Sustainability | David Mitchell's Soapbox
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- Опубліковано 7 вер 2011
- David Mitchell discusses sustainability.
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Is there perhaps a way of combating wastefulness and planned obsolescence. From
tables to fuel, could a subscription fee perhaps be a viable solution?
ABOUT DAVID MITCHELL'S SOAPBOX:
David Mitchell, star of UK TV favourites Peep Show and That Mitchell and Webb Look, brings us his unique perspective on the issues facing men of the world today. - Комедії
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David Mitchell - somehow 10 years ahead of his time.
Well France added tax to their fossil fuels for cars and they've had people protesting about it for probably over a year now.
@𒁲🅹🅰🆈🅵🅰𒁲 ✓ • 5 years ago exactly, the key phrase from this video is "why not harness market forces by shifting the burden of the problem to the people that will benefit financially from solving it," which is the exact opposite of France's fuel taxes which put the burden on individual consumers that already can't afford more modern and efficient cars to begin with and who rely on commuting for their employment and are barely making ends meet as it is.
Every time a carbon tax has been introduced, that I know of, it has been an unquestionable success. Yet it remains unpopular by people who are generally not involved with it and have almost no understanding of it.
Which makes it a good boogie man to use to scare people into ensuring you, the political hopeful, have all the power you need to remove those nasty taxes
@@matthewtalbot-paine7977 ok Boomer
More like timeless
"The Perpetual Furniture Company" sounds like a Douglas Addams thing...
All the tables in this pub have been programmed to have a sunny and cheerful disposition.
Well, they hardly belong in a pub then, do they?
Or the makers of tomb furnishings -- like an actual "end" table, somewhat ironically.
Always thought it was weird that ground up and glued together wood is cheaper than planks honestly.
When you grind it up, you can use parts of the wood you couldn't otherwise.
That's mostly because a nice, proper wooden table is made out of MUCH more wood than you'd assume, since you have to discard the imperfect parts. If you grind it, it's all the same.
@@balintvoroskoi4884 well... When some of the wood sorted for the nice stuff and is paid for, the waste becomes essentially free feed stock for the grinders. Tidy. Yes?
@@balintvoroskoi4884 Ikea is the hot dog sausage of furniture.
Raw planks are unstable, they bend and twist and expand and contract with changes in temperature and humidity. It takes skill and complex joinery to allow for that. Glued-up plywood is much more stable and simple and cheap joinery can make acceptable furniture with it.
@@John_Ridley its true nice hardwood plywood is better in every way to natural wood except for aesthetics and that "traditionalness", but it's not like cheap furniture is made of nice hardwood plywood. it's chipboard or mdf covered with melamine.
The fact that the Swedish word for sustainability was on the cover on the instrucions was a really nice touch. Made me giggle ^^
Oh yes, my old friend "Planned Obsolesence"
"Household furnature is made of MDF and hope" - made me laugh. :D
What is „MDF“?
@@ericpraline Medium Density Fibreboard
@@GT-tj1qg oh, thank you!
Part of the problem is that with the preponderance of cheap furniture, "good" furniture now commands a premium above and beyond its market value as it's a niche market.
Far as I'm concerned, if it's got a niche in it you shouldn't have to pay full price!
Well made 2nd hand furniture is abundant, and can be had for less then IKEA tat. Perhaps that availablity fluctuates depending on where you live, but I've never had any problems finding any.
Good stuff has never been cheaper, in terms of weekly wages.
You can find solid vintage furniture on ebay for pennies.
A solid oak dining table, not one of those flimsy artsy ones, is well over $1500aud, ikea sells one for $99, and I can make my own for about $300 or less if I use repurposed timber. Anyway, a days work for a solid table shouldn’t equal $1200, and yet it does.
If such a company existed, I'm sure they'd manage to just replace the broken part, and be quick to improve the parts that break often. I love the idea!
I lost it when he said "...meanwhile household furniture is made of MDF and hope." 1:31
That was hilarious.
