Best viewed before the holiday credit card bills come in.
<http://www.storyofstuff.com/index.html>
http://www.storyofstuff.com/index.html
The Story of Stuff
By Robert Weissman
ZNet.org
Thursday 06 December 2007
Right now, representatives of the governments of the world are meeting in
Bali, Indonesia, to negotiate international agreements to forestall climate
change.
Necessarily, these negotiations will revolve around technical, arcane
matters. What targets should be set for reduced greenhouse gas emissions?
Which countries should adhere to which targets? Should there be emissions
rights trading, and if so, how should trading systems work? What financing
mechanisms will be established to help developing countries transition to
cleaner production methods and leapfrog over polluting technologies? Will
there be special mechanisms established to protect forests? How should
global trading rules be altered? And on and on.
The world desperately needs these negotiations to succeed, for
science-based emission targets to be set, and for principles of social
justice to shape the allocation of rights, duties and financial obligations
needed to avert climate catastrophe. And whatever progress can be achieved
in Bali, the better.
But we also need something else, which will almost surely precede global
agreements and serious commitments to undertake the massive economic and
social reorganization that the threat of global warming - and other pending
ecological catastrophes - commands.
That something else is a broad public understanding of how the system all
fits together. Not just how important it is to change from incandescent to
compact fluorescent light bulbs or the value of recycling - though these
things are vital - but how the present system of making, transporting,
selling, buying, using and disposing of things is trashing the planet. If
we're going to save ourselves from global warming, we're going to have to do
things differently.
That's where The Story of Stuff comes in.
"The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard" is an engaging new short film
that explains the "materials economy" in 20 fun-filled minutes.
Yes, fun-filled.
Produced by Free Range Studios, which developed "The Meatrix" - an
animated short about factory farming that ranks among the cleverest uses of
Internet technologies to deliver a politically progressive message - The
Story of Stuff features the wonderful Annie Leonard, amusing graphics, lots
of humor, and a complicated analysis presented in an easy-to-understand
conversational tone.
You can watch the whole thing by clicking here
<http://www.storyofstuff.com/index.html>
<http://www.storyofstuff.com/index.html> . You'll have to watch the film to
enjoy the humor - there's no easy way to convey the playful cartooning with
serious purpose. But I guarantee chuckles even for the most austere.
The core themes of the Story of Stuff are:
The world is running up against resource limits.
"We're running out of resources. We are using too much stuff. Now I know
this can be hard to hear, but it's the truth and we've got to deal with it.
In the past three decades alone, one-third of the planet's natural resources
base have been consumed. Gone. We are cutting and mining and hauling and
trashing the place so fast that we're undermining the planet's very ability
for people to live here."
Corporate globalization is premised on externalizing costs - making someone
other than the companies that make things pay for the environmental and
human costs of production.
"I was thinking about this the other day. I was walking to work and I wanted
to listen to the news so I popped into this Radio Shack to buy a radio. I
found this cute little green radio for 4 dollars and 99 cents. I was
standing there in line to buy this radio and I was wondering how $4.99 could
possibly capture the costs of making this radio and getting it to my hands.
The metal was probably mined in South Africa, the petroleum was probably
drilled in Iraq, the plastics were probably produced in China, and maybe the
whole thing was assembled by some 15-year-old in a maquiladora in Mexico.
$4.99 wouldn't even pay the rent for the shelf space it occupied until I
came along, let alone part of the staff guy's salary that helped me pick it
out, or the multiple ocean cruises and truck rides pieces of this radio went
on. That's how I realized, I didn't pay for the radio."
Who did? The people who lost their natural resource base, factory workers,
those who are made sick from factory pollution, and retail workers without
health insurance.
The corporate economy rests on the artificial creation of need - "the golden
arrow of consumption."
"Have you ever wondered why women's shoe heels go from fat one year to
skinny the next to fat to skinny? It is not because there is some debate
about which heel structure is the most healthy for women's feet. It's
because wearing fat heels in a skinny heel year shows everyone that you
haven't contributed to that arrow recently so you're not as valuable as that
skinny heeled person next to you or, more likely, in some ad. It's to keep
buying new shoes."
Things can be different. And they must be made to be different.
"What we really need to chuck is this old-school throw-away mindset. There's
a new school of thinking on this stuff and it's based on sustainability and
equity: Green Chemistry, Zero Waste, Closed Loop Production, Renewable
Energy, Local Living Economies. Some people say it's unrealistic,
idealistic, that it can't happen. But I say the ones who are unrealistic are
those that want to continue on the old path. That's dreaming. Remember that
old way didn't just happen by itself. It's not like gravity that we just
gotta live with. People created it. And we're people too. So let's create
something new."
If you worry these claims are too broad, go to the website. It has
supporting evidence and links to a vast array of additional resources and
materials.
Is The Story of Stuff just preaching to the converted? No. (Though note,
as a friend says, that there's a reason and rationale for the clergy to
preach to the congregation every week - it reinforces, deepens and sustains
commitment and understanding.)
The Story of Stuff is something you can show to anyone (or ask anyone to
view online). It's persuasive but not a sermon. It's sophisticated but not
esoteric. Its tone is light but its content is serious. It's narrated by the
irrepressible Annie Leonard with passion but no pretense.
Annie, who is a former colleague and good friend, casually mentions at
the start of The Story of Stuff that she spent 10 years traveling the world
to explore how stuff is made and discarded. This doesn't begin to explain
her first-hand experience. There aren't many people who race from
international airports to visit trash dumps. Annie does. In travels to three
dozen countries, she has visited garbage dumps, infiltrated toxic factories,
worked with ragpickers and received death threats for her investigative
work. Her understanding of the externalized violence of the corporate
consumer economy comes from direct observation and experience.
The Story of Stuff is a short film about the big picture. Give it a look,
and encourage others to check it out.
If negotiations like those in Bali are ultimately going to succeed, we
need lots more people to internalize the message of The Story of Stuff, and
mobilize, as Annie says, to create something new.
_____
Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, DC-based Multinational
Monitor <http://www.multinationalmonitor.org>
<http://www.multinationalmonitor.org> , and director of Essential Action
<http://www.essentialaction.org> <http://www.essentialaction.org> .
Scott L. Perez
Department of Natural Resources/
American Indian Program
Cornell University
441 Caldwell Hall
Ithaca, NY 14853
607-255-1055
"I don't believe in doing work that I don't want to do in order to live a
life that I don't want to live."
-Ed Abbey
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