22.10.2012 / Green Life
Be the Change
When Annie Leonard, former Greenpeace activist, uploaded her first documentary about trash back in 2007, she certainly didn’t expect over 15 million people to watch it. The movie was called The Story of Stuff and it was a sort of cartoon about the way we make, use and throw away stuff.
Five years later, The Story of Stuff has turned into a non-profit project responding to tens of thousands of viewer requests for more information and ways to get involved, and exploring some of the key features of our relationship with stuff and the environment.
Annie’s shareable online movies focus on specific themes such as cosmetics, electronics and bottled water, yet they all stress the same, crucial point: if most of us know that we’re in trouble, and if most of us want a safe and healthy environment, why aren’t we generating the level of change needed to turn things around?
Which brings us to the idea behind Annie’s latest work, The Story of Change, a six-minute-long call to move beyond individual responses to the environmental and social crisis. Everything revolves around a misunderstanding about our identity: are we simple consumers or proper citizens?
As consumers, we certainly can send a message to companies that are still stuck in the dinosaur economy of mass production and make relevant choices, such as choosing products without toxic chemicals and unnecessary packaging, made by locally based companies that treat their workers well. We can even stop buying certain products, making do with what we have or sharing with a friend.
Yet, it is only as citizens that we can wield our real power; choosing the best products on a limited menu is not enough, we need to determine what gets on that menu. Thus, according to Annie, our points of reference should be the successful movements that brought actual change to the world — civil rights, anti-apartheid, the early environmental victories.
That’s what The Story of Stuff aims at – moving from information to mobilization, from virtuous individual choices to engaged citizen action. For as Ghandi said, we must “be the change” we want to see in the world.
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