1 00:00:19,020 --> 00:00:19,920 Do you have one of these? 2 00:00:20,590 --> 00:00:22,060 I got a little obsessed with mine. 3 00:00:22,390 --> 00:00:24,530 In fact I got a little obsessed with all my stuff. 4 00:00:24,890 --> 00:00:27,060 Have you ever wondered where all the stuff we buy, comes from 5 00:00:27,490 --> 00:00:28,830 and where it goes when we throw it out? 6 00:00:29,630 --> 00:00:32,030 I couldn't stop wondering about that. So I looked it up. 7 00:00:32,230 --> 00:00:35,470 And what the text book said, is that stuff moves through a system 8 00:00:35,900 --> 00:00:41,140 from extraction to production to distribution to consumption to disposal. 9 00:00:41,680 --> 00:00:45,680 All together, it is called the materials economy. Well, I looked into it a little bit more. 10 00:00:46,680 --> 00:00:48,550 In fact, I spent 10 years traveling the world, 11 00:00:49,120 --> 00:00:51,990 tracking where our stuff comes from and where it goes. 12 00:00:52,550 --> 00:00:55,250 And you know what I found out? That is not the whole story. 13 00:00:55,860 --> 00:00:58,060 There's a lot missing from this explanation. 14 00:00:58,560 --> 00:01:02,100 For one thing, this system looks like it's fine. No problem. 15 00:01:03,100 --> 00:01:05,300 But the truth is it’s a system in crisis. 16 00:01:05,930 --> 00:01:08,630 And the reason it is in crisis is that it is a linear system 17 00:01:09,300 --> 00:01:10,700 and we live on a finite planet 18 00:01:11,270 --> 00:01:15,270 and you can not run a linear system on a finite planet indefinitely. 19 00:01:15,810 --> 00:01:19,310 Every step along the way, this system is interacting with the real world. 20 00:01:19,910 --> 00:01:21,950 In real life it’s not happening on a blank white page. 21 00:01:23,120 --> 00:01:26,120 It’s interacting with societies, cultures, economies, the environment. 22 00:01:26,650 --> 00:01:29,020 And all along the way, it’s bumping up against limits. 23 00:01:29,690 --> 00:01:32,690 Limits we don't see here because the diagram is incomplete. 24 00:01:33,590 --> 00:01:36,660 So lets go back through, let's fill in some of the blanks and see what's missing. 25 00:01:37,300 --> 00:01:40,600 Well, one of the most important things its missing is people, yes people. 26 00:01:41,130 --> 00:01:43,800 People live and work all along this system. 27 00:01:44,640 --> 00:01:47,510 And some people in this system matter a little more than others; 28 00:01:47,770 --> 00:01:49,970 Some have a little more say. Who are they? 29 00:01:50,340 --> 00:01:52,010 Well, let’s start with the government. 30 00:01:52,310 --> 00:01:54,880 Now my friends tell me I should use a tank to symbolize the government 31 00:01:55,320 --> 00:01:57,920 and that’s true in many countries and increasingly in our own, 32 00:01:58,050 --> 00:02:01,720 after all more than 50% of our federal tax money is now going to the military, 33 00:02:02,320 --> 00:02:04,120 but I’m using a person to symbolize the government 34 00:02:04,620 --> 00:02:07,460 because I hold true to the vision and values that governments should be 35 00:02:07,760 --> 00:02:09,930 of the people, by the people, for the people. 36 00:02:10,430 --> 00:02:14,770 It's the governments job to watch out for us, to take care of us. That’s their job. 37 00:02:15,670 --> 00:02:17,400 Then along came the corporation. 38 00:02:17,870 --> 00:02:19,970 Now, the reason the corporation looks bigger than the government 39 00:02:20,370 --> 00:02:22,140 is bigger then the government. 40 00:02:22,480 --> 00:02:27,050 Of the 100 largest economies on earth now, 51 are corporations. 41 00:02:28,050 --> 00:02:32,150 As the corporations have grown in size and power, we’ve seen a little change in the government 42 00:02:32,820 --> 00:02:34,360 where they’re a little more concerned in making sure 43 00:02:35,060 --> 00:02:36,490 everything is working out for those guys than for us. 44 00:02:37,220 --> 00:02:39,920 Ok, so lets see what else is missing from this picture. 