"...look on, and have the ghosts of kittens." Amazing!
Reminds me of Jeremy Clarkson suggesting that we start eating endangered species, because they wouldn't stay endangered for long; there would soon be extensive breeding programmes for them.
Karl Pilkington had a similar bit about this
It's called "Circular economy" and I also believe it is the future! Companies will essentially hire you the product and then reuse the old product, instead of it being wasted and thrown away, when you need to replace it. It's a win-win for all economically and practically!
What the H are you talking about? What do you think yard sales and recycling centers are? Do you need an adult?
i wish we had more people like david mitchell on youtube, out of all the stupidity there is on youtube, david mitchell always guides us on the right path to what we really should be moaning about with his witty, sarcastic, simple, well spoken videos.
THANK YOU! I've been saying this for years. That all the products that are made today, electronics, kitchen appliances and furniture, they are deliberately made cheap and expected to work for 1 year at most. We still have kitchen appliances from the 80s that work fantastic (we haven't bought an electric mixer and blender since the 80s). Quality has died immensely since then.
it would be nice if sustainability would be factored into things already
Here's the thing-you can already do this yourself. I've learned that the "mid-priced" item (and this can be just about anything) almost always lasts enough longer than the cheap crap that it makes up for the cost difference, and you've used fewer resources in the bargain. And if you buy a car, spend the money to maintain it. I've had mine since 1999, and I've had to replace exactly three parts that weren't normal "consumable" items like tires and fluids. I know people who've run through three or four cars in that time, and not just because they wanted to trade up-they thrashed them and ran the damned things into the ground (and then bitched about how unreliable cars are).
There is - but people are not willing to pay for it
Sustainability would have had to have been factored into things a long time ago
“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is today”
Wtf this is a genius company idea and he’s just giving it out in a comedy UA-cam channel a decade ago. Surprised no major furniture company has started this yet, I’m guessing it’s probably less profitable or too risky, but a “perpetual furniture company” definitely sounds ideal in the long run financially and societally.
If anyone remembers the 50s, 60s, and 70s, telephones were provided by the phone company. They lasted for ever.
They lasted for ever...in landfills.
Why isn't he prime minister...
because people don't vote for anybody who likes to think
David is a great observer and commentator, in a monarchy he'd be a good advisor, but not necessarily a good leader. The leader's job isn't always noticing the problem or even figuring out how to fix it (which is what David is good at), but finding out how to implement and excute the solutions, prioritize what is most important (hopefully in relevance to the people's needs) and keep track of and lead all the many subdivisions of his government in whatever direction his agenda points towards. Oh, and the most important part, be the _face_ of government.
Leader of the "Think Tank" would be a great role for David.
Bobglob : that's a great test for 'Prime Minister': when can we start applying it?
Because life isnt fair Robert xD
Well that's the thing David, the polititions aren't there to protect the voters, they're there to protect the corporate donors. Politicians aren't working class, they're ruling class, and most the time they'd rather protect their friends in the board room.
aye. change will never come from above.
@@skele3310. *Laughs in people's budget, and post war Attlee government*
the problem, as it happens, is that the people that believe in market forces are bought off by corporate donors. and the people that aren't bought off by donors don't believe in market forces.
this rather unfortunate combination means that the world that David imagines, where politicians can align the market in a way to improve the lives of their constituency the way they are supposed to, seems a distant dream.
The biggest problem with Davuds reasoning is that while, yes, officials can structure market forces *market forces in turn structure elected officials* . The Murray darling Basin Authority was basically a cap and trade system like the carbon tax was supposed to be. It failed because those same companies influenced by politicians *in turn influenced politicians* by selectively funding candidates providing profit boosting policies.
Its not that people are dumb. They're not. Its that “1 person 1 vote” is a myth (or at least misleading). Funding candidates tips the scales of campaign reach and persuasion. So too does favorable media coverage.
What's sad is that most antique shops are cheaper than Ikea now & nobody's caught on. You can have nice furniture that lasts a lifetime for very little now a days.
