November 5th, 2009, posted by Annie Leonard
This entry was posted
on Thursday, November 5th, 2009 at 4:13 pm and is filed under Consumption, Disposal, The Story of Stuff.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the 
RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
November 6th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Thank you. It’s always inspiring.
November 8th, 2009 at 11:09 am
Thanks Annie for the straight talk! I have been preaching your philosophy for years!
People who collect stuff are missing so much in their lives.
I encourage all my friends and family to give away or throw away(recycle) extras- at least if they hear me they can think about changing behaviors!
I am a professional organizer also- and I feel so strongly about your point of view!
Thanks for caring and talking and influencing the world to change!
Will you be coming to Chicago to talk? We can use your influence here!
November 9th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
Hi, Can I get a transcript of the speech to translate/subtitle it to Spanish?. So it can reach new audiences.
I personally showed The History of Stuff here in a class last year and it was a total success.
Cheers from Argentina
Luciano
November 11th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
Looks like Annie spoke to supportive crowd of people about what they already knew, and the talk is rather summarizing the views.
I wish it was more direct and pushed people to specific actions. And I wish this talk was in front of people who do not support Annie’s views so she had chance to change their minds.
November 13th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
Great speech! I can’t believe it took me almost two years to find out about your movie cuz I’m really interested in environmental “stuff”
Would like to promote the movie in Germany…interested in a German version?
Keep up the great work!
November 14th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
I’ve always been interested in cleaning up our act, starting with my own. I’m 15 years old, and after watching your videos and reading your blog, I know exactly how I’m going to live my life from now on. Thank you. :]
~Felicia
P.S: I totally agree with you. Fox is a butthead. But they seem to be like that about almost anything.
November 16th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
I have such a hard time with the “stuff” issues… The Raised-a-Yankee-Puritan part of me wants to live the life of a monk, nothing extra that doesn’t serve a specific real purpose to keep me alive, but, god it is exhausting. I too go into convulsions! For example, watching the video, I thought, “does she really need a pair of earings? That gold chain took an immense amount of cyanide to leach mine if it was bought any time in the last 50 years…How can she lecture on stuff while wearing fashionable glasses??!.” See, it’s an illness, really.
How do you find a balance between what you really need and what brings some joy and what really is just a big fat waste? It’s a daily challenge for me, I don’t know about you. Thanks for making folks think!!
November 20th, 2009 at 12:05 am
Dear Annie,
I completely believe in your science and I realized it about 7 years ago in my heart. I was looking for a way to save the world and this is what came to me.
I know that it may sound a little unscientific or unusual, but meh!
I have been telling/preaching! this aspect of life to a bunch of people with little or no results so far, and I understood about 4 years ago that media was the way to go. So I picked myself from the slums of Mumbai and put myself after grueling efforts in a film school in Athens, Ohio.
I believe that innocent people were cheated into this fake theory of consumption and social malice through media programming and I thought I had to cheat them out of it by creating conscious media and eventually a big media empire for the same.
Relationships are the best investments/insurance for us and it makes us happy. I love how you are on the same lines. I keep making films about the uselessness of stuff and the usefulness of relationships/reconnection.
Coming from a very poor background, I scarcely buy stuff, I do buy a lot of food though and I eat it all!
I am so happy to see ‘The Story of Stuff’ and I want to offer my services and friendship if it is in anyway helpful to you in the future.
Check out my films if you get some time.
http://www.finearts.ohio.edu/film/pages/screening-room/films/Satish%20More-Baggage%20Hill-player.htm
http://www.finearts.ohio.edu/film/pages/screening-room/films/Satish%20More-The%20Car-player.htm
http://www.needthefilm.com
http://www.openthefilm.com
Best,
Satish More
November 25th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
This is great, I really like you’re 3 points about the current forms of consumption and production as:
1) Trashing the planet
2) Trashing each other
3) Not even having fun
I have been doing a lot of research on the commons and ideas around sharing. Everything I’ve found so far is that the deeper we look at different models of sharing, the more we find that they are good for #1, #2 and, most importantly, #3. I really like that you included #3, of not having fun, because I think that is one of the most commonly overlooked aspects as we look to create a brighter and more sustainable future.
Nice work!
November 26th, 2009 at 1:07 am
I love to here people wanting to help the planet I belive we do have to make changes and the lord will help us come up with a way to make those changes if we ask him for the blue print.
