our last segment. It seems like the whole world has suddenly been talking about climate change.

All week, you've been hearing our partners in the media report about climate change as part of the journalism initiative covering climate now. And of course, today, students and people around the world are a skipping school in support of taking action against climate change as part of the global youth climate strike. And yes, it seems one. Like right now, you could say climate change is trending, as they say in the business. And if there's one business out there that knows something about trends, it's the fashion industry. Long known for marketing inexpensive garments, some fashion labels like fast fashion giant H&M are now embracing sustainable fashion trends.

Nike is reportedly grinding up old and surplus shoes to make running surfaces. But can the fashion industry, which is responsible for 8% of global. carbon emissions, can it retool to lower its carbon footprint? And whose responsibility is it to ensure clothing is sustainable? The clothing brands, the textile manufacturers, or are you the consumer? Well, we posed that question to you on the Science Friday Vox Pop app, and here's some of what you had to say. It is absolutely the consumer's responsibility to ensure that clothing is sustainable.

The suppliers' motive lies in profit, and it is not always the most profitable to make sustainable clothing. Number one, I think, are the textile manufacturers as they sort of lead the way, because if they are making the textiles that clothing brands are ordering, they should be sure that whatever they're making won't be harmful to our environment in any way. I think the ultimate responsibility for sustainable clothing rests with the clothing brands themselves. Tremendous profits are made simply by placing a designer label on any article of clothing. Brand companies should be required to reinvest a portion of these profits into developing products which can be easily recycled or repurposed by consumers.

That was Anna from Las Vegas, Rachel from New York, and Kim from Pennsylvania. And that's the topic we'll be addressing today in the latest chapter of our Degrees of Change series. And here to talk about it with us is Mark Bain, fashion reporter for Quartz. Welcome to Science Friday. Hi. Thanks for having me. And Maxine Beda, Executive Director of the New Standard. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

That's the New Standard Institute. That's right. Correct. Maxine, let me start with you. Where does the fashion industry get this reputation for wastefulness and environmental pollution? Well, it gets this reputation from the facts, which is, as you had mentioned at the outset, that the apparel industry is responsible for 8% of the total global carbon footprint. and it is just projected to increase from there for not changing anything.

So the reputation is coming from the facts, and the facts are driven by several things. One is the fast fashion players that you mentioned. We are wearing our clothing more, we're buying clothes faster than we ever have before and getting rid of them just as fast. And so we have a system that's really on overdrive producing in countries that have very low regulatory environment. So it's combining, creating a real catastrophic mess for the environment. And Mark, I said in the intro that climate change is trendy. As a fashion reporter, do you see evidence of brands following a trend responding to this? Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know,

it's something that over the past several years I've noticed just become a bigger and bigger focus among brands and also consumers. I do wonder just how much awareness there is out there among the average fashion consumer, but certainly like when you're talking to brands, they're saying that from what they hear from their consumers, that they're concerned about sustainability and climate change, and brands are taking steps. You can debate whether they're enough,

but they are taking some steps to mitigate their impact. Let me just remind our listeners. you can give us a call 844-724-8255 you can also tweet us at a sye fry are they are they voluntarily making these changes and give me an idea of some of the changes that you were talking about yeah i think they are voluntarily making the changes just because there's no no you know greater authority telling them they have to do it consumers want this did they want this and that's what That's why they're changing. Yeah, I mean, arguably, I think, you know, there's still some debate about whether consumers are willing to actually pay more for more sustainable products. There is some evidence that they will. I think brands, though, are kind of, especially fashion brands, are taking it upon themselves to kind of get ahead of the backlash before it really happens. And you see that with some companies like H&M.

You see all sorts of climate pact recently at the G7 carrying the luxury group that owns companies like Gucci and Saint Laurent. Brought together all these different companies like major fashion and footwear companies to join this environmental pact and that sort of thing. That was all voluntary. It was at the behest of France's president that they did it. But, you know, there's no punishment if they don't. Maxine, do you agree? Do you, you know, because what we've seen and listening to people who are really in the forefront of the change in the marches today, there's so many young people. I mean, you know, people below the age of 25 who are out there, and these would seem to be the prime audience, the prime consumers that the fashion people would be looking at.