That’s not sad, it’s good that nobody has caught on! If they had, then all the good used furniture would be bought up and there’d be none left for you or me!
I want to live in an Orcarina, so when the wind blows it plays classic zelda songs if I shut specific windows.
I know you wrote this ages ago, but if you’re still considering this, there’s a pretty close experience to be had at the Sea Organ in Zada, Croatia. Definitely worth at least a look in:)
I'm not sure why my fellow libertarians have so much trouble with the point that environmentally damaging activities _actively cause harm to third parties_. This isn't some new concept, it's so well established that we have a word for it - _negative externality_ - and a general consensus that this is the type of behavior against which one can legitimately use force to defend oneself, e.g. via a law suit to force the polluter to appropriately compensate those affected.
Adam Thornton Even people on the right, economically, tend to acknowledge that governments should limit negative extranalities when the market is demonstrably not doing that. That's why refusal to, say, impose a carbon tax is not generally motivated by logic saying that that's not the government's place, but by denial of the existence of the extranalities in the first place. Unfortunately for them, such a denial is exactly as unscientific as suggesting that the problem will solve itself.
Adam Thornton libertarianism is the delusion that market externalities don't exist.
minarchism with pigovian taxation is still libertarian
Adam Thornton the Negative externalities we cause should Indeed have consequences and be regulated by government to achieve a Pareto optimal state.
Anti-environmentalism is a uniquely neo-con/neo-liberal issue, it's a rarity in that it's something which both the far right and the far left can agree on.
Bring the show back!!!
Far out, David is so incredibly smart. How haven't we tackled these issues all these years later.
TheCrusher112 the EU has an extensive carbon cap and trade scheme which is even more effective than a carbon tax called EU ETS
@@i1iDavid wow that's awesome. In Australia we aren't even close. Our current conservative government won on the back of banning a carbon trading scheme, calling it a "carbon tax"
@@TheCrusher112 because its moronic, and only pushes carbon use to other countries, that will do the same thing as you, while polluting 10 times as much for the same results. But hey, out of sight out of mind. “Hey, I’m helping!!”
@@michaelesposito2629 evidence please? It would decrease the price of renewable power. Please don't ever take a job with responsibility
If there were significantly more David Mitchells in the world we would have tackled many of these issues by now -- but only at the expense of being surrounded by David Mitchells.
So, so true. The crazy thing is is that if you go to your local market antique furniture stall, you can probably get something old and well made for an affordable price! I got myself a lovely oak table for fifteen quid that'll definitely last a good long time :)
In fact, David Mitchell slightly exaggerates the negative effects of a Carbon Tax. With a corporate tax offset, it is likely that the economic effects of a carbon tax would be substantially or entirely mitigated. Essentially, it wouldn't constitute a tax increase, but a restructuring in the tax code such that pollution was disincentivized. Costs, and by extension prices, would not by and large go up, but business would still be motivated to pollute less.
That lead up to the Perpetual Furniture Company sounded like the start of a sponsor lmao
Best one in ages! someone in power please listen to this man
I just discovered your vids today and am surprised and ecstatic at how logical and sensible your views are. insta-subscribed
Another part of this is how companies lobby against right to repair to make sure the no one is allowed to fix the item when one part breaks and the whole thing needs to be thrown away.
You're making sense. I can't let you do that, Dave.
I know this video is 11 years old at the time I am commenting, but as a person who has both a lovely sturdy oak drinks cabinet and dining table, and also flimsy MDF furniture, I feel that I should point out a glaring oversight. I will not buy any more sturdy furniture because it is too heavy. I regularly need to move apartments every 2-5 years or so, and I suspect those rough numbers are the same for an awful lot of young people who live in urban high rise apartments. The flimsy MDF furniture only needs to last as long as I live in the place, and if It is still usable after that time, then I can move it by myself with no issue, and if its not usable then it is easy to chuck. Meanwhile, when I want to move the table and drinks cabinet, I need to arrange a time when I can get 3-4 friends or family members to help out. This has sometimes involved hiring a van, rigging ropes, and navigating narrow stairwells. Frankly I am fed up with it. When the dining table is too worn to keep, I will replace it with cheap crap that I can manage by myself.
