Environmental question

[kwakatak]

I saw a blurb about a recent addendum to the CITES treaty (particularly with regards to the treatment of Honduran Mahogany) and it got me wondering about the current flood of Chinese-made guitars hitting the international markets.

 

Being a former avid consumer of conspiracy theories (I just about reached my limit and lost all taste for debate when both "sides" basically exchanges places but continued the same old mud-slinging game) I used to hear blurbs about China's economic, environmental and ethical business practices. I've also heard that they've been given a lot of leniency with regards to international environmental regulations concerning greenhouse gas emissions. With that in mind, do you think that this will affect the current production of guitars made in China?

 

Here's some links for your review:

http://www.gruhn.com/newsletter/newsltr29.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#People.27s_Republic_of_China

* (bear in mind that I view Wikipedia as little more than hearsay so draw your own conclusions)

[bjorn-fjord]

The pessimistic side of me has always thought that selling democracy, or more accurately, free-market economics, to China would pretty much doom us just based on simple math. A billion more consumers wanting cars and coke and iPods? Apparently the West Coast of North America (where I live) is already beginning to receive airborne pollution from mainland China.

But yeah, I'm with you in terms of your concern about a monster economic power with few constraints depleting hardwood resources because they just don't seem to care about anything but "progress". At least I think that's what you're saying.

I don't really know what China has in the way of domestic resources but I'm guessing that their hardwood supplies are either already decimated or close to being so. So I worry that they will turn their attention to other less-developed nations that won't be able to refuse their demands and they'll wipe out what's left of the exotic hardwoods that we all love and are making a half-assed effort to conserve.

I don't know their record regarding the adherence to the rulings of global regulation bodies like CITES but again, I'm pretty pessimistic.

In short, it worries the hell out of me. I mean, WE have screwed up a lot of our ecology even though our industrialization was relatively gradual and we were afforded the opportunity to see the effects of our actions as our system evolved over generations. With China, these changes are occuring so damn fast that I'm afraid that they won't realize the negative effects of unfettered growth until much damage is done.

[kwakatak]

... But yeah, I'm with you in terms of your concern about a monster economic power with few constraints depleting hardwood resources because they just don't seem to care about anything but "progress". At least I think that's what you're saying.

 

 

Yeah, that was the point I was trying to make.

 

To refine the point to a more acoustic guitar-centered topic, I wonder if we're selling our souls to save a couple of bucks in the short term.

 

Most of the north American guitar companies - Taylor and Martin in particular - are paying closer attention to their impact on hardwood depletion. The downside from the consumer's perspective is that the products still cost a lot more than their overseas competitors' products.

 

OTOH, I'm wondering if the overseas producers are paying any attention to conservation. I know that many US-based companies' products are now being produced overseas and are getting big breaks on the cost of labor. I'm wondering if they get some sort of similar break as a result of these environmental exemptions?

 

From a consumer's standpoint I can't help but be attracted to some of the guitars that are coming out of Chinese factories, but I don't see things staying the same much longer. I wouldn't be surprised if prices on Chinese-made guitars start to come up too. If not for the increase in the cost of labor (which I hear is also beginning to happen) then for scarcity of "traditional" raw materials.

[Charlies Ghost]

Complex issue to say the least.I wonder whose buying all these guitars,why are they buying them and are they at least making some kinda noise with them.If everyone stopped buying chinese guitars today would martin and taylors eco-friendly concerns cause the price to skyrocket to a point that only the small % of americans that had the money enough to buy them be able to play.I guess we might all become rappers then.Sorry that I could only add more questions and not answers.

I've sold my soul for sillier stuff with a smaller chance of positive returns than a guitar can give me.I guess i can always try to buy it back if i wanted to.If your worried about maintaining a guilt free soul i think they've come up with some notion that you can buy back some of the negative impact that your causing to the environment.I'm not sure if they have chinese guitars on the list yet but if your next family outing leaves you feeling guilt ridden you can try to make amends by giving cash.

[Cripes]

We are seeing gobs of guitars coming from various production lines competing for market share. From a quality perspective I think they are neck-n-neck. But, are there people out there consuming them at the current rate of production? Look at the pricing of the off-shore guitars. Price-dumping to leverage market share? That's an old trick from the Orient. The prices may indeed rise, with demand obviously telling of acceptable quality, or they may not depending on the consumption data.

We are a service economy. Manufacturing is going off-shore and when that matures and demands from labor camps follow their usual course the products will become pricier. Cheaper alternative materials will be the first things introduced to control costs and they will in all probability be pretty good. Purists will think "tradition" just stepped on a banana peel but demand will set that issue down its own path. Traditional guitars will be readiliy available for deeper pockets but the sheer weight of production will be the cheaper composites. I'm not worried about the environmental effects of certain natural depletions because I don't think that will happen before the applicable industries switch to alternative environmental friendly materials and production methods. That's typical survival tactics when resources become rare. Consumer feedback advocating environmental awareness is engineered into the new products because it helps sell the products. Bio-degradable packaging is one of those products. In one survey, people switched to a brand that was packaged in a bio-degradable material. In many, many products touting themselves to be "new and improved", the only improvements are environmentally friendly packages. The consumable products remain unchanged.

