Little Bang Theory

Apropos of The Season December 24, 2007

I just read an elucidating post by Karen over at Beautiful Day Rule. She linked to a short video called “The Story Of Stuff,” which does an excellent job of describing our current dysfunctional system of production/consumption/disposal and its ramifications to our planet and our children’s futures. I’m not linking to it directly, but rather suggesting that you stop by Karen’s place for the link and let her know that you appreciate her efforts in spreading the word.

The gist of the video, in case you don’t go (but why wouldn’t you?) is that we’re being “played” in a corporate Ponzi scheme which can’t do anything but collapse in the not-too-distant future, taking all of our futures with it. The video has a rather more hopeful tone to it than that, thanks to the excellent energy of host Annie Leonard, Activist Extraordinaire and plain-talking Good Folk.

But I’m taking a bit of a harder line here, because I’ve been trying really hard to be a protector of our environment for too many decades, and I see the vast majority of Americans not really giving a shit about the Earth, and being completely oblivious to their part in the environmental holocaust which our American Life-style is fomenting.

The sad truth is that as a small group of individuals we can do everything in our powers to cut back on our consumption and reduce our waste stream, but the huge majority of our toxic by-products never pass through our hands. They’re produced in the manufacturing of our Great American Lifestyle, stock-piled in mountains of toxic mine tailings, dissolved in billions of gallons of industrial waste-water, billowed from tens of thousands of smokestacks scattered around our planet.

In this, the most consumptive of seasons, it behooves us to examine critically the messages being peddled to us, and those we pass on to our children. What does it take to be happy? What do we need to be satisfied? Who really pays for our conspicuous over-consumption?

I try to keep it simple, to reduce my environmentally consumptive footprint. My personal trash output is ridiculously small by American standards. Yet I know I could do more, and I’m always searching for ways to move in that direction.

The solution lies well beyond me, and indeed well beyond us. It lies in a redefinition of The Good Life which takes into account sustainability, a well-worn concept which hasn’t taken hold in our most consumptive of societies because there’s so much easy money to be made in dismissing it.

So in the next few days, as you survey the bounty of things which you’ve brought into your homes and the volume of largely unrecyclable trash which you’ve hauled to the curb or carted to your local transfer station, I’m asking you to ask yourself how much of that was necessary, what of those things did you really need, and do you really, really  have to do it again next year.