Luke Schmitz -- Blog 4: Garbage/Consumption

By Luke Schmitz

Technology has advanced at an exponential rate in the past few centuries and has had very positive effects on our everyday lives.  However, there are many negative effects that come along with the positive ones.  First-world countries have learned to be reliant on luxuries such as electricity and automobiles, forgetting that these things require a large quantity of fossil fuels.  Although most people only see the benefits that these luxuries supply, obtaining these fuels can be dirty, unhealthy and incredibly dangerous.  This increased dependence on fossil fuels has helped to further distance people from nature and aid in our dependence for modern technologies and materials.  

In Chapter 4 of “Communicating Nature,” Julia B. Corbett explains the differences between “wants” and “needs” and how often times, we want certain things simply for their symbol in society.  She writes, “In this way, our ‘needs’ are not so much needs for objects as they are needs for social meaning and differentiation.”  I feel that Corbett is trying to reach out to a wide audience, explaining that our desires for materialistic objects are sought after for social acceptance.  She is trying to explain that we use these objects as ways to define ourselves, which is unnecessary and untrue.  I feel that when most people read this, it will make them aware of how they are using materialistic objects to define themselves and hopefully help them stop.  

In Chapter 5 of “Communicating Nature,” Corbett explains how removed we really are from nature.  Even when we think we are entering nature, we are still so far removed from it.  When people visit national parks, they use different means of transportation to visit.  Most people visit in cars or use planes to get to the park, emitting pollutants into the air while trying to “escape” into nature, which is ironic. Aside from that, many people stay in hotels, which have electricity, running water and other modern elements of life.  I think that reading this helps for us to understand how much reliance we have on technology and gives the reader insight on how to change that.  For example, the next time someone visits a national park, they can remove themselves from a hotel room and try to camp instead.   

Many people will know Morgan Spurlock as the man who made a documentary about eating McDonald’s three times a day for a full month.  After the documentary’s success, he created a television show called 30 Days, where he lives an unfamiliar lifestyle for a full month.  In one episode, Morgan lives with a mineworker and his wife, Dale and Sandy Lusk for 30 days.  I felt that this show did a great job in raising awareness of how dangerous the mines are because it had such a personal approach to it.   It reveals the dangers and damages created by the mine industry and what the men need to go through on a daily basis at work, which includes traveling deep beneath the ground breathing in terrible toxins.  Dale’s brother Coy was a miner for 30 years and is filmed because he developed Black Lung, which is a disease that occurs from inhaling coal dust.  I felt that this added to how personal the documentary is because it was exposing the disease in the family and the hardships that come along with it.  When viewers see personal struggles from an everyday person, they feel they can relate, which helps to raise awareness towards how miserable conditions are for miners due to our severe dependence on coal for energy.

There are many effective ways to reach out to people to raise awareness for our overconsumption and how to limit the effect we have on our environment.  Annie Leanard is an environmental activist who made a short film called, The Story of Stuff to try and help raise awareness towards our overconsumption.  However, I found the film to be very dry and ineffective in raising awareness.  There is no background music and the entire film has a white, bland background.  Although Annie does incorporate cartoons and animations, I felt that her speech was more of a sales pitch and did a poor job at captivating an audience.  I feel that she would need to stop spitting facts, have more music and perhaps different pictures or videos to make the film better.

In the film Synthetic Sea, by Captain Charles Moore, he explains the damages caused by plastic in the sea.  This film is very effective in reaching out to people because I think many people react to dying animals.  It shows how plastics are polluting the sea and killing many innocent creatures.  Although we still produce a large amount of plastic, it is pleasing to know that some people are fighting towards producing zero plastic waste.  Lauren Singer is a 23 year old girl living in Brooklyn.  Lauren has not produced waste in over two years!  She produces all of her own household items such as toothpaste and deodorant and hardly uses any plastic at all.  I really like the way she advocates being sustainable, because she doesn’t try to convince people to follow her lead, but she tries to set an example so people get motivated by her actions.  I think that her attitude is very similar to a man named Colin Beavan, who also tries practices what he preaches.  I think that people do not like being told what to do, but if they see how others are living a sustainable lifestyle, it is easier for them to follow along. 

Colin Beavan made a documentary about him and his family creating absolute minimal impact on the environment for a year.  No Impact Man follows the family as they stop eating meat, eat locally grown foods and turn off their electricity.  I found this to be a very motivational film because the family was practicing what they preached by living a lifestyle that produced such small impact.  I also thought it was interesting to note how Michelle (Colin’s wife) seemed to struggle with the changes in their lifestyle the most.  She was used to constant shopping, coffee drinking and eating steak.  However, the lifestyle changes seemed to have the least impact on the couple’s daughter, a two-year-old girl.  I thought this was interesting because it showed how their daughter had yet to develop a dependency on modern technology and was able to cope with these changes easily.  I also really enjoyed how Colin said he would try to give up everything so that after a year, he could see what is realistic to ask others to give up.  The documentary had a very realistic approach to it and Colin used his family as the “test-dummies” before trying to convince others to follow in his footsteps.  The documentary forces you to ask, What am I willing to give up in an effort to save the environment?