I would like to invite you to watch "The Story of Stuff".

Have you ever wondered where all this stuff comes from…and where it goes when we throw it out?

Created by Annie Leonard (and a team…) The Story of Stuff details exactly that – how stuff travels through our system! And it presents extremely complex and large bites of information in bite-sized, simple words & delicious visual language – without the oversimplification that tends to happen when models are reduced to three words / images.  Thus where the 20mins explanation comes in… Which you can watch in chapter slots if you want to break up the time across say a week…

I know in our ‘time-poor’ world 20mins seems like a really long time, but I really can’t recommend "The Story of Stuff" enough.

Perhaps another way to look at 20mins is to think of the 20years experience & learning that Annie has managed to condense for us to understand why things are getting the way they are – and why and how stuff works they way it works… In the context of her 20years the time seems minor. And  frankly, the earth has been here longer than us and I suspect that if we don’t start becoming more educated on what we are doing to this poor planet of ours, and using our rights as citizens, consumers and employees and so forth…we may find we don’t have an earth to stand on. Put shortly – the earth has given us far more than 20mins…so perhaps we can start giving it at least the same. And I am not saying I agree with everything that  is said. But I think it gives all of us access to a lot of important terms and language to help us start thinking even a mm differently…and acting a mm differently…

I wish I could make a story about things I have learned as simply…well maybe one day I will. In the meantime, I would like to again invite you to watch The Story of Stuff. And perhaps, also let us / Annie know your thoughts…please.

And for those of you who want to do something about all this stuff, afterwards, here are some things you can do:

- Many ’10 things you can do’ lists – all put on one webpage – how helpful! 

- Become Carbon Neutral, curtosy of David Suzuki
(I am beginning to realise I need to plant a rainforest personally…anyone know of one I should adopt?)

-50 Things you can do… 

-Save the Earth top 10

-Buy less…or things that will last longer 

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 11th, 2008 at 7:22 pm and is filed under change, conversation, creativity, digital storytelling, knowledge & wisdom, questions, responsibility - corporate, responsibility - personal, science, stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.