WEBVTT 00:00:19.020 --> 00:00:19.920 Do you have one of these? 00:00:20.590 --> 00:00:22.060 I got a little obsessed with mine. 00:00:22.390 --> 00:00:24.530 In fact I got a little obsessed with all my stuff. 00:00:24.890 --> 00:00:27.060 Have you ever wondered where all the stuff we buy, comes from 00:00:27.490 --> 00:00:28.830 and where it goes when we throw it out? 00:00:29.630 --> 00:00:32.030 I couldn't stop wondering about that. So I looked it up. 00:00:32.230 --> 00:00:35.470 And what the text book said, is that stuff moves through a system 00:00:35.900 --> 00:00:41.140 from extraction to production to distribution to consumption to disposal. 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. 00:00:46.680 --> 00:00:48.550 In fact, I spent 10 years traveling the world, 00:00:49.120 --> 00:00:51.990 tracking where our stuff comes from and where it goes. 00:00:52.550 --> 00:00:55.250 And you know what I found out? That is not the whole story. 00:00:55.860 --> 00:00:58.060 There's a lot missing from this explanation. 00:00:58.560 --> 00:01:02.100 For one thing, this system looks like it's fine. No problem. 00:01:03.100 --> 00:01:05.300 But the truth is it’s a system in crisis. 00:01:05.930 --> 00:01:08.630 And the reason it is in crisis is that it is a linear system 00:01:09.300 --> 00:01:10.700 and we live on a finite planet 00:01:11.270 --> 00:01:15.270 and you can not run a linear system on a finite planet indefinitely. 00:01:15.810 --> 00:01:19.310 Every step along the way, this system is interacting with the real world. 00:01:19.910 --> 00:01:21.950 In real life it’s not happening on a blank white page. 00:01:23.120 --> 00:01:26.120 It’s interacting with societies, cultures, economies, the environment. 00:01:26.650 --> 00:01:29.020 And all along the way, it’s bumping up against limits. 00:01:29.690 --> 00:01:32.690 Limits we don't see here because the diagram is incomplete. 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. 00:01:37.300 --> 00:01:40.600 Well, one of the most important things its missing is people, yes people. 00:01:41.130 --> 00:01:43.800 People live and work all along this system. 00:01:44.640 --> 00:01:47.510 And some people in this system matter a little more than others; 00:01:47.770 --> 00:01:49.970 Some have a little more say. Who are they? 00:01:50.340 --> 00:01:52.010 Well, let’s start with the government. 00:01:52.310 --> 00:01:54.880 Now my friends tell me I should use a tank to symbolize the government 00:01:55.320 --> 00:01:57.920 and that’s true in many countries and increasingly in our own, 00:01:58.050 --> 00:02:01.720 after all more than 50% of our federal tax money is now going to the military, 00:02:02.320 --> 00:02:04.120 but I’m using a person to symbolize the government 00:02:04.620 --> 00:02:07.460 because I hold true to the vision and values that governments should be 00:02:07.760 --> 00:02:09.930 of the people, by the people, for the people. 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. 00:02:15.670 --> 00:02:17.400 Then along came the corporation. 00:02:17.870 --> 00:02:19.970 Now, the reason the corporation looks bigger than the government 00:02:20.370 --> 00:02:22.140 is bigger then the government. 00:02:22.480 --> 00:02:27.050 Of the 100 largest economies on earth now, 51 are corporations. 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 00:02:32.820 --> 00:02:34.360 where they’re a little more concerned in making sure 00:02:35.060 --> 00:02:36.490 everything is working out for those guys than for us. 00:02:37.220 --> 00:02:39.920 Ok, so lets see what else is missing from this picture. 00:02:40.490 --> 00:02:41.520 We'll start with extraction. 00:02:42.400 --> 00:02:45.440 which is a fancy word for natural resource exploitation 00:02:45.970 --> 00:02:48.310 which is a fancy word for trashing the planet. 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, 00:02:53.310 --> 00:02:55.280 we use up all the water and we wipe out the animals. 00:02:55.940 --> 00:02:58.210 So here we are running up against our first limit. 00:02:58.910 --> 00:03:03.010 We are running out of resources. We are using too much stuff. 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. 00:03:07.420 --> 00:03:08.650 In the past three decades alone, 00:03:09.390 --> 00:03:14.190 one-third of the planet’s natural resources base have been consumed. Gone. 00:03:15.000 --> 00:03:19.040 We are cutting and mining and hauling and trashing the place so fast 00:03:19.700 --> 00:03:23.340 that we’re undermining the planet’s very ability for people to live here. 