45 00:02:40,490 --> 00:02:41,520 We'll start with extraction. 46 00:02:42,400 --> 00:02:45,440 which is a fancy word for natural resource exploitation 47 00:02:45,970 --> 00:02:48,310 which is a fancy word for trashing the planet. 48 00:02:48,900 --> 00:02:52,890 What this looks like is we chop down trees, we blow up mountains to get the metals inside, 49 00:02:53,310 --> 00:02:55,280 we use up all the water and we wipe out the animals. 50 00:02:55,940 --> 00:02:58,210 So here we are running up against our first limit. 51 00:02:58,910 --> 00:03:03,010 We are running out of resources. We are using too much stuff. 52 00:03:03,550 --> 00:03:06,690 Now I know this can be hard to hear, but it's the truth we’ve gotta deal with it. 53 00:03:07,420 --> 00:03:08,650 In the past three decades alone, 54 00:03:09,390 --> 00:03:14,190 one-third of the planet’s natural resources base have been consumed. Gone. 55 00:03:15,000 --> 00:03:19,040 We are cutting and mining and hauling and trashing the place so fast 56 00:03:19,700 --> 00:03:23,340 that we’re undermining the planet’s very ability for people to live here. 57 00:03:23,940 --> 00:03:28,780 Where I live, in the United States, we have less than 4% of our original forests left. 58 00:03:29,540 --> 00:03:32,280 Forty percent of the waterways have become undrinkable. 59 00:03:32,910 --> 00:03:35,610 And our problem is not just that we’re using too much stuff, 60 00:03:36,220 --> 00:03:40,860 but we’re using more than our share. We have 5% of the world’s population 61 00:03:41,390 --> 00:03:46,530 but we’re consuming 30% of the world’s resources and creating 30% of the world’s waste. 62 00:03:47,230 --> 00:03:51,400 If everybody consumed at U.S. rates, we would need 3 to 5 planets. 63 00:03:52,100 --> 00:03:54,100 And you know what? We’ve only got one. 64 00:03:54,770 --> 00:03:58,770 So, my country’s response to this limitation is simply to go take somebody else’s! 65 00:03:59,310 --> 00:04:02,050 This is the Third World, which – some would say – 66 00:04:02,680 --> 00:04:05,920 is another word for our stuff that somehow got on someone else’s land. 67 00:04:06,510 --> 00:04:09,550 So what does that look like? The same thing: trashing the place. 68 00:04:10,750 --> 00:04:14,920 75% of global fisheries now are fished at or beyond capacity. 69 00:04:15,520 --> 00:04:18,890 80% of the planet’s original forests are gone. 70 00:04:19,760 --> 00:04:22,830 In the Amazon alone, we’re losing 2000 trees a minute. 71 00:04:23,500 --> 00:04:25,740 That is seven football fields a minute. 72 00:04:26,500 --> 00:04:28,500 And what about the people who live here? 73 00:04:29,140 --> 00:04:32,280 Well. According to these guys, they don’t own these resources 74 00:04:32,970 --> 00:04:35,710 even if they’ve been living there for generations, they don’t own the means of production 75 00:04:36,410 --> 00:04:38,580 and they’re not buying a lot of stuff. And in this system, 76 00:04:39,280 --> 00:04:42,980 if you don’t own or buy a lot of stuff, you don’t have value. 77 00:04:44,030 --> 00:04:48,020 So, next, the materials move to “production“ and what happens there is we use energy 78 00:04:48,950 --> 00:04:54,090 to mix toxic chemicals in with the natural resources to make toxic contaminated products. 79 00:04:54,730 --> 00:04:58,630 There are over 100,000 synthetic chemicals in use in commerce today. 80 00:04:59,230 --> 00:05:01,570 Only a handful of them have even been tested for health impacts 81 00:05:02,300 --> 00:05:04,500 and NONE have been tested for synergistic health impacts, 82 00:05:05,140 --> 00:05:07,780 that means when they interact with all the other chemicals we’re exposed to every day. 83 00:05:08,440 --> 00:05:11,510 So, we don’t know the full impact on health and the environment of all these toxic chemicals. 