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Annie Leonard is an incredible public speaker. She does an incredible job outlining the many repercussions of Americans turning a blind eye to both the environment and multitudes of minorities both in our country and abroad. The Story of Stuff is a brilliantly outlined depiction of the ways in which the production of products has posed unescapable detriments to our planet. I truly can't believe this is eight years old and I haven't seen it yet. I had an idea of these circumstances, but she described them in a beautifully told, simultaneously maddening and saddening story.
One of the things that stood out to me was the circumstance of 'externalizing costs'. I had never before really questioned why products were so inexpensive, and how the intricate building of products and its journey to our stores ends up costing innocent people all over the world. Think about the dollar store. While all of that stuff can truly be seen as junk, they still require so many intricate manufacturing that truly must require more monetary investment than 99 cents. It hurts to think about it.
There are times when I think I was born in the wrong generation. Advertisements truly make me nauseous. I hate that I have to pay an extra twenty dollars to have an e-book that doesn't freeze frame on ads for bleach, or pay monthly to read the New York Times without pop-up ads. The fact that we see 30,000 ads/day, which is more than an American saw in their entire lifetime just 50 years ago sickens me. I also hate to admit how guilty I am of being a thoughtless consumer. Come the holidays I feel an almost innate pressure to buy buy buy things that are new new new. The pessimistic side of me simply argues my noncompliance changes nothing, but the optimistic side of me urges that this isn't so. She describes the evolution of American's consumeristic nature, how it became a new idealism. This way of life is now rendered old, and since people created this old way of living, means people are completely capable of creating a new way.
I apologize for my rant but I'm trying to remain optimistic!
One of the things that stood out to me was the circumstance of 'externalizing costs'. I had never before really questioned why products were so inexpensive, and how the intricate building of products and its journey to our stores ends up costing innocent people all over the world. Think about the dollar store. While all of that stuff can truly be seen as junk, they still require so many intricate manufacturing that truly must require more monetary investment than 99 cents. It hurts to think about it.
There are times when I think I was born in the wrong generation. Advertisements truly make me nauseous. I hate that I have to pay an extra twenty dollars to have an e-book that doesn't freeze frame on ads for bleach, or pay monthly to read the New York Times without pop-up ads. The fact that we see 30,000 ads/day, which is more than an American saw in their entire lifetime just 50 years ago sickens me. I also hate to admit how guilty I am of being a thoughtless consumer. Come the holidays I feel an almost innate pressure to buy buy buy things that are new new new. The pessimistic side of me simply argues my noncompliance changes nothing, but the optimistic side of me urges that this isn't so. She describes the evolution of American's consumeristic nature, how it became a new idealism. This way of life is now rendered old, and since people created this old way of living, means people are completely capable of creating a new way.
I apologize for my rant but I'm trying to remain optimistic!
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