And in pre-industrial societies, peasants (almost entirely women, ranging from children to the elderly) commonly spent around 100 hours of labor to produce a single square yard of fabric to clothe their families (fabric was too expensive for peasants to buy, so most spun it at home).
replySo yeah, considering how necessary fabric is to human life, that isn't a terribly surprising figure.
Citation for the 100-ish hours: https://acoup.blog/2025/09/26/collections-life-work-death-an...
There has to be a sweet spot between someone hand spinning wool for 100s of hours and an automated factory spitting 80% polymer based clothing directly into a trash can.
replyMan, I really can't see your point. And so...?
replyFashion? No, absolutely not. Textiles in general? Maybe, but almost certainly not.
replyThis is the actual quote on the page you cite:
"Today, the combined textile and apparel sectors contribute as much as 8–10% of global greenhouse gas emissions."
Notice the unusual way they spell "fashion"...
Right, textiles are much bigger than fashion - bedding, furniture upholstery, curtains, some types of shelter, practical items like footwear, protective equipment, medical equipment and dressings, vehicle interiors... pretty much all aspects of human life depend on textiles. It ain't just cheap t shirts and dresses.
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replyCheap clothing is a civilizational achievement and good for human welfare.
replySo carbon emissions are bad, but then we should price carbon and not micromanage clothing inventory.
Clothing everyone is an achievement, but fast fashion is overshooting that target.
replyA bit like feeding everyone vs. having an obesity crisis.
Polyester has been a disaster for clothing. I'd love to see countries come up with a plan to cut down on the amounts of plastic crap being pumped out.
replyPerfectly summed up
replyGetting common goods less expensive is good, making them too cheap is not. Imagine you are optimizing a math model, but nothing actually has prices. You just get a garbage point as optimum. You need to have scarcity, so that a system that optimizes the allocation of scarce goods actually works.
replyFor comparison, crypto and datacenters constituted 2% in 2022 (probably 3%+ now): https://www.imf.org/en/blogs/articles/2024/08/15/carbon-emis...
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