Ethics/Environmental Concerns Regarding Pipe Tobacco Cultivation

[aldecaker]

No one seems to think twice (especially approaching the gift-orgy of Christmas time) about buying literal tons of cheap plastic crap manufactured in China, which as bigpond pointed out, is currently leading the league in various human rights depredations.
Not only do we support child labor this way, as an added bonus, we enthusiastically ensure a lack of American manufacturing jobs, promoting onshore unemployment, and ensure the highest possible level of environmental pollution by voting with our wallets to have these products manufactured in a land completely bereft of evironmental conciousness or regulation. To cut a long rant short, diamond engagement ring, cup of coffee, or bar of chocolate, anyone? I'm pretty sure my pipe smoking is no more a contributor to world problems than anything the entire rest of society is doing even as we speak, do-gooder nosenheimers and all.

 

[shikano53]

You could move to Mars. Think of the opportunities you would have? You wouldn't have to worry about over population and you could grow your own tobacco. As an extra bonus you could smoke naked wherever you wanted, even while harvesting your crop. Another bonus would be you wouldn't have to worry about global warming would he Cosmic? I mean don't get me wrong, I totally do not believe in global warming but if it is real, I think every planet should have one. A tobacco crop I mean, not global warming. Global warming is totally bad. Bad. Bad. Bad global warming. Also just for the record I'm totally against child labor. But please clarify something for me. I'm totally for my two grandsons shoveling my driveway in the winter even though the snow shovel is twice as high as they are. Is that considered child labor? But to add to the confusion you see, I pay them for shoveling snow. The little extortionists get ten bucks each, or a handful of chocolate chip cookies and they demand payment in advance! And then to add insult to injury the dreaded grandma person will start with the nag, nag, nag. "Chris, go help the boys! There's too much snow for them." "It's OK it will build character.""Go help them."

"OK, OK, at which point I creak my way out of my rocking chair, unwrap my blanket, put on my rubber boots and overcoat and go help the boys. I'm just a sodden broken down old guy with rumatiz. Gotta watch my rumatiz. And then we all end up in the kitchen drinking hot chocolate and eating fresh chocolate chip cookies. The two little rug rats grin triumphantly at me, each of them ten bucks richer. Now I ask you is that child labor or senior abuse? Minutia, I know. Maybe I'll move to Mars and smoke my pipe in naked bliss while planting my non-child-labor tobacco. Hopefully I won't have to shovel snow though. There is a limit to what I will do naked. After all, I'm just a broken down old codger.

 

[perdurabo]

Sorry shikano53, looks like The Martians screwed up the atmosphere millions of years before we could get a chance. All those darn Martian suv's.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

In 2015 the US instituted policy to raise the minimum age of tobacco field workers to 18.

When I think of "Child Labor" I think of making kids do thinks that put them in jeopardy or cause potential harm, like getting boiling grease spilled on them, machines eating arms and legs, or some evil guy rounding up street urchins for sweatshops. When I worked on the farm, we all walked away slapping backs and feeling really good about doing something together to help the family. It really didn't seem like a job. Yes, it was work, hard work, but it's not like we were sticking our arms in machinery or anything.
I guess it's the morons out there making their own kids stick their hands into dangerous machines or getting poisons on them. And, it is a possibility that this happens. But, I'd really want to see some numbers before I'd support removing children from working on a farm. Picking tomatoes, peaches, planting, hoeing rows, even mild work helping to upkeep livestock. There is much that can be dome on a farm that can better a child's character and family ties. There would have to be substantially high numbers of morons hurting kids for me to support something like an 18 year old age cap on farm work.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

How is this thread like the naked smoking one? You lost me on this.

 

[shikano53]

I hear you man. When I was kid, for years I thought my name was 'Take Out The Garbage' and my brothers name was 'Cut The Grass'. One night I said, "Psst, hey Grass-boy, let's make a break for it"?"

"OK Garbage, where should we go?"

"Mars! you go first."

"OK!"

"Great, write me when you get there!" That was sixty years ago and I haven't seen my brother since. But I'm sure he's fine somewhere on Mars cutting the grass. Naked of course.

 

[davet]

 

[shikano53]

Davet, HA HA HA! Good one.

 

[shikano53]

How is this thread like the naked smoking one? You lost me on this.
OK, OK, gesh. Let me collect my thoughts before I answer that one. Do you have any idea how long it takes an old guy like me to collect his thoughts? Eh? First I have to get up. Then I have to get my thought collector bucket. Sometimes it takes me all day to collect my thoughts and then I have to make a list. By then it's bed time and I've forgotten where I put my thought collector bucket.

 

[gloucesterman]

I thought the article was a little short on statics and long on generalizations. Farming communities have historically worked long hours especially at harvest time and the 2/3 number doesn't mean much if the sample was 3.