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. 00:03:29.540 --> 00:03:32.280 Forty percent of the waterways have become undrinkable. 00:03:32.910 --> 00:03:35.610 And our problem is not just that we’re using too much stuff, 00:03:36.220 --> 00:03:40.860 but we’re using more than our share. We have 5% of the world’s population 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. 00:03:47.230 --> 00:03:51.400 If everybody consumed at U.S. rates, we would need 3 to 5 planets. 00:03:52.100 --> 00:03:54.100 And you know what? We’ve only got one. 00:03:54.770 --> 00:03:58.770 So, my country’s response to this limitation is simply to go take somebody else’s! 00:03:59.310 --> 00:04:02.050 This is the Third World, which – some would say – 00:04:02.680 --> 00:04:05.920 is another word for our stuff that somehow got on someone else’s land. 00:04:06.510 --> 00:04:09.550 So what does that look like? The same thing: trashing the place. 00:04:10.750 --> 00:04:14.920 75% of global fisheries now are fished at or beyond capacity. 00:04:15.520 --> 00:04:18.890 80% of the planet’s original forests are gone. 00:04:19.760 --> 00:04:22.830 In the Amazon alone, we’re losing 2000 trees a minute. 00:04:23.500 --> 00:04:25.740 That is seven football fields a minute. 00:04:26.500 --> 00:04:28.500 And what about the people who live here? 00:04:29.140 --> 00:04:32.280 Well. According to these guys, they don’t own these resources 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 00:04:36.410 --> 00:04:38.580 and they’re not buying a lot of stuff. And in this system, 00:04:39.280 --> 00:04:42.980 if you don’t own or buy a lot of stuff, you don’t have value. 00:04:44.030 --> 00:04:48.020 So, next, the materials move to “production“ and what happens there is we use energy 00:04:48.950 --> 00:04:54.090 to mix toxic chemicals in with the natural resources to make toxic contaminated products. 00:04:54.730 --> 00:04:58.630 There are over 100,000 synthetic chemicals in use in commerce today. 00:04:59.230 --> 00:05:01.570 Only a handful of them have even been tested for health impacts 00:05:02.300 --> 00:05:04.500 and NONE have been tested for synergistic health impacts, 00:05:05.140 --> 00:05:07.780 that means when they interact with all the other chemicals we’re exposed to every day. 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. 00:05:12.280 --> 00:05:15.480 But we do know one thing: Toxics in, Toxics Out. 00:05:16.080 --> 00:05:19.120 As long as we keep putting toxics into our inudstrial production systems, 00:05:19.750 --> 00:05:21.950 we are going to keep getting toxics in the stuff that we bring 00:05:22.120 --> 00:05:25.920 into our homes, and workplaces, and schools. And, duh, our bodies. 00:05:26.860 --> 00:05:29.000 Like BFRs, brominated flame retardants. 00:05:29.660 --> 00:05:33.160 They are a chemical that make things more fireproof but they are super toxic. 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? 00:05:40.310 --> 00:05:45.250 Yet we put them in our computers, our appliances, couches, mattresses, even some pillows. 00:05:46.010 --> 00:05:49.550 In fact, we take our pillows, we douse them in a neurotoxin 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. 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, 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. 00:06:01.260 --> 00:06:04.830 Now these toxics build up in the food chain and concentrate in our bodies. 00:06:05.630 --> 00:06:07.600 Do you know what is the food at the top of the food chain 00:06:08.240 --> 00:06:11.840 with the highest level of many toxic contaminants? Human breast milk. 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 00:06:18.640 --> 00:06:23.250 are getting their highest lifetime dose of toxic chemicals from breastfeeding from their mothers. 00:06:24.020 --> 00:06:26.890 Is that not an incredible violation? 