84 00:05:12,280 --> 00:05:15,480 But we do know one thing: Toxics in, Toxics Out. 85 00:05:16,080 --> 00:05:19,120 As long as we keep putting toxics into our inudstrial production systems, 86 00:05:19,750 --> 00:05:21,950 we are going to keep getting toxics in the stuff that we bring 87 00:05:22,120 --> 00:05:25,920 into our homes, and workplaces, and schools. And, duh, our bodies. 88 00:05:26,860 --> 00:05:29,000 Like BFRs, brominated flame retardants. 89 00:05:29,660 --> 00:05:33,160 They are a chemical that make things more fireproof but they are super toxic. 90 00:05:33,930 --> 00:05:39,700 They’re a neurotoxin–that means toxic to the brain What are we even doing using a chemical like this? 91 00:05:40,310 --> 00:05:45,250 Yet we put them in our computers, our appliances, couches, mattresses, even some pillows. 92 00:05:46,010 --> 00:05:49,550 In fact, we take our pillows, we douse them in a neurotoxin 93 00:05:50,250 --> 00:05:53,190 and then we bring them home and put our heads on them for 8 hours a night to sleep. 94 00:05:53,920 --> 00:05:57,120 Now, I don’t know, but it seems to me that in this country with so much potential, 95 00:05:57,760 --> 00:06:00,600 we could think of a better way to stop our heads from catching on fire at night. 96 00:06:01,260 --> 00:06:04,830 Now these toxics build up in the food chain and concentrate in our bodies. 97 00:06:05,630 --> 00:06:07,600 Do you know what is the food at the top of the food chain 98 00:06:08,240 --> 00:06:11,840 with the highest level of many toxic contaminants? Human breast milk. 99 00:06:12,770 --> 00:06:17,940 That means that we have reached a point where the smallest members of our societies - our babies 100 00:06:18,640 --> 00:06:23,250 are getting their highest lifetime dose of toxic chemicals from breastfeeding from their mothers. 101 00:06:24,020 --> 00:06:26,890 Is that not an incredible violation? 102 00:06:27,690 --> 00:06:31,060 Breastfeeding must be the most fundamental human act of nurturing; 103 00:06:31,860 --> 00:06:35,400 it should be sacred and safe. Now breastfeeding is still best 104 00:06:36,030 --> 00:06:40,900 and mothers should definitely keep breastfeeding, but we should protect it. They should protect it. 105 00:06:41,500 --> 00:06:44,300 I thought they were looking out for us. And of course, 106 00:06:45,040 --> 00:06:46,810 the people who bear the biggest of these toxic chemicals 107 00:06:47,570 --> 00:06:50,710 are the factory workers, many of whom are women of reproductive age. 108 00:06:51,610 --> 00:06:54,680 They’re working with reproductive toxics, carcinogens and more. 109 00:06:55,450 --> 00:06:58,890 Now, I ask you, what kind of woman of reproductive age 110 00:06:59,520 --> 00:07:01,760 would work in a job exposed to reproductive toxics, 111 00:07:02,560 --> 00:07:06,900 except for a woman with no other option? And that is one of the “beauties” of this system? 112 00:07:07,630 --> 00:07:10,330 The erosion of local environments and economies here 113 00:07:11,030 --> 00:07:13,830 ensures a constant supply of people with no other option. 114 00:07:14,600 --> 00:07:18,600 Globally 200,000 people a day are moving from environments 115 00:07:19,310 --> 00:07:20,680 that have sustained them for generations, 116 00:07:21,410 --> 00:07:26,810 into cities, many to live in slums, looking for work, no matter how toxic that work may be. 117 00:07:27,580 --> 00:07:30,420 So, you see, it is not just resources that are wasted along this system, 118 00:07:31,280 --> 00:07:33,720 but people too. Whole communities get wasted. 119 00:07:34,490 --> 00:07:36,930 Yup, toxics in, toxics out. 120 00:07:37,590 --> 00:07:39,790 A lot of the toxics leave the factories in products, 121 00:07:40,730 --> 00:07:44,770 but even more leave as by-products, or pollution. And it’s a lot of pollution. 