Agreed on all the above Stee...... I have to say though that the typical American consumer does not consider these hidden but huge underlying issues when buying a product. 90%+ consider just one thing and that is initial outlay $$.$$
Until they start to make purchases based on all life cycle costs, environmental concerns, product quality and the welfare of their own country, we will not see anything change.
In the industry I am involved with (heating) I think it's a crying shame that nearly all the "good stuff" is coming from offshore. If I could source something even remotely approaching the performance and quality of a Windhager pellet boiler for example, that was built in the USA I would buy it in a heartbeat. As it stands right now there is nothing that I am aware of.
I give a lot of cred to companies like Garn and Econoburn that are trying to make a go of it building high quality products with excellent performance right here in the USA but we see examples of how people vote with their wallet right here on Hearth. Some of the Eastern European downdrafters are made in countries that are no better than China when it comes to environmental harm. Yet, because they are a couple thousand less than a US made product, guess which one gets purchased in most cases. Attitudes have to change. People have to educate themselves about the product and the company they are dealing with and then act accordingly if we have any hope of changing things. I think that if people demanded it, companies like CB would switch gears and start building products that actually perform as they should and as most people anticipate when they buy one rather than something that succeeds based on marketing and propaganda alone.
I'll never forget the keynote speech given by Dr David Suzuki at Viessmann's 25th anniversary celebration. He talked at length about this very topic and it made an indelible impression on me. When we purchase or consume something shouldn't we consider how that product was made? Shouldn't we consider the long term results of using that product? Shouldn't we adopt a best product/best life cycle decision making process when we as consumers buy something? Shouldn't we consider the environmental impact? Shouldn't we demand the best from manufacturers? One of the points he made was to ask, what real good are jobs that create environmental catastrophes? A good current illustration would be extracting oil from the tar sands in Canada. Sure, it provides thousands of jobs. Sure it provides crude oil we need. But also just as surely, it will ruin hundreds of thousands of acres of land and create a mess that someone, someday will have to clean up if it's even possible. What is the cost of that and who pays the price? We all have to start thinking about "tomorrow" and the world we leave behind for the coming generations.
We need to learn to consider all the costs, not just the one we see on the bottom line of the bill of sale.