This is really awesome, really clever ideas :)
the pride i felt at the start when it said hållbarhet in swedish
These videos are brilliant.
A hearty "hear-hear!" from australia
Before this, I had never been remotely interested in conversations about furniture. Enter David Mitchell.
The point of this video is a good one, but the analogy doesn't quite hold; most furniture is discarded at the end of its aesthetic life, not its functional one. Perhaps this is more of an issue in the US than the UK, but there is no shortage of perfectly sturdy and functional furniture from the 80s & 90s that finds its way into basements, thrift shops, and landfills, because it is absolutely horrid-looking. Even amongst the cheaply-built furniture, the motivation seems to be replacing the style more than replacing the function. In any case, investment in the future is typically not en vogue.
it is amazing how much furniture made from actual wood is set out by the trash to be replaced by crap made from sawdust and glue
I mean it still wouldn't work, as Mitchell acknowledged, however your specific issue could be mitigated by the company keeping furniture restorers, upcyclers and carpenters etc. on staff/in network to extend the life expectancy of the furniture
Good point. One of the reasons why sustainability has trouble gaining a foothold is that IT LOOKS LIKE POVERTY. If I keep my furniture and clothes for longer instead of replacing them, then I LOOK like a poor person who can't afford to replace them. I for one could live with that, but most people are more sensitive about perceived social status than I am and they would balk at anything that made them look poor or uncool. Hence sustainability suffers. :(
@@johnpliskin8759 not really that amazing. Styles change. And people don’t want to look at the same furniture they used when they were kids. Or when their kids were kids
@@SpectrumDT ironic, that it’s rich people that buy the expensive solid real wood hand made leather etc stuff
Messers Finnemore and Mitchell; I salute you. This is has been an education. Good Day, Mrs S.
"MDF and hope". Gold. Comedy bloody gold.
Oh David, I love you...
I think I love you David Mitchell.
The issue is that, often, it isn’t the quality that’s improved with taxation, but that everything else around it is cheapened. Budget airlines, for instance, use the same sorts of planes as anywhere else, but cut corners on staff, destinations, food, luggage/check-in etc. none of which matter significantly to the environment. And yet, all planes are tending towards greater efficiency, and even an electric plane has been released now
so... what's your point exactly?
@@tafazzi-on-discord Their point is they dont really understand what they are talking about deeply and think they understand very complicated systems better than they actually do just like the video creator
I give full support for the beard - I think it looks adorable :3
My vicious Rottweiler is actually one of the most gentle and tolerant dogs I've ever had.
This is brilliant!
Wow, I have that exact same cupboard/book case/wardrobe/ladder at home!
Market forces and taxes on emission? I really would love to see a new series of 10 O'Clock Live and hear more about that stuff from you, David.
I run an environmentally friendly furniture shop. Seriously. This not only involves buying furniture made from sustainable sources, but buying it as locally as physically possible while pandering to my customer's budgets. So I just sell high quality tables which will last my customers 40 years. And yes, they do last longer, and no, I don't get my furniture returned cos it's rubbish. So good; I agree, and selling quality sustainable furniture makes sense in every way. Nice David, love it.
Reminds me of Jabberwocky: "You don't want barrels. You want bags!"
My table is 30 years and has been attacked by 2 small children, cats and countless other abuses. It still has many many many years of service left in it! :)
Hållbarhet! :)
I never expected the Swedish language to appear in David Mitchell's Soapbox.
Excellent! David has hit the nail on the head there! I run my car on home-made biodiesel from waste cooking oil, which works out about 75% renewable (unfortunately it's production uses electricity from coal-fired power stations and methanol derived from natural gas, both fossil fuels!). Although I'd like to say this is my motivation for doing it, in actual fact it is simply the cost! 15-35pence a litre (dependant on cost of waste oil).
