The Story of Stuff Project

If you have trouble watching the video below, try watching it at http://video.kcts9.org/video/1560891823.  Thanks!

Watch the full episode. See more KCTS 9 Connects.

Watch the full episode. See more KCTS 9 Connects.

It’s probably one of the most common questions that we get asked at the Story of Stuff Project:   “How do you all stay so positive in the face of (insert horrifying ecological or social problem here)?”

In Annie’s case, we think it might be chemical, but for the rest of the Story of Stuff crew, a huge reason we keep coming to the office everyday is the opportunity to connect with people around the world who are inventing Another Way. Let’s face it; it’s hard to be Debbie Downer when the folks around you are so inspiring.

My most recent brush with solutions has me all a flutter (in addition to confirming that I am an absolute and total geek).

This July I spent the better part of a week in Lowell, Massachusetts at the Lowell Center’s Sustainability Action Summer Institute. The training was a gathering of a special kind of nerd (myself included) who is fascinated by the toxicity of various chemical compounds in cleaning products and thinks that brominated flame retardants in cell phones makes for stimulating dinner conversation. Needless to say, I had a great time.

I think I found the week so nourishing mainly because the entire meeting was solutions oriented. Here was a room full of policy wonks, academics, scientists, foundation representatives, and sustainability advocates who really understand the disastrous consequences of our super toxic, chemical-laden culture for people and the planet.  If ever there was a group of people who could tell you how x-chemical causes cancer and y-chemical is killing off all the fish and z-chemical results in birth defects this was it.

Yet for the five days that I was in Lowell, the conversation was almost exclusively about what was being done to change the landscape and bring us closer to the kind of future we want:  debriefs on state and national policies—like the Safer Chemicals Act—to regulate the use of toxic chemicals; an orientation on the Pharos database that helps activists study up on toxic chemicals and helps green builders make safer and more sustainable materials choices; talking through frameworks for sustainable products and alternatives assessments; and exploring the groundbreaking work being done to green the electronics industry.

One real highlight was a dinner with John Warner, one of the fathers of green chemistry. Warner inspired me with the incredible possibility that creativity and innovation hold for transforming entire industries to be safer and more sustainable. Even if less geeky sectors of the population may not be as enthralled as I am by the possibility of dry chemicals reactions or a database comparing the most sustainable, least toxic resilient flooring options, I think that we can all agree that creativity and innovation are captivating.

To borrow from one of the Lowell Center’s slogans “Natural resources are finite, ideas are not.”  And that is a very good thing.

World’s top corporations cause $2.2 trillion in environmental damage

A study currently underway for the United Nations is calculating the cost of pollution and other environmental  damage caused by the 3,000 biggest public companies in the world. The study, which will be published this summer, has found that the economic cost of environmental damage by these top 3,000 companies is $2.2 trillion dollars, or more than one-third of their profits if they were held financially accountable. This includes greenhouse gas emissions, other pollution, and water degradation. The final amount is likely to increase once additional costs – like toxic waste – are incorporated.

In an article about this upcoming report, the Guardian newspaper wrote: “The report comes amid growing concern that no one is made to pay for most of the use, loss and damage of the environment, which is reaching crisis proportions in the form of pollution and the rapid loss of freshwater, fisheries and fertile soils.”

So basically, what this upcoming report says is that a big chunk – about 1/3 – of the profits that these big companies are making is due to the fact that they are not paying the full costs of operating. They are shoving a whole range of costs – from pollution to climate change to water depletion – onto communities around the world – onto us! Communities around the world are bearing the costs with degraded health, soil, water and climate change. That’s just not fair.

In the Story of Stuff film, I talked about how externalized costs allowed me to buy a little radio for the irrationally low price of $4.99. This report in a good first step at showing the global scale of externalized costs. If we’re going to get our economy and environment back in order, a top priority must be forcing companies to pay the full costs of production. In economist-speak, this means internalizing externalities. That would be a strong motivator to get companies to invest in the cleaner, less polluting approaches and encourage all of us to avoid superfluous consumption. If the true cost of that cotton t-shirt or iPod was really included in the price tag, we might think twice before chucking and replacing it before we really need to. Think about that next time you look at those insanely low prices on so much consumer stuff – who is really paying the full cost of producing all this? Apparently not the companies which make it!

