The human costs of consumption--a cool, new cartoon

Well, it's not really a cartoon, but waste activist Annie Leonard's funny, hard-hitting and informative new animated short The Story of Stuff, about the effects of rampant consumption both on human health and the planet, does make you wonder if we've all gone Loony Tunes.

Today's No Impact Man homework is to watch the film here, or read the annotated script here, and to email them both around. This deserves to go viral.

Meanwhile, if you have a dial up or a boss who doesn't like you watching videos at work, here is Annie's excellent list of "10 Little and Big Things You Can Do" (worth going to since I've abridged the commentary here):

1. "Look for opportunities in your life to significantly reduce energy use: drive less, fly less, turn off lights, buy local seasonal food (food takes energy to grow, package, store and transport), wear a sweater instead of turning up the heat, use a clothesline instead of a dryer, vacation closer to home, buy used or borrow things before buying new, recycle."
2. "There are hundreds of opportunities each day to nurture a Zero Waste culture in your home, school, workplace, church, community. This takes developing new habits which soon become second nature. Use both sides of the paper, carry your own mugs and shopping bags, get printer cartridges refilled instead of replaced, compost food scraps, avoid bottled water and other over packaged products, upgrade computers rather than buying new ones, repair and mend rather than replace….the list is endless!"
3. "Talking about these issues raises awareness, builds community and can inspire others to action."
4. Write letters to the editor and submit articles to local press.
5. "Detox your body, detox your home and detox the economy. Many of today’s consumer products – from children’s pajamas to lipstick – contain toxic chemical additives that simply aren’t necessary. Research online (for example, http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/) before you buy to be sure you’re not inadvertently introducing toxics into your home and body."
6. "Unplug the TV and the internet and plug in community."
7. "Park your car and walk!"
8. "Our current paradigm dictates that more stuff is better, that infinite economic growth is desirable and possible, and that pollution is the price of progress. To really turn things around, we need to nurture a different paradigm based on the values of sustainability, justice, health, and community."
9. "Lobby government to prohibit toxics in consumer products and to enact Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) laws, as is happening in Europe. EPR is a policy which holds producers responsible for the entire lifecycle of their products, so that electronics company who use toxics in their products, have to take them back. That is a great incentive for them to get the toxics out!"
10. Buy green, buy fair, buy local, buy used and, most importantly, buy less!

Comments

[Anita]

good thoughts- just fix typo in #7

[abbey]

Gees, dont even give the typos a thought (my first thought was to be rude and say to the posters 'Get a Life!) but its your blog so i wont presume...great stuff, well presented by yourself,I work with teens, and this will make an excellent resource for teaching...thanks heaps for the info, tis appreciated...A

[Jen from Brooklyn]

Colin, thanks so much for connecting me with this. When my mom asked me what I wanted for Hanukah this year, I told her the thing I really wanted was for her to think more about her relationship to Stuff. The reasons I gave her were pretty much the reasons in this video. But this is so clear and compassionate in its presenatation - I think it makes my case better than I did. I sent it to her and will send it to as many people as I can.

[Stephanie]

I know it's a lot more work, but I think it would have been cooler if Annie Leonard (or whoever the featured live action character is) was an animated character as well.

I like the part where the little guy's watching TV and the TV tells him "You Suck." That animation cycle of work, get tired and watch TV, feel bad and shop is a great visual. A lot of things are oversimplified (as is the nature of these messages, I guess) but it's an important message, and quite well done.

[Stephanie]

Jen, your comment reminds me of my mother, whom I try to inform of these things all the time, to very little avail. The worst thing is, she understands the messages, but does nothing to change her habits. She went on and on about how great a movie "An Inconvenient Truth" is, yet is incredibly attached to her car. She will STILL drive 2 blocks to go to the store, without thinking about it.

Sigh.

[PeakOilBoy]

This is fantastic.

She is a great communicator, able to take multiple complex systems and not only describe the reality, but how they are broken.

Three cheers for the Internet and free education.

Now it's time for real solutions to our problems. I do my best at www.lawnstogardens.com

[Rebecca]

Colin:

Thanks for the condensed version since I am on dial up but it is cheap and it works. Thanks for the post it really helps me explain better to my mother why I only asked for one thing this year for the holidays ok I do have to admit it is the latest looney tunes DVD collection but I am a huge fan and grew up with watching them on Saturday mornings. She of course has a great obsession with stuff but hopefully this coming spring my husband and I will go thru some of her stuff and be able to donate or freecycle it.

[Rebecca]

Thanks for the condensed version since I am on dial up it is cheaper and it works. It has also helps me to better explain to my mother why I only want one thing for the holidays ok I have to admit it is the latest Looney Tunes DVD box set but I did grow up watching them on Saturday mornings.

