My comments on the "Story of Stuff" clip.
I would like to begin with giving Annie Leonard a hand for the very interesting and moving lecture. I was almost carried away!
Watching the video clip for the first time will doubtlessly affect you, but unfortunately I just couldn’t relate to it. It is obviously addressed to the citizens of the United States and not to those of the European countries and especially not to Swedes.
The reason behind why I couldn't relate to this issue is simply because I feel that we as Swedes are very aware of our environment and needless to say our consumption habits. There might be some exceptions to this rule, there are, in fact, exceptions to almost every rule, but I believe that the overwhelming majority do take this issue seriously.
Here are the statements that captured my attention:
"We are running out of resources!"
Aren’t we anyway sooner or later? I feel that all the efforts are concerned with postponing "the end" of the world, not preventing it, which is an impossible thing to do as much as we would like to think the opposite.
"What is the point with an ad except to make us unhappy with what we already have?!"
Well, I am afraid I don’t agree. Ads are not that evil and they do have other purposes than the one mentioned above, surprisingly many of them are in fact good, e.g. introducing us to new products that might satisfy our needs in different/better way.
Besides, ads are not the only thing that stimulates shopping. The main reason behind our extreme shopping habits today is the fact that we have reached higher standards of living compared to those that existed back in the days. So, having more naturally leads to spending more.
"Who is actually paying for the stuff?!"
Mass production is the creation of goods in large quantities at low cost per unit and that is the main reason behind the accessible prices we find in the shelves of the stores.
The fact that some children are sacrificing their future is a horrible and a very sad thing but it is not making the prices any cheaper.
"Externalized costs" is indeed a nice and a well coined phrase but I would like to use "ethical dilemma" instead to describe the future loss of those children and the health issues of the workers.
There is NO price tag in the world that can capture the loss of someone's future or health!
My biggest criticism is that she spent about 20 minutes lecturing about how badly we are treating the environment but less than a minute for discussing possible solutions, not that she provided any!
Overall impression is good, though!
Prenumerera på:
Kommentarer till inlägget (Atom)
2 kommentarer:
I think also that the video clip was made for the amercian people because Annie said that we consume the same thing on both continents but in Europe without toxic and pollution. So we can do it, why can't they?
The clip "Story of stuff" was an alarm bell for the americans that they have to stop use toxic in their productions because here in Europe we have shown that you can produce the same things without toxic.
And you are right, sooner or later the resources will disapear but I think that the worldleaders probably working on it to find a solution to it but they runing out of time maybe..
I agree with you that she spent too much time debating problems and spent less time on possible solutions.I mean, there are things we could do to change our behaviour.
I think consumption in general has been a good thing to the world as it has given a lot of people the chance to come out of poverty.
In the end though, we will have to change our way of living.
Skicka en kommentar