Remember in The Story of Stuff film, I talked about dioxin, a compound which is among the most toxic manmade chemicals known to science?

Dioxin is really nasty stuff. It causes a range of health problems, including cancer.  Dioxin is not created intentionally; no one sets up to actually make this super toxic poison. Instead, it is created as a byproduct and then released from a number of industrial processes including  burning garbage in incinerators, bleaching paper pulp with chlorine and the production of products as diverse as PVC plastic, pesticides, and Agent Orange. Because dioxin is connected to so many of today’s industrial processes, it is widely distributed in our communities where it builds up the food chain and eventually reaches each of our bodies.

Right now, those of us in the U.S. have a unique opportunity to  protect our communities from dioxin. (Of course, we also need to protect communities everywhere from dioxin and a good place to start on that front is IPEN, which is working on a global treaty to ban the most toxic chemicals, including dioxin.)

While preventing new dioxin is a better long term solution than cleaning it up after it has been produced and released, we still do need to clean up the stuff that is already contaminating our communities. The sooner, the better. This week, the U.S. EPA is seeking comments on its proposed cleanup guidelines for dioxin and the public comment period ends on Friday February 26th.

The EPA’s guidelines are a step in the right direction, but dioxin can be toxic at even very low levels of exposure, and that’s why we’re asking for your help to press EPA to develop stronger cleanup guidelines. We’re up against some of the biggest chemical polluters in the world – corporations like Dow Chemical.  We don’t have their big bucks but we have one thing they don’t — people power, people like you.

Please send a quick email, urging EPA to strengthen its proposed dioxin clean up guidelines, here.   Public comments are due Friday, February 26th, so please act this week.

There are many organizations working on stopping dioxin at source. In the U.S.  contact the Center for Health, Environment and Justice. Internationally contact IPEN. And if, like me, burning garbage in incinerators – which destroys resources and releases dioxin – makes you especially furious, contact GAIA to get involved in promoting safe and fair alternatives.

But first, send a quick message to EPA to ask them to make the strongest possible clean up standards for dioxin. Remember, public comment period ends on Friday, February 26th. While dioxin contamination may last forever, the public comment period doesn’t.

Thanks!
Annie

I want to pause in the midst of the much needed debate about climate change solutions, as I do every December 2^nd -3^rd to remember Bhopal.

Last night was the 25th anniversary of the disaster in Bhopal, India,  where a Union Carbide  pesticide plant released 27 tons of toxic chemical into a crowded sleeping city, killing 8,000 immediately and injuring over a half a million people. It is widely recognized as the world’s biggest industrial chemical accident ever.

I’ve been to Bhopal, where survivors told me stories of waking in the night, feeling a fierce burning in their eyes and throat. First some thought neighbors were burning chilies. Others thought the day of reckoning had come. In the middle of the night, thousands started running. People were trampled, children lost, thousands injured and killed.

The disaster started that night 25 years ago and it continues to this day:

Unbelievably, after 25 years, the company still refuses to share its information on the toxic health impacts of the leaked gas, calling it a “trade secret,” thwarting efforts to provide medical care to victims of exposure. The abandoned Union Carbide factory, now owned by Dow Chemical, still sits there, leaking hazardous chemicals and waste left behind in the aftermath of the disaster, poisoning the next generation of Bhopalis.

Yesterday, as on every anniversary, the gas survivors marched in Bhopal demanding health care, clean water, justice and an end to the toxics-based industrial production model in widespread use today.

The survivors aren’t just asking for environmental health and justice for their community but for every community. Their slogan – No More Bhopals – means no more Bhopals there or anywhere. No more toxic chemical poisoning.  No more writing off whole communities as disposable. No more sacrificing people and the planet for business as usual.

