The amount of resources we as humans use
is nothing less then ridiculous. We have seen and read many works in class this
week that show that depict the insane amount that we as a society consume. The
similar theme between them is that we consume too much and there are ways to
prevent it if we put forth the necessary effort to do so.
In no impact man Colin Beaven makes a
noble sacrifice by dedicating a year of his and his families life to making no
impact on the environment. Colin's experiment may be considered drastic by most
but it does a great job in showing us that a vast reason why we don’t change
our consumer habits has largely to do with social pressure. In the documentary
he gains media attention early on and with best intentions he makes an effort
to get his message out. He is quickly cast as an extremist and is given
negative feedback from both every day people as well as environmentalist. One
thing he is criticized for is that he gives up using toilet paper and a
refrigerator. The social pressure he receives from not using toilet paper
(switching to other methods of reusable cloth which creates no waste and is
just as hygienic) is what people focus on and is what labels him as an
extremist. He truly had good intentions and this social pressure makes him
rethink his ideals. Overall he overcomes the social pressure and from what I
saw succeeds in his experiment.
In Annie Leonard’s Story
of Stuff we are taken along the materials economy and shown the
environmental effects that go towards getting us the products that we consume.
Through this process we learn that Americans are buying more every year, we
have become a nation of consumers. According to the Story of Stuff we actually consume 50% more then we did 50 years
ago.
The part that is the most alarming is that the things that
we are consuming and buying we don’t need. The media has manipulated us to
think that what we have is no longer good enough, when in fact the things we
have are perfectly okay but social pressure is leading us to believe that it is
old and out dated. This process is known as perceived obsolescence. On the
other end of the spectrum planned obsolescence is taking place. According to
The Story of Stuff: planned obsolescence
is when the things being produced are made to fail after a certain amount of
time so that we are forced to go out and buy another one. Planned obsolescence
also refers to things made to be disposable when there is no need for them to
be disposable some examples are cell phones, barbeques, CD and DVD’s. The idea
behind this is that it keeps us consuming which in turn helps the economy. When
President George W. Bush first addressed the nation after 9/11 he said go out
and shop. Why would he do this? Because we are a nation of consumers and our
economies backbone is supported by if we are buying or not.
In No impact Man
we see that some things that we use and throw away truly can be reused or just
no used at all. Colin shops at a farmers market and uses no grocery bags; he
also doesn’t buy anything that is pre packaged in plastic. It is not impossible
to do this, we as a society collectively could in theory cut out all plastic
packaged items and not use grocery bags, its just the willingness of people to
change that is hindering this step forward. The impact of plastic bags is immense, they don’t biodegraded, they simply
break down into smaller and smaller pieces which in turn end up in oceans
harming wild life and in some cases get re ingested by humans.
When we flick on a light switch or turn on our laptop we
really don’t think of where that power came from. About 50% of Americas power
and energy supply is coal generated. Mining coal is not an easy task as we can
see in 30 days: Working in a Coal Mine
with Morgan Spurlock. Coal mining is hard work, dangerous, and on top of that
bad for the environment. In the film it depicts the hardships that the men
entering the coal mine everyday face, from possible explosions to chronic lung
issues. In the documentary the family that Morgan stays with for the 30 day
period has a long line of coal miners many of which have health conditions from
working in the mines. Some versions of coal mining involve s blowing chunks of
the mounting off using dynamite and other explosives, which obviously has a
huge impact on the land. What does this have to do with living sustainably? Its
all really connected when it comes down to it, when you leave a light on in
your house your wasting energy that could have went to something better like
powering lights for a hospital. When you leave that light on you don’t think
about it but someone shoveled for that coal you are wasting and that waste
could have been avoided.
We don’t all need to become no impact man but if we take
some things away and practice that theory in our own way we could make a
difference. Some things we will not be able to avoid like using a refrigerator
or lights but things as simple as not using plastic bags or buying something
that is disposable that doesn’t have to be are things we could do easily that
would be a step in the right direction.
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