New “Story of Stuff” video

Today I’m featuring the latest video from Annie Leonard’s Story of Stuff stable (see below). 

This one is called “The Story of Change” and it has just been released.
Nowadays it’s not enough to simply try to be a green consumer; actual citizen involvement and action is required as well to create sufficient pressure for change that institutions, governments, civil servants and corporations will react and adapt until we get to the promised land of sustainability – I have a dream…

There are phrases that advertising types use, particularly when marketing what they want us to see as greener products. These are such as “doing one’s bit” or “every little bit helps”. Well, this marketing speak unfortunately sometimes achieves a few things that are counter-productive

1) They help to sell products that might appear greener than the competition but are not necessarily green enough to pass muster sustainability-wise – “you can't cross a chasm in two small jumps” - David Lloyd George. Genuinely environmentally friendly products, which might be more expensive but last considerably longer, can be crowded out by superficially green but short lived products that ultimately prove more expensive in real terms and more wasteful because they need replacing more often.

2) Worse, they defuse any social responsibility that the consumer may have felt impelling them to make a genuinely green purchase – or even not to make a purchase by considering whether they need the product at all. The consumer buying the greenish product may feel that they have done their bit – which leads to…

3) Consumers feel that they are trying to “do their bit” so can feel resentment because they don’t understand when environmentalists never seem to accept it was “enough”, so consumers can switch off in high dudgeon and the environmental case gets knocked back.
Having said all that, let’s get back to the video which promotes the idea that it’s not enough to simply change what one buys – it’s not even enough to

 

"Be the change you wish to see in the world" - Gandhi

 

Annie draws parallels with the great reform movements of the past such as anti-apartheid, the US Civil rights movement, Gandhi’s Indian independence movement (which didn’t just stop at encouraging personal change)  and the early successes of the environmental movement in getting anti-pollution laws passed which all came about because of a lot of protesting, campaigning, citizen pressure and occasional fighting. Just buying recycled toilet roll is not enough to cut the sustainability mustard.

THE STORY OF CHANGE

Carrotmobbing! Corporations will do anything for money!

Carrotmobbing is a sort of reverse boycott for environmental purposes. My blog sometimes features ecological economics which is fast approaching "the answer". I am certain that if the environmental costs of any goods or services (the "externalities") are taken into account that automatically the cleaner greener option would become at least the same price as, and probably cheaper than, the dirtier, more polluting, less sustainable items that are currently offered for sale by mainstream manufacturers. Same principle works for energy and food supplies.

Carrotmobbing is not ecological economics in action but is an intriguing twist on conventional consumer culture combined with a fun-day-out community atmosphere.It is based on flash-mobbing, which is where a large number of people arrange via text, internet etc to suddenly turn up at a designated location and do something unusual for a few minutes, e.g. form a high kicking chorus line then disperse leaving the passers-by wondering what the h**l is going on.

The "carrot" aspect is a reference to boycotting campaigns, which get people to boycott companies or countries for environmental, justice or human rights reasons, being a "stick" to hurt the offender. Carrotmobbing says to businesses that if they green up their act, that large numbers of people will descend on their shop and buy loads of their stuff - an economic reward or carrot. Here is a video of the first carrotmobbing in San Francisco, preceded by an explanation. Click here for the carrotmob website

Carrotmob Makes It Rain from carrotmob on Vimeo.

The Story of Stuff

I had this famous cartoon on my election website so, because it is highly relevant to sustainability, I am reposting it here. Edit: MSN soap box is going to discontinue their video hosting service (which is where I put this video) so I am going to, instead, put a link to a YouTube version of it.

If you want to go directly to the author’s website to see it (recommended) then click on this link

  The film addresses, in a highly entertaining and amusing way, the trap we find ourselves in of apparently having to consume more and more "stuff" to keep the economy growing. It shows how the end result is almost certainly not what we need or should aspire to.