Green Options

The “Story of Stuff“, with Annie Leonard, is another great educational short film from Free Range Studios, who also brought us an informative, witty and horrifying tour of factory farming in  “The Meatrix“.

This creative agency explains that they do not “work to sell products, they create work that sells ideas that build a more just and sustainable world”; and they are driven by a belief that “the right stories told in revolutionary ways can transform society“.

In internet time, Annie Leonard’s The Story Of Stuff is relatively old. But the 2007 web video, produced by Free Range Studios and funded by the Tides Foundation and Funders Workgroup for Sustainable Production and Consumption (among others) has attained cult status in American classrooms. According to the New York Times, teachers around the country use the video to supplement environmental education textbooks that often lack information on recent scientific discoveries.

Creative teaching, right?

My mother just turned 65 and, wise woman that she is, requested no presents. She did however, request that we all go down to the Starlight Lounge and dance our fool butts off! She is a woman who has her priorities straight: people are fun, stuff is…well, it’s just stuff.

This past week, I went into a Wal-Mart for the first time in about two years and I thought my head was going to explode just from the sheer volume of stuff and the incessant beeping of the registers! As I looked around all I could see was next year’s landfill! I was pretty close; in The Story of Stuff you will find the shocking statistic that 99% of the stuff we buy, we toss out.

Like any other bad behavior that is perpetuated generationally, we adults not only have to be come aware of, and change, our own habits, but find effective means to help our children not repeat our mistakes.

Older kids, 12 and up, may enjoy the Story of Stuff and be thoughtful about the implications. Younger children may just end up feeling helpless. I’ve mentioned Eco-phobia before and feel it necessary to reiterate that we risk making children numb to issues if they get too much bad news too soon. I thought it was great the the Story of Stuff blog links to kid-produced You Tube responses!

The reality is, $15 BILLION dollars is spent by marketers to turn your child into a good consumer.

Image source: www.inhabitat.com

Design Goes Green - The first of a series of articles by Green Printer on the cross-section between the environment, business and the creative communications industry.

Today, I caught the “story of stuff“: a 20-minute, fast-paced look at the dark underbelly of our consumption patterns. The clip exposes the links between a host of environmental and social issues while showing you the real cost of that $5 radio (metals from South Africa, 14 years olds from the Congo dropping out of school to work in factories…).