00:06:27.690 --> 00:06:31.060 Breastfeeding must be the most fundamental human act of nurturing; 00:06:31.860 --> 00:06:35.400 it should be sacred and safe. Now breastfeeding is still best 00:06:36.030 --> 00:06:40.900 and mothers should definitely keep breastfeeding, but we should protect it. They should protect it. 00:06:41.500 --> 00:06:44.300 I thought they were looking out for us. And of course, 00:06:45.040 --> 00:06:46.810 the people who bear the biggest of these toxic chemicals 00:06:47.570 --> 00:06:50.710 are the factory workers, many of whom are women of reproductive age. 00:06:51.610 --> 00:06:54.680 They’re working with reproductive toxics, carcinogens and more. 00:06:55.450 --> 00:06:58.890 Now, I ask you, what kind of woman of reproductive age 00:06:59.520 --> 00:07:01.760 would work in a job exposed to reproductive toxics, 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? 00:07:07.630 --> 00:07:10.330 The erosion of local environments and economies here 00:07:11.030 --> 00:07:13.830 ensures a constant supply of people with no other option. 00:07:14.600 --> 00:07:18.600 Globally 200,000 people a day are moving from environments 00:07:19.310 --> 00:07:20.680 that have sustained them for generations, 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. 00:07:27.580 --> 00:07:30.420 So, you see, it is not just resources that are wasted along this system, 00:07:31.280 --> 00:07:33.720 but people too. Whole communities get wasted. 00:07:34.490 --> 00:07:36.930 Yup, toxics in, toxics out. 00:07:37.590 --> 00:07:39.790 A lot of the toxics leave the factories in products, 00:07:40.730 --> 00:07:44.770 but even more leave as by-products, or pollution. And it’s a lot of pollution. 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 00:07:51.600 --> 00:07:53.770 and it’s probably way more since that is only what they admit. 00:07:54.540 --> 00:07:56.240 So that’s another limit, because, yuck, 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? 00:08:01.920 --> 00:08:05.120 Move the dirty factories overseas Pollute someone else’s land! 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. 00:08:10.990 --> 00:08:14.630 So, what happens after all these resources are turned into products? 00:08:15.430 --> 00:08:17.100 Well, it moves here, for distribution. 00:08:18.260 --> 00:08:22.460 Now distribution means “selling all this toxic-contaminated junk as quickly as possible.” 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. 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 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. 00:08:38.320 --> 00:08:42.320 What that means is the real costs of making stuff aren’t captured in the price. 00:08:43.090 --> 00:08:45.590 In other words, we aren’t paying for the stuff we buy. 00:08:46.260 --> 00:08:47.590 I was thinking about this the other day. 00:08:48.260 --> 00:08:50.160 I was walking and I wanted to listen to the news 00:08:50.900 --> 00:08:52.330 so I popped into a Radio Shack to buy a radio. 00:08:53.000 --> 00:08:55.840 I found this cute little green radio for 4 dollars and 99 cents. 00:08:56.670 --> 00:08:58.840 I was standing there in line to buy this thing and I was thinking 00:08:59.610 --> 00:09:02.610 how could $4.99 possibly capture the costs 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, 00:09:08.380 --> 00:09:12.350 the petroleum was probably drilled in Iraq, the plastics were probably produced in China, 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. 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, 00:09:22.230 --> 00:09:24.670 let alone part of the staff guy’s salary who helped me pick it out, 00:09:25.530 --> 00:09:28.400 or the multiple ocean cruises and truck rides pieces of this radio went on. 00:09:29.740 --> 00:09:33.480 That’s how I realized, I didn’t pay for the radio. So, who did pay? 00:09:34.240 --> 00:09:37.240 Well. These people paid with the loss of their natural resource base. 00:09:37.980 --> 00:09:42.180 These people paid with the loss of their clean air with increasing asthma and cancer rates. 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 00:09:48.020 --> 00:09:49.120 now have had to drop out of school to mine coltan, 00:09:49.960 --> 00:09:52.200 a metal we need for our cheap and disposable electronics. 00:09:53.030 --> 00:09:55.870 These people even paid, by having to cover their own health insurance. 00:09:56.530 --> 00:10:01.500 All along this system, people pitched in so I could get this radio for $4.99. 00:10:02.240 --> 00:10:05.080 And none of these contributions are recorded in any accounts book. 00:10:05.900 --> 00:10:10.370 That is what I mean by the company owners externalize the true costs of production. 00:10:11.440 --> 00:10:15.140 And that brings us to the golden arrow of consumption. 