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The Hidden Environmental Cost of Amazon Prime's Free, Fast Shipping (buzzfeednews.com)
Amazon's Prime Day shopping spree offers free, fast shipping -- but experts say there's a hidden environmental cost that doesn't show up on the checkout page. From a report: Expedited shipping means your packages may not be as consolidated as they could be, leading to more cars and trucks required to deliver them, and an increase in packaging waste, which researchers have found is adding more congestion to our cities, pollutants to our air, and cardboard to our landfills. Free and fast shipping has always been a Prime membership's marquee perk -- one that's drawn in over 100 million subscribers who pay $119 annually. A 2017 study by UPS found that nearly all (96%) US customers had made a purchase on a marketplace like Amazon or Walmart, and over half (55%) said free or discounted shipping was the primary reason.
[...] That convenience is encouraging people in the US to buy more, and to make more individual purchases rather than placing a single order for several items. "There are more sales in lower-price products online than there have been in stores," Marshal Cohen, chief industry advisor at the NPD Group, told BuzzFeed News. And all of those transactions are negatively impacting our planet, according to Miguel Jaller, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Davis: "People are consuming more. There's more demand created by the availability of these cheap products and cheap delivery options."
[...] That convenience is encouraging people in the US to buy more, and to make more individual purchases rather than placing a single order for several items. "There are more sales in lower-price products online than there have been in stores," Marshal Cohen, chief industry advisor at the NPD Group, told BuzzFeed News. And all of those transactions are negatively impacting our planet, according to Miguel Jaller, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Davis: "People are consuming more. There's more demand created by the availability of these cheap products and cheap delivery options."
Ah. I see.
You're right. And the hundreds of years of economic actions that allowed for the creation of the computer you are using to post on the internet to this website... are wrong and should be abolished..
Got it..
If you're looking to escape the "wrecking [of] this planet", might I suggest the northwoods of Minnesota or Wisconsin, or the foothills of Montana or the Dakotas. You'll need to learn how to subsistence farm--though in MN & WI you can get quite a bit by "gathering". And you'll need to learn how to hunt (I guess with a bow, since guns are part of that abstract thing that is "wrecking this planet"--and you wouldn't want to participate in that) and, of course skin and butcher your meat. I'd suggest canning the veggies you get, but that would require purchasing mason jars and canning lids (to avoid botulism--and the resulting painful death), and freezing things would require purchasing "planet-wrecking" freezer. So you'll have to dry everything. Hopefully it's sunny wherever you choose to live..
And... I'm sorry to say that things will get rather bleak as you get older. When your eyesight goes and the arthritis sets in, it's going to be a pain in the ass to walk to the outhouse (plumbing is a major part of the economy, therefore bad...right?)..
TL;DR:.
Grow up.
Careful... she might become an Amazon driver...