122 00:07:45,600 --> 00:07:50,870 In the U.S., our industry admits to releasing over 4 billion pounds of toxic chemicals a year 123 00:07:51,600 --> 00:07:53,770 and it’s probably way more since that is only what they admit. 124 00:07:54,540 --> 00:07:56,240 So that’s another limit, because, yuck, 125 00:07:56,940 --> 00:08:01,280 who wants to look at and smell 4 billion pounds of toxic chemicals a year? So, what do they do? 126 00:08:01,920 --> 00:08:05,120 Move the dirty factories overseas Pollute someone else’s land! 127 00:08:05,950 --> 00:08:10,250 But surprise, a lot of that air pollution is coming right back at us, carried by wind currents. 128 00:08:10,990 --> 00:08:14,630 So, what happens after all these resources are turned into products? 129 00:08:15,430 --> 00:08:17,100 Well, it moves here, for distribution. 130 00:08:18,260 --> 00:08:22,460 Now distribution means “selling all this toxic-contaminated junk as quickly as possible.” 131 00:08:23,140 --> 00:08:27,980 The goal here is to keep the prices down, keep the people buying, and keep the inventory moving. 132 00:08:29,040 --> 00:08:32,410 How do they keep the prices down? Well, they don’t pay the store workers very much 133 00:08:33,080 --> 00:08:37,550 and they skimp on health insurance every time they can. It’s all about externalizing the costs. 134 00:08:38,320 --> 00:08:42,320 What that means is the real costs of making stuff aren’t captured in the price. 135 00:08:43,090 --> 00:08:45,590 In other words, we aren’t paying for the stuff we buy. 136 00:08:46,260 --> 00:08:47,590 I was thinking about this the other day. 137 00:08:48,260 --> 00:08:50,160 I was walking and I wanted to listen to the news 138 00:08:50,900 --> 00:08:52,330 so I popped into a Radio Shack to buy a radio. 139 00:08:53,000 --> 00:08:55,840 I found this cute little green radio for 4 dollars and 99 cents. 140 00:08:56,670 --> 00:08:58,840 I was standing there in line to buy this thing and I was thinking 141 00:08:59,610 --> 00:09:02,610 how could $4.99 possibly capture the costs 142 00:09:03,440 --> 00:09:07,580 of making this radio and getting it into my hands? The metal was probably mined in South Africa, 143 00:09:08,380 --> 00:09:12,350 the petroleum was probably drilled in Iraq, the plastics were probably produced in China, 144 00:09:13,150 --> 00:09:16,450 and maybe the whole thing was assembled by some 15 year old in a maquiladora in Mexico. 145 00:09:17,960 --> 00:09:21,430 $4.99 wouldn’t even pay the rent for the shelf space it occupied until I came along, 146 00:09:22,230 --> 00:09:24,670 let alone part of the staff guy’s salary who helped me pick it out, 147 00:09:25,530 --> 00:09:28,400 or the multiple ocean cruises and truck rides pieces of this radio went on. 148 00:09:29,740 --> 00:09:33,480 That’s how I realized, I didn’t pay for the radio. So, who did pay? 149 00:09:34,240 --> 00:09:37,240 Well. These people paid with the loss of their natural resource base. 150 00:09:37,980 --> 00:09:42,180 These people paid with the loss of their clean air with increasing asthma and cancer rates. 151 00:09:43,020 --> 00:09:47,260 Kids in the Congo paid with their future – 30% of the kids in parts of the Congo 152 00:09:48,020 --> 00:09:49,120 now have had to drop out of school to mine coltan, 153 00:09:49,960 --> 00:09:52,200 a metal we need for our cheap and disposable electronics. 154 00:09:53,030 --> 00:09:55,870 These people even paid, by having to cover their own health insurance. 155 00:09:56,530 --> 00:10:01,500 All along this system, people pitched in so I could get this radio for $4.99. 156 00:10:02,240 --> 00:10:05,080 And none of these contributions are recorded in any accounts book. 157 00:10:05,900 --> 00:10:10,370 That is what I mean by the company owners externalize the true costs of production. 158 00:10:11,440 --> 00:10:15,140 And that brings us to the golden arrow of consumption. 