I think it's a little tricky with the fashion space when you say that sustainability is trending because one could paint that isn't it great? the fashion companies are jumping on board and they are looking to reduce their carbon footprint. But we're not necessarily seeing that. You know, I've seen on presentations, and I'm sure these are presentations from fashion companies all around where it's Pocodot is in, leopard print is in, and O Sustainability is in. What is that sustainable product we can push out there so that people are buying more? That is, of course, antithetical to really what is a major problem. and driver of the challenge and of the carbon footprint, which is just how much is being produced.

So, yeah, I think we're seeing as more and more people are finding out about what the problem is with regard to fashion, more consumers and the young generation are interested. But it's whether these pacts and promises and, quote, commitments that brands are making, whether they are actually scientifically leading to any change. Well, let's get into the science of consumerism and recycling here. What are they doing? Where does the great waste come in the production of fast fashion or any fashion? Yeah, so I think the thing for listeners to keep in mind,

and we're not so aware of, I think, especially in the United States, because while we still see farms, we don't see much manufacturing. And today, less than 2% of our clothing is actually produced in the United States. So we don't really see these factories. and it isn't so visceral the way it was, you know, in the 60s when clothing was manufactured here. But if we think about just how clothing is produced, you either are starting with an oil rig or a farm, you're having to actually create the fibers. Those fibers are then shipped probably halfway around the world.

Those fibers have to be spun. They have to be woven. Then they're shipped probably into another country to then be cut and sewn. and within that are hundreds of steps. And it's not that a cotton bowl magically becomes the shirt that you're wearing today. That is an incredibly energy-intensive process that requires a lot of hot water, and to create a lot of hot water requires a lot of heat. And so the bulk of your environmental footprint is actually in that textile creation process.

Is there some way to figure out which clothing label is more environmentally aware than any other? Is there a way to figure that out? There is. It's called an LCA Life Cycle Assessment, which is a tool that has been used in other industries as well and should be used more, I would argue, in this industry. And that is a way to actually understand what is the carbon footprint from the very beginning to the very end of the cycle when it ends up in a landfill. We spoke with Shona Quinn, Sustainability Leader for Women's Clothing brand Eileen Fisher about what they found when they found when, they looked at their carbon impact. There aren't a lot of quick fixes when it comes to sustainability in the apparel sector,

the fashion sector. And because, you know, as simple as a T-shirt seems, the supply chain is quite complex, and it passes through a lot of different hands, many times a lot of different countries. So more recently for us, we did a carbon footprint assessment, and we looked at it from, the raw material all the way up to our distribution center. And within the supply chain, what we found was a little bit over a third of the impact is happening at the raw material stage. Another over a third of it is happening at the industrial processing level. So that's the cutting and the sewing, the weaving, the knitting, the dyeing, the spinning.

And then the last piece for us of about 25% is around the shipping and the air versus sea and getting the products from the farm all the way to the distribution center. Marcant brands use the power of the purse then to put pressure on these manufacturers. Yes, they can. It's a bit complicated, though, because, you know, the, this, situation that's been created, the whole system that's set up is arguably a result of the brands and the, you know, the pressures that they've created to produce more stuff at cheaper prices. And in part, you know, the brands are doing that because the more volume they sell, the more money they make. And so you have this inherent tension between selling more clothing, which is going to give you more profits and your your footprint, which the more you sell, you know, the bigger that footprint's going to become. Brands can use their leverage to push on the textile factories and their suppliers and that sort of thing.

But, you know, do they? Probably not enough, at least not from what I've seen. I want to bring on another guest into the discussion. Linda Greer is a senior global fellow at the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, a leading Chinese environmental nonprofit. Welcome to Science Friday. Hi, Ira, how are you? Hi, thank you for joining us.

