Congratulations Annie – there will be many more awards I’m sure!

My news is being asked by the United Nations to join an international forum on accelerating and scaling up sustainable development. Of course that means making the linear-circular switch happen everywhere. Doing what we can locally is important but it’s not enough. To have any chance of big-enough fast-enough action we need to change the economic rules of the game, which means getting governments on board. Over time – all of them, but we can start with a few.

There are two challenges with this. The first is that governments all think they know what to do and how to do it. In reality it is governments who have led the world into the current financial crunch and they are similarly leading us all into an ecological crunch. (And you guessed – there is a social one too, around inequalities of wealth and armed conflict). All the tools that governments rely on can only tinker with the worst excesses of linear economics. They can never reshape the world as the Story of Stuff shows is necessary. Doing this requires new tools, designed to deal with joined-up problems, rather than boxed-up problems. You can see what I suggested for the UN here, http://www.blindspot.org.uk/unitednations.html.

The second challenge is central to getting governments on board. Have you ever wondered why governments are so obsessed with economic growth, even though everyone has known for decades that it lumps together the costs of productive activity with the costs of things going wrong? Actually that’s one of the reasons why they like it so much. If they made clever choices and things went well then growth went up. If they made dumb decisions and things went wrong then, like magic, growth still went up! Politicians could boast about their success whatever happened. Cushy.

The other reason why governments love growth is the key. Governments always want more money, to provide more services they say, but also to get more influence over what’s going on and to try to sort out the growing mountain of unresolved problems. That’s why taxes keep going up. And why governments prioritise growth above everything else. More growth means more tax revenue and more cash in government coffers.

So the vital message that governments everywhere need to hear urgently is that the way they used to get growth won’t work any more. Speeding up the conveyor belt of linear processing of stuff can no longer produce growth. The world has reached a tipping point where the problems now cause more economic inactivity (people, resources and regions being unavailable to work) than economic activity. In fact if governments keep relying on linear economics for growth the picture for growth over time will not be waves or cycles, it will be a brick wall.

I know it’s obvious to the millions who have watched the Story of Stuff but governments still don’t realise that the only way forward, for them and for everyone, is circular economics. Stuff needs to go in cycles, to make new resources for nature and for people, not junk. This would avoid problems getting much worse and provide clean resources and healthy secure people that can build tomorrow’s growth. If we act quickly it may even be possible to rapidly switch to the more productive circular strategy without growth crashing to the floor.

So for anyone who can find a way to talk to government, that’s what they need to hear. And fast.

Extremely commendable effort by team behind stuff.
Today’s consumer needs to be not only become aware but also police companies on the very premise of how ethically business is conducted. Global warming is just one of the many perils of how wealth creation is fast overtaking resource depletion. We at SriLanka Apparel strongly support and believe this cause as we ensure that each and every t-shirt, jeans and garment you wear is guiltfree and is made keeping upmost ethical standards. Pls visit us at http://www.garmentswithoutguilt.com

Hi, Annie
I got your video from a friend in Spain. We both speak English and Spanish but many of my friends don’t speak english and I was wondering if you guys have translated your videos to Spanish, French or other languages. I think it’s important to translate your documentary into other languages.

I do agree that it would be great to be able to listen to this in other languages (I was just going to volunteer to translate it into Italian) but I also think it would be great if also figures changed: the percentages of garbage etcetc that you mention in the video regard the US so if you translate it (in french, Spanish, Italian etc) it would be good to hear also the percentages from somewhere else (generically Europe would be good!). It is just my opinion, anyway.
Great video!

Hi. I’m surprised that one who says she studied this “stuff” for 10 years would come up with terribly inaccurate “facts” and dangerous “answer”. Nearly every single sentence in your well done video piece is wrong. Is that intentional or simply ignorance? Do you wish me to illustrate? Where do I start?

Okay, how about this. You say we cut down all the trees … not true. For that matter the very opposite of what you assert is true. America has far more trees now than it did 200 years ago. That is due to the tree industry. The tree industry is very careful to plant far more trees than they ever cut. And it is the fresh trees that grow and clean the air. Cutting down old growth also reduces the destruction caused by lightning and hence preserves the wildlife. I could go on and on. What you present as “facts” is not only totally wrong, it is also dangerous. If we eliminated our forestry industry or turned it over to government we might in fact wipe out the forest as you claim we are now doing.

