قصة الأشياء: أزمة الاقتصاد الخطي وتأثيره البيئي والاجتماعي

[Music] do you have one of these i got a little obsessed with mine in

fact i got a little obsessed with all my stuff have you ever wondered where all the

stuff we buy comes from and where it goes when we throw it out i couldn't stop wondering about that so

i looked it up and what the textbook said is that stuff moves through a system

from extraction to production to distribution to consumption to disposal altogether

it's called the materials economy well i looked into it a little bit more in fact i spent 10 years

traveling the world tracking where our stuff comes from and where it goes and you know what i

found out that is not the whole story there is a lot missing from this explanation for one thing

this system looks like it's fine no problem but the truth is it's a system in crisis and the reason

it's a system in crisis is it's a linear system and we live on a finite planet and you

cannot run a linear system on a finite planet indefinitely every step along the way

this system is interacting with the real world in real life it's not happening on a blank white page

it's interacting with societies cultures economies the environment and all along the way it's bumping up

against limits limits we don't see here because the diagram is incomplete so let's go back through let's fill in

some of the blanks and see what's missing well one of the most important things

that's missing is people yes people people live and work all along this system

and some people in this system matter a little more than others some have a little more say

who are they well let's start with the government now my friends tell me i should use a tank to symbolize the

government and that's true in many countries and increasingly in our own after all more than 50 percent of our

federal tax money is now going to the military but i'm using a person to symbolize the

government because i hold true to the vision and values the government should be of the people by the people

for the people it's the government's job to watch out for us to take care of us that's their job then

along came the corporation now the reason the corporation looks bigger than the government is that the corporation

is bigger than the government of the 100 largest economies on earth now

51 are corporations and as the corporation has grown in size and power we've seen a little

change in the government where they're a little more concerned in making sure everything's working out for those guys

than for us okay so let's see what else is missing from this picture we'll start with extraction which is a

fancy word for natural resource exploitation which is a fancy word for trashing the

planet what this looks like is we chop down the trees we blow up mountains to get the

metals inside we use up all the water and we wipe out the animals so here we are running up against our

first limit we are running out of resources we are using too much stuff now i know

this can be hard to hear but it's the truth so we've got to deal with it in the past three decades alone one

third of the planet's natural resource space has been consumed gone we are cutting and mining

and hauling and trashing the place so fast that we're undermining the planet's very

ability for people to live here where i live in the united states we have less than four percent of our

original forest left 40 percent of the waterways have become undrinkable

and our problem is not just that we're using too much stuff but we're using more than our share we

have five percent of the world's population but we're using

30 percent of the world's resources and creating thirty percent of the world's waste

if everybody consumed at u.s rates we would need three to five planets and you know what we've only got

one so my country's response to this limitation is simply to go take somebody

else's this is the third world which some would say

is another word for our stuff that somehow got on somebody else's land so what does that look like the same

thing trashing the place 75 of global fisheries now are fished at or beyond capacity eighty percent of

the planet's original forests are gone in the amazon alone we're losing two thousand trees a minute

that is seven football fields a minute and what about the people who live here well according to these guys

they don't own these resources even if they've been living there for generations

they don't own the means of production and they're not buying a lot of stuff and in this system if you don't own or

buy a lot of stuff you don't have value so next the materials move to production

and what happens there is we use energy to mix toxic chemicals in with the natural resources

to make toxic contaminated products there are over a hundred thousand synthetic chemicals in use in

commerce today only a handful of them have even been tested for health impacts and none have been tested for

synergistic health impacts that means when they interact with all the other chemicals we're exposed to

every day so we don't know the full impact on health and the environment of all these

toxic chemicals but we do know one thing toxics in toxics out

as long as we keep putting toxics into our industrial production systems we're going to keep getting toxics in

the stuff that we bring into our homes and workplaces and schools and duh our bodies like bfrs

brominated flame retardants they're a chemical that make things more fireproof but they are super toxic they're a

neurotoxin that means toxic to the brain what are we even doing using a chemical like this

yet we put it in our computers our appliances couches mattresses even some pillows in fact

we take our pillows we douse them in a neurotoxin then we bring them home and put our

heads on them for eight hours a night to sleep now i don't know but it seems to me in

this country with so much potential we could think of a better way to stop our heads from catching on fire at night

now these toxics build up the food chain and concentrate in our bodies do you know what is the food at the top

of the food chain with the highest level of many toxic contaminants human breast milk that means that we've

reached a point where the smallest members of our societies our babies

are getting the highest lifetime dose of toxic chemicals from breastfeeding from their mothers

is that not an incredible violation breastfeeding must be the most fundamental human act of nurturing

it should be sacred and safe now breastfeeding is still best and mothers should definitely keep breastfeeding

but we should protect it they should protect it i thought they were looking out for us

and of course the people who bear the biggest brunt of these toxic chemicals are the factory workers

many of whom are women of reproductive age they're working with reproductive toxins carcinogens and more

now i ask you what kind of woman of reproductive age would work in a job exposed to

