The Story of Stuff

From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world (www.greenlivingtips.com).

The Story of Stuff illustrates the consumption chain and aims to reframe our conversation from unlimited production and consumption to sustainability and equity (news.cnet.com). The video is quite engaging, and I was impressed by its simplicity and effectiveness. No flashy graphics or sensational techniques, just simple line animation accompanying a 20-minute video lecture by sustainability expert Annie Leonard (www.storyofstuff.com).

The story of this project is an interesting case study of viral video. Leonard has more than 20 years of experience studying factories and dumps around the world--giving her deep knowledge of sustainability issues, but not exactly a visible platform to launch a movement. Enter the video: according to Leonard's blog, The Story of Stuff has been viewed by more than 100,000 people since it was launched last week (www.greenlivingtips.com).

The video exemplifies the principles from this year's business bestseller Made to Stick, which I have studied with interest. Leonard's presentation contains elements that cover all the success bases: simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional stories (news.cnet.com).

The 20-minute video presents a critical vision of the consumerist American society. It purports to expose "the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world." The video is divided into 7 chapters: Introduction, Extraction, Production, Distribution, Consumption, Disposal, and Another Way (www.storyofstuff.com).

The video divides up the materials economy into a system composed of extraction, production, distribution, consumption, and disposal. To articulate the problems in the system, Leonard adds people, the government, and corporations (www.greenlivingtips.com).

Leonard's thesis, "you cannot run a linear system on a finite planet indefinitely" is supported throughout the video by statistical data. Although the video itself doesn't give attribution to her information, the producers provide an annotated script that includes footnotes with explanations and sources for some of her assertions:

"More than 50% of our federal tax money is now going to the military..." She cites the War Resisters League website, which differs from government reports that put the figure at around 20-25%; WRL explains the difference in that it doesn't count trust funds like Social Security (since this revenue is not obtained directly from income taxes), considers veterans benefits as part of "past military" spending, and includes 80% of the debt interest payments under the assumption that most debt would have been avoidable with reduced military spending. For more information, see Military budget of the United States.

"Of the 100 largest economies on Earth now, 51 are corporations." She cites Anderson & Cavanagh (2000), which bases this claim on the 1999 figures of GDP and corporate ...