Story of stuff
Earth has limited natural resources and human beings must maintain
them from disappearing. Human life depends on the earth's natural resources
to meet all their basic needs. Since there is no human being can survive
without these resources we must keep them from disappearing. Natural resources are divided into two types:
renewable and non-renewable. Renewable resources include water, soil, air, fish
and agricultural crops, also the renewable energy resources like the power of
the sun, wind and water, and non-renewable resources include minerals and
fuels, coal and natural gas. People are consuming more than their needs of
these natural resources and wasting a lot this leads to damaging the earth and
causing a lot of problems such as global warming and pollution.
The story of stuff video by Annie Leonard
talks about the lifecycle of stuff and how it gets to the people. In the video
she said: “stuff moves thought a system from extraction to production to
distribution to consumption to disposal all together it’s called the material
economy” (Story of Stuff 2007). She said that we are running out of resources
and using too much stuff and mentioned that in the past 3 decades 1/3 of earth
natural resource has been consumed. The United States alone consume 30% of the
earth resources although they have only 5% of the world population.
Extraction:
“Extraction means taking the planet’s
resources- wood, minerals, coal, fossil fuel, water, plants, animals, and soil
out of the earth and starting their journey through the materials economy”( The Story of Stuff Project 2007). Annie
Leonard defined extraction is a fancy word for natural resource exploitation
and a fancy word for trashing the plant, by chopping down trees and blow the
mountains to get the metal and use up all the water, and that’s how Earth is
running out of resources. 80% of earth
original forests are gone, and the amazons are losing 2000 tree a minute.
“Global resource extraction grew more or less steadily over the past 25 years,
from 40 billion tons in 1980 to 58 billion tons in 2005, representing an
aggregated growth rate of 45% ”( The Issue | World Resources Forum 2012).
Production:
“The processes and methods used to
transform tangible inputs (raw materials, semi-finished goods, subassemblies)
and intangible inputs (ideas, information, knowledge) into goods or services” (The
Story of Stuff Project 2007). In this stage, they use toxic chemicals and add
them to the natural resources to make toxic products for people to buy. These toxic
products cause a lot of environmental problems such as climate change and toxic
pollution, and as long we use toxic in our products we well keep getting toxic
everywhere and in our bodies which will damage our health and cause lot of
illness.
Distribution:
This is very important step because it
sells all the toxic products cheaply and quickly as possible by keeping the
products cheap and the people buying.
Consumption:
This is the most important stage it is the
engine drives this system, and protecting it is the top priority for the
company’s and they succeeded. People don’t stop shopping and they shop more
than what they need and most of these goods don’t last for a long time.
Consumerism in UAE:
According to a study published by The
National news consumerism is one of the greatest threats to national identity
for the locals. Also the Etihad news published that the UAE have consumption of
water 3 times the global average for the person.
Disposal:
This is the last step in the system. After
using all of these productions where does it go? Most of these goods dumped
somewhere or burned which leads to air pollution and produce toxic waste, and
some of the disposal goods recovered for recycling. However recycling is not
enough because the waste people produce most of them can’t be recycling.
To save our plant we must change our way of
life and stop living by this system. We should look for the best solutions to
reduce our conception and waste. People
these days are more aware of the danger. We must use clean production and clean
energy for better life also for the generation coming after us.
Word: 703
References:
Gerson, J., & Richardson, A. (2008, April
4). 'Consumerism and foreigners' greatest identity threats - The National.
Latest and breaking news | thenational.ae - The National. Retrieved May 27,
2013, from http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/consumerism-and-foreigners-greatest-identity-threats
Natural resource -
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (2013, May 26). Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia. Retrieved May 27, 2013, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_resource
Radford, T. (2005,
March 30). Two-thirds of world's
resources 'used up' | Science | The Guardian .
Latest US news, world news, sport and comment from the Guardian |
guardiannews.com | The Guardian . Retrieved May 27, 2013, from
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2005/mar/30/environment.research
Story of Stuff (2007,
OFFICIAL Version) - YouTube. (2007, January 1). YouTube. Retrieved May 27,
2013, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GorqroigqM
The Story of Stuff
Project. (2007, January 1). The Story of
Stuff Project. Retrieved May 27, 2013, from http://www.storyofstuff.org/
The Issue | World
Resources Forum. (2012, January 1). World Resources Forum | Shaping the Future
of Natural Resources. Retrieved May 27, 2013, from
http://www.worldresourcesforum.org/issue
APA formatting by BibMe.org.
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