Taking a Hold of Our Earth

By Brian Khaneyan

This week’s theme is garbage and consumption.  This is something that is not often thought about.  Most people go about their everyday lives and don’t even think about what happens to all the things they consume come from, or where it goes when they’re done with it. This is intrinsically a problem in and of itself. Not having any idea of where things come from means that one simply doesn’t care. That means that people can be absolutely blind about what they are doing to the environment. They are contributing to the problem directly since they are funding the industries that provide their energy, water, or food. These companies may be horrible for the environment, and the jobs they host may be extremely dangerous for their employees. Being ignorant and uneducated about something is an atrocious outlook to life. Throughout all the pieces shown, the recurring idea is that action should be taken. Whether it’s to educate oneself or to take action based on that education, one should always take action. This action is shown throughout each piece analyzed.

30 Days: Working in a Coal Mine is a documentary/investigative journalism show hosted by Morgan Spurlock, who is best known for his movie Super-Size Me. The style that Spurlock takes in both this show and most of his other works is to get into what he’s investigating. He doesn’t simply study others that are undergoing the events or subject of his story, he experiences it himself. This has many benefits. Firstly, the viewer can respect and trust him more, since he’s so involved and passionate about what he’s reporting about. For instance, in this episode, he has to undergo an 80-hour training course, teaching him the safety procedures and how to conduct himself at his new job. He truly puts the work in to be able to report on the issue the way an investigative journalist should.

There are endless health concerns that are involved with coal mining. While Spurlock is concerned about his own health, and goes to a doctor to see what the effects of this are. Once again, this serves two purposes. Firstly it’s to see how his own health will fare, but the viewer knows that this will only last 30 days for him, so it highlights the danger of coal mining as a career. One of the montages shown highlights the arduous work of the coal mine. The montage is beautifully done, and really illustrates the hardship of mining. A time lapse of Spurlock throughout the day is shown overlaid with audio from a miner: “shovel, shovel, shovel in the belt, take a breath, shovel, shovel in the belt…” This along with the indication of the time at the bottom, and more audio of Spurlock heaving and video of him shoveling highlight the incredibly rough work at the mine. This makes the viewer feel exhausted gives them a sense of the hardships of this job. The entire video is an exercise of words in action. Spurlock doesn’t simply report on coal mining, he mines the coal.

Story of Stuff, is a semi-viral, having over 3 million views, educational video. The video focuses on the system of our consumption and distribution from start to beginning. The video is done in an animated style, with a host in front of the animation. This means that it’s incredibly accessible to everyone, even kids. The distribution platform, the internet, makes this even more accessible. People are able to link this to their friends and family so they can watch for free. One criticism that can be made about this short film is that it should be shorter. An article on Wistia.com shows that the best audience capture percentage, or the percentage of people who are still viewing a video is around 35% for a 20+ minute video, while it is almost 60% for a five minute video. This means that almost two times the amount of people will stick around for the entire video which can be incredibly important for a video like this. The reason it is important for this video in particular is that this video inspires action. It outlines all the horrible things we are doing, and encourages the audience to go out and change their shopping patterns and thoughts on consumption. One example of this was when Annie Leonard brings up Brominated Flame Retardants. She highlights that these neurotoxins are used on things like pillows and are sold at big box stores. Clearly no one wants to sleep on neurotoxins as they’re incredibly dangerous, so action is needed. The video is filled with examples like these, talking points that encourage action and change in a person’s life and habits.

The next video, Synthetic Sea, employs a more palatable ten-minute length. The video uses multiple narrators along with images of the talking points.  The main point of the video can be summed in one phrase “so what we’ve got to do is change the way we produce and consume plastic...” This is the goal of the video, to inspire action. The video outlines the horrors and dangers of plastic, such as the dissection of a dead fish with plastics found inside, within the ocean, which in itself is enough to inform the viewer and urge them to take action against this pollution. However, it is incredibly difficult to do this. Julia Corbett outlines this in chapter 4 of Communicating Nature. “We are inundated with messages encouraging consumption; messages encouraging conservation or non-consumption are rare.” There is nothing telling us about the dangers of big box stores, or what they are doing to the environment. There is no advertisement on T.V. for the local organic market, these are things you cannot know about without taking action and finding them. Action is needed to live a sustainable lifestyle. Synthetic Sea directly shows this. By showing these countless horrors in the sea, it urges the viewer to take action!

This action can be seen through the documentary No Impact Man. The story follows Colin Beavan who is trying to live a completely sustainable lifestyle for one year throughout his everyday life. The film shows the difficulty of such a task, and focuses on the moral and physical aspects of this. The movie is shot in a documentary style that follows Collin throughout his daily life. The struggles shown such as not taking the elevator or not watching T.V. show the viewer that a sustainable life is an achievable goal, but it is still difficult. Big Beverage vs The Environment: The Battlefield  in Massachusets describes the prominence of bottled beverages, something that is incredibly dangerous for our environment. Phil Sego, the author of this article, portrays the beverage companies in a harsh light. He bolsters his hate on these companies with facts, “the beverage industry was one of the few that increased sales and profits during the economic downturn.” These statements are written in such a way that portrays the companies in a bad light, shunning their practices.

However, the idea that one person can make a difference through a simple change in your life sounds like a ludicrous idea on the surface. Colin Beavan said in the film: “The fact of the matter is that if only I change, it’s not going to make a difference.” This change doesn’t affect anything. He is one less person consuming one less plastic bottle a day, or a few watts of electricity less. That’s not going to change the world. However humans are social creatures. We see the actions of others, and that has a great effect on us. If someone sees another person doing a certain thing in a different way, it makes that person think about the action. Why is this being done? Is this something I should be doing? This is the exact point that Beavan makes later on in his quote: “So I believe the most radical political act there is, is to believe that if I change, other people will follow suit.” It is incredibly important to know that actions can make differences. Without action, we would perpetuate all the difficulties that we have today, and we would live in a quickly dwindling world.