November 27th, 2009 at 3:44 am
Those are words of a real leader.
Thanks Annie.
Our government people should take action by diffusing this film ( The Story of Stuff ) in all of our educating system with no false regards on the tragedy of unnessessary comsumption business.
Maurice
Québec
November 29th, 2009 at 9:17 pm
As I sit at my computer screen (my “square-headed spouse”) and consume information about what my species – via it’s most evil creation, the modern corporation – is doing to the planet, I am consumed by a deep sadness at the situation I, and my fellow humans, find myself in. Consumption has become ingrained so much in my life that I find what I am doing right now – this very minute – typing characters on the plastic keyboard of a “consumer product” to be released who knows where into the electronic innertubes to be profoundly alienating. Only an insane person would call this situation “happiness.” We are most definitely not having fun as we consume our way to physical, psychological and spiritual oblivion.
Thank you for your spirited, hopeful, energetic attitude in the face of this overwhelming ennui and inertia.
December 1st, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Thanks Annie
This is perhaps one of the most significant and applicable practices we can do today. It is so simple yet so profound, and in many ways can potentially make a larger change in the world than anticipated. We need to all think like this and it begins with education.
I hope to meet you on person one day.
David
Chico CA
December 3rd, 2009 at 5:05 am
Annie, why don’t you do a piece about Goldman Sachs. If you read the Matt Taibbi’s article in Rolling Stone about GS you have a ready manuscript for your wonderful project.
December 3rd, 2009 at 6:46 am
Hello Annie, you are so right… so right… noone will denied you and your facts! no doubt about that… but the problem is not that.. most of the people I know are conscious about stuff .. but stuff makes us living the standars we want to live! imagine… if suddenly we shope shopping for 3 days only… imagine only that… we will collapse! our economic system is so dependent that if we dont by stuff we will “die”! if the machine stops for some days our GDP goes down, i will loose my job, my friends will loose their job too, my family will be unhappy, i wont have money to pay my mortgage, i will be kick out soon, since my friends are without they cant help me, etc.. etc… you know how the story goes! i fully agree with your story but i think the focus is not correct… we should be repsonsible enough to improve our full chain… no CO2 emmissions, green packaging, renewable wenergies, etc… not stop buying stuff… unless we change our system the stuff needs to be bought by people continously…
well, just wanted to bring a different prespective to this forum….
anyway, i really admite you for the stuff you are doing!
Xavier
Portugal
December 3rd, 2009 at 8:45 am
Dear Annie
That is really a great idea and great thinking. Every knows these but no body care about these. We have to protect our environment, our surroundings, our society if we want to live. The prime importance to bring happiness among the society is to bring social justice and fulfill the basic necessities. It is a key to happy life.
December 3rd, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Dear Annie,
Excellent talk on a justice cause for all of us.
We must all support and promot the idea. Since I saw your first tals on material economy, I e mailed it to 50 friends, started my self buying less and trashing less and managed to introduce the idea to my family. I suggest to add to the story of stuff actions that we grow plants.
The power of the internet will make the message reach everywhere.
Good luck
Hassan,
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
December 4th, 2009 at 7:54 am
I just finished watching Story of Stuff and I must say that I totally agree with everything in the film. Unfortunately,like many other movements, documentary films, organizations etc. it doesn’t seem like anyone is getting to the root cause of these very problems and after watching Story of Stuff it still failed to get to the root cause. Everyone seems to want to patch up the symptoms and do patch work within the system we live in but unfortunately, patching things up will never work because you have built-in corruption in the system itself. For example, the organization PETA doesn’t want people to kill animals but they never tell you why people kill the animals in the first place. People kill animals because they have to make money to survive. As long as people need to make money to survive they will always engage in corrupt behavior. Someone who clubs a baby seal to death isn’t doing it just for the joy of it, they do it because they need to make money to survive. People who sell drugs aren’t doing it just for the fun of it all, they do it to make money. As long as people need to make money to survive, none of these problems will ever go away. Big companies need to make money also so they cut corners and also engage in corrupt behavior . Politicians want them to stop cutting down the trees, but they live in wood houses. My point is, you can make little steps of progress here and there doing patch work, but if you really want to change society you have to change the whole social system. In our current social system every corner you turn there is a dead end.