How many engines have you killed in those 8 years with this stuff?
@@Kalenz1234 probably none considering diesel engines were designed for "biodiesel" and then the waste from petrol production turned out to be useful in them.
the bigger issue would be the forest clearing to provide for "biodiesel" in it's many forms. cooked prehistoric algea is still plant oil
Cool idea!!
Funny how many people mentioned Ikea furniture coming apart after few days/months/years... I have an Ikea wardrobe that I inherited from my sister, it's 9 years old, has been moved twice from flat to flat and still good as new. Obviously one needs basic DIY skills to put it together, but if you do it once properly, it will last longer, than 7 years. Not to mention that transporting platpacked furniture from factory to store to home is just so much more efficient cotswise and emissionwise.
The way to fix this is to buy higher quality things. Send a demand signal if you want the supply to change.
And many people can't afford the higher quality thing to start with, unfortunately...
The most interesting effect of penalizing industry for carbon output, is that it may in fact cause more R&D money to be spent on alternative technologies, and effciiencies which will solve the problem of carbon into the future.
Ikea - cheap but mainly lasts... and I have a lot of it so either I am very bias towards Ikea or the years old furniture I am still using is self evident
Tell you what, I’ve noticed in the two items of IKEA furniture I own (a desk/table and an entertainment unit) is that both are noticeably sagging in the middle after about five years of use.
Fab UK version of the Story of Stuff!
@mooxim One of the noted problems with the Carbon tax is that it is a regressive tax, in that it disproportionately affects low-income groups, the consumer footing the bill. But this can easily be addressed by have the revenue from the tax used to help these some low-income groups.
In the modern era, the subscription furniture model comes across as much more repulsive than it would have when this was filmed ten years ago.
I was also about to comment that cheap modern furniture (while obviously of a lower quality) doesn't seem that disposable to me. But then it occurred to me...I don't buy furniture, so I'd actually have no idea. Looking around my living room, there's not a single item in here that I bought. It's all random stuff people have given me.
It's weird how sustainability has become a code word for environmentalism, even when the actual definition doesn't apply. Not that I'm against environmentalism, but when was the last time you heard "unsustainable" used about for example how clickbaity a lot of entertainment and news media has gotten recently, which automatically makes people assume everything is clickbait, so they avoid it.
I think the beard suits you David. Also did anyone notice how the diagrams in the background made a face on the last scene?
Damn this is brilliant. Brilliant in the American sense of being a grand idea.
Mdf and hope! Was there ever a more apt description of modern furniture
@kubaniski I think it's a mutualistic causation. It's undeniable that we are pumping C02 into the atmosphere and this adds to the enhanced greenhouse effect. Also, if we're going on historic levels, never before have we released this much C02 and never before have global temperatures risen this quickly.
The problem with carbon tax on steel companies (australia) is that it's based on the amount of steel produced. So even if your factory has state of the art scrubbers and so zero carbon emissions (it is possible) you still get taxed the same. All that does is take money away from the companies so they can't afford scrubbers, if anything it makes the situation worse.
David, You may have just helped me a bit in doing my construction college coursework :P
@mandrellian I refuse to comprehend AND understand. I'll do one or the other - you choose...
It amuses me that MDF is used as an example of something which is a limited resource - its literally made of sawdust glued together, it's the ultimate in recycling.
Something which would have been wasted before (sawdust) is now a reasonably useful product, and can be used to make cheap furniture!
Clarkson? the information I got was from one of my university subjects I took from a Professor A. Malone of University of Newcastle. if you want you can look up his work
This sounds like the adapted business model of the company "interface". Which stopped selling carpet tiles and instead provided a carpet subscription. This forced them to innovate into longer lasting, easier to recycle goods. And it was ultimately better for businesses because they didn't have to shut their offices to get carpets replaced.
