A while ago I bought my grandson, a toddler, a bright yellow wooden racing car, for just 99 cents. But then I happened to read that lead in paint makes colors (particularly yellow and red) brighter and last longer; because lead costs less than alternates, cheaper toys are more likely to contain it. I have no idea if the sparkling yellow paint on this toy car harbors lead or not-but now, months later, that sporty racer sits atop my desk. I never gave it to my grandson.
Every item we buy has a hidden price tag: a toll on the planet, on our health and on the people whose labor provides those goods. Each man-made thing has its own web of impacts left along the way from the extraction or concoction of its ingredients, during its manufacture and transport, through its use in our homes and workplaces, to the day we dispose of it. These unseen impacts are incredibly important. For instance, an ingredient in sunscreen primes the growth of a deadly virus in coral reef. Four thousand to 6,000 metric tons of sunscreen wash off swimmers each year worldwide. The dangers are greatest, of course, where the most swimmers are drawn to the beauty of coral reefs.
Our inability to instinctively recognize the connections between our actions and the problems that result from them leaves us wide open to creating the dangers we decry. Our brains are exquisitely attuned to pinpoint and instantly react to a fixed range of dangers, such as snarling animals. But our perceptual system misses the signals when the threat comes in the form of gradual rises in planetary temperature, or minuscule chemicals that build up in our body over time.
Fortunately, the past decade has witnessed the emergence of industrial ecology, a discipline that uses Life-Cycle Assessment (or LCA) to deconstruct any manufactured item into its subsidiary industrial processes and their myriad ecological impacts with great precision. An LCA tracks, say, a glass jar from the initial extraction of the silica from sand through the 48 hours of cooking at 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit all the way through its final disposal. That LCA tells us that heating the furnace accounts for 16 percent of glassmaking's negative impacts; the chemicals released into the air from the glass factory run from relatively high levels of carbon dioxide to trace amounts of toxic metals like cadmium.
LCAs can provide the raw data that let us be ecologically intelligent about what we buy, whether what we care about is the impact on polar bears, or on that especially prized part of nature, our bodies. But LCAs are highly technical, the terrain of industrial engineers. Here's the good news: if I were shopping for kid-safe toys now, I could use GoodGuide, a neat piece of free software that I downloaded the other day on my iPhone. GoodGuide analyzes the results from about 200 technical databases, several of them industrial LCAs, and offers them in an easy-to-use summary.
GoodGuide rates toy cars not just on whether they contain lead, but also other toxic ingredients like mercury, PVC and a list of heavy metals. It also rates them on their environmental impact and the company's social performance, such as whether suppliers use sweatshops.
As shoppers, we finally have sound ways to gauge the hidden consequences of what we buy. By switching to brands that have better profiles, we can shift market share toward ecological benefits. As we tell our family, Twitter our friends and post on Facebook what we have learned, the power of our individual decision multiplies.
Virtually everything we make today was invented or designed in a more innocent time, one when shoppers and industrial engineers alike had the luxury of paying little attention to the adverse impacts of what was made. Instead they were understandably pleased by the benefits: cheap, malleable plastics made from a seemingly endless sea of petroleum; a treasure chest of synthetic chemical compounds; lead powder to add luster and life to paints.
They were oblivious to the costs to our planet and its people of these well-meaning choices. Now that those costs are clear, we need to reinvent just about everything. That vast innovative opportunity gets richer if each of us votes with our dollars. Then doing good becomes synonymous with doing well.