159 00:10:16,280 --> 00:10:18,920 This is the heart of the system, the engine that drives it. 160 00:10:19,720 --> 00:10:24,390 It is so important that protecting this arrow has become the top priority for both of these guys. 161 00:10:25,020 --> 00:10:27,890 That is why, after 9/11, when our country was in shock, 162 00:10:28,630 --> 00:10:30,970 and President Bush could have suggested any number of appropriate things: 163 00:10:31,660 --> 00:10:36,800 to grieve, to pray, to hope. NO. He said to shop. TO SHOP?! 164 00:10:37,470 --> 00:10:43,240 We have become a nation of consumers. Our primary identity has become that of being consumers, 165 00:10:44,080 --> 00:10:46,520 not mothers, teachers, farmers, but consumers. 166 00:10:47,950 --> 00:10:50,750 The primary way that our value is measured and demonstrated 167 00:10:51,520 --> 00:10:56,020 is by how much we contribute to this arrow, how much we consume. And do we! 168 00:10:56,760 --> 00:11:01,870 We shop and shop and shop. Keep the materials flowing, And flow they do! 169 00:11:02,700 --> 00:11:06,040 Guess what percentage of total materials flow through this system is still in product or use 6 months after the date of sale in North America? 170 00:11:06,800 --> 00:11:20,650 Fifty percent? Twenty? NO. One percent. One! In other words, 99 percent of the stuff 171 00:11:21,350 --> 00:11:24,820 we harvest, mine, process, transport – 99 percent of the stuff we run through this system 172 00:11:25,520 --> 00:11:30,190 is trashed within 6 months. Now how can we run a planet 173 00:11:30,920 --> 00:11:34,620 with that level of materials throughput? It wasn’t always like this. 174 00:11:35,030 --> 00:11:38,570 The average U.S. person now consumes twice as much as they did 50 years ago. 175 00:11:39,400 --> 00:11:43,900 Ask your grandma. In her day, stewardship and resourcefulness and thrift were valued. 176 00:11:44,670 --> 00:11:49,010 So, how did this happen? Well, it didn’t just happen. It was designed. 177 00:11:49,880 --> 00:11:54,150 Shortly after the World War 2, these guys were figuring out how to ramp up the economy. 178 00:11:55,010 --> 00:11:57,950 Retailing analyst Victor Lebow articulated the solution 179 00:11:58,680 --> 00:11:59,780 that has become the norm for the whole system. 180 00:12:00,620 --> 00:12:04,960 He said: "Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, 181 00:12:05,860 --> 00:12:10,070 that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, 182 00:12:10,760 --> 00:12:12,400 our ego satisfaction, in consumption. 183 00:12:13,170 --> 00:12:18,070 We need things consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate.” 184 00:12:18,940 --> 00:12:21,810 President Eisenhower's Council of Economic Advisors Chairman said 185 00:12:22,580 --> 00:12:25,920 that "The American economy's ultimate purpose is to produce more consumer goods." 186 00:12:26,650 --> 00:12:28,020 MORE CONSUMER GOODS? 187 00:12:28,820 --> 00:12:33,290 Our ultimate purpose? Not provide health care, or education, or safe transportation, 188 00:12:34,090 --> 00:12:36,690 or sustainability or justice? Consumer goods? 189 00:12:37,490 --> 00:12:40,260 How did they get us to jump on board this program so enthusiastically? 190 00:12:41,090 --> 00:12:45,990 Well, two of their most effective strategies are planned obsolescence and perceived obsolescence. 191 00:12:46,900 --> 00:12:50,170 Planned obsolescence is another word for “designed for the dump.” 192 00:12:50,970 --> 00:12:53,910 It means they actually make stuff to be useless as quickly as possible 193 00:12:54,770 --> 00:12:55,700 so we will chuck it and buy a new one. 194 00:12:56,540 --> 00:12:59,540 It’s obvious with things like plastic bags and coffee cups, but now it’s even big stuff: 195 00:13:00,480 --> 00:13:05,020 mops, DVDs, cameras, barbeques even, everything! Even computers. 