Not a city renowned for it a robust and engaged political community, seeing this video made me proud to be from LA.

I’m a total sucker for videos of people using their bodies to make shapes and words for aerial photography. Never gets old.

Check it out:

If you’re feeling particularly inspired, check out Resolutions Week and get involved with people all across the country who are getting together this summer to take a stand against the disastrous Citizens United decision.

Hat tip to Good Magazine for the post.

Over at The Story of Stuff shop, we get all sorts of fabulous, fun, and inspiring emails.  We love it not only because we like hearing from you, but also because it calls to our immediate attention just how many of us there are taking on these issues.

Your emails, blog and FB comments, often serve as sparkly, internet reminders that all across the globe there are tons of people hard at work to make this world more healthy, sustainable, and just. Yay!

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Originally Posted on PBS Parents

by Allison Cook and Renée Shade

At the end of November, I immediately–and frantically–started making to-do lists of presents to buy, searching blogs for holiday meal and craft ideas, looking for cheap flights, and trying to remember where I put my glue gun. The overwhelming feeling of holiday craziness began to wash over me, and I’m not the only one freaking out; eight out of ten Americans experience increased stress during the holiday season.

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On the biggest shopping day of the year, think for a moment about the demands our consumption makes on the planet’s resources and ask yourself: Does our family need more stuff?… FULL POST »

Here at the Story of Stuff Project, we celebrate the fact that our movies have inspired millions around the world—from Brazil and South Africa to the UK and India and everywhere in between. But while many members of the Story of Stuff community don’t live in the United States, we’ve chosen to focus our advocacy efforts here in our home country.

Here are just a couple of the reasons why:… FULL POST »

Sharpen your (sustainably harvested wood) pencils:  school is back in session!

If you think schools should be supplementing reading, writing and arithmetic lessons with some schooling on those other three r’s – reducing, reusing and recycling – the Story of Stuff Project has some great resources for you, your kids and their teachers…. FULL POST »

Last week, I finally got to meet the people at the New Economics Foundation, whose motto is “economics as if people and the planet mattered.”

These are the guys in London who create the fascinating Happy Planet Index, or HPI, which evaluates countries based on 3 components: their level of health, level of well-being and rate of resource consumption. Basically, the HPI is a measure of how effectively a country converts resources into human well being. As you can see from the HPI map, some countries do this very efficiently and some countries – like mine – less so.

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ORIGINALLY POSTED BY THE INSTITUTE FOR HUMANE EDUCATION

From the time we arise in the morning until after we fall asleep, we participate in a continuous cycle of using stuff that affects ourselves, other people, animals and the planet. We do what we can to buy products and use stuff that do more good and less harm, but it can be a real challenge to uncover the details of how these gadgets and goodies that we buy to meet our wants and needs are produced, transported, and disposed of and whether the secret lives of our stuff reflect our deepest values. Industry and government don’t make it easy to find out. Fortunately, people passionate about creating a better world are creating more resources to help us. Here are 7 resources for finding out more about the impact of your stuff on people, animals and the earth:… FULL POST »

This Earth Day—and every day—each of us can promote sustainability and justice at multiple levels: as an individual, as a teacher or parent, a community member or businessperson, as a national citizen, and as a global citizen.

Like I say in The Story of Stuff, “the good thing about such an all pervasive problem is that there are so many points of intervention.” In other words, lots and lots of places to plug in, get involved, and make a difference!

There is no single simple thing to do because the set of problems we’re addressing just isn’t simple. And yes, everyone can make a difference, but the bigger your action the bigger the difference you’ll make.

Here’s our list of 10 Little and Big Things You Can Do.

If you’re using Chrome or Safari,click the image below to view the annotated script in your browser. Otherwise, you can right-click the image to download it and open with the PDF viewer of your choice.

Help us spread the word! Feel free to use these images on your site or blog. We just please ask that you link back to us. Simply right-click on your PC or ctrl-click on your Mac to download a zip file of images from each film. This file is 405 KB.

If you’re using Chrome or Safari,click the image below to view the annotated script in your browser. Otherwise, you can right-click the image to download it and open with the PDF-viewer of your choice.

Our Creative Commons License permits you to download and share our films for free  so long as you play it in its entirety for non-commercial use. And while sharing our films in full for non-commercial use is free, the production cost and hosting fees are not! Donations in any amount are always appreciated. You can make a secure, tax-deductible on-line contribution via our donation page and help keep this information free. Thanks!

Please be patient, when downloading. Our films are large files.

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If you’re using Chrome or Safari,click the image below to view the annotated script in your browser. Otherwise, you can right-click the image to download it and open with the PDF-viewer of your choice.

As posted on Huffington Post.

When I turned on my computer today, I had 7 emails from vendors announcing special low prices – Black Friday deals – available all week. The biggest discounts advertised were on electronics,which wasn’t a surprise since November is considered “electronics buying month” within the retail industry. I waded through the Black Friday junk mail, tapping away at my delete button, to find the one email I sought: the message from my neighbor with the menu, schedule and guest list for this Thursday’s Thanksgiving gathering.