00:10:16.280 --> 00:10:18.920 This is the heart of the system, the engine that drives it. 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. 00:10:25.020 --> 00:10:27.890 That is why, after 9/11, when our country was in shock, 00:10:28.630 --> 00:10:30.970 and President Bush could have suggested any number of appropriate things: 00:10:31.660 --> 00:10:36.800 to grieve, to pray, to hope. NO. He said to shop. TO SHOP?! 00:10:37.470 --> 00:10:43.240 We have become a nation of consumers. Our primary identity has become that of being consumers, 00:10:44.080 --> 00:10:46.520 not mothers, teachers, farmers, but consumers. 00:10:47.950 --> 00:10:50.750 The primary way that our value is measured and demonstrated 00:10:51.520 --> 00:10:56.020 is by how much we contribute to this arrow, how much we consume. And do we! 00:10:56.760 --> 00:11:01.870 We shop and shop and shop. Keep the materials flowing, And flow they do! 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? 00:11:06.800 --> 00:11:20.650 Fifty percent? Twenty? NO. One percent. One! In other words, 99 percent of the stuff 00:11:21.350 --> 00:11:24.820 we harvest, mine, process, transport – 99 percent of the stuff we run through this system 00:11:25.520 --> 00:11:30.190 is trashed within 6 months. Now how can we run a planet 00:11:30.920 --> 00:11:34.620 with that level of materials throughput? It wasn’t always like this. 00:11:35.030 --> 00:11:38.570 The average U.S. person now consumes twice as much as they did 50 years ago. 00:11:39.400 --> 00:11:43.900 Ask your grandma. In her day, stewardship and resourcefulness and thrift were valued. 00:11:44.670 --> 00:11:49.010 So, how did this happen? Well, it didn’t just happen. It was designed. 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. 00:11:55.010 --> 00:11:57.950 Retailing analyst Victor Lebow articulated the solution 00:11:58.680 --> 00:11:59.780 that has become the norm for the whole system. 00:12:00.620 --> 00:12:04.960 He said: "Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, 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, 00:12:10.760 --> 00:12:12.400 our ego satisfaction, in consumption. 00:12:13.170 --> 00:12:18.070 We need things consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate.” 00:12:18.940 --> 00:12:21.810 President Eisenhower's Council of Economic Advisors Chairman said 00:12:22.580 --> 00:12:25.920 that "The American economy's ultimate purpose is to produce more consumer goods." 00:12:26.650 --> 00:12:28.020 MORE CONSUMER GOODS? 00:12:28.820 --> 00:12:33.290 Our ultimate purpose? Not provide health care, or education, or safe transportation, 00:12:34.090 --> 00:12:36.690 or sustainability or justice? Consumer goods? 00:12:37.490 --> 00:12:40.260 How did they get us to jump on board this program so enthusiastically? 00:12:41.090 --> 00:12:45.990 Well, two of their most effective strategies are planned obsolescence and perceived obsolescence. 00:12:46.900 --> 00:12:50.170 Planned obsolescence is another word for “designed for the dump.” 00:12:50.970 --> 00:12:53.910 It means they actually make stuff to be useless as quickly as possible 00:12:54.770 --> 00:12:55.700 so we will chuck it and buy a new one. 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: 00:13:00.480 --> 00:13:05.020 mops, DVDs, cameras, barbeques even, everything! Even computers. 00:13:05.820 --> 00:13:07.250 Have you noticed that when you buy a computer now, 00:13:08.090 --> 00:13:09.930 the technology is changing so fast that in just a couple years, 00:13:10.790 --> 00:13:13.590 it’s actually an impediment to communication? I was curious about this 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 00:13:18.700 --> 00:13:22.140 that the piece that changes each year is just a tiny little piece in the corner. 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, 00:13:27.040 --> 00:13:29.510 so you gotta chuck the whole thing and buy a new one. 00:13:30.610 --> 00:13:34.150 So, I was reading industrial design journals from the 1950s when planned obsolescence 00:13:35.050 --> 00:13:37.750 was really catching on. These designers are so open about it. 00:13:38.650 --> 00:13:41.350 They actually discuss how fast can they make stuff break 00:13:42.220 --> 00:13:44.290 that still leaves the consumer having enough faith in the product 00:13:45.190 --> 00:13:47.190 to go out and buy anther one. It was so intentional. 