Sure. What is the relationship between the clothing brand and the textile manufacturers in China? Are they owned by the brands or are they separate? Yeah, for the most part, they're separate. So the brands shop around for suppliers that will give them the best price and the quality that they're looking for. And there's usually a tense relationship between the brand and the manufacturers. The manufacturers feel like, although they hear from the brands that they are interested in sustainability, they don't really get more business for it, that the people from the brands talking to them about the need to reduce their carbon footprint are not the same people from the brands that are placing the orders.

And so there's quite a bit of frustration that there's no business return, so to speak, for good behavior with regards to reducing their footprint. So are the textile manufacturers in China open to making the necessary improvements? Well, their hand is being forced at the moment, actually, because the Chinese are. Chinese government has begun a serious crackdown, both on their pollution and on their carbon through the way that they get their electricity, et cetera. As I'm sure all the listeners know, the pollution problems in China are so egregious that the central government has had to take radical action to try to reduce the footprint there. And as a result, the factories are feeling quite a bit of pressure from inspections and enforcement by the Chinese government, which is something. something that is very, very new to them, only a few years old. And something which is also caught the attention of the brands

because they definitely want a secure and risk-free supply chain so they don't want to see factories being closed suddenly as a result of any reason, including their environmental performance. So times are changing in China quite a bit with regards to pollution. Interesting. I'm Ira Flato. This is Science Friday from WNYC Studios, talking about the fashion industry and global warming climate change. Let's see if we have a couple of interesting tweets coming. Can you talk about whether the new online resale markets like Thread Up and the Pashmark are helping the cause or driving the buy-sell fast market further?

So I'm quite excited by the resale market, which is growing remarkably. The posh market came out that the resale market is growing at 21 times the rate of traditional retail. I think that is something just as a paradigm shift is really exciting to see that even from when I was younger, buying used clothes maybe was looked down upon. and now it's something that is really just very readily accepted. And I think it's kind of those paradigm shifts that we really need to think about that use clothes and wearing your clothes more is something to be excited and celebrate. So I see that as something positive, something we should look into with the data, certainly,

but in terms of user behavior, something that's really exciting. I want to ask you, before we go to the break, the same question we posed to our listeners earlier. whose responsibility is it to make sure fashion is sustainable? Is it the brands, the consumer, or the textile manufacturers? Linda, let me begin with you. I feel strongly that the responsibility lies with the brands, and here's the way that I see it. Do drug companies say to us they're going to wait to hear from their customers

before they make a drug that's safe and effective? No, they just know as a responsible company that's what they're supposed to do. And I think it's a basic business responsibility for a company to take control of their environmental footprint, given the urgency of the situation that we have. So I lay the responsibility fully on the brands. They also conveniently happen to be the party with the leverage to make it happen, because if they did prefer factories who were lowering their footprint with more business, then we would have it going on. But they are really the rate limiting step at the moment. Maxine? Yeah, I mean, I would agree with Linda on that point.

What I would add is brands are certainly directly most responsible and most able to do it, but it's the consumer that's going to drive the brand to do that. And so it's, you know, us, the consumers who have to demand change and demand that shift. So there is that pressure on the companies to make those transitions. What do you say, Mark? I agree with all those points. I think the brands are really the ones who are kind of driving the system. So I think the bulk of the responsibility does lie with them.

And you can argue that everyone has their own little piece of that responsibility. But yeah, I think the brands are really the ones with most of it. I would also add that you can argue that government should be involved and should be helping to regulate this stuff. You know, there's a reason that drug companies are regulated, and you could argue it's a similar sort of point. Yeah, the environment is getting to be life-threatening now. We're going to take a break and come back and talk lots more about the fashion industry and climate change with Mark Bain, Maxine Bidda, and Linda Greer. Our number is 844-825. You can also tweet us at SciFri. Stay with us.

We'll be right back. This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flato. We're going to continue talking this hour about the fashion industry's carbon footprint and how brands are responding to consumer pressure to be more sustainable. Let's turn now to some of the new technologies that are trying to change the fashion industry's supply chain. So instead of garments made from fresh cotton and polyester fibers, your new clothes, so to speak, can now be made from the recycled fibers of old clothes.