reproductive toxins except for a woman with no other option and that's one of the beauties of this

system the erosion of local environments and economies here

ensures a constant supply of people with no other option globally 200 000 people a day are moving

from environments that have sustained them for generations into cities many to live in slums

looking for work no matter how toxic that work may be so you see it's not just resources that

are wasted along this system but people too whole communities get wasted yep toxics in toxics out a lot of the

toxics leave the factories in products but even more leave as byproducts or pollution

and it's a lot of pollution in the u.s our industry admits to releasing over 4 billion pounds of toxic chemicals a year

it's probably a lot more because that's only what they admit so that's another limit

because yuck who wants to look at and smell 4 billion pounds of toxic chemicals a year

so what do they do move the dirty factories overseas pollute someone else's land but surprise

a lot of that pollution is coming right back at us carried by wind currents so what happens after all these natural

resources are turned into products well it moves here for distribution now distribution means selling all the toxic

contaminated junk as quickly as possible the goal here is to keep the prices down

keep the people buying and keep the inventory moving how do they keep the prices down well

they don't pay the store workers very much and they skimp on health insurance every time they can

it's all about externalizing the costs what that means is that the real costs of making stuff

aren't captured in the price in other words we aren't paying for the stuff we buy i was

thinking about this the other day i was walking to work and i wanted to listen to the news so i popped into a

radio shack to buy a radio i found this cute little green radio for 4.99

i was standing there in line to buy this thing and i was thinking how could 4.99 possibly capture the cost of making this

radio and getting it into my hands the metal was probably mined in south africa the petroleum was probably

drilled in iraq the plastics were probably produced in china and maybe the whole thing was

assembled by some 15 year old in immaculator in mexico 4.99 wouldn't even pay the rent for the

shelf space it occupied until i came along let alone part of the staff guys salary

who helped me pick it out or the multiple ocean cruises and truck rides pieces of this radio went on

that's how i realized i didn't pay for the radio so who did pay well these people paid

with the loss of their natural resource space these people paid with the loss of their

clean air with increasing asthma and cancer rates kids in the congo paid with their future

30 of the kids in part of the congo have dropped out of school to mine coltan

a metal we need for our cheap and disposable electronics these people even paid by having to

cover their own health insurance all along this system people pitched in so i could get this radio for 4.99

and none of these contributions are recorded in any accounts book that's what i mean by the company owners

externalize the true cost of production and that brings us to the golden arrow of consumption this is

the heart of the system the engine that drives it it is so important that protecting this arrow

has become the top priority for both of these guys that's why after 9 11 when our country

was in shock and president bush could have suggested any number of appropriate things

to grieve to pray to hope no he said to shop to shop we have become a nation

of consumers our primary identity has become that of being consumers not mothers teachers farmers but

consumers the primary way that our value is measured and demonstrated

is by how much we contribute to this arrow how much we consume and do we we shop and shop and

shop keep the materials flowing and flow they do guess what percentage of total materials

flow through this system is still in product or use six months after their date of sale in north

america fifty percent twenty no one percent one in other words

ninety-nine percent of the stuff we harvest mine process transport ninety-nine percent of the stuff we run

through this system is trashed within six months now how can we run a planet with that level of

materials throughput it wasn't always like this the average u.s person now consumes twice as much as

they did 50 years ago ask your grandma in her day stewardship and resourcefulness and thrift were

valued so how did this happen well it didn't just happen

it was designed shortly after world war ii these guys were figuring out how to ramp

up the economy retailing analyst victor lebeau articulated the solution that's become

the norm for the whole system he said our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption

our way of life that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals that we seek our

spiritual satisfaction our ego satisfaction in consumption we need things consumed

burned up replaced and discarded at an ever accelerating rate president eisenhower's council of

economic advisers chairman said that the american economy's ultimate purpose is to produce more

consumer goods more consumer goods our ultimate purpose not provide health care or education or

safe transportation or sustainability or justice consumer goods how did they get us to

jump on board this program so enthusiastically well two of their most effective

strategies are planned obsolescence and perceived obsolescence planned obsolescence is another word for

designed for the dump it means they actually make stuff to be useless as quickly as possible so we'll

chuck it and buy a new one it's obvious with things like plastic bags and coffee cups

but now it's even big stuff mops dvds cameras barbecues even everything even computers have you

noticed that when you buy a computer now the technology is changing so fast that in just a couple of years it's actually

an impediment to communication i was curious about this so i opened up a big desktop computer to see what was

inside and i found out that the piece that changes each year is just a tiny little

piece in the corner but you can't just change that one piece because each new version is a different

shape so you gotta chuck the whole thing and buy a new one

so i was reading industrial design journals from the 1950s when planned obsolescence was really catching

on these designers are so open about it they actually discuss how fast can they make stuff

break that still leaves the consumer having enough faith in the product to go out and buy another one

it was so intentional but stuff cannot break fast enough to keep this arrow afloat

so there's also perceived obsolescence now perceived obsolescence convinces us to throw away stuff

