Don't ignore the worm in your iPad

We've been choosing the bad apple since Adam chose to pick the proverbial apple in the very beginning, sending us all into a world of eternal sin. Today, Apple purchases are steeped in sin. And today, we still have a choice. In Our Great Sin, Devin Coldewey offers three approaches for an individual wishing to confront their unethical purchases:

* Claim moral status and adjust actions
* Claim moral status and justify actions
* Claim no moral status and continue actions

I think we can look at this issue both individually and collectively. As an individual it may be possible to - with some degree - boycott a technology firm and live without their gadgets. Having adjusting his actions, he can take the moral high ground and feel good about himself and his ethics in action. But it's not a solution. A collective boycott, what Coldewey calls 'Consumer intervention', is necessary to affect change. And only through a collective boycott can we begin to address some of the problems (relating to the economics of Chinese-manufactured goods) in other parts of the world, such as high unemployment and the growing rich / poor divide.

An almost perfect alternative to boycotting is simple: We pay a much higher (and fairer) price. But let's be honest, this isn't going to happen. Sadly Coldewey is right, we simply aren't prepared to pay a higher price for the knowledge that it is an ethically sound product we've just paid for. In reality though, we are paying a far higher price but it's not coming out of our purses. We're paying to live in a world where people are living and working in subhuman conditions, where animals live out the saddest existence only to be killed in the most inhuman ways one could imagine, and where our natural world is being raped for any and everything we can possible find a use for. We are paying for it.

I don't know how to spur a collective boycott. As Coldewey infers, today - with social media and the Internet - we are capable of creating mass awareness for any cause we like but it's not enough to bring about mass action. As an individual, the best we can do is chose our battles, do what we can and hope the next person is waking up and doing the same. But importantly, we should do this without lying to ourselves and trying to justify our bad choices. Don't ignore the worm in your iPad.

We should be boycotting Apple and finally holding them accountable. Their sustainability record is ghastly and they don't care. Apple is cool right now and people are buying up their gadgets faster than their Chinese sweatshops can make them.

Every purchase comes with a number of choices, from cost to quality, from brand to origin etc. Sure, many of us cannot afford the luxury of choice. Of you that can though, ask yourself: What is the real cost of that apple or that Apple gizmo? And can you afford it?