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The economic injustice of plastic | Van Jones | TEDxGreatPacificGarbagePatch

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    Ta-da!
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    (Laughter)
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    I am honored to be here,
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    and I'm honored to talk about this topic,
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    which I think is of grave importance.
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    We've been talking a lot
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    about the horrific impacts of plastic
    on the planet and on other species,
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    but plastic hurts people, too...
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    Especially poor people.
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    And both in the production of plastic,
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    the use of plastic
    and the disposal of plastic,
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    the people who have
    the bull's-eye on their foreheads
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    are poor people.
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    People got very upset
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    when the BP oil spill happened,
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    for very good reason.
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    People thought, "Oh, my God.
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    This is terrible, this oil...
    It's in the water.
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    It's going to destroy
    the living systems there.
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    People are going to be hurt.
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    This is a terrible thing,
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    this oil is going to hurt
    the people in the Gulf."
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    What people don't think about is:
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    What if the oil had made it
    safely to shore?
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    What if the oil actually got
    where it was trying to go?
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    Not only would it have been burned
    in engines and added to global warming,
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    but there's a place called "Cancer Alley,"
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    and the reason it's called "Cancer Alley"
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    is because the petrochemical industry
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    takes that oil and turns it into plastic
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    and in the process, kills people.
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    It shortens the lives of the people
    who live there in the Gulf.
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    So oil and petrochemicals are not
    just a problem when there's a spill;
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    they're a problem when there's not.
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    And what we don't often appreciate
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    is the price that poor people pay
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    for us to have these disposable products.
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    The other thing
    we often don't appreciate is,
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    it's not just at the point of production
    that poor people suffer.
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    Poor people also suffer
    at the point of use.
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    Those of us who earn
    a certain income level,
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    we have something called choice.
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    The reason why you want
    to work hard and have a job
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    and not be poor and broke
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    is so you can have choices,
    economic choices.
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    We actually get a chance
    to choose not to use products
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    that have dangerous,
    poisonous plastic in them.
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    Other people who are poor
    don't have those choices.
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    So low-income people often are the ones
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    who are buying the products that have
    those dangerous chemicals in them
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    that their children are using.
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    Those are the people who wind up
    ingesting a disproportionate amount
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    of this poisonous plastic in using it.
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    And people say, "Well, they should
    just buy a different product."
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    Well, the problem with being poor
    is you don't have those choices.
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    You often have to buy
    the cheapest products.
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    The cheapest products
    are often the most dangerous.
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    And if that weren't bad enough...
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    If it wasn't just the production
    of plastic that's giving people cancer
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    in places like Cancer Alley,
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    and shortening lives and hurting
    poor kids at the point of use...
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    At the point of disposal,
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    once again, it's poor people
    who bear the burden.
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    Often, we think we're doing a good thing:
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    You're in your office, drinking
    your bottled water or whatever it is,
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    and you think to yourself,
    "I'm going to throw this away.
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    No... I'm going to be virtuous.
    I'm going to put it in the blue bin."
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    You think, "I put mine in the blue bin."
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    And then you look
    at your colleague and say,
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    "Why, you cretin!
    You put yours in the white bin."
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    And we use that as a moral tickle.
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    We feel so good about ourselves.
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    If we... well, OK, I'm just... me.
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    Not you, but I feel this way often.
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    (Laughter)
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    And so we kind of have
    this moral feel-good moment.
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    But if we were to be able
    to follow that little bottle
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    on its journey,
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    we would be shocked
    to discover that, all too often,
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    that bottle is going to be put on a boat,
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    it's going to go all the way
    across the ocean
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    at some expense,
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    and it's going to wind up
    in a developing country, often China.
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    I think in our minds, we imagine
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    somebody's going to take
    the little bottle and say,
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    "Oh, little bottle! We're so happy
    to see you, little bottle."
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    (Laughter)
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    "You've served so well."
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    (Laughter)
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    He's given a little bottle massage,
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    a little bottle medal.
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    And they say, "What would
    you like to do next?"
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    The little bottle says,
    "I just don't know ..."