（Adapted from Ecological Intelligence: How Knowing The Hidden Impacts Of What We Buy Can Change Everything. Copyright © 2009 by . Published by Broadway Books, a division of Random House, Inc.）
前一阵子我给还在蹒跚学步的孙子买了一辆色彩鲜艳的黄色木赛车，只花了九毛九。可后来我偶然学到了一点知识：涂料中所含的铅有让色彩更艳丽、使油漆更耐用的作用，特别是红色及黄色涂料；而由于含铅涂料要比其他代用涂料便宜，因此，便宜的玩具含铅的可能性更高。我买的这辆玩具车看上去光彩夺目，我还不敢肯定所用的涂料是不是含铅。但是，都过去几个月了，那辆极具动感的玩具赛车还摆在我的办公桌上，还没送给我的乖孙子。
我们所购买的每一种物品背后，其实都贴着一张无形的价格标签，上面一一记录着我们的地球、我们的健康、还有那些为这些商品付出劳动的人所付出的代价。从各种配料的制备与调配，从生产到运输，从其在日常生活与工作场所中的使用到最后的丢弃，任何人造物品在这整个过程中都会形成一个对环境有重大影响的无形网络，这个无形网络的严重性简直令人难以置信。例如，防晒霜里面就含有一种成份，能大大促进一种生活在珊瑚礁中的致命病毒的生长。每年从全世界泳海者身上冲刷下来的防晒霜就多达4000～6000公吨。当然，凡是最能吸引大量潜水客的美丽珊瑚礁，其（受破坏的）危险性也越大。
对种种人为的危险因素，我们就知道口诛笔伐。殊不知，这些危险恰恰是因为我们在对待自身行为及其后果之间的关系方面存在天生的弱智和无能造成的，这种弱智和无能使我们对这些人为危险因素居然达到了放任自流的地步。人脑的调频范围似乎是固定不变的：对那些显而易见的危险因素而言，它倒是相当精巧，极其灵敏，比如对那些会张牙舞爪的动物，人类都懂得高度戒备。可是，对一些只在不知不觉中逐渐积累起来的威胁，如全球气温的逐步升高过程，人脑却接受不到任何信号。对那些能在相当长时间内在人体中逐渐累积起来的微量化合物，人脑同样没有任何反应。
幸好在过去的十年里，诞生了一门新的边缘科学——工业生态学。工业生态学可用一种叫做产品使用寿命周期评估（Life-Cycle Assessment）即LCA的技术，将任何人造物品的生产过程进行分解复原，从而对这种物品的各级生产工艺及其对生态环境的影响能做到非常精确的评估。例如，运用LCA技术，可以对一只玻璃瓶的整个生产及使用过程进行追踪，即从其在华氏2000度高温下熔砂48小时提取硅，直至玻璃瓶被用过之后的最后丢弃的全部过程。LCA技术可以告诉我们：熔炉加热环节对环境造成的负面影响比率为16%；而从玻璃制造厂排放到大气中的化合物则从含量较高的二氧化碳到各种痕量金属都有，如镉等。
LCA技术可以为我们提供一些原始数据，使我们的生态学智慧得以提高，使我们在决定要购买什么东西的时候更加明智，而不管我们关心的是对北极熊的影响还是对大自然特别恩赐给我们的身体的影响。不过，LCA是有很高技术难度的，属于工程技术人员的领地。如果要说点让人高兴的话，那就是：如果要我现在就去买一种有利于孩子安全的玩具，我一定会先用GoodGuide查一查。这是一个免费的实用软件，我前不久就下载到iPhone里面了。GoodGuide可对来自近200个数据库提供的结果进行分析，这些数据库中有好几个属于工业LCA数据，可用简摘形式为用户提供指导。
GoodGuide对玩具车的评级并不局限于含铅量，对其他有毒原料也有评估，如汞、PVC和其他各种重金属等。这个软件对各种用品对环境的影响程度也有评价，甚至包括制造商的社会责任表现，比如商品是否来自血汗工厂等。
作为消费者，我们终于有了对我们所购买的东西的潜在后果进行判断的好办法。如果我们能把目光转向那些有更好声誉的品牌，我们就会让市场占有率更有利于保护我们的共同环境。如果我们能把这点认识告诉家人，Twitter给朋友，或者在Facebook上转发本帖，那么我们一个人的决心就会倍增成众人的力量。
说真的，现如今我们好像能够发明一切，设计一切，可我们毕竟还处在一个无知的年代。处在这个年代的人，不管是消费者还是工程技术人员，对这种漠视工业品对环境的负面影响的行为，都表现得非常宽宏大量。我们很热衷于种种眼前利益，这很好理解：我们大量制造廉价塑料制品，因为我们曾以为石油取之不尽用之不竭；我们购买百宝箱，因为那是合成材料做的，实惠；为了让产品看起来更养眼更有生命力，我们也不惜添加铅粉。
对这个星球和生活其中的我们来说，所有这一切都会让我们付出代价。我们对上面所列举的那些选择，满以为有充分的理由，可这样的理由确实有些过时了，实在是老掉牙了。既然这一切的代价已经十分了然，我们需要的一切都得重新发明才行。如果大家能用手中的金钱来投票，那么发明创造的机会只能越来越多，越来越丰富。只有这样，“做好事”和“好做事”才能变成同义词。
（本文原文根据Random House国际出版集团下属出版机构——百老汇图书公司2009年出版的《我们能够改变一切：只要我们知道要买的东西对环境的潜在影响》一书改编）
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