It’s Carnaval week/month in Bolivia – the time of year when most beer is drunk. Beer prices have just gone up again, now reaching an outrageous Bs. 9, or more, for a small can of standard beer in supermarkets. This corresponds to USD 3.64 for 1 liter of beer, way more than it costs in rich countries such as Denmark.
If we take into account the low level of wages in Bolivia and the high prices of beer, Bolivia becomes one of the most expensive places in the world for beer lovers. On average, Bolivians have to work about 145 minutes to afford 1 liter of beer (1), whereas in the United States on average they only have to work for 10 minutes (see figure 1).
Figure 1: Minutes of work required to purchase 1 liter of beer in a supermarket
Source: Author’s elaboration based on data from The Economist + Bolivian data (http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/09/daily-chart-13?zid=319&ah=17af09b0281b01505c226b1e574f5cc1)
Today, the popular anthropology site PopAnth published an article by INESAD’s Ioulia Fenton in which she reflects on her time living and researching in Guatemala and the shopping experience that helped her feel more connected with food and the local people who produced and sold it.
Shopping for the human connection?
By Ioulia Fenton
In Guatemala I was addicted, truly addicted, to my morning regimen. No, it wasn’t a catch up to the day’s news on my iPad with a cup of coffee from Starbucks. Nor was it my favourite bowl of cereal or brand of orange juice. It wasn’t even a luxurious shower or a sleep-in. It was something much more sacred: a daily experience that allowed me to indulge in what makes us human — connections with others. Read More »
As shown in our post “Is there more to life than money? Mapping happiness of people and planet”, several attempts have been made to measure happiness and wellbeing globally. However, consensus proved elusive since different studies brought very diverse results. That is because happiness is a very hard thing to define – if it had a clear, objective definition, our lives would be a lot easier, wouldn’t they? Still, there are several working definitions, and most of them can be grouped in either of the following two categories. On one hand, there is a happiness that relates to one’s satisfaction with their lives. That often involves a feeling of having achieved one’s goals in life, having an option not to work in an extremely degrading job, having good relationships, etc. On the other hand, there is a more emotional happiness. That is much more momentary, it is the “state of mind of feeling good”. According to the latter definition, one’s happiness would be measured by how often, how intensely, and for how long one “feels good”.Read More »
Two days before Christmas I spent an hour watching a beggar. Would you like to hazard a guess at how many people gave to her? She was an old woman. She looked ancient but was probably only 50 or 60 years old. She was shriveled and doubled over to the extent that she took up little more than the space of an average TV set on one of La Paz’s busiest pavements. And her spindly wrist stuck out of this buddle desperately imploring passers-by to spare a coin or two. But no, hearts didn’t jump. Even in the peak of their Christmas generosity people were not going to jolted into giving by this pitiful sight and, in the end, out of the hundreds that went past, just six people stopped to drop a coin into her hand.
I tend to get pretty down after reading many economic, international development and environmental books—factual, fiction or otherwise. If you do not know what I mean, I highly recommend reading Daniel Quinn’s 1992 novel Ishmael. Set up as a conversation between a teacher and student, where the former happens to be a hyper-intelligent, talking gorilla, the book slowly takes the reader through environmental philosophy on how we have managed to get ourselves into the present day environmental mess. Read More »
“When the last tree is cut down, the last fish eaten, and the last stream poisoned, you will realize that you cannot eat money,” Native American saying
“Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs,” Brundtland Report
It is undeniable that our current way of life is unsustainable; If every country consumed resources and created waste at the same per person rate as the United States, we would need three to five planets to survive. Part of the problem lies in the fact that economics—the major discipline advising global and national policy—has failed to include the environment in its calculations. To rectify this problem, different methods have been proposed, so as to make predictions and come up with better ways of managing the planet’s resources without compromising the future.
July 4, 2012Conservation, ConsumerismComments Off on No We Didn’t Have This Green Thing In Our Day
“There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you”.
J.K. Rowling 2008 Harvard Commencement Speech (available as transcript and video)
Anyone interested in conservation or other environmental issues will undoubtedly put at least a considerable chunk of the responsibility for our current predicament onto our parents’ and grandparents’ generations. Although there may be some truth in that, if we are really honest with ourselves, few find it hard to live up to environmental principles today – we all enjoy the conveniences of the world we condemn. Read More »
Last week Development Roast asked you what you would pay for a beautiful purple butterfly silk shawl if you received positive information about the social and environmental conditions under which it was produced.
Now how would you view products of lesser credentials if you received more relevant information about them?
Would you buy this gorgeous Thai silk pashmina if its tag said this: Read More »
Imagine yourself in a different world. You wake up on an ordinary sunny weekend morning like any other and go shopping for a birthday gift for your mum. You go to her favourite high street retailer and find the perfect looking present, a beautiful silk shawl. You look for the price, but instead of a normal price tag indicator, you find a fold out label like THIS. What would you pay?
Do you think that changing our shopping environments would encourage more ethics, responsibility and sustainability? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Ioulia Fenton leads the food and agriculture research stream at the Center for Economic and Environmental Modeling and Analysis (CEEMA) at INESAD.
Development Roast Giving international development a proper roasting
Today, the popular anthropology site 
I tend to get pretty down after reading many economic, international development and environmental books—factual, fiction or otherwise. If you do not know what I mean, I highly recommend reading Daniel Quinn’s 1992 novel 
“There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you”.
Last week