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    (Laughter)
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    But that's not actually what happens.
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    You know?
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    That bottle winds up getting burned.
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    The recycling of plastic
    in many developing countries
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    means the incineration of the plastic,
    the burning of the plastic,
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    which releases incredible toxic chemicals
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    and, once again, kills people.
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    And so, poor people
    who are making these products
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    in petrochemical centers
    like Cancer Alley,
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    poor people who are consuming
    these products disproportionately,
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    and then poor people who,
    even at the tail end of the recycling,
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    are having their lives shortened.
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    They're all being harmed... greatly...
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    By this addiction that we have
    to disposability.
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    Now, you think to yourself...
    I know how you are...
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    You say, "That sure is terrible
    for those poor people.
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    It's just awful. Those poor people.
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    I hope someone does
    something to help them."
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    But what we don't understand is...
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    Here we are in Los Angeles.
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    We worked very hard
    to get the smog reduction
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    happening here in Los Angeles.
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    But guess what?
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    Because they're doing so much
    dirty production in Asia now,
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    because the environmental laws
    don't protect the people in Asia now,
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    almost all of the clean air gains
    and the toxic air gains
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    that we've achieved here in California
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    have been wiped out
    by dirty air coming over from Asia.
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    So we all are being hit.
    We all are being impacted.
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    It's just that the poor people
    get it first and worst.
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    But the dirty production,
    the burning of toxins,
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    the lack of environmental
    standards in Asia,
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    is actually creating so much
    dirty air pollution,
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    it's coming across the ocean,
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    and has erased our gains
    here in California.
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    We're back where we were in the 1970s.
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    And so we're on one planet,
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    and we have to be able to get
    to the root of these problems.
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    The root of this problem, in my view,
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    is the idea of disposability itself.
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    You see, if you understand the link
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    between what we're doing
    to poison and pollute the planet
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    and what we're doing to poor people,
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    you arrive at a very troubling
    but also very helpful insight:
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    In order to trash the planet,
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    you have to trash people.
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    But if you create a world
    where you don't trash people,
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    you can't trash the planet.
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    So now we are at a moment
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    where the coming together
    of social justice as an idea
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    and ecology as an idea,
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    we finally can now see
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    that they are really,
    at the end of the day, one idea.
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    And it's the idea that we don't have
    disposable anything.
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    We don't have disposable resources.
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    We don't have disposable species.
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    And we don't have
    disposable people, either.
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    We don't have a throwaway planet,
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    and we don't have throwaway
    children... it's all precious.
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    And as we all begin to come back
    to that basic understanding,
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    new opportunities for action
    begin to emerge.
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    Biomimicry,
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    which is an emerging science,
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    winds up being a very important
    social justice idea.
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    People who are just
    learning about this stuff:
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    biomimicry means respecting
    the wisdom of all species.
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    Democracy, by the way,
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    means respecting the wisdom
    of all people... we'll get to that.
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    But biomimicry means
    respecting the wisdom of all species.
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    It turns out we're a pretty
    clever species.
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    We have this big cortex,
    we're pretty proud of ourselves.
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    But if we want to make something hard,
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    we say, "I know! I'm going
    to make a hard substance.
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    I know! I'm going to get
    vacuums and furnaces
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    and drag stuff out of the ground
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    and get things hot
    and poison and pollute...
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    But I got this hard thing!"
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    (Laughter)
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    "I'm so clever!"
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    And you look behind you,
    and there's destruction all around you.
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    But guess what?
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    You're so clever,
    but you're not as clever as a clam.
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    A clamshell is hard.
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    There's no vacuums.
    There's no big furnaces.
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    There's no poison. There's no pollution.
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    It turns out that other species
    figured out a long time ago
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    how to create many of the things we need
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    using biological processes
    that nature knows how to use well.
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    That insight of biomimicry,
    of our scientists finally realizing
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    that we have as much
    to learn from other species...
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    I don't mean taking a mouse
    and sticking it with stuff.
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    I don't mean looking at it from that way,
    abusing the little species.
