THE STORY OF STUFF
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We have a different relationship with Stuff. Because externalized costs have been internalized at every stage from extraction of natural resource to product distribution, Stuff is much more expensive. We have realized that much of the Stuff we used to buy just wasn’t worth it—neither in terms of its impact on the planet or the amount of our own time we devoted to paying for and maintaining it. There are other things we’d rather devote our time to now. Most communities have vibrant local economies with a healthy margin of goods, especially food, textiles, and energy, sourced from local production. Disposable goods are extremely expensive and rare. Products are built to last, and many of them are leased with service agreements, rather than purchased by consumers. At the end of their useful lives, products are taken back by the companies that made them and repaired or disassembled for parts.
This means that maintenance, repair, and disassembly—as opposed to production—are much more important sources of employment than before. So are science and technology. Without as much economic growth as before, we can’t maintain full employment—but nobody’s complaining. Instead, people work part-time with full benefits, often with an ownership stake in the business.
Resource use is taxed, allowing for basic-needs-based levels of use with minimal or no taxes, but placing higher taxes on higher-volume use. This raises the price of those resources and encourages people and industries to use them efficiently and sparingly. To tackle the staggering inequality of wealth we inherited from the old growth-based system, we are gradually redistributing resources by setting upper limits for income inequality. Hard work and extra contributions are still rewarded, but not as extremely as before. (In the U.S. corporate sector back in the early twenty-first century, executive pay was as much as five hundred times the lowest salary.) We have lowered the range to a factor of fifty, so if the lowest salary in a company is $20,000, the highest is $1,000,000. Plans are in place to close the gap even further in the coming years. One measure of progress widely used is the Happy Planet Index, which reflects how efficiently we use natural resources to achieve well-being.
The whole pace of life is more relaxed: “slow and low(-impact)” is the new mantra. Incomes are lower but we are rich in something that many of us had never experienced before: time. There is far more leisure time. Levels of obesity, depression, suicide, and cancer are down. Library and civic memberships are up, as are basketball, soccer, and bocce clubs. While people spend less time working and watching TV alone, they spend far more time engaged in civic activities. People are voting in record numbers, as well as volunteering and campaigning for the things they care about. Citizens, not big corporations, have the greatest influence. Now that government is accessible, inviting, and responsive, there are nearly infinite possibilities for ways to make life even better. A sense of optimism and hope prevails.
Change And Hope
System change is inevitable. The question is not if we will change, but how. Will we be forward thinking enough to change by design, or will we wait until we’re forced to change by default? If we change by design, it’s going to require hard work, some hardship, but more gain. If we dig our heels in and maintain, as George Bush the First said (or Dick Cheney, it’s attributed to both), that the American way of life is not negotiable, and we refuse to budge on our resource use as though we had a second planet on reserve, then there’s going to be a lot more violence, suffering, and injustice than need be. Even in that scenario, change is still going to happen. Faced with serious, life-threatening resource scarcity as the planet runs out of things like clean water, productive farmland, and fossil fuels, the people around the world with the least access—those with no water, no fish, no shelter—will eventually not tolerate the vast inequity in resource use. When this happens, we will hit not only physical limits of the planet’s capacity, but also social and moral limits. At that point, change will be forced upon us.
People ask me all the time how I remain hopeful, given the seeming intractability of the dysfunctional take-make-waste system and the grimness of statistics regarding climate chaos and the loss of natural resources. The thing is, I really believe there’s hope for us yet. My unshakable optimism stems both from the knowledge that alternatives systems exist and the belief that if enough people want change, together we can chart a very different path. Four-fifths of Americans favor mandatory controls on greenhouse gases; nine-tenths of us want higher fuel efficiency standards; and three-quarters want cleaner energy, even if they have to pay a little more for it.22 More Americans are relearning how to live within their means and save for the future—since 2008 the personal savings rate has been climbing for the first time in nearly a decade.23 More of our voting-age population turned out for the federal elections of 2008 (nearly 57 percent) than in any year since 1968.24 These are good signs. Eco-visionary Paul Hawken recently said, “If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse.”25
I constantly meet with people from all over the planet who are working to restore the biosphere and promote social equity. Their very existence, alongside the practical solutions they are nurturing and implementing, is a powerful antidote to despair and hopelessness. They reinforce my confidence in our ability to realize an alternative world. How can we give up when we know that it is totally feasible to meet our energy needs through conservation and renewables, to make our Stuff without toxics and waste, and to replace the culture of consumerism with one of community and civic engagement?
In mid-2009, I had to travel to England for a family gathering. While there, a friend took me on a weeklong tour of rural Wales. Though my impressions were formed in just seven days, we covered much of the small country in that time, and I was impressed by what I saw, or actually, what I didn’t see. And yes, Wales is a small and relatively homogenous country. But that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from its successes, in the same way we can learn from all the Latin American and Asian countries that rank higher than us on the Happy Planet Index.