Another sad and very destructive implication of your piece is that if everything was just run by governments all would be well. Corporations are evil simply by their very existence. What about the fact that most seniors and widows owe their retirement to the wise wealth management of corporations. Governments make a mess of practically everything they manage. Those countries that are ravaging the planet are also the ones ruled by powerful tyrannical government. When government owns things, there is no accountability or reason for excellence. Resources get wasted. Again, the answers you propose would be horrifyingly destructive.

This is a terrible piece of propaganda. Sad and very harmful to making some actual progress. It indoctrinates children with bad ideas that would continue to harm our world. It is too bad that one with such talent must use it cause harm to our planet.

Dear Annie,

I am a common consumer from Bulgaria. I am also molecular biologist, photographer and expert in European chemical legislation. Here in my country the situation as you described it is the same and that is valid also for the whole Europe. I was very impressed from your story and my first wish was to show it to my closest friends and family. Unfortunately I am able to send the link only to those of my friends who are fluent in English, but my parent are not, so it will be very difficult for me to communicate to them this concept. Did you ever thought about translating “the story” in other languages. At least I can help or find somebody for Bulgarian. But we may find also support from other European languages. And if not the whole website, you can consider subtitles fot the film in other languages which will be easier and most achievable goal. Please, write and let me know what do you think about this idea and can I help with something.
Hope to hear from you soon,
Gergana Genova

Dear Annie,
I saw your “Story” about a year ago, and have recommended its viewing wherever I can, but not always for the obvious reasons.
I am an end-of-career engineer with 50 years experience serving industry (but not employed by industry), as an industrial teacher — how the machines work, solving problems, etc. I’m also the unofficial historian of the plastic beverage bottle, as I was there in the 70s when it was developed, and wrote technical reports on this subject at the time.
Finally, I’m an anthropologist with special interests in the food supply from what we plant to what we eat, as well as the cultures of factories.
All this experience has made me painfully aware of the tyranny of stuff, but where we differ is in the position that people other than the consumer have manipulated/planned our overconsumptive habits; I believe it is our own need to differentiate ourselves in a culture that has become more and more depersonalized and individuated (Me generation), brought on by homogenized information — the Net and email are prime operators, but there was plenty before that, such as TV news, the shakeups of the Vietnam war, and cheap gas and a good highway system, which made it possible to leave home AND come back again. Alvin Toffler’s Third Wave (the communications revolution) was prophetic, as was his Future Shock, which reminded us of the anxiety produced by the realization that the past would not replicate in the future. One result has been our addictions to pleasure, excitement and comfort — in other words, stuff.

Focusing blame on the media and ad people and the manufacturers is like blaming the pushers and growers for drug addiction. The pushers are hardly angels, but the addicts themselves bear some responsibility and have to dig out of their own addictions (alcohol and food included). And to start with, they/we must understand the roots of this addiction, which is a lot harder than blaming the pushers.

Environmental concerns, such as resource conservation, recycling and biodegradability, are commendable in themselves, but are used as feel-good diversions from the basic problem of consumption. In fact, they are often environmentally flawed, as some resources are virtually limitless (glass sand), recycling sometimes costs us more energy and saves us less resources than if the product was thrown away or even incinerated for power, and degradability is even harder to defend, as nothing degrades in a sanitary landfill and the wrong things as well as the right grow in an unsanitary one. (See work of Prof W Rathje at Arizona, now at UC Berkeley).

I’ve been asked what I would suggest to fix this problem, especially as any serious contraction in our consumption would have great repercussions in our economy, let alone the Chinese, and therefore have political consequences. I don’t have a quick fix, and maybe there isn’t any, but I can at least avoid deceiving myself by buying into the diversions already explained. All I can do is live what I believe:

ULS-FOS-TANA
Use Less Stuff
Fix Old Stuff
Throw Almost Nothing Away

Guidelines that minimize stuff:
1. Get a garden — relates to the land, grows things you might eat, occupies time in a constructive way;
2. Have a workshop, for fixing things, making things for needs, gifts, fun.
3. Hugging, which represents interpersonal relationships that are not fueled by stuff.

I don’t have The Answer, but I want to see what’s really going on, and anything that stimulates such introspection is good stuff.
ALG