The only real solution that I have come across in my research that has a near empirical basis is The Venus Project. I suggest you guys check out this documentary that breaks it down for you http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7065205277695921912 and visit http://www.thevenusproject.com and also http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com for more information.
December 8th, 2009 at 1:43 am
Great Video – I long to have the type of illutrative animations you have.
I created an organization to advocate from a slightly different direction – Thorium energy.
you can see the 4 minute video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU3cUssuz-U
The Thorium Energy Alliance is trying to change the direction of power generation and distribution.
Some quibbles:
You need to talk about population in one of your videos.
We can mine our land fills for resources.
We need to be realistic about base load energy demands for the whole planet.
Good luck, we are on the same team.
I would love to talk : thoriumenergyalliance@gmail.com
December 9th, 2009 at 3:32 am
We save our precious environment one step at a time, the challenge is to get everyone on the wagon. You’re recruiting listening ears, willing hands, and open minds . . . . thank you.
December 10th, 2009 at 8:06 am
As a christian, the Bible tells us that we should be good stewards of that which has been entrusted to us. In that sense, I completely agree that we need to be more conscious and careful with the way that we use resources. The upsetting and frightening thing about this video is that it is so one sided and so far left liberal, that I could not even stomach watching the entire thing to get what little good information there was. I got half way thru before I was screaming at the computer and had to stop. She is intelligent, but extremely closed minded. The inferences to redistribution of wealth, evolution, sleights to FOX news, and several other veiled comments simply lend credence to the fact that this is more a political discussion than anything else. It is one person trying to cram up our backside their idea of how a utopia should work. (by the way, the 60’s ought to be proof enough that Utopia is a pipe dream and will never work!!)
December 10th, 2009 at 10:36 pm
Dear Annie,
Thank you for all. From South America, we are taking actions too!!!
December 13th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Hi Annie,
Thankyou very much for being such an incredible speaker!
Beautifully simple, direct and energy-full speech!
Thanks for doing what you do best!
Lots of love from Portugal
December 13th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
A big thanks from Brazil. One planet, and as you said, we all are in it together, so lets work and change it together.
Julianna
December 14th, 2009 at 3:42 am
THANK YOU so much for the speech man
you rock thanks for helping this weird and
ugly world
But you know other people don’t care about
this what a shame for them
I wish they can understand how important
December 15th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
GREAT STUFF!!!! Just what we need. A big clear view and some good advice. I sent the movie to all thinking, feeling and good willing people I know. It´ll work. We need insight in the whole and you give it to the people. Thanks a lot. You make sense!
xxx from the Netherlands
December 18th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
The only problem is that the video leaves out a few very important parts. One of the biggest oversights, in the presentation, is that we are way overpopulated on this planet. All of the stats presented can be multiplied enormously if you take into account population increase at current rates and the fact that China (with a population of 4x the U.S.) is starting to catch up to the U.S. in per capita consumption of goods.
BOTTOM LINE… It’s all in the hands of the people. So, anyone who is whining about our global problems without doing anything about it is simply creating an annoyance. I suppose it might be wise to talk to friends and neighbors about birth control education and abortion …or just plain EDUCATION.
December 18th, 2009 at 11:12 pm
Hi Annie,
I am nearly ten, my mum showed me your short film ‘The Story of Stuff’ when when I was seven. It helped me learn more and helped me to explain why we need to make a change to my friends. My favorite bit is the part where the guy is on a work, watch TV, shop treadmill and then he jumps off.
I have just watched your film ‘The Story of Cap and Trade’. Thanks for explaining some of the terms that are hard to uncode.
Please come to Australia and I would love to have you as a guest at my school. My mum said you very welcome if you need a place to stay.
I can’t wait to see ‘The Story of Electronics’ and ‘The Story of Bottled Water’.
Love your work! Bye
December 19th, 2009 at 6:54 pm
Great, really true. The real power lies with consumers, that’s why we are brainwashed, so that we don’t choose. What we choose, what we buy, will be produced, and what we don’t, won’t.
If all the consumers in the world started making the right choices, we would not even need Governments to slow down global warming. That means that the average American should not wait for the average Chinese or Indian or guy in Timbuktoo – who doesn’t even have electricity or running water – to reduce his carbon emission.
It’s all there in your film. Good for you, keep it up.