196 00:13:05,820 --> 00:13:07,250 Have you noticed that when you buy a computer now, 197 00:13:08,090 --> 00:13:09,930 the technology is changing so fast that in just a couple years, 198 00:13:10,790 --> 00:13:13,590 it’s actually an impediment to communication? I was curious about this 199 00:13:14,390 --> 00:13:17,760 so I opened up a big desktop computer to see what was inside. And I found out 200 00:13:18,700 --> 00:13:22,140 that the piece that changes each year is just a tiny little piece in the corner. 201 00:13:22,870 --> 00:13:26,210 But you can’t just change that one piece, because each new version is a different shape, 202 00:13:27,040 --> 00:13:29,510 so you gotta chuck the whole thing and buy a new one. 203 00:13:30,610 --> 00:13:34,150 So, I was reading industrial design journals from the 1950s when planned obsolescence 204 00:13:35,050 --> 00:13:37,750 was really catching on. These designers are so open about it. 205 00:13:38,650 --> 00:13:41,350 They actually discuss how fast can they make stuff break 206 00:13:42,220 --> 00:13:44,290 that still leaves the consumer having enough faith in the product 207 00:13:45,190 --> 00:13:47,190 to go out and buy anther one. It was so intentional. 208 00:13:48,060 --> 00:13:50,960 But stuff cannot break fast enough to keep this arrow afloat, 209 00:13:51,900 --> 00:13:53,570 so there’s also “perceived obsolescence.” 210 00:13:54,300 --> 00:13:59,640 Now perceived obsolescence convinces us to throw away stuff that is still perfectly useful. 211 00:14:00,440 --> 00:14:03,480 How do they do that? Well, they change the way the stuff looks 212 00:14:04,240 --> 00:14:05,770 so if you bought your stuff a couple years ago, 213 00:14:06,780 --> 00:14:09,380 everyone can tell that you haven’t contributed to this arrow recently 214 00:14:10,220 --> 00:14:14,190 and since the way we demonstrate our value is contributing to this arrow, it can be embarrassing 215 00:14:15,020 --> 00:14:17,220 Like I’ve have had the same fat white computer monitor 216 00:14:18,120 --> 00:14:20,920 on my desk for 5 years. My co-worker just got a new computer. 217 00:14:21,830 --> 00:14:24,200 She has a flat, shiny, sleek monitor. 218 00:14:25,030 --> 00:14:28,170 It matches her computer, it matches her phone, even her pen stand. 219 00:14:28,930 --> 00:14:31,500 She looks like she is driving in space ship central and I, 220 00:14:32,440 --> 00:14:34,340 I look like I have a washing machine on my desk. 221 00:14:35,170 --> 00:14:39,340 Fashion is another prime example of this. Have you ever wondered why women’s shoe heels 222 00:14:40,210 --> 00:14:43,850 go from fat one year to skinny the next to fat to skinny? It is not because there is some debate 223 00:14:44,720 --> 00:14:48,090 about which heel structure is the most healthy for women’s feet. It’s because wearing fat heels 224 00:14:48,990 --> 00:14:52,230 in a skinny heel year shows everybody that you haven’t contributed to that arrow recently 225 00:14:53,190 --> 00:14:55,960 so you’re not as valuable as that person in skinny heels next to you, 226 00:14:56,800 --> 00:15:00,200 or, more likely, in some ad. It’s to keep buying new shoes. 227 00:15:01,030 --> 00:15:04,200 Advertisements, and media in general, play a big role in this. 228 00:15:05,000 --> 00:15:08,640 Each of us in the U.S. is targeted with over 3,000 advertisements a day. 229 00:15:09,440 --> 00:15:13,280 We each see more advertisements in one year than people 50 years ago saw in a lifetime. 230 00:15:14,210 --> 00:15:17,910 And if you think about it, what is the point of an ad except to make us unhappy with what we have? 231 00:15:18,750 --> 00:15:21,420 So, 3,000 times a day, we’re told that our hair is wrong, our skin is wrong, 232 00:15:22,460 --> 00:15:24,430 our clothes are wrong, our furniture is wrong, our cars are wrong, we are wrong 233 00:15:25,290 --> 00:15:27,090 but that it can all be made right if we just go shopping. 