The Story of Stuff: The Real Costs of our Consumer Driven Culture
Website: (http://www.storyofstuff.org/international/)
The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute film that takes viewers on a
provocative and eye-opening tour of the real costs of our consumer
driven culture―from resource extraction to iPod incineration.
Annie Leonard, an activist who has spent the past 10 years traveling the
globe fighting environmental threats, narrates the Story of Stuff,
delivering a rapid-fire, often humorous and always engaging story about
“all our stuff―where it comes from and where it goes when we throw it
away.”
Leonard examines the real costs of extraction, production, distribution,
consumption and disposal, and she isolates the moment in history where
she says the trend of consumption mania began. The Story of Stuff
examines how economic policies of the post-World War II era ushered in
notions of “planned obsolescence” and “perceived obsolescence” ―and how
these notions are still driving much of the U.S. and global economies
today. Leonard’s inspiration for the film began as a personal musing
over the question, “Where does all the stuff we buy come from, and
where does it go when we throw it out?” She traveled the world in
pursuit of the answer to this seemingly innocent question, and what she
found along the way were some very guilty participants and their
unfortunate victims.
Written by Leonard, the film was produced by Free Range Studios, the makers of
other highly popular web-based films such as “The Meatrix” and “Grocery
Store Wars.” Funding for the project came from The Funders Workgroup
for Sustainable Production and Consumption and Tides Foundation.
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Re: The Story of Stuff
Dear Kurban,
Many thanks for sharing this wonderful educational video which teaches the community to live more simply and restore the environment for future generations. As you are well aware, the Buddha's noble desciples have been asked to manage with just the four requisites (food, clothing - 3 robes, medicine, and shelter), and tread the Path of non-greed, non-hatred, non-attachment, etc., and devote time to their meditation practice which is an art of looking within, which naturally helps to safeguard the living environment .
I am in turn forwarding it to my contacts so that they may re-think the way they live their lives and become more conscious of their responsibility to take steps to avoid polluting and safeguarding the only planet in which we all live.
Yours sincerely,
Mahinda
Re: The Story of Stuff
Hi All
I have received the same video (http://www.storyofstuff.org/international/)
sent by my brother-in-law who has devoted himself studying Buddhism
(学佛). This is a 7 series animation presentation which has
comprehensively summed up the problems of the current consumer driven
world we are living today.
From the story "Always On The Side of the Egg"(attached for those
who haven't read it yet), we have learnt that it will difficult to
break the wall (system) of a very successful of consumer-driven world
economy. But just to side track about this analogy of egg and wall, I
would like to amend the analogy by seeing ourselves as bags of pebbles
rather than eggs and the walls are actually built by picking the
pebbles in our bag. Some of our pebbles are so deep in the wall that it
is very hard for us to take it out of the wall while there may be some
which are just on the edge of the wall which we could pick it up and
put back in our bag or use them to build another wall.
Al Gore is a politician. Like most politicians (and executives of
corporations for that matter), his pebbles lay deep inside the
foundation of the wall and it will be hard for him to be freed from the
walls that structured his very existence. He lives within the walls.
That is why he failed to advance any further plans to save the planet.
His mind is muddled by the purity of science and he tried desparately
to prove that the gobal warming is in fact the very by product of
industrial pollutiions. Maybe it is , but our limited knowledge of
science can't prove it all. As a reult, he is under attacked and the
whole issue of world crisis (evironment) has been diverted into just
the argument on the cause of global warming. It becomes the relieving
arguments for those who are beneficted by the consumer-driven economy (
those whose pebbles would never leave their walls and want to protect
the walls) that the planet has indeed been "behaved" like that for many
years. Whether Al Gore and the scientists behind failed to deliver in
the Copenhagen Conference.
"Inconvenience Truth" is a timely alarm. Serious pollutions
porblems in the developing countries and the third world is also a
timely alarm. Are we going to sit back and enjoy the bit of nature
that's left on this planet and wait for them to fade away or should we
search deep in our own souls and conscience and start acting today?
We, being the main stream target consumers by the Corporation,
could switch our living habit and thus our desire to more environment
friendly products. We may just need a system (wall again!) to help us
to fine tune our jugements as a consumer. By our very change of habit,
our purchasing philosophies and thus our buying patterns the
Corporations would be in crisis to make adjustments to our consuming
needs. The example of the recent desire for small and more fuel
efficient cars is a great example of consumers manipulating governments
and corporations to make changes by changing their priorities and
desires. We should continue to put pressure on governments to make
solid guidance for us to make good environment friendly judgements as
consumers, from the current "half-hearted" environmental protection
policy into the first priority item in their political agenda. (Yes
over the health, employment and economical issues they because a good
environmental policy will help our economy, our health and our job!)
Start thinking about moving to a smaller home. Consume less
energy. Drive a smaller car (or not driving at all). Change more energy
efficient applainces and use less of those energy consuming appliance
like large ovens, drying machines, dish washers. Use less light and air
conditioning.
If we each do a part, the consumer market will change. The world will change. Our enviromemt perhaps would change better?
Regards
Peter
Re: The Story of Stuff
Hi Peter,
Thank you for the input. I don't know you have a brother-in-law studying Buddhism. May be I should get to know him and
learn from him.
Peter, you are absolutely right. May be we should start to think more about the future of our planet and our next
generations living on it. The movie 2012 is something we should think about.
This economic meltdown is just a warning. Human being as a group should start
going back to a SIMPLER lifestyle. We can't let our greed push us on and on
without an ending. Do we really need to change our cell phones every 6
months?
I have been back in Africa for the past 3 months. People are dying of hunger and aids every day on this continent. The average life span is only 33 in many countries here. It is a painful learning
experience for me, while knowing that how we are taking things for granted in
other parts of the world, including HK.
regards,
Thomas
Re: The Story of Stuff:
Consumerism and Gobal Warming are so interrelated.