Cut flower export sounds like climate travesty; they are not essential, they are fragile (requiring energy-intensive cold chain logistics and air-freight) and after all that effort... they have a shelf-life of a week. If there is an industry that should be strictly localized, it's this one.
They also propagate pests. The olive industry in Italy is being decimated and the flower trade is suspected to be at the root.
The crash of the global flower trade
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Re: The crash of the global flower trade
#92It's easier to make stories about businesses than people, but I really think we need more people stories now. Rather than the flower trade having a downturn, what about all the people that planned weddings? A delayed wedding is apparently hardly a disaster, but what does it mean if nobody can get married for a half a year, what happens?
Not much? I think in most jurisdictions it's possible to get legally married, just not be celebrated in the traditional way. So wedding celebrations have been delayed by 6 months or a year, well so what? It's such a small thing to focus on and worry about when almost the whole global economy has been put on pause. There's almost nothing that hasn't been affected, the inability to immediately celebrate in a traditiona…
So what about all the weddings workers that cannot pay their mortgages now?
Re: The crash of the global flower trade
#93It's easier to make stories about businesses than people, but I really think we need more people stories now. Rather than the flower trade having a downturn, what about all the people that planned weddings? A delayed wedding is apparently hardly a disaster, but what does it mean if nobody can get married for a half a year, what happens?
Nothing happens. Wedding businesses will lose revenue in 2020. For everyone else it is just a bunch of delayed parties. In NYS Cuomo issued an Executive Order allowing people to obtain a marriage license remotely and allowing clerks to perform ceremonies via video conference.
"lose revenue". Also known as financial disaster for most employees.
Re: The crash of the global flower trade
#94The entire article is a demonstration of white privilege. Note the detailed descriptions of the planned floral arrangements of wedding and the nuances of the pain and suffering endured by the bride and groom for having to do without. Only later is some lip service spent on the workers that are paid $70 per month to all make it happen. Hopefully, the world will never work the same way again.
This comment is far more racist than the article.
Every wedding and funeral has flowers - this has nothing to do with race.
... it is also a reflection of the declining comment quality on HN. Please go back to Reddit.
Re: The crash of the global flower trade
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't agree about not essential. If we go there, sooner or later, someone will show up and say Music is not essential, and why can't everyone dress like Zuck etc. But I do agree about local. I mean who doesn't want to walk by something like this everyday - https://scontent-yyz1-1.cdninstagram.com/v/t50.2886-16/93565...
To be fair, even though it rings of a dystopian oppressive society, there might be a day where, due to impact of climate change, a lot of pleasures that we take for granted will be ultra regulated. I just hope society gradually moves to a state where everything but the most essential of essential stuff is produced and consumed.
I think the problem is who gets to determine what is essential. One man's essential activity is another man's superfluous activity.
Music is a great example. Sure we could do without it, but life is for the living. Experiences are not essential to the physical functions of life but without them life would quickly become depressing, at which point, what are we protecting?
Re: The crash of the global flower trade
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't agree about not essential. If we go there, sooner or later, someone will show up and say Music is not essential, and why can't everyone dress like Zuck etc. But I do agree about local. I mean who doesn't want to walk by something like this everyday - https://scontent-yyz1-1.cdninstagram.com/v/t50.2886-16/93565...
> someone will show up and say Music is not essential Depends on your definition of essential, I'd argue 100% of the world population would survive just fine without music or flowers. Food is essential, water is essential, medicine is essential, shelter is essential. Some tulips imported for 2000km away aren't. I mean, do we really have to debate this ? If we go there, sooner or later, someone will show up and say Ke…
Can I decide what is essential to me and you decide what is essential to you? And then if there are not enough of me, maybe I have to pay more? And maybe if there are not enough of you, you pay more for those that provide those essentialities? Hm... This reminds me of something.
Re: The crash of the global flower trade
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
> they are not essential If we only live for the essentials, what do we live for?
That would be true if our carbon footprint is minimal, but that is not the case. Until society self adjusts, to minimize the total carbon emissions per capita to a sustainable level, we might have to do with only essentials.
Who determines what the essentials are?
Re: The crash of the global flower trade
#98Meanwhile in South Africa there are food issues... Why not plant vegetables instead of flowers? Also to note: workers get $70/mo, while all other middle-men involved get more.
I would assume that the market is self correcting. If there was shortage of food, it's price would be up and farmers would plant food crops.
Right. I was imagining that poor people without food can't pay too much for vegetables, while others in EU/US can pay more for flowers.
Re: The crash of the global flower trade
#99The entire article is a demonstration of white privilege. Note the detailed descriptions of the planned floral arrangements of wedding and the nuances of the pain and suffering endured by the bride and groom for having to do without. Only later is some lip service spent on the workers that are paid $70 per month to all make it happen. Hopefully, the world will never work the same way again.
The point of the article is to trace the ramifications of the shutdown from Bloomberg's plausible audience all the way down the economic ladder to Kenyan flower workers making a couple grand per year. I suspect that the contrast is intentional.
Re: The crash of the global flower trade
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
> someone will show up and say Music is not essential Depends on your definition of essential, I'd argue 100% of the world population would survive just fine without music or flowers. Food is essential, water is essential, medicine is essential, shelter is essential. Some tulips imported for 2000km away aren't. I mean, do we really have to debate this ? If we go there, sooner or later, someone will show up and say Ke…
Can I decide what is essential to me and you decide what is essential to you? And then if there are not enough of me, maybe I have to pay more? And maybe if there are not enough of you, you pay more for those that provide those essentialities? Hm... This reminds me of something.
If only there wasn't such a thing as externalized costs...