There were two things in particular I was shocked not to see in Wales. First, I saw almost no advertising, and not a single billboard. We went from town to town without seeing any blaring signs telling us to buy something. I felt like I’d gone back in time one hundred years. Being free of the constant assault of ads was such a relief. It was like experiencing silence again after growing accustomed to the jackhammers of a never-ending construction project. All week I saw only one mall and two big-box stores along the highway; the stores in the towns were mostly small and locally owned, selling a mix of imported and local products, thus keeping more money in the community. It made me realize yet again how commercially saturated our landscapes are in the United States and I wondered how that relentless assault affects us all on a daily basis.
Second, I noticed the absence of something even more important: homeless people. I didn’t see a single homeless person, shanty, or slum. No trashed neighborhoods. No piles of garbage in the neighborhoods deemed unimportant by municipal officials. The homes we passed were modest compared to U.S. McMansions but were in good shape and well maintained. I asked my guide, local waste expert Alan Watson, where the poor people lived, and he looked at me quizzically. “We have a strong social safety net here, so we don’t have a lot of poor people like you do.”
Finally, in a far-off field, I saw a bunch of small structures that looked almost like shanties from a distance. “Aha!” I declared. “So that is where your poor people live.” “No,” my host explained, “those are camper vans in a caravan park on holiday.” Oh.
Each time we got out of the car, Watson had to remind me that I didn’t need to lock the doors, even though it was packed to the gills with our camping gear—and the laptop with my book manuscript. He told me that his family seldom locks their house door. “Nothing bad will happen,” he promised. And he was right.
APPENDIX 1
EXAMPLES OF PROMISING POLICIES, REFORMS, AND LAWS
While each community and country requires a custom approach, there is a delicious smorgasbord of possible policies, regulations, laws, and programs that can improve humanity’s well-being and the state of the planet.
Some of these are already under way and just need to be scaled up. Some could be implemented right away, some over the short term, some more gradually. Some are straightforward; others are going to take some serious thought and planning in order to be implemented compassionately and justly.
This is not a comprehensive list, just a few of the possibilities I’m most excited about, presented in an order that matches up with the five stages in the Story of Stuff.
Extraction
1. Strengthen and implement government-led international agreements and monitoring systems (not voluntary industry-led codes of conduct) on environmental sustainability and human rights issues for all mining operations—gold, diamonds, coal, coltan, everything. The Kimberley Process needs to be strengthened and enforced to be effective, and additional systems are needed to cover other types of mining. Many organizations are working on reforming mining practices; check out Earthworks in the United States, Minerals Policy Institute in Australia, and Mines, Minerals and People in India.
2. Stop logging in the planet’s endangered remaining forests, from Canada’s boreal forest to Indonesia’s rainforest. Enact and enforce strict environmental and human rights standards for logging in other forests, prioritizing the protection of natural forests required to restore climate stability. Strengthen the Forest Stewardship Council certification program so it ensures protection of endangered forests, the rights of forest-dwelling peoples, and ecological values of the forests.
3. To reduce greenhouse gas emissions to the level needed to stabilize the climate, we simply must wean ourselves from fossil fuels and massively reduce carbon emissions. As activists from Ecuador to Nigeria to Appalachia, we need to say, “Keep the oil in the soil, keep the coal in the hole.” Policies that promote this path could include:
Redirecting government subsidies for extractive energy industries toward the development of clean, renewable energy options.
Redirecting subsidies for gas guzzler vehicles and highways toward promoting public transportation and zoning laws that discourage sprawl and create sidewalks, bike lanes, and public transportation, so people can reach the places they need to go without driving.
Establishing strict guidelines on fuel efficiency for cars and energy efficiency for buildings. Fuel efficiency and energy standards should be set and enforced by the government and should be based on sound science, free from industry influence. The Obama administration has recently announced a goal of an average of 35.5 miles per gallon for U.S. vehicles by 2016. Considering that some current cars get more than 50 mpg, with the technology available to achieve even higher fuel efficiency, why stop at a measly 35.5 mpg? Likewise, buildings can be required to be vastly more energy efficient, saving energy on both cooling and heating.
In the United States, upgrading the obsolete General Mining Act of 1872 to protect water sources, require reclamation, and deny mining claims that conflict with the protection of other resources. The Washington, D.C.–based environmental organization Earthworks coordinates a campaign to overhaul this ancient law as well as address other environmental and social issues related to mining in the United States and internationally.
Banning mountaintop removal mining, in which entire mountaintops are blown up to access the coal inside. To see what this looks like and to get involved, visit www.ilovemountains.org.
Ceasing development of Canada’s tar sands. Tar sands consist of heavy crude oil mixed with sand, clay, and bitumen. Extracting the oil entails burning natural gas to generate enough heat and steam to melt it out of the sand and uses up to five barrels of water for each barrel of oil produced. Rainforest Action Network (RAN) says that tar sands oil is the worst type for the climate, producing three times the greenhouse gas emissions of conventionally produced oil because of the energy required to extract and process it. RAN is organizing to redirect the $70 to $100 billion the United States plans to invest in tar sands infrastructure into research and development of sustainable energy alternatives such as electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids, and solar and wind energy.