Here's what I'm talking about. Stacey Flynn is the founder and CEO of Evernu, one of these new technology companies recycling old clothes. And this is how she describes the process. Evernew is a technology R&D company. We have six different technologies in development right now. And the first technology, we have breaks down cotton garment waste. So basically we take post-consumer cotton garment waste and we take it from a solid, we liquefy it. And then once it's in its liquid form, we can convert it back into a solid form, kind of like when you make pasta.

You can make pasta once you have a dough, you can push it through a pasta maker and you can make linguine or angel hair or lasagna, whatever you want once it's in that form. Our research is all done on post-consumer garment-based. These are the things that we wear, that we are donating potentially or throwing in the garbage. You know, back in 2012, U.S. consumers were throwing away 80% of their textiles directly into the garbage can every year. And at that time, the number was probably 12 million tons of garment waste in the U.S. Today, U.S. consumers are still disposing of 80% of their textiles directly into the garbage, but the number has gone up to closer to 21, 22 million tons of garment waste per year. One of the things that we've been studying is by preventing textiles from entering landfills,

because if a garment enters a landfill, it creates methane. Methane is over 20 times more powerful than CO2. So if we are designing product that never has to enter a landfill, then we've got a massive changing of the tide. That's Stacey Flynn, founder and CEO of Evernew. I'd like to bring in my guests to get their thoughts on this. Still with me are Mark Bain, fashion reporter for Quartz, Maxine Beda, executive director of the New Standard Institute, Linda Greer, senior global fellow at the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs based in Beijing.

Let's talk about what we just heard. Mark, you covered companies like Ever New when you're reporting. What makes recycling textiles such a popular idea now? Well, the volume of waste that she talked about, imagine if you could take that waste instead of putting it into a landfill, chop it down back into raw material, and turn it back into new clothing you can sell. That's a really powerful idea. However, we are very far from any point where that's an actual scalable commercial technology. So it's a really important idea with a lot of potential. It's great that we're researching this, but you can't at this point really buy clothing.

made out of recycled clothing yet. And there's no place to recycle it if you just want to recycle the clothing, right? Unless you bring it to goodwill or somebody else wearing it. There are all sorts of reasons why we're still far from scalable recycling, textile recycling, and that's just one of the reasons. We don't have the infrastructure set up to collect everything. You know, there are also issues with fiber blends, which is something that Evernew was working on. You know, most of the recycling we can do right now.

Like either got to be pure polyester or pure cotton. The methods we have are not great for turning that stuff back into new clothing. If you have a blend of polyester and cotton, which a great deal of clothing today is, again, we can't really do that much with it at this point. And I would just add to the conversation when we, there's so many misconceptions about what happens to our clothing when we get rid of it. And often it is, you know, just said, well, you know, donate it. And it's kind of leave it at that. But there's a whole underworld of the donation, which runs very parallel and similar to what happens when you bring your clothing back, with the exception of Eileen Fisher. But when you are giving your clothing back to these give back programs of brands.

And that is a big percentage of them are being sorted, shipped and sold in the developing world. And I was just in Ghana in July visiting one of these secondhand markets where our donated clothes that don't end up getting sold end up. And I followed the clothing there, which about half of that never actually gets bought and is just going into landfill in Ghana. So we end up actually just exporting the clothing that we don't want anymore to the developing world. When I was in Ghana visiting the landfills where the clothing was ending up, it was actually on fire because the landfill was so over flooded with clothing that the measures in place to protect it were not there. And so I was speaking to one of the sellers at the second hand market. And he said, I just don't understand you Americans. You drive around in his perception in all electric cars, but then you're wearing all these clothing that end up here and we end up burning them.

so I don't understand the math. And I think that to which I said, well, you know, we don't know that part of the story. And I think it's important for people to realize that we need to invest in these big technology solutions, but we also just need to be aware of what happens to our clothing. And I think that will help us all think about that next purchase. Linda, you've expressed doubts about this concept of what's called circular fashion, haven't you? Yes, I have. And I have to say, I mean, I'm a fan of Evernu.