00:13:48.060 --> 00:13:50.960 But stuff cannot break fast enough to keep this arrow afloat, 00:13:51.900 --> 00:13:53.570 so there’s also “perceived obsolescence.” 00:13:54.300 --> 00:13:59.640 Now perceived obsolescence convinces us to throw away stuff that is still perfectly useful. 00:14:00.440 --> 00:14:03.480 How do they do that? Well, they change the way the stuff looks 00:14:04.240 --> 00:14:05.770 so if you bought your stuff a couple years ago, 00:14:06.780 --> 00:14:09.380 everyone can tell that you haven’t contributed to this arrow recently 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 00:14:15.020 --> 00:14:17.220 Like I’ve have had the same fat white computer monitor 00:14:18.120 --> 00:14:20.920 on my desk for 5 years. My co-worker just got a new computer. 00:14:21.830 --> 00:14:24.200 She has a flat, shiny, sleek monitor. 00:14:25.030 --> 00:14:28.170 It matches her computer, it matches her phone, even her pen stand. 00:14:28.930 --> 00:14:31.500 She looks like she is driving in space ship central and I, 00:14:32.440 --> 00:14:34.340 I look like I have a washing machine on my desk. 00:14:35.170 --> 00:14:39.340 Fashion is another prime example of this. Have you ever wondered why women’s shoe heels 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 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 00:14:48.990 --> 00:14:52.230 in a skinny heel year shows everybody that you haven’t contributed to that arrow recently 00:14:53.190 --> 00:14:55.960 so you’re not as valuable as that person in skinny heels next to you, 00:14:56.800 --> 00:15:00.200 or, more likely, in some ad. It’s to keep buying new shoes. 00:15:01.030 --> 00:15:04.200 Advertisements, and media in general, play a big role in this. 00:15:05.000 --> 00:15:08.640 Each of us in the U.S. is targeted with over 3,000 advertisements a day. 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. 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? 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, 00:15:22.460 --> 00:15:24.430 our clothes are wrong, our furniture is wrong, our cars are wrong, we are wrong 00:15:25.290 --> 00:15:27.090 but that it can all be made right if we just go shopping. 00:15:28.030 --> 00:15:30.700 Media also helps by hiding all of this and all of this, 00:15:31.630 --> 00:15:35.000 so the only part of the materials economy we see is the shopping. 00:15:35.740 --> 00:15:39.640 The extraction, production and disposal all happen outside our field of vision. 00:15:40.740 --> 00:15:43.810 So, in the U.S. we have more stuff than ever before, 00:15:44.610 --> 00:15:47.110 but polls show that our national happiness is actually declining. 00:15:47.910 --> 00:15:53.380 Our national happiness peaked in the 1950s, the same time as this consumption mania exploded. 00:15:54.550 --> 00:15:56.290 Hmmm. Interesting coincidence. 00:15:57.460 --> 00:15:59.160 I think I know why. We have more stuff, 00:16:00.030 --> 00:16:02.050 but we have less time for the things that really make us happy: 00:16:02.830 --> 00:16:06.300 friends, family, leisure time. We’re working harder than ever. 00:16:07.130 --> 00:16:10.800 Some analysts say that we have less leisure time now than in Feudal Society. 00:16:12.070 --> 00:16:13.140 And do you know what the two main activities are 00:16:14.010 --> 00:16:15.110 that we do with the scant leisure time we have? 00:16:16.110 --> 00:16:17.580 Watch TV and shop. 00:16:18.480 --> 00:16:21.280 In the U.S., we spend 3 to 4 times as many hours shopping 00:16:22.220 --> 00:16:25.020 as our counterparts in Europe do. So we are in this ridiculous situation 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 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” 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 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 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 00:16:41.270 --> 00:16:46.110 and we’re on this crazy work-watch-spend treadmill and we could just stop. 00:16:47.070 --> 00:16:49.140 So in the end, what happens To all the stuff we buy anyway? 00:16:50.080 --> 00:16:51.810 At this rate of consumption, it can’t fit into our houses 00:16:52.680 --> 00:16:54.050 even though the average house size has doubled 00:16:54.950 --> 00:16:57.550 in this country since the 1970s. It all goes out in the garbage. 