Production
1. Reform chemicals policy, focusing on prevention rather than futile attempts to regulate hazardous chemicals after they’ve dispersed into our products, environment, and bodies. Ban the supertoxic chemicals, including chemicals that build up in our bodies (known as persistent bioaccumulative toxins, or PBTs) and toxic metals like lead and mercury. We in the United States have an opportunity to help pass the Kid-Safe Chemicals Act, the first effort to protect the public health through comprehensive chemical policy reform in more than thirty years. Sign up to join the campaign at www.saferchemicals.org.
2. Strengthen unions by protecting the right to organize and choosing unionized businesses for everything from clothing to hotels. Support worker cooperatives too; co-ops build democratic engagement and ensure that profits are kept in the local economy and shared more fairly.
3. Tax pollution at levels high enough to make investments in prevention vastly cheaper. Because the amount of carbon in the atmosphere has reached such crisis levels and we must reduce it to 350 ppm (see www.350.org for more information), taxes aren’t enough for this particular pollutant. For carbon, we have to go to the main source of the problems—the biggest CO2 point emitters—and force them to change their energy consumption systems, sometimes quite radically. Many of the suggestions under the extraction section, above, will help achieve this.
Distribution
1. Ensure that sustainability and equity are the top goals of all trade agreements. In the United States, support the Trade Reform, Accountability, Development and Employment Act of 2009 (the TRADE Act, H.R. 3012), which would significantly improve destructive trade policies like those of NAFTA and the WTO. To learn more and get involved, visit www.citizen.org/trade/tradeact/.
2. Give preference to locally made products with tools like a gradual tariff on goods that is based on how far they’ve traveled. Support local business and locally made products to reduce transportation and support local economies. The goal is not to prohibit all long-distance trade but to increasingly strengthen local production and distribution to create self-reliant communities while also securing a just transition in those communities with export-dependent economies. For those products that are shipped long distances, prioritize rail transport over the more polluting planes and trucks.
3. Promote transparency and democracy in supply chains so everyone—workers, host communities, customers, and businesses along the chain—have access to information and a voice in decision making. Laws to support this would require that companies disclose all their suppliers (as both Dell and Hewlett-Packard now do), ensure worker rights and environmental sustainability along their supply chain, and make this information available to the public.
Consumption
1. Decommercialize our culture. Reclaim our mental and physical landscape from commercial advertisers. Ban billboards and other intrusive advertising. Prohibit commercial advertising to children and in public places. Get commercial advertising out of textbooks, classrooms, and all educational facilities. The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood conducts research and advocates for protective policies; to get involved visit www.commercialexploitation.org. Commercial Alert (www.commercialalert.org) runs numerous campaigns to decommercialize our schools, media, and communities.
2. Ensure public investment in commons like
libraries, athletic facilities, and parks so that residents can meet their needs and enjoy leisure time without buying Stuff. Attend city council meetings to voice your opinion about budget priorities, or better yet, run for office yourself!
3. Adopt a progressive tax on resource consumption, allowing free use for basic needs while taxing higher-quantity use. For example, water to drink is free; water to wash your SUV or water your desert lawn is really expensive. A vibrant and often-heated discussion is happening on the international level as to what constitutes basic needs.
Disposal
1. Adopt extended producer responsibility (EPR) laws that hold producers responsible for the end-of-life management of their products, motivating better design at the front end and decreasing waste at the back end. Examples of EPR already in action include bottle bills, Germany’s Green Dot program, and the computer take-back legislation in many U.S. states. To learn how to promote EPR in your community, visit www.productaction.org, www.productpolicy.org, and www.productstewardship.us.
2. Implement significant taxes to discourage wasteful packaging and products, such as single-use beverage containers and disposable plastic bags. Ban outright those materials that are inherently toxic, such as consumer products containing mercury or PVC. Germany’s Green Dot program, national bottle bills, and disposable bag taxes and bans in numerous countries demonstrate the waste reduction potential of these tools.
3. Develop a national composting infrastructure to ensure that organic waste is kept out of landfills and that composting biomaterials moves from ideal to reality. This should include support for decentralized (backyard or community level) composting where possible, supplemented by municipal composting operations.
4. Prohibit all waste incineration. It’s simply not needed; technically viable and less polluting nonincineration alternatives exist for medical, municipal, and hazardous wastes. Instead, adopt a zero waste goal and invest in waste prevention, reuse, and recycling programs that conserve resources, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and create jobs. Prohibit all scams aiming to give renewable energy credits or carbon offset credits to waste incinerators and landfill gas burning! To get involved, contact the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives at www.no-burn.org.