I've followed them pretty closely, and I think they are in some ways unique in that they really are trying to do the life cycle assessment that we talked about earlier and sort of follow the pounds around, which many, many innovations are not doing. So from the glass being half full, I would say, you know, that's a technology well worth following. On the other hand, I agree both with Mark and that what we really have here is a problem of volume of sales and that these technologies are not going to come into being fast enough to rescue us from that. I think listeners ought to take stock that although it's true that recycled fiber would save the impact of growing the fiber or the crude oil that went into, making the synthetic fiber, all the rest of the impacts going into making your clothing, which are considerable in terms of scouring the fabric and bleaching it and then dyeing it,

and then adding softening chemicals and all of this happening in very hot and high-pressure environments in a factory, all of those processes will still go on with a circular economy because the fiber itself will not be a virgin fiber, which is a plus, but the rest of it is still there for us. And the environmental impacts of that manufacturing, of those industrial processes, are larger than other pieces of the puzzle. So there are really something that we have to keep in mind. So, you know, I don't have an objection to it. I just object to seeing it as a silver bullet. I'm going to take a phone call. A lot of people calling in 8447-24-825. Let's go to Stockton, California, with Tyler. Hi, Tyler.

Hi, how are we doing today? Hi, go ahead, please. I was wondering about a lot of these, like, fashion-as-a-service companies that are popping up. I know Nordstrom is partnered with one of them, where you essentially rent clothing and then return it, but I'm wondering, is that a net positive or a net negative, given that there's probably shipping and other infrastructure in between those steps. Linda, Max? Yeah, I think it's a net positive. I mean, going back over what Maxine said earlier, which I strongly agree with, it's on a parallel track in my mind with buying vintage. The less throughput we can have in this industry, the better,

because all of these innovations are just chipping away at what is an enormous carbon and pollution footprint. And so, you know, anything multiplied by a million pieces is a large number. So if we could reduce the number of pieces that are being manufactured by people either renting or buying vintage, I think that's the single most promising immediate step we can take to lower the footprint of this industry. I would agree with Linda. I would add that for these companies, you know, that are growing, these rental companies, are rental initiatives that are growing and receiving so much interest, I think all of that is

great. I think what the companies could do, we keep mentioning this term life cycle assessment, is do the LCA work so that they can really prove. just how beneficial it is. I think that if we could all be armed with that type of data, we could not just know intuitively that it's right, but statistically that it's right, too. You know, our clothing labels come with washing material

and instructions and drying and whatever. Could we make clothing that rates how environmentally big a footprint this thing you bought is? Yeah. In theory, you could. You would have to have somebody actually assessing that the way things are at this point, you would probably be relying on the brands to tell you how sustainable they are and not an independent third party that's going to be brutally honest. And so, you know, there's also all sorts of factors that go into it.

It would be extraordinarily difficult to do that. Unfortunately, one of the things that I feel like we keep coming back to is there really are no great silver bullet solutions. Like, you know, one thing you see a lot from brands is they launch new sustainable collections. That's great. But, you know, what about their main collection and, you know, all the other stuff they're producing? When we talk about how to solve the problem, the solution over and over is to actually just produce less. And nobody seems willing at this point to really commit to that, with a few, you know, exceptions. But if you could make a competition among companies, competitive, that you get to be known as a more sustainable.

corporation people might want to buy your product more. Would they not, Maxi? Yeah, I think absolutely. And the work that we're doing at the New Standard Institute is trying to ask the brands and get consumers to ask brands to disclose what is their carbon footprint, to set targets for what they're going to do to achieve reductions. And ultimately, you know, to scientifically know that we are moving in the right direction, not as Mark said, just producing yet another, quote, sustainable collection. I think going back, you know, to that idea of having a label, it's not impossible.