 

[bigpond]

Haaaaaa haaaaaa The Gaurdian as a source, now you have really lost me, Bigpond

The Guardian isn't the source of the data or even it's analysis it's merely rebranding the story for it's target audience, like every internet media outlet. The author of that article is a freelance journalist who essentially just reblogged the story. Here are a host of other outlets that published the same story. Perhaps one of which will jive with your own metrics.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/business/just-13-and-working-risky-12-hour-shifts-in-the-tobacco-fields.html

http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/health/hrw-children-tobacco-workers-report/

https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/05/14/us-child-workers-danger-tobacco-farms

http://www.nclnet.org/president_obama_should_act_to_protect_child_tobacco_farmworkers
It's all really a red herring though if you dismiss an issue merely due to a publisher it's likely this isn't an issue you care about.

I guess it's the morons out there making their own kids stick their hands into dangerous machines or getting poisons on them. And, it is a possibility that this happens. But, I'd really want to see some numbers before I'd support removing children from working on a farm. Picking tomatoes, peaches, planting, hoeing rows, even mild work helping to upkeep livestock. There is much that can be dome on a farm that can better a child's character and family ties. There would have to be substantially high numbers of morons hurting kids for me to support something like an 18 year old age cap on farm work

There's a disconnect between farm kids picking peaches at grampa's orchard and 12 year old migrant workers that have virtually no legal protection. It's worse in Malawi. But whatever, the information is easy to find you someone wants to look.

I'm pretty sure my pipe smoking is no more a contributor to world problems than anything the entire rest of society is doing even as we speak

Sh!t's bad all over, just like always.
Edit:

How is this thread like the naked smoking one? You lost me on this.

On par, from an intellectual level.

 

[jpmcwjr]

A possibility, though I think it's remote, and not going to happen with Big Tobacco: Similar to what's going on in some sectors of the high end coffee trade, growers and distributors will advertise "fair trade", "organic" (that may also be a red herring), and "no child labor involved", putting a bit of pressure on others to do the same. I am not holding my breath!

 

[perdurabo]

Dang, Bigpond, like The Gaurdian wasn't enough, you pulled the Ny Slimes and the Commie News NeckTwerk Into the convo. I wouldn't waste the brain cells to sift through the spin. But I will say it doesn't take a journalist to tell me that some poor child in Africa is forced to labor for some tyrant in Malawi. Hell, its the UN that prop up these institutions in Africa to began with, point your digits at them. Support free market and these problems will began to be a problem of the past.

 

[warren]

It is the free market at work. Most people look for value, as they define it, not work force or labor conditions. The third world supplies cheap labor and the market takes advantage of such.

 

[perdurabo]

Sorry Warren, but there is no free market at work anywhere on Earth right now. Business hides behind the government waiting for a bail out when they make terrible decisions. Unions have invaded many work spaces crushing businesses from the inside out. Competition doesn't drive our market or the world economy.

 

[aldecaker]

@Perdurabo: I am not being sarcastic when I say that I would like to hear your idea of free market.

 

[pappymac]

Perdurabo makes some points I heartily agree with. Sorry if I offend anyone, but unions have become more corrupt than the Mafia and do more to drive businesses into bankruptcy today than any other factors. And who really gets screwed? The business owners and the workers who lose their livelihoods while the fat cat union officials make millions.
But that's just my opinion.
As for the original post, it's very simple. The world is filled with injustice but whether something is an injustice or part of a country's culture is dependent on who you are asking. For example, everyone would agree that child prostitution is terribly wrong yet there are countries where it is common today and very little is done to stop it. The working conditions in China are terrible when we look at it from the outside, but it is the work culture of that country.
This leaves us all with two choices.

1. Stop buying anything that offends us or is produced in a manner we disapprove of - including anything that is grown on a farm because a child may have set foot in the field.
2. Keep Calm and Smoke On.

 

[lochinvar]

I would just quit smoking. If your ethics on everything have to be so assuaged, I can suggest a few good monasteries in Nepal.

 

[aldecaker]

I also am in general agreement with Perdurabo regarding the union thing. It's all fun and games until you price yourself out of a job and a company out of business.

 

[perdurabo]

Look I didn't come here to do politics, but sometimes things can't escape the political thumb because of the Statist intrusion into our lives on all levels. Aldecaker Capitalism is total free market. No Government involvement at all. We can look to the creation of the Fed Reserve, where Crony Capitalism took complete control of free markets. Creating this Keynesian-Marxist socialism that we now reside under. There has to be competition on all levels of business. Accepting the fact that business is private property and that private property can be ran into the ground and no one is there to lift it out of the oblivion in which its Captains drove it, is paramount to a free market. Trial and error is part of the human condition. I always like to say " Jesus would have done better to teach his Apostles to fish, than to create fish from nothing". Their failure was the elixir to their success. By the way Crony Capitalism is socialism and destroys competition and personal responsibility which are basic tenets to our founding philosophy.