As Bhopal survivor Rashida Bee said: “We are not expendable. We are not flowers offered at the altar of profit and power. We are dancing flames committed to conquering darkness and to challenging those who threaten the planet and the magic and mystery of life.”

So today I pause, remember and renew my resolve to keep working towards a world with No More Bhopals.

If you’re like me, an increasing amount of your worries these days focus on the rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere and the resulting potential for devastating climate chaos.

Years ago, when I first heard about climate change, I figured someone else would work all that out while I kept plodding away with my work on consumption, pollution and waste. Well, guess what? They didn’t work it out; in fact, the climate situation is far worse today than even recent scientific predictions. And guess what else? It turns out that climate and consumption are actually the same issue.

You see, most of the greenhouse gases countries emit come from our materials economy: the way we make, use, transport, and throw away all the stuff in our lives. As Boston College professor (and one of my favorite authors) Juliet Schor said “Global consumerism devours resources like there’s no tomorrow. And unless we address how much we consume, we won’t succeed in averting disastrous climate change.”

A majority of scientists now say we need to significantly reduce carbon levels in the atmosphere if we want the planet to resemble something close to what it is like today, supporting the kind of life that it does today. To do this, we simply have to use less Stuff – especially oil and coal. We have to rethink, redesign and rebuild a lot of things. We have to figure out different modes of transportation, growing food, building buildings, and having fun that don’t require endless new Stuff. It’s very possible to make these changes, but they won’t happen on their own. We need to get started.

Unfortunately, most of the world’s leaders and big businesses are instead promoting policy approaches that don’t bring us anywhere near the level of change that climate scientists say is needed—let’s call these “false solutions.” And there’s another problem with these policy approaches: the details are so technical and policy wonkish that it’s often hard to figure out what they are even talking about.

I wondered if it would be possible to explain the leading false solution, Cap and Trade, in a clear compelling way so that more of us are inspired to join the conversation. Working with Climate Justice Now!, the Durban Group for Climate Justice and Free Range Studios, we produced our new short film, The Story of Cap and Trade, to do just that.

We hope you like it. And more importantly, we hope it inspires you to get involved in the most important conversation of our lives.

Those of us in the U.S. are wrapping up our work weeks today to spend tomorrow with friends and family, gathered around big home cooked meals and giving thanks.

Yes, I know that the history of this particular holiday is not nearly as charming as our children’s schoolbooks portray, but for many, the gathering isn’t about participating in a fabricated historical tale, but is about pausing in our hectic lives and honestly sincerely giving thanks for those things which make our lives sweeter throughout the year:  our friends,  our family, our community and our work to make world a better place.

Unfortunately, many people across the country leave their home Thanksgiving night to sleep in cold parking lots and line up at stores to participate in the consumer frenzy known as Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year. Retailers know that the Friday after Thanksgiving is the only weekday that many people will have off from work until Christmas, so they widely advertise rock bottom prices to lure people away from their friends and families to go shopping. Adbusters has declared November 27th in the U.S. and 28 November internationally Buy Nothing Day and calls upon us all to restrain from holiday shopping, or from any shopping as well as to unplug our TVs, leave the cars in the garage, and  “from sunrise through sunset, we’ll abstain en masse, not only from holiday shopping, but from all the temptations of our five-planet lifestyles.”

Last year’s Black Friday hit a new low.

Jdimytai Damour, a 34 year old man from Haiti, was working as a temporary worker at a Wal-Mart in New York State.  At 5:00 am, when the store was scheduled to open, the crowd of shoppers who had been waiting in line in the cold for up to 8 hours, stormed the door and trampled Jdimytai to death.

I think of Jdimytai with every advertisement that I’ve seen urging me to go shopping early on Friday morning. And I’ll be thinking of him as I instead linger around our dinner table, crowded with friends, and when I spend a welcome Friday off of work playing board games and making art projects with the kids and doing any number of things that will be infinitely more fun than sleeping in a cold parking lot to be first in line at the mall.

I hope you’ll do the same.

Happy Thanksgiving.