December 27th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
Wonderful work Annie – a great life’s achievement, and I’m sure you’ve only just started what you can do to raise our collective consciousness about our world and all of our ingrained attitudes. I just read the article on your work in YES magazine, and saw your movie and Bioneers talk. Excellent. Inspirational.
Just an added comment to Andrew’s post – I am one of those people who chose to not have children, because there were too many humans on the planet, and from the vantage point of 50 years I can report that the issue is less about the number of people here, and more about how the people think. I would have been better off to raise a houseful of informed and enlightened adopted kids or foster children, instead of having zero population gain as my goal. Making more environmentally conscious people on the Earth is an acceptable reason to have kids.
December 28th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
Timely, yet long overdue. Fantastic. Presented with excellence. I am totally convinced that there are more wise persons who desire quality living than those who just want to make a living. Sadly, soooo many are so busy making a so-called ‘living’, they don’t have tme to ‘live’. I pray that God will open the eyes of politicians to both see and follow the truth. We do not absolutely need them but their facilitation of change can make that change less difficult. People count!!
December 30th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
I was listening, and you said that peopl have less friends than what they used to have,because we spend all our time in a cage of work and T.V. This isn’t the only reason. I’m in 6th grade,and I spend most of my time in school…with other kids. And whenever I say recycle that,or don’t litter, they look at me with the oddest expressions: disgust,distrust, who knows? Anyways that wasn’t my point. well I only have two actual friends in my class. Why? Because I don’t buy things as soon as they come out, I don’t watch T.V. all day,so I’m not up-to-date with all the stuff, and since that’s all my classmates talk about, I don”t have many friends. And when I asked them: When was the last time you were happy? they say, when my mom bought me an ipod touch…or when is the last time you laughed? When I saw that funny episode of Phineas and Ferb. Our values are being lost. We must save our humanity. Now, instead of (for example) integrity being valued, whether I have an ipod is valued. I don’t have an ipod, so I’m a nobody. Some day, I’m going to write a book, and the “theme” as my teachers say, will be about our declining moral values.
January 9th, 2010 at 9:10 am
GREAT, GREAT, WONDERFUL MESSAGE!! ONLY ONE CRITICISM…. LEAVE OUT THE GARBAGE ABOUT FOX NEWS. SOMEHOW THOSE REFERENCES DIMINISH THIS INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT MESSAGE.
January 12th, 2010 at 11:33 am
thats an awesome video!thanks for leting me watch it.
January 12th, 2010 at 12:53 pm
yep….. cool
January 13th, 2010 at 7:52 pm
Very nice presentation. Very nice attempt to explain the system. However, very flawed!
There is only one problem – and that is the Government!!!!!!!! Get rid of them, this will release our slavery to them, and allow us to really decide what to do to make the best choice. The heavy heavy taxation is what is driving this problem, and leaving us helpless to fight for the proper cause. Governments are keeping us broke, and them powerful.
Very soon, we will be total slaves, and will have only one master – The Government, – unless we act now.
People are not wasting these resources, Governments are. People are generally good, except when they are under the thumb of big brother, and ‘forced’ to do things they don’t want to do. Now, people will distroy other people – for money (Iran & Afghanistan wars). All these solders are missionaries, fighting only for money and pension, regardless of how many lives are killed. The Government works this way also – using us to build their empires.
The problems stops – not by helping to conserve our environment, but by not ‘feeding’ the Government and letting them destroy the environment.
Destruction of the environment is one of the new world orders objectives. By not fighting them, we are agreeing with them. Silence is Consent.
January 14th, 2010 at 4:32 am
An incredible message! A wake-up call to all of us.
I wish companies such as HP; Dell; Canon, etc. who refuse to allow us to re-fill ink cartridges, would re-think their responsibilities, rather than force s to throw away cartridges.
I know they need to make money; why not make it on the ink.
January 16th, 2010 at 11:37 pm
As the old saying goes, “you can’t buy happiness.” How true it is about the premise of happiness. When Sam Walton was dying from cancer, he said he would trade it all in for more time being with nature. For many of us time to enjoy life is obsconded by materialism. Thank you Annie for all your work. I have your “Story of Stuff” linked on my homepage. It is the best 20 minute explanation of why materialism does not serve anyone’s needs except big business and is destroying everything its wake.