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    I mean actually respecting them,
    respecting what they've achieved.
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    That's called biomimicry,
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    and that opens the door
    to zero waste production;
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    zero pollution production;
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    that we could actually enjoy
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    a high quality of life,
    a high standard of living,
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    without trashing the planet.
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    Well, that idea of biomimicry,
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    respecting the wisdom of all species,
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    combined with the idea
    of democracy and social justice,
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    respecting the wisdom
    and the worth of all people,
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    would give us a different society.
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    We would have a different economy.
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    We would have a green society
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    that Dr. King would be proud of.
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    That should be the goal.
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    And the way that we get there
    is to first of all recognize
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    that the idea of disposability
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    not only hurts the species
    we've talked about,
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    but it even corrupts our own society.
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    We're so proud to live here in California.
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    We just had this vote,
    and everybody's like,
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    "Well... not in our state!"
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    (Laughter)
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    I don't know what those
    other states were doing, but ..."
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    (Laughter)
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    Just so proud.
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    And, yeah, I'm proud, too.
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    But...
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    California, though we lead the world
    in some of the green stuff,
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    we also, unfortunately, lead the world
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    in some of the gulag stuff.
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    California has one of the highest
    incarceration rates
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    of all the 50 states.
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    We have a moral challenge
    in this movement.
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    We are passionate about rescuing
    some dead materials from the landfill,
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    but sometimes not as passionate
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    about rescuing living beings,
    living people.
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    And I would say
    that we live in a country...
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    Five percent of the world's population,
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    25 percent of the greenhouse gases,
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    but also 25 percent
    of the world's prisoners.
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    One of every four people
    locked up anywhere in the world
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    is locked up right here
    in the United States.
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    So that is consistent with this idea
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    that disposability
    is something we believe in.
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    And yet,
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    as a movement that has to broaden
    its constituency,
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    that has to grow,
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    that has to reach out
    beyond our natural comfort zone,
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    one of the challenges
    to the success of this movement,
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    of getting rid of things like plastic
    and helping the economy shift,
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    is people look at our movement
    with some suspicion.
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    And they ask a question,
    and the question is:
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    How can these people be so passionate?
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    A poor person, a low-income person,
    somebody in Cancer Alley,
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    somebody in Watts,
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    somebody in Harlem,
    somebody on an Indian reservation,
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    might say to themselves...
    And rightfully so...
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    "How can these people be so passionate
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    about making sure
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    that a plastic bottle
    has a second chance in life,
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    or an aluminum can has a second chance,
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    and yet, when my child gets in trouble
    and goes to prison,
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    he doesn't get a second chance?"
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    "How can this movement
    be so passionate about saying
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    we don't have throwaway stuff,
    no throwaway dead materials,
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    and yet accept throwaway lives
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    and throwaway communities
    like Cancer Alley?"
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    And so, we now get a chance
    to be truly proud of this movement.
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    When we take on topics like this,
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    it gives us that extra call
    to reach out to other movements
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    and to become more inclusive and to grow,
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    and we can finally get out of
    this crazy dilemma that we've been in.
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    Most of you are good, softhearted people.
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    When you were younger,
    you cared about the whole world,
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    and at some point, somebody said
    you had to pick an issue,
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    you had to boil your love
    down to an issue.
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    "Can't love the whole world...
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    You've got to work on trees
    or you've got to work on immigration.
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    You've got to shrink it down
    and be about one issue."
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    And really, they fundamentally told you,
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    "Are you going to hug a tree?
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    Or are you going to hug a child? Pick.
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    Are you going to hug a tree?
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    Or are you going to hug a child? Pick."
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    Well, when you start working
    on issues like plastic,
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    you realize the whole thing is connected.
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    And luckily, most of us are blessed
    to have two arms...
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    We can hug both.
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    Thank you very much.
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    (Applause)
Title:
The economic injustice of plastic | Van Jones | TEDxGreatPacificGarbagePatch
Description:

Van Jones speaks about plastic pollution and how it affects the poor people.

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Video Language:
English
Team:
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Project:
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Duration:
12:59

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