nonparametric:

The Story of Stuff

From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view.

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Well-designed, but I am skeptical as to how this is promoting any profound realization. Yes the United States is undoubtedly a major exploiter of resources and labor as well are fueled by desires for mass gain/production with limited cost, but what is new?

End point: I am bitter over environmental “awareness” and the newly adaptive buzzword that is sustainability.

I understand the concept of making the public more educated; Do not get me wrong, I am not opposed to education and the sharing of insightful and worthwhile information. But, in the sense of crisis-recognition, there comes a point to which the state of the problem or issue at hand cannot be further defined nor illustrated. Take globalization and the maltreatment of exported labor: Indefinitely everyone’s favorite barbie doll which comes out of your local Wal-Mart has a high probability that it was made from the hands of outsourced workers— this only presenting the repercussions of energy expenditures in shipment, deferred labor opportunities for United States citizens in need of employment, and no recognition to the fact that the labor: pay ratio for the outsourced worker is completely and poorly unbalanced.

But, we will keep spending our time and energy making these videos to promote public “awareness,”… and the public reaction? “That is so shocking or amazing or sad… etc” to which the viewer contemplates the viewed medium of information then resumes their typical lifestyle. I do not mean to sound pessimistic, but I am deeply frustrated upon how “awareness” is not complemented with solutions to these problems. Aside from “Buy energy efficient appliances and light bulbs” (These not practical solutions as they are only promoting the habits of consumption which started the whole mess) there are no instructional guidelines to constructing proenvironmental change which is feasible within the realm of economics. I know initiatives to ”Help Save the Whales” has great intentions, but truly, we cannot merely donate money to help save the whales and only go about our normal environmentally destructive behaviors of overconsumption and environmental expenditure; This is counterproductive.

Environmental sustainability is a full cycle: Initiated with an informed mindset of human costs of environmental interaction, carried out through minimal environmental expenditure of resources and energy, and completed with the mechanics of reinvestment and reuse.

The earth cannot afford to settle for a band-aid made of charitable donations and awareness campaigns to solve the current and proliferating problems of environmental distress and destruction; This solution rests in the behavioral and attitudinal shifts of the individual.

Also see: Consumerism: Ideas that Changed the World

Maybe if we get over these habits, and become cognizant that there is a discrepancy between “needs” and “wants,” the environment can actually get somewhere on the road to recovery…