Were humans harmed in the making of your shiny gadget? | Lucy Siegle | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk:
It has to be said that we don't help ourselves as consumers. Sometimes, the aesthetics and cool of a product eclipse the ethics so thoroughly that we are pathetically seduced.
As you probably suspect, I'm typing this on a MacBook Air. US writer Wendell Berry says: "The global economy institutionalises a global ignorance, in which producers and consumers cannot know or care about one another, and in which the histories of all products will be lost. In such a circumstance, the degradation of products and places, producers and consumers is inevitable." Yes, these products make hypocrites of us all.