We could, you know, put the LCA scores. I think it goes back, Mark, to what you were mentioning earlier, which is having regulations. I think if we really just take a step back and look at where we are in the clothing industry with where we were. in the food industry maybe two decades ago, that's where the clothing industry is. We know there's this issue. Consumers are just beginning to see that this is a problem. So, you know, I am hopeful that with more citizen consumer engagement with this issue,

that we really can start to put the right type of pressures on brands, and then, you know, ultimately, hopefully that this is something that is just regulated in the rules of the game. I'm I replator. This is Science Friday from WNYC Studios. We're talking about environmentally responsible clothing and fashion. Let me get a tweet in here because we get this tweet not from the same person all the time, whenever we talk about sustainability. And it goes like, let's hope hemp is discussed. You know, it's one of the most environmentally friendly fabrics along with regenerative wool,

plus, you know, all kinds of things. He goes on. But what about hemp? Does it offer Linda or Maxine, and does it offer a solution to this problem? Or I'll ask Mark. What do you think? Who wants to jump in? Well, hemp is a good fiber.

It is easier to grow than cotton, and it can be grown in places that have less problems with water scarcity. So I don't think there's any big problem with hemp. Is hemp a big solution? I don't think so, really. And that is, again, because, first of all, we can't ignore the majority of the footprint, which is from the industrial processing, shipping, and other things. And also just because, again, getting it up to scale around the world would be challenging. But it's definitely another little chink that we could put into the system

that would reduce the use of cotton, which is itself a very, thirsty and pesticide intensive crop to grow. I want to go back to one more clip from our listeners if they think about sustainability when they make their clothing purchases. And this is what you had to say. I try and buy at least half of my clothing secondhand from places like St. Vincent de Paul or Goodwill. When I buy clothing, I try to make sure that it's of a natural fiber, that it's made locally, sometimes even fair trade or organic.

One thing I'm looking for is a few good pieces that I can wear over and over instead of hundreds of pieces in my closet. I consider the environmental impact of my personal clothing extremely conscientiously when I'm picking out clothes. I choose to visit thrift stores. My professional clothes, their work pants, they're heavy-duty pants. I can't factor in the environmental thoughts for that one, unfortunately. That was Richard from Madison, Laura from Venice, and David from North Carolina. Elena Tamara from Colorado. It seems to be on the minds of people.

Yeah. It's good to hear. So that is a hopeful note, Maxie. Definitely. I think, you know, I came at this. I was a lawyer in the beginning of things, and I, you know, consumed a lot of fast fashion and loved it. And it was only from discovering just what was happening behind the scenes in the industry that I changed. So I have to assume I'm just like a regular person and that, you know, as people are being exposed to what is happening behind the scenes, that the natural reaction is to say, whoa, what can I do?

And I think that's also something that is, you know, when we talk about the climate conversation, you know, fashion is often dismissed. And I wonder why often. I wonder, is it because it's driven, you know, by a lot of women and that can get dismissed. Is it that it's an industry that is far away? And so we don't think about carbon flows and global carbon flows. We just think about, you know, the solar panels that we could put on our house. And so, yeah, I'm hopeful. You're hoping we're talking about it more?

Exactly. People are talking about it more. We're talking about it today. We are. And I think that that's a very exciting progress, and people are beginning to see. And it's a sector that is driven by consumers. And so I think that's an exciting area for change within the climate conversation. We're excited to start this conversation with the Mark Bain, fashion reporter for Quartz,

Maxine Beda, executive director of the New Standard Institute, Linda Greer, Senior Global Fellow at the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs based in Beijing. Thank you all for taking time to be with us today. We want to hear from you. Yes, tell us how your community is adapting or stories you'd like to hear us cover. Go to Science Friday.com slash degrees of change. a voice comment on our new Science Friday Vox Pop app. And for our next chapter, we want to know, have you moved or thought about relocating because of climate change where you live?

Answer that question for us. Download the Science Friday Vox Pop app. Tell us your story, Science Friday Vox Pop. Charles Berkowitz is our director, senior producer Christopher and Taliatta. Our producers are Alex L.L.M., Christy Taylor, and Katie Feather, Technical Engineering, help from Rich Kim and Kavenwolf. Kevin Wolf, BJ Litterman, compose. our theme music and you can download a Science Friday Vox Pop app. Tell us what you think you might hear your comments on the ear. I'm Ira Flato in New York.