Story of Stuff

After watching The Story of Stuff it really opened my eyes to see how everything around you is affected when it comes to making products for us to consume. When you get a product you are not concerned about how it got to you. You don't realize how quickly we are burning through the earth resources. If we do not change our ways starting now, it's going to be to late to salvage the planet. It affects us in higher education because we need to start informing the public on a daily basis what is happening to the planet. It is the responsibility of the government and higher educational institutes to tell us of the dire situation we will find our selves in if we do not change. A lot of people do not care because they figure once the problem becomes to big they will be dead and gone. That is the wrong attitude to have. We should be concerned about the welfare of our home planet. There is only one. We should be concerned for future generations. What's going to happen to the earth once everything is used up?
In the video they show all the steps that lead to a product being made. Annie Leonard has done 10 years of extensive research on the subject. She says, "that we are living on a linear system and we live on a finite planet and you can not run a linear system on a finite planet indefinitely. We are chopping down all of our trees, blowing up all our mountains and using up all of the water. Leonard says, "in the past three decades alone one third of the planets natural resource space has been consumed, gone." When we over extract from an area we destroy the environment and the animals and people living there. They need to find new places to live. Our factories are using hazardous chemicals that are harmful to the environment and us. After products are made and purchased by us, when we are done with them they need to be discarded somewhere. Leonard says, 99% of the stuff that we run through the system (material economies) is trashed within 6 months. Planned obsolescence is when companies make items for the purpose of being used and replaced quickly. Perceived Obsolesce is when companies change products that work perfectly fine, but become outdated quickly. The purpose for this is so we will keep consuming. This leads to a serious problem where we need to dispose of the unwanted problems. We are burning and putting these items into the ground and air. These items contain hazardous chemicals that are polluting our air.
Leonard says, "It is a system in crisis." I think her strategy of explaining things by analyzing systems is very informative and shows us the process in how things are made and the cause and effect this has on us as a society. It fills in the blanks of the material economies system.