Forests, I think, will be targeted for preservation. Even now alternative building materials are being developed. Ever see those recycled plastic picnic tables? Joists for homes are rapidly going to chipboard with spare caps. Plumbing piping and manifolds and valves are PVC. Gotta look at the whole picture. Plastic is where, I think, mass produced guitars are headed. Can you imagine tilt-up homes of concrete, carbon fiber and expanded foam facia trim? If the price was right I definitely go that route rather than give my home away to wood rot and hungry bugs. One of those composites is already widely known to be used in guitars. Rainsong, Adamas and Ovation will be front-runners when wood usages fall off, or are otherwise controlled.

[Hudman]

The guitar industry uses a very small percentage of the wood used in the world. Most hardwood is used in the construction industry. Furniture is another big wood industry.

[bjorn-fjord]

The guitar industry uses a very small percentage of the wood used in the world. Most hardwood is used in the construction industry. Furniture is another big wood industry.

 

 

That's true. Apparently Brazilian Rosewood was wiped out by the perfume industry. It was the primary ingredient in Chanel products and many others.

 

The hardwood issue is a little different than the softwood issue and, living in the PNW, that's what I'm more focussed on. Top grade instrument quality spruce and cedar that could easily supply the musical instrument industry forever with proper management of the resources is being cut into 2X4's for short-term economic gain. This issue deserves wider recognition and I applaud anyone championing this cause.

[Cjd player]

I've read that a lot of the top-quality spruce is also exported to Japan to make chop sticks. Seems they don't want the lesser-quality stuff. Must be defect free and straight grained 'cause they want the sticks to split apart easliy when the user parts them. If that is truely the case, what a lame use for such wonderful wood.

[Queequeg]

Right, this problem is a whole lot bigger than guitars.

The last time this issue came up I had just made my first (and last) trip to Ikea. Ironically, I was talking to a woman here @ work and she brought up Ikea and their appalling footprint & product quality (or lack thereof).

This morning on the radio, BBC was discussing the USA's use of corn for ethanol, as it strips the land of all of its nutrients, requiring more & more chemical fertilizers (in the form of petroleum products). But its good for the agri-lobbies so life will go gleefully on inside the DC beltway where only the names change.

I thought the old price-dumping was an American trick we did with corn and especially cotton; no?

 

"The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them."

- Albert Einstein

[Freeman Keller]

The guitar industry uses a very small percentage of the wood used in the world. Most hardwood is used in the construction industry. Furniture is another big wood industry.

 

 

I've also read (somewhere on the internet, so it must be true) that the second biggest use of Brazillian rosewood (furniture being first) was the coffin industry. My granddad is rotting away in a dozen D-35's!

 

Bjorn and I have talked before about the rape of the PNW forests (you folks who live on the East Coast had yours raped long ago) to be shipped overseas to be milled, or even worse, chipped to make particle board, wood pulp, news paper, and toilet tissue. Little bitty scrawy trees aren't given a chance to grow up before they are made into toilet paper, our beautiful forests are denuded, and we leave the stumps for our grand children. Ironically, I also live in an area where fruit farming is the dominate industry, yet across the road from where I sit right now they are tearing out (and burning) an apple orchard to build 5000 sq ft single family houses (out of that pressed board and 2x4's). Like our guitar makers, US apple farmers can't compete with the growing imports from China.

 

The same thing that makes spruce the best wood for guitar tops (straight grain, strength to weight, flexibility) make it desirable for boat frames and fabric airplanes and probably chop sticks, but it is a terrible waste to make 2x4's out of it.

 

back to Kwak's orignal post (I'll get off my soap box before I fall off), one of the really interesting ramification of the new CITIES ban is a wood called pernambuco that has traditionally be used for violin bows. Some violin players have said that there simply is no substitute, and not only is the import of freshly cut wood banned, but it will be illegal to take old pernambuco across national boundries. That means a classical violinist cannot take her bow to Europe to play in the great music halls (at least without some sort of special paperwork).

 

The environmentalist side of me (and I'm proud to be a tree hugger) wants to do everything I can do end the rape of not only rare woods and animal parts, but to somehow stop the wholesale cutting of the remaining stands of fir and cedar and redwood and spruce. It's going to take an effort by all of us.

 

(totally different subject, but since I'm wound up) - interesting interview with Lee Iococca (sp?) this morning on NPR. Lee of course was the father of the muscle cars in the 60's and the mini-vans (and you could argue SUV's) in the 80's was quoted as saying he wished that instead of following the demands of the market he had the foresite to have pushed Chrysler into thinking about hybrids - this of course coming on news that Toyota just surpassed GM in sales and gas at $3.50.

 

OK, FK, take your meds and crawl back under your rock.....