Thoughts on "Story of Stuff"

I was very pleased with the “Story of Stuff” video; it was well-made, easy to follow, and enlightening. I felt informed but not brainwashed by its facts and message. This is particularly important since many documentaries, as well as organizations preaching environmental, human, and animal rights awareness push for their causes in ways that make them nothing less than propaganda. (In the animal rights arena, PETA is the number one culprit.) “Story of Stuff,” however, was educational without being pushy, informative without skewing the facts. I only caught one mistake in the entire twenty minutes: the part about computers needing only one chip to update them is not exactly true. Even so, this in no way negates the video’s overall message.
Since I am personally interested in sustainability and have taken course in Sustainable Development, I am not entirely shocked by America’s level of consumerism, by our growing rate of environmental depletion, or by Bush’s brilliant post-911 plan of “shop more.” And while a semester’s worth of class cannot be condensed into one video, I can say that “Story of Stuff” adequately summarized the focal points of Sustainable Development into twenty minutes of speech and squiggles. I would like to add one term to the video’s repertoire: “cradle-to-cradle” production. Essentially, the video demonstrated this concept by showing earth, factories/production, and houses/consumption intertwined in a “recycle”-type circle. “Cradle-to-cradle” production simply means that in creating a product, whether plastic, food, or chemicals, we concern ourselves with creating it sustainably (with minimal pollution and depletion), distributing it effectively (through Fair Trade and fair wages), consuming it efficiently (using it until it needs to be replaced), and disposing of it in a way that would allow it to be at least partially reused. By utilizing “cradle-to-cradle” production, we can effectively alleviate and even reverse the suffering of the earth, ecosystems, and communities already caused by America’s self-serving consumerism.