234 00:15:28,030 --> 00:15:30,700 Media also helps by hiding all of this and all of this, 235 00:15:31,630 --> 00:15:35,000 so the only part of the materials economy we see is the shopping. 236 00:15:35,740 --> 00:15:39,640 The extraction, production and disposal all happen outside our field of vision. 237 00:15:40,740 --> 00:15:43,810 So, in the U.S. we have more stuff than ever before, 238 00:15:44,610 --> 00:15:47,110 but polls show that our national happiness is actually declining. 239 00:15:47,910 --> 00:15:53,380 Our national happiness peaked in the 1950s, the same time as this consumption mania exploded. 240 00:15:54,550 --> 00:15:56,290 Hmmm. Interesting coincidence. 241 00:15:57,460 --> 00:15:59,160 I think I know why. We have more stuff, 242 00:16:00,030 --> 00:16:02,050 but we have less time for the things that really make us happy: 243 00:16:02,830 --> 00:16:06,300 friends, family, leisure time. We’re working harder than ever. 244 00:16:07,130 --> 00:16:10,800 Some analysts say that we have less leisure time now than in Feudal Society. 245 00:16:12,070 --> 00:16:13,140 And do you know what the two main activities are 246 00:16:14,010 --> 00:16:15,110 that we do with the scant leisure time we have? 247 00:16:16,110 --> 00:16:17,580 Watch TV and shop. 248 00:16:18,480 --> 00:16:21,280 In the U.S., we spend 3 to 4 times as many hours shopping 249 00:16:22,220 --> 00:16:25,020 as our counterparts in Europe do. So we are in this ridiculous situation 250 00:16:25,820 --> 00:16:28,490 where we go to work, maybe two jobs even, and we come home and we’re exhausted 251 00:16:29,090 --> 00:16:31,930 so we plop down on our new couch and watch TV and the commercials tell us “YOU SUCK” 252 00:16:32,890 --> 00:16:35,690 so we gotta go to the mall to buy something to feel better, and then you gotta go to work more 253 00:16:36,530 --> 00:16:38,200 to pay for the stuff you just bought so you come home and you’re more tired 254 00:16:39,100 --> 00:16:40,270 so you sit down and watch more T.V. and it tells you to go to the mall again 255 00:16:41,270 --> 00:16:46,110 and we’re on this crazy work-watch-spend treadmill and we could just stop. 256 00:16:47,070 --> 00:16:49,140 So in the end, what happens To all the stuff we buy anyway? 257 00:16:50,080 --> 00:16:51,810 At this rate of consumption, it can’t fit into our houses 258 00:16:52,680 --> 00:16:54,050 even though the average house size has doubled 259 00:16:54,950 --> 00:16:57,550 in this country since the 1970s. It all goes out in the garbage. 260 00:16:57,920 --> 00:17:01,460 And that brings us to disposal. This is the part of the materials economy 261 00:17:02,050 --> 00:17:05,090 we all know the most because we have to haul the junk out to the curb ourselves. 262 00:17:05,760 --> 00:17:10,000 Each of us in the United States makes 4 1/2 pounds of garbage a day. 263 00:17:10,600 --> 00:17:12,400 That is twice what we each made thirty years ago. 264 00:17:13,100 --> 00:17:17,000 All of this garbage either gets dumped in a landfill, which is just a big hole in the ground, 265 00:17:17,740 --> 00:17:22,440 or if you’re really unlucky, first it’s burned in an incinerator and then dumped in a landfill. 266 00:17:23,110 --> 00:17:28,430 Either way, both pollute the air, land, water and, don’t forget, change the climate. 267 00:17:29,080 --> 00:17:31,120 Incineration is really bad. 268 00:17:31,780 --> 00:17:33,550 Remember those toxics back in the production stage? 269 00:17:34,350 --> 00:17:37,250 Well burning the garbage releases the toxics up into the air. 270 00:17:37,890 --> 00:17:41,560 Even worse, it makes new super toxics. Like dioxin. 271 00:17:42,360 --> 00:17:45,460 Dioxin is the most toxic man made substance known to science. 272 00:17:45,930 --> 00:17:48,700 And incinerators are the number one source of dioxin. 273 00:17:49,400 --> 00:17:54,070 That means that we could stop the number one source of the most toxic man-made substance known 274 00:17:54,310 --> 00:17:58,480 just by stopping burning the trash. We could stop it today. 