@ahwhocares1 I guess also, what I'm saying is that in Canada, everwhere is a great distance. So not going somewhere isn't an option. Come for a visit sometime, and you will quickly see what I mean. It's very different from the UK
Brilliant.
the furniture fashions keep changing nowadays too, which is another reason to keep changing your furniture, although that may be done on purpose to get people to keep buying more.
This is a really important point. It occurred to me that when my grandmothers died they still had the pots and pans they were given as wedding presents, and were still in immaculate condition. Yet nobody wanted them. So after over 50 years of loving care they went to the dump. There are many lessons like this we could learn and it is essential we take this seriously NOW.
Comrade David Mitchell
If you wonder what it says on the cover of the book in the beginning it says sustainability in Swedish :)
Your beard better be sustainable. It's awesome.
I ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ you David mitchell
@arsenelupin123 I read another comment which pointed out that the two quiz videos were probably filmed at the same time (pre-beard). So when the second half of that was posted, he obviously had no beard because it was old footage.
Just watching this makes my face itch.
@iamXies
lol i don't usually do it but considering it was the most critical part of your comment towards me I felt compelled to correct it
A friend of mine heard a noise and peered into the next room to discover that his IKEA bookcase had collapsed in a heap. He posted on Facebook that he was about to go pay around $80 for a new one, but I brought him a better bookcase I had found next to a garbage bin.
*I am the future!*
Still have that 60-year-old oak table my great-grandfather gave my mother when she moved in with my dad at age 20.
That was 30 years ago, my great-grandfather is long dead, but the table still stands in my room, durable as ever.
Cut to the cheap IKEA cupboard that I made the mistake of first buying, and then leaning on.
Not 7 days old - and needs to lean on a wall to not fall down.
David Mitchell should do an ad for the ALP
that will be true for inelastic goods like electricity. That is one of the problems with a carbon tax, for some goods and services it will raise the price but not necessarily cut emissions. It really all depends on the type of Goods and Services. We have had a quite large carbon tax in Australia for over a year now and will soon be moving to an ETS. It will be interesting to see the net affect of the tax on Australia's emissions.
The same thing that gives people the potential to become good, competent politicians also often makes them unwilling to do so.
@MajesticClangers Awesome.
@T800System Well said, David would be proud.
@darconisbob Yeah you are correct "kill" could be a gross exaggeration. That being said we are speaking in completely hypothetical terms unless specific numbers are presented it is difficult to determine the impact of said tax. A single tax could easily damage an industry.
I guess to me it just makes more sense to increase funding of aeronautics programs to inspire innovation (such as NASA) than it does to negatively impact an industry that is so incredibly important.
David Mitchell you are awesome. There is a great deal of hoo-ha in australia at the moment about the carbon price (which really is a good thing for all of us), but the spin doctors who want to destroy it are winning (convincing everyone that our heads will fall off as a result of the tax). If only we could broadcast your sensible thoughts 24/7 to bring everyone around (although that would be a little 1984...)
Yeah, that description matches my family fairly well too. I myself have only been to IKEA one time as far as I can remember.
Fast jag kollar ändå i katalogen ibland av någon anledning...
But companies buy off politicians to do their bidding. And they are quite successful at it. Regulatory capture is the term used by economists
Appreciate the concept but isn't MDF, particle board etc made from the scraps of wood that would usually be wasted when milling timber?
I think this is partly a problem resulting from information asymmetry. I know I am paying £50 or £200, but I can't know if they have built a better £200 table than the £50 table. All I know for sure is that the £50 table is £150 cheaper.
@algardaus the archaeological data and historical data of the rise and fall of civilizations supports my statement. As temperatures fell massive extinctions occurred and civilizations fell, as temps rose animal populations rose and civilizations emerged. And no actually if you look at the temp data, it correlates better with solar output then with CO2 levels.
@TheMossyrocker16 it is!
I have my great grandmother's kitchen table. It's metal and wood and still going strong, I could probably pass it on to my grandkids one day. They don't make them like they used to.