00:16:57.920 --> 00:17:01.460 And that brings us to disposal. This is the part of the materials economy 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. 00:17:05.760 --> 00:17:10.000 Each of us in the United States makes 4 1/2 pounds of garbage a day. 00:17:10.600 --> 00:17:12.400 That is twice what we each made thirty years ago. 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, 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. 00:17:23.110 --> 00:17:28.430 Either way, both pollute the air, land, water and, don’t forget, change the climate. 00:17:29.080 --> 00:17:31.120 Incineration is really bad. 00:17:31.780 --> 00:17:33.550 Remember those toxics back in the production stage? 00:17:34.350 --> 00:17:37.250 Well burning the garbage releases the toxics up into the air. 00:17:37.890 --> 00:17:41.560 Even worse, it makes new super toxics. Like dioxin. 00:17:42.360 --> 00:17:45.460 Dioxin is the most toxic man made substance known to science. 00:17:45.930 --> 00:17:48.700 And incinerators are the number one source of dioxin. 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 00:17:54.310 --> 00:17:58.480 just by stopping burning the trash. We could stop it today. 00:17:59.080 --> 00:18:02.550 Now some companies don’t want to deal with building landfills and incinerators here, 00:18:02.910 --> 00:18:07.880 so they just export the disposal too. What about recycling? Does recycling help? 00:18:08.720 --> 00:18:12.420 Yes, recycling helps. reduces the garbage at this end 00:18:13.190 --> 00:18:15.790 and it reduces the pressure to mine and harvest new stuff at this end. 00:18:16.430 --> 00:18:20.270 Yes, Yes, Yes, we should all recycle. But recycling is not enough. 00:18:20.970 --> 00:18:23.640 Recycling will never be enough. For a couple of reasons. 00:18:24.370 --> 00:18:28.170 First, the waste coming out of our houses is just the tip of the iceberg. 00:18:28.910 --> 00:18:31.480 For every one garbage can of waste you put out on the curb, 00:18:32.350 --> 00:18:34.450 70 garbage cans of waste were made upstream 00:18:35.280 --> 00:18:37.480 just to make the junk in that one garbage can you put out on the curb. 00:18:38.380 --> 00:18:41.320 So even if we could recycle 100 percent of the waste coming out of our households, 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, 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 00:18:53.600 --> 00:18:56.700 Like those juice packs with layers of metal and paper and plastic 00:18:57.540 --> 00:19:01.640 all smooshed together. You can never separate those for true recycling. 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. 00:19:08.650 --> 00:19:12.190 From changing climate to declining happiness, it’s just not working. 00:19:13.150 --> 00:19:15.050 But the good thing about such an all pervasive problem 00:19:15.250 --> 00:19:16.920 is that there are so many points of intervention. 00:19:17.920 --> 00:19:21.260 There are people working here on saving forests and here on clean production. 00:19:22.160 --> 00:19:23.990 People working on labor rights and fair trade 00:19:24.930 --> 00:19:27.370 and conscious consuming and blocking landfills and incinerators 00:19:28.300 --> 00:19:30.440 and, very importantly, on taking back our government 00:19:31.400 --> 00:19:33.870 so it is really is by the people and for the people. 00:19:34.870 --> 00:19:38.110 All this work is critically important but things are really gonna start moving 00:19:39.080 --> 00:19:41.080 when we see the connections, when we see the big picture. 00:19:42.010 --> 00:19:46.950 When people along this system get united, we can reclaim and transform this linear system 00:19:47.820 --> 00:19:51.220 into something new, a system that doesn’t waste resources or people. 00:19:52.190 --> 00:19:55.630 Because what we really need to chuck is this old-school throw-away mindset. 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: 00:20:00.500 --> 00:20:03.900 Green Chemistry, Zero Waste, Closed Loop Production, 00:20:04.800 --> 00:20:07.130 Renewable Energy, Local living Economies. 00:20:08.010 --> 00:20:12.710 It’s already happening. Now some say it’s unrealistic, idealistic, that it can’t happen 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. 00:20:17.620 --> 00:20:18.520 That’s dreaming. 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 00:20:25.120 --> 00:20:29.360 People created it. And we’re people too. So let’s create something new.