Now, revisionist history aside, Thanksgiving is a great holiday. It is two full days during which most people in the U.S. are liberated from work and school. It comes at a time when the days are getting shorter, trees have lost their leaves, and we’re pulling the sweaters out from the back of our overstuffed closets. It’s the perfect time to cozy up and nest with friends and family. In the midst of our hectic year-end bustle, we get to spend two days pausing, recharging, looking into the faces of loved ones rather than into our computer screens. And, of course, remembering those who can’t be with us.

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…And enough what? Stuff? Health? Credit Card Debt? Friends?

You may have heard about a book called Your Money or Your Life, originally published in 1992 and updated last year. If you haven’t read it, I recommend you check it out. The book became a huge hit and resonated with hundreds of thousands of readers who felt buried under debt and stuff, while lacking time for friends, leisure, and fun. It helped start a national discussion about enough by asking how much is enough of anything and how do we know when we’re there.

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Made in collaboration with Facing the Future, Buy, Use, Toss? is an interdisciplinary unit that includes ten fully-planned lessons…. FULL POST »

Read more about Annie’s segment on Good Morning America HERE.

Since Annie Leonard created The Story of Stuff, the short web film has been watched some ten million times. But the twenty-minute film was twenty years in the making. So Leonard decided to write a book, telling the tale of her explorations through the cycle of extraction, creation, and disposal that rules so much of the world around us, and our own lives.

Listen to the podcast of this interview via iTunes, or just click here to listen, right-click to download.

I’m working today on the forward to the German edition of the Story of Stuff book, which will be published soon after the U.S. version comes out next month (pre-orders available via Powell’s Books, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon)

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If you liked The Story of Stuff and the messages it conveys please share it far and wide. Host a screening at a house party, or classroom, or church group, or neighborhood association or any other location.

To make things easy, we’ve compiled just about everything you need to organize a successful event HERE.

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We deeply appreciate the generous outpouring of support our Project has received over the past 48 hours in response to Glenn Beck’s continuing attack against the use of The Story of Stuff in classrooms across the country.

We created The Story of Stuff to get people thinking and talking. The result over the past two years—not to mention the past two days—speaks for itself.

The messages we’ve received from thousands of teachers and students who’ve seen the film—some of whom thoroughly disagreed with it—gives us confidence that young people are not only fully capable of engaging with the subject matter in the Story of Stuff, they’re asking for it. After all, they are the ones who will have to address climate change and the other environmental and social side effects of our throw away culture.

Beck’s line of attack appears to be motivated by the release of his new book: Arguing with Idiots.

But we have better things to do…. FULL POST »

On his radio and television programs today, Glenn Beck offered up a “critique” of The Story of Stuff—a 20-minute web-film that examines the underside of America’s production and consumption patterns. In Beck’s world, an honest exploration of the environmental and social challenges our children are inheriting is worthy of scorn and ridicule, not honest engagement.

In May 2009, the New York Times called The Story of Stuff “a sleeper hit in classrooms across the country.” We’re honored that teachers from middle school through university are using our film to spark debate and engage students in critical thinking…. FULL POST »

When Missoula, Montana high school teacher Kathleen Kennedy showed The Story of Stuff to students in her 12th grade biology classes last October she figured it would be a good conversation starter. Yet, one parent, Mr. Zuber, who wasn’t too pleased with the subject matter discussed in the Story of Stuff, launched a campaign against the teacher and the film that eventually reached the school board. As you recall, in February the board voted 4-3 (with 3 members absent) that Kennedy’s showing of the video violated the district’s policy on presentation of controversial issues…. FULL POST »

MISSOULA SCHOOL BOARD BANS STORY OF STUFF!

We need your help! Please send an email!

A teacher in Missoula, Montana, U.S., recently showed the film The Story of Stuff to her high school biology class. An irate parent complained to the school board, which late last month voted that showing the video violated district policy—in effect banning the film.

Fortuantely students, parents, and teachers in Missoula and elsewhere are voicing their concern to the school board. Please join them!… FULL POST »

Dear Story of Stuff friends,

I apologize for my absence from my blog. To be totally frank, while I have been delighted and inspired by the response to the Story of Stuff, I wasn’t expecting quite this level of enthusiasm, so I’ve also been a bit floored figuring out how to manage it all. I’ve now secured a friend, Allison Cook, to work with me on managing all the emails, requests for translations and more so I am coming up for air. You can email Allison and me at storyofstuff@gmail.com…. FULL POST »

I just saw this wonderful short video that some high school kids at Woodside Priory School’s Global Issues Class made about Story of Stuff:

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I’ve spent the last two weeks sorting through about a thousand emails from people around the world who have contacted us to share ideas about the issues in The Story of Stuff.

A significant chunk of the emails and DVD requests has come from teachers all the way from elementary through college level. I have heard from teachers all over the U.S. as well as many other countries who wanted to share ideas or experiences on using The Story of Stuff in a classroom or other educational setting…. FULL POST »