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Thursday, March 20, 2008

The story of stuff - EXACTLY how it is.

Close your eyes, you need to concentrate. Wait, don't. You won't be able to read this. So don't close your eyes, but eliminate all distractions from your environment. Turn off the music, let the dog outside, placate the children, do whatever you have to do to create twenty five minutes of free time.

Do it, it's important. This concerns your life, and the life of your children and their children. This is about the very future of mankind itself.

Imagine the planet as a train. Imagine that as the train gains passengers (population), it picks up speed. Over time, it gains more passengers, and picks up more speed. I suppose you'd want to know it's eventual destination right? It's destination is a wall.

Do you really want to be in that train when it hits?

We live on a planet, with finite resources. This means that nothing (other than solar radiation and a bit of space dust) comes in, and nothing goes out. What's on this planet is all we have, and when we run out, it's gone.

Consider how you live. What do you do when you don't like the colour of your kitchen cabinets anymore? When your shoes become unfashionable? How many bags of garbage do you put to the curb every week?

And where does it go?

If you answered, I buy more stuff, I put lots of garbage out, and it goes to the landfill, those are the answers I was looking for, those were the truthful answers.

Let me ask you this. If the earth is a finite system, and all it's stuff is filtering through you to the landfill, what happens when the earth runs out of stuff?

Haven't thought of that did you. You were too busy enjoying all your stuff, and shopping for new stuff.

That's the problem. We're complacently running ourselves faster and faster into that wall, towards certain doom, and the best that we can do is put it out of our minds and go shopping, for more stuff.

But don't take my word for it, I'm just an amateur. Luckily, we have someone out there batting for us, someone who's done the research, someone who knows the straight goods. That person is Annie Leonard, and she gives us the story of stuff.

Go to her website here. Watch the flash movie. And please, pay attention. If you don't want to navigate away from this page to watch it, I have it for you below, albeit in a lesser quality version than is on her site.




I hope those of you that have watched this have taken it seriously. Please do, because in the end, it applies to us all.

Go to www.thestoryofstuff.com. Check out the resources. Develop an active interest in taking true, meaningful steps to saving our planet, and all of us that live on it. Most importantly, spread Annie's message to as many people as you can. Knowledge is power, and there is power in numbers.

Let's make a difference before we hit that wall, shall we?

=========

If you liked the above, you may also like:

We're the problem, ok?

13 keen observations:

Iron Pugilist said...

Interesting. I won't take action, but I commend your effort.

Moooooog35 said...

So...you're saying that I SHOULDN'T throw my car batteries into the river behind my house?

Fine.

I'll just bury them in the yard with my old paint cans.

Mike said...

IP - You're taking front seat in the train!

moooooog - Bring them over here, I'm about to bury my old barrels of DDT and Benzene.

R.E.H. said...

Re-cycling is important so that resources can be re-used and that way finite resources could become infinite.

It is serious, though, I agree. And, we all need to shape up and take responsibility for our planet... our home.

Miss Caught Up said...

I am so glad you posted that on your blog. I just wish more could be done.

Mike said...

R.E.H. - You're on the right train of thought

Fashionista - More can be done. Post it on your blog!

Tequila Mockingbird said...

your post makes me want to go hit the bong and then have sex in the snow. that's what you were going for, right?

Jillian said...

Wow, I haven't recycled in FOREVER. Now I feel all guilty and stuff.

Unknown said...

I agree completely. Except for the part about throwing out shoes. That's just crazy talk.

Anonymous said...

I sit, watched and listened, The shopping part! Yeah, I just want to say that We(my house) needs to do a lot more recycling. I am going to do better at my apartment also!

Single

I will make a post and put that on my page also!

JUST ME said...

I totally recycle.

I'm a great "awesome saying" recycler. If I say something awesome once, chances are I'll say it a few more times, even though it's ALREADY been said.

...just doing my part.

Jay said...

we've been the problem for so long its not even funny

Knight said...

We have to recycle in NYC or you get ticketed. I love that. I think I'm fairly conscious of what I'm doing to the earth and I take steps to be a better citizen in that way. I also think a lot of people are far more conscious now of what is happening then they were just five years ago. If only they cared.