[Zwischen]

I just sent the link http://www.storyofstuff.com/index.html to all my friends in Facebook.

I'm kind of scared what the reaction will be!

[TasterSpoon]

This is cute and very encouragingly put. Just an FYI, it's a pretty long video.

[Ki]

I was wondering if you could help me with a small problem;

I've been trying to make my life greener, and I've picked up lots of the major hints out there (bike, don't drive, buy less, etc) but I know little things add up.

I've been on Google for a while but I just can't find a good site that answers all the little questions like "is it better to wash dishes by hand or in the dishwasher?" comparing the water use with the electricity consumption. Are fake Christmas trees better than real, even though they're manufactured? Those kind of questions.

Do you know of a good site (or two) that would have the answers to those kinds of questions? Even better, an explanation why? I'm hoping someone out there has done the math on the little things, and made it available to the generally ignorant masses, like me.

Thank you.

[Diane Gandee Sorbi]

I just loved this video! In about a half hour, Annie Leonard was able to give the best reasoning I've ever heard for rethinking our consumer culture. I'm going to email this around. I wish everyone could see it. It would be great if this could be required viewing in every school. Colin, thank you so much for this post.

[Crunchy Chicken]

Ki - I address both those questions here and here as well as many others if you want to stop by and peruse for a while.

I hope that helps...

[Stretch Mark Mama]

Well, that video was fabulous. Now I think I'll go sit in the corner and sob. :)

[Charles]

Great presentation! I loved it! I forwarded it to everyone in my address book.

Thanks for what you did. What will you do next?

[Charles]

Great article and especially movie. I loved it and I forwarded it to everyone on my contact list.

Thank You! This was one of your best ever.

[frederick Nunley]

Best 20 minutes of animation I have seen on the internet in 10 years getting to the point of why we love No Impact Man. He really helps.

[Anne]

After reading this, I got stuck in traffic behind a huge SUV with a single driver sporting a sticker that said (approximately) "One nation has 5% of the world's population, uses 50% of the world's resources, and generates 50% of the world's trash. That nation is US." I was stunned by the incongruity.

[Annabel]

Whilst I'm a big greenie and hate waste, I found the video so annoying I had to stop it about 4 or 5 mins in. The cartoon graphics were cute, but there seemed to me to be a lot of over-simplification in it (which leaves open to criticism an argument which shouldn't be open to criticism). She also comes across very patronisingly, and even if you're aiming at schoolkids - they don't have to be patronised.

I can see that everyone else here enjoyed it, though, so maybe I'm being too harsh. I salute anyone who tries to push the green agenda into the mainstream. And in particular anyone trying to push it to Americans, cos there's only so much the rest of us can do without you!

[Susan Och]

I also turned it off, at the part where she said that resource extraction means "cutting down all the trees and killing all the animals". I'll probably watch it later, but I have to prepare myself for that sort of gross generalization. I won't show it to my neighbor who makes a decent living doing horse logging.

[Annabel]

phew - thank God someone else thought that statement (and a great many after that as well) were over-generalisations. Reading the other comments I thought I'd seen a different video to them! She came across to me as the sort of greenie that (quite rightly) scares everyone off. Reasoned arguments are much more effective than exaggerated, emotive ones.

[Tanya]

I come from a developing country, and Annie's statement about resource extraction is true. While there are companies which engage in responsible practices, those companies are very few and far between. Almost 10 years ago, an international mining company caused severe environmental damage to one part of my country, and just packed up their bags and left, without being held responsible for their mess. The people of that community are still reeling from the devastating effects of that mining catastrophe. And this scenario is undoubtedly replicated all over the developing world.

For those who think that the statements in The Story of Stuff were over-simplifications or gross generalizations: I invite you to come and see with your own eyes what is happening in the Third World.

[Tanya]

I come from a developing country, and Annie's statement about resource extraction is true. While there are companies which engage in responsible practices, those companies are very few and far between. Almost 10 years ago, an international mining company caused severe environmental damage to one part of my country, and just packed up their bags and left, without being held responsible for their mess. The people of that community are still reeling from the devastating effects of that mining catastrophe. And this scenario is undoubtedly replicated all over the developing world.

For those who think that the statements in The Story of Stuff were over-simplifications or gross generalizations: I invite you to come and see with your own eyes what is happening in the Third World.

[Tanya]

I come from a developing country, and Annie's statement about resource extraction is true. While there are companies which engage in responsible practices, those companies are very few and far between. Almost 10 years ago, an international mining company caused severe environmental damage to one part of my country, and just packed up their bags and left, without being held responsible for their mess. The people of that community are still reeling from the devastating effects of that mining catastrophe. And this scenario is undoubtedly replicated all over the developing world.

For those who think that the statements in The Story of Stuff were over-simplifications or gross generalizations: I invite you to come and see with your own eyes what is happening in the Third World.