that is still perfectly useful how do they do that well they change the way the stuff

looks so if you bought your stuff a couple of years ago everyone can tell that you haven't

contributed to this arrow recently and since the way we demonstrate our value is contributing to this arrow

it can be embarrassing like i've had the same fat white computer monitor on my desk

for five years my co-worker just got a new computer she has a flat

shiny sleek monitor it matches her computer matches her phone even her pen stand she

looks like she's driving in spaceship central and i i look like a little washing machine on my desk

fashion is another prime example of this have you ever wondered why women's shoe heels go from fat one year to skinny the

next to fat to skinny it's not because there's some debate about which heel structure is the most

healthy for woman's feet it's because wearing fat heels in a skinny heel year

shows everybody that you haven't contributed to that arrows recently so you're not as valuable as that person in

skinny heels next to you or more likely in some ad it's to keep us buying new shoes

advertisements and media in general plays a big role in this each of us in the us is targeted with

over 3 000 advertisements a day we see more advertisements in one year than people 50 years ago saw in a

lifetime and if you think about it what's the point of an ad except to make us unhappy

with what we have so three thousand times a day we're told our hair is wrong our skin is wrong our

clothes are wrong our furniture is wrong our car is wrong we are wrong but it can all be made

right if we just go shopping media also helps by hiding all of this and all of this

so the only part of the materials economy we see is the shopping the extraction production and

disposal all happens outside of our field of vision so in the u.s we have more stuff than

ever before but polls show that our national happiness is actually declining

our national happiness peaked in the 1950s the same time that this consumption mania exploded

hmm interesting coincidence i think i know why we have more stuff but we have less time

for the things that really make us happy friends family leisure time we're working harder than ever

some analysts say we have less leisure time than any time since feudal society and you know what the two main

activities are that we do with the scant leisure time we have watch tv and shop in the u.s we spend

three to four times as many hours shopping as our counterparts in europe do

so we're in this ridiculous situation where we go to work maybe two jobs even and we come home and we're exhausted so

we plop down on our new couch and watch tv and the commercials tell us you suck so

you gotta go to the mall to buy something to feel better and then you got to go to work more to

pay for the stuff you just bought so you come home and you're more tired so you sit down and you watch more tv

and until you go to the mall again and we're on this crazy work watch spend treadmill

and we could just stop so in the end what happens to all the stuff we buy anyway at this rate of consumption it

can't fit into our houses even though the average house site has doubled in this country since the 1970s

it all goes out in the garbage and that brings us to disposal this is the part of the materials

economy we all know the most because we have to haul the junk out to the curb ourselves each of us in

the united states makes four and a half pounds of garbage a day that's twice what we each made 30 years

ago all of this garbage either gets dumped in a landfill which is just a big hole

in the ground or if you're really unlucky first it's burned in an incinerator

and then dumped in the landfill either way they both pollute the air land water and don't forget change the

climate incineration is really bad remember those toxics back in the production

stage well burning the garbage releases the toxics up into the air

even worse it makes new super toxics like dioxin dioxin is the most toxic man-made substance known to science

and incinerators are the number one source of dioxin that means that we could stop the number

one source of the most toxic man-made substance known just by stopping burning the trash

we could stop it today now some companies don't want to deal with building landfills and incinerators here

so they just export the disposal too what about recycling does recycling help yes

recycling helps recycling reduces the garbage at this end and it reduces the pressure to mine and harvest new stuff

at this end yes yes yes we should all recycle but recycling is not enough recycling

will never be enough for a couple reasons first the waste coming out of our houses is

just the tip of the iceberg for every one garbage can of waste you put out on the curb

70 garbage cans of waste were made upstream just to make the junk in that one garbage can you put out on the curb

so even if we could recycle 100 of the waste coming out of our households it doesn't get to the core of the

problems also much of the garbage can't be recycled either because it contains too

many toxics or it's designed not to be recyclable in the first place

like those juice packs where they have layers of metal and paper and plastic all smooshed together

you can never separate those for true recycling so you see it is a system in crisis all

along the way we're bumping up against limits from changing climate to declining

happiness it's just not working but the good thing about such an all-pervasive problem is there

are so many points of intervention there are people working here on saving forests here on clean production

labor rights fair trade conscious consuming blocking landfills and incinerators

and very importantly taking back our government so that it really is by the people for

the people all of this work is critically important but things really start moving when we

see the connections when we see the big picture when people all along this system get

united we can reclaim and transform this whole linear system into something new a system that doesn't waste resources or

people you see what we really need to chuck is that old school throwaway mindset

there's a new school of thinking about this stuff and it's based on sustainability

and equity things like green chemistry zero waste closed loop production renewable energy

local living economies it's already started some say it's unrealistic too idealistic

that it can't happen i say the ones who are unrealistic are those who think that we can continue

with the old way they're dreaming remember that old way didn't just happen

it wasn't like gravity that we just have to live with people created it and we're people too so let's create

something new there's a lot of information on this website about groups doing incredible

work click around get involved [Music]

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