275 00:17:59,080 --> 00:18:02,550 Now some companies don’t want to deal with building landfills and incinerators here, 276 00:18:02,910 --> 00:18:07,880 so they just export the disposal too. What about recycling? Does recycling help? 277 00:18:08,720 --> 00:18:12,420 Yes, recycling helps. reduces the garbage at this end 278 00:18:13,190 --> 00:18:15,790 and it reduces the pressure to mine and harvest new stuff at this end. 279 00:18:16,430 --> 00:18:20,270 Yes, Yes, Yes, we should all recycle. But recycling is not enough. 280 00:18:20,970 --> 00:18:23,640 Recycling will never be enough. For a couple of reasons. 281 00:18:24,370 --> 00:18:28,170 First, the waste coming out of our houses is just the tip of the iceberg. 282 00:18:28,910 --> 00:18:31,480 For every one garbage can of waste you put out on the curb, 283 00:18:32,350 --> 00:18:34,450 70 garbage cans of waste were made upstream 284 00:18:35,280 --> 00:18:37,480 just to make the junk in that one garbage can you put out on the curb. 285 00:18:38,380 --> 00:18:41,320 So even if we could recycle 100 percent of the waste coming out of our households, 286 00:18:42,320 --> 00:18:47,060 it doesn’t get to the core of the problems. Also much of the garbage can’t be recycled, 287 00:18:47,960 --> 00:18:52,570 either because it contains too many toxics, or it is designed NOT to be recyclable in the firs place 288 00:18:53,600 --> 00:18:56,700 Like those juice packs with layers of metal and paper and plastic 289 00:18:57,540 --> 00:19:01,640 all smooshed together. You can never separate those for true recycling. 290 00:19:03,170 --> 00:19:07,680 So you see, it is a system in crisis. All along the way, we are bumping up limits. 291 00:19:08,650 --> 00:19:12,190 From changing climate to declining happiness, it’s just not working. 292 00:19:13,150 --> 00:19:15,050 But the good thing about such an all pervasive problem 293 00:19:15,250 --> 00:19:16,920 is that there are so many points of intervention. 294 00:19:17,920 --> 00:19:21,260 There are people working here on saving forests and here on clean production. 295 00:19:22,160 --> 00:19:23,990 People working on labor rights and fair trade 296 00:19:24,930 --> 00:19:27,370 and conscious consuming and blocking landfills and incinerators 297 00:19:28,300 --> 00:19:30,440 and, very importantly, on taking back our government 298 00:19:31,400 --> 00:19:33,870 so it is really is by the people and for the people. 299 00:19:34,870 --> 00:19:38,110 All this work is critically important but things are really gonna start moving 300 00:19:39,080 --> 00:19:41,080 when we see the connections, when we see the big picture. 301 00:19:42,010 --> 00:19:46,950 When people along this system get united, we can reclaim and transform this linear system 302 00:19:47,820 --> 00:19:51,220 into something new, a system that doesn’t waste resources or people. 303 00:19:52,190 --> 00:19:55,630 Because what we really need to chuck is this old-school throw-away mindset. 304 00:19:56,490 --> 00:19:59,830 There’s a new school of thinking on this stuff and it’s based on sustainability and equity: 305 00:20:00,500 --> 00:20:03,900 Green Chemistry, Zero Waste, Closed Loop Production, 306 00:20:04,800 --> 00:20:07,130 Renewable Energy, Local living Economies. 307 00:20:08,010 --> 00:20:12,710 It’s already happening. Now some say it’s unrealistic, idealistic, that it can’t happen 308 00:20:13,980 --> 00:20:16,980 But I say the ones who are unrealistic are those that want to continue on the old path. 309 00:20:17,620 --> 00:20:18,520 That’s dreaming. 310 00:20:19,380 --> 00:20:24,320 Remember that old way didn’t just happen. It’s not like gravity that we just gotta live with 311 00:20:25,120 --> 00:20:29,360 People created it. And we’re people too. So let’s create something new.