Story Of Stuff Analysis

In the short video, “The Story of Stuff”, the narrator, Annie Leonard, explains the story of material “stuff.” Annie examines how materials are produced and consumed by people, and how this process degrades the natural world and also can have health effects on humans. She first explains how natural resources are exploited by corporations. She also spends a minuets explaining how the government has lost power to huge corporations. Additionally, she notes how one-third of the earths resources have been consumed in the last three decades. She explains how degrading these resources is polluting the air, water, and hurting biodiversity. The next part of the linear system she describes is production of materials— factories. She argues that we are

First, she compares the system I described above to a board game and the goal of this game is economic growth—essentially growing the GDP. In order to change the game, one must change the goal of the game, thus she recommends that we change the goal to “better.” By better she means “better education, better health, better stuff, and a more sustainable life style. In order to change the goal, people need to propose game changing solutions, not new solution to the old game. She emphases the role of the citizen in her solution proposal and asserts that an active citizen can help make a big difference. She uses the acronym GOAL standing for: Giving more people more power, open people eyes to true happiness, account for all costs, and lessen the wealth gap. She asserts that cooperatives and recycling programs will help achieve the goal of better. Overall, she encourages communities to find solutions that promote sustainable living, and this sustainable living is better for all of

I agree that world should be worried about exploiting natural resources and pollution; however, I do have critiques of the first video, “The Story of Stuff.” First, the narrator attempts to find somebody to blame. It is obviously she is only focusing on American consumers, because she never blames the consumers, but attacks how government officials have manufactured the way we see the world, yet we a lll know that it is an individuals choice to consume these goods. Essentially, this reasoning gives every American an excuse to continue to buy goods because they have trained to consume stuff. I would assume the narrator’ would say that if education was improved—as she suggest in the second video— then we wouldn’t have been easily deceived by reaction to my opinion would be perceived and planned obsolescence. However, I would ask how she would pay for a better education? In this video I would argue that we forgot how big of a role the economy plays in our life. While, I agree that economic growth isn’t the answer for everything, but it is still a huge part of making a better society. Now I agree that the goal should be making life better, yet she doesn’t explain how society will find money to make things better. Thus, I don’t think we need to change the game we are playing, but rather society can just change the goal. Realistically, capitalism isn’t going away, but it can