Story of stuff | Living Off the Grid: Free Yourself

Story of stuff
by NICK ROSEN on MARCH 8, 2010 - 2 Comments in COMMUNITY, EVENTS

Annie get your stuff

I received a mail from Annie Leonard, author of The Story of Stuff, requesting help in getting the word out. I am happy to do so, because one of the key themes of the Off-Grid web site is that we are all sick of over-consumption. So Annie is One of Us.

Here is her letter:

“My new book, The Story of Stuff, goes on sale today in bookstores all around the country.

In fact, I’m in New York as I write this preparing for my appearance tonight on The Colbert Report! I hope you tune in.
Before I make a pitch to buy, full title The Story of Stuff: How Our Obsession with Stuff Is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities, and Our Health-and a Vision for Change, I want to tell you a bit about what inspired it.

I was raised by a single mom who-partly out of worldview and partly out of necessity-followed the World War II saying: Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.
In college, I developed a fascination about the garbage on the streets of New York. Where did it all come from? Where did it all go?

After graduation I went to work for Greenpeace, investigating the international waste trade. My work took me around the world, and I learned firsthand about the way we distribute, consume, and dispose of our Stuff-what I call the take-make-waste model.

What I learned is that everything is part of a larger system and nothing can be understood without looking at all the other parts of the system. Everything is connected. When you try to trace the source and the true cost of your Stuff, whether it’s your T-shirt or your cellphone, you find that it takes a whole system to make anything.

The thing is, very few people want to talk about that system. I mean, most of our political leaders are still focused on economic growth for growth’s sake, when our real goal should be ensuring that our fellow human beings live fuller, healthier lives. Right?

I don’t have to tell you that the shift we need to make to ensure our children and their children live in a healthier, more just world is big. Really big.

It will require our government, banks, media, corporations and other institutions getting on board. It will require that we as individuals move beyond the easy fixes to push for fundamental change in the way we make, use and dispose of our Stuff-changes and costs that our leaders seem afraid to discuss.

Well, I’m not.

I didn’t pull any punches with The Story of Stuff. I tell it like it is. And that makes some people kind of uncomfortable. (And not just Glenn Beck!)

So here’s the pitch.

I’m going to be on the road for the next several months bringing the message of The Story of Stuff to anyone who will listen. I may even be coming to your town.

I’d like to let those who are open to the message-and even the critics-know that I’m not alone, that there is a growing community in this country and around the world who care and are ready to act.

So if you liked The Story of Stuff film and want to learn more or help elevate this message, please consider buying the book.

Then share it with a friend, or put up a link to our website from your Facebook page, or Tweet about it. Maybe even buy a copy for your librarian or science teacher or suggest it to your book club.

And tune in tonight to The Colbert Report or one of my other media appearances to cheer me on!

Thanks so much for your support!

Sincerely,

Annie Leonard

2 comments

1 elnav { 03.11.10 at 5:32 am }: So lets us assume we manage to stop accumulating ‘stuff’, At what point in technological development should we arrest technological development. Should we cut off at the ww2 era or maybe back at turn of twentieth century development electricity is okay bit not radio and TV. Telegraph and telephone is okay because it was invented pre 1900. The danger being many other developments depended on advances in other technical developments . Penecillin and other medical advances probably would not have taken place in the absence of labs using these other technologies.
Even without a ban on specific technologies the simple cessation of consumer demand has a stultifying effect on product research and developmen itself. Off-grid advovates proudly boast of going solar and using LED lights thus taking them off grid. Little do they realize both developments were spin off from the cold war and space race during the twentieth century. How would these off-grid advocates manage without these modern developments.
Solar cells first became a viable technology due to developments in powering satellites. Almost all of our modern solid state electronics technology was pushed by the space race. Transistors were developed decades after we already knew about gale and germanium crystal action. It was only when American and Russian efforts to out do each other with satellites that the electronic developments took off. I can still remember how miniature vacuum tubes were used in post ww2 consumer radios. I wrote term papers on how technology changed from this to compact solid stat then to integrated circuits and once even did a paper on the first traffic light systems cntrolled by computers. These term paper were written as developments took place not as a historical record long after the fact. My iPod has a thousand times the processing power as the huge IBM and Univac computers using punched tape or cards we had in universities of the sixties.
I have come to realize that without the consumer demands for ‘stuff” we would probably all be living like mennonites or Amish communities with candles or oil lanterns, using only horses to work farm equipments and black smithing would be considered ‘hi tech’. But of course these religious orders are living the real off-grid life. Maybe this is in fact the role model we need to adopt when considering going off grid.
For one thing the world would not be as crowded with people. Lacking modern medical advances infant mortality would be much greater and that would help keep down the surplus population as Mr. Scrooge was so fond of saying in Charles Dicken’s novel A christmas Carol.
Is this really where we want to go?
2 Lornkanaga { 03.11.10 at 12:36 pm }: elnav,

I think we can find a happy medium somewhere. I see the major problem with “stuff” as “what do we do with the ‘stuff’ when we’re finished with it?”

Although the recycling industry recently hit a bubble and is now on the downtrend, I see it making an upturn soon. Once people get more creative (and especially practical*) about what comes out on the other end, I think we can find a balance between needing “stuff” and that “stuff” ending up in landfills.

*The most creative/practical/useful thing I’ve seen as an endproduct is decking material out of several types of recycled plastic.