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Do you have one of these?

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I got a little obsessed with mine.

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In fact I got a little obsessed with all my stuff.

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Have you ever wondered where all the
stuff we buy, comes from

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and where it goes
when we throw it out?

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I couldn't stop wondering about that.
So I looked it up.

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And what the text book said,
is that stuff moves through a system

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from extraction to production
to distribution to consumption to disposal.

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All together, it is called the materials economy.
Well, I looked into it a little bit more.

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In fact, I spent 10 years traveling the world,

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tracking where our stuff comes
from and where it goes.

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And you know what I found out?
That is not the whole story.

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There's a lot missing from
this explanation.

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For one thing,
this system looks like it's fine. No problem.

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But the truth is it’s a system in crisis.

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And the reason it is in crisis
is that it is a linear system

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and we live on a finite planet

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and you can not run a linear system
on a finite planet indefinitely.

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Every step along the way, this system
is interacting with the real world.

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In real life it’s not happening
on a blank white page.

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It’s interacting with societies, cultures,
economies, the environment.

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And all along the way,
it’s bumping up against limits.

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Limits we don't see here because
the diagram is incomplete.

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So lets go back through, let's fill in
some of the blanks and see what's missing.

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Well, one of the most important things its missing
is people, yes people.

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People live and work all along this system.

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And some people in this system
matter a little more than others;

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Some have a little more say.
Who are they?

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Well, let’s start with the government.

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Now my friends tell me I should use
a tank to symbolize the government

31
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and that’s true in many countries
and increasingly in our own,

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after all more than 50% of our federal tax money
is now going to the military,

33
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but I’m using a person
to symbolize the government

34
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because I hold true to the vision and values
that governments should be

35
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of the people, by the people,
for the people.

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It's the governments job to watch out for us,
to take care of us. That’s their job.

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Then along came the corporation.

38
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Now, the reason the corporation
looks bigger than the government

39
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is bigger than the government.

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Of the 100 largest economies on earth now,
51 are corporations.

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As the corporations have grown in size and power,
we’ve seen a little change in the government

42
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where they’re a little more
concerned in making sure

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everything is working out
for those guys than for us.

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OK, so lets see what else is missing
from this picture.

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We'll start with extraction.

46
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which is a fancy word for
natural resource exploitation

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which is a fancy word
for trashing the planet.

48
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What this looks like is we chop down trees,
we blow up mountains to get the metals inside,

49
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we use up all the water
and we wipe out the animals.

50
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So here we are running up
against our first limit.

51
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We are running out of resources.
We are using too much stuff.

52
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Now I know this can be hard to hear,
but it's the truth we’ve gotta deal with it.

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In the past three decades alone,

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one-third of the planet’s natural resources
base have been consumed. Gone.

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We are cutting and mining and hauling
and trashing the place so fast

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that we’re undermining the planet’s
very ability for people to live here.

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Where I live, in the United States,
we have less than 4% of our original forests left.

58
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Forty percent of the waterways
have become undrinkable.

59
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And our problem is not just that
we’re using too much stuff,

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but we’re using more than our share.
We have 5% of the world’s population

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but we’re consuming 30% of the world’s resources
and creating 30% of the world’s waste.

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If everybody consumed at U.S. rates,
we would need 3 to 5 planets.

63
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And you know what?
We’ve only got one.

64
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So, my country’s response to this limitation
is simply to go take somebody else’s!

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This is the Third World, which
- some would say –

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is another word for our stuff that somehow
got on someone else’s land.

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So what does that look like?
The same thing: trashing the place.

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75% of global fisheries now are
fished at or beyond capacity.

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80% of the planet’s original forests are gone.

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In the Amazon alone,
we’re losing 2000 trees a minute.

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That is seven football fields a minute.

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And what about the people who live here?

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Well. According to these guys,
they don’t own these resources

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even if they’ve been living there for generations,
they don’t own the means of production

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and they’re not buying a lot of stuff.
And in this system,

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if you don’t own or buy a lot of stuff,
you don’t have value.

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So, next, the materials move to “production“
and what happens there is we use energy

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to mix toxic chemicals in with the natural
resources to make toxic contaminated products.

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There are over 100,000 synthetic chemicals
in use in commerce today.

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Only a handful of them have even
been tested for health impacts

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and NONE have been tested
for synergistic health impacts,

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that means when they interact with all the other
chemicals we’re exposed to every day.

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So, we don’t know the full impact on health
and the environment of all these toxic chemicals.

84
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But we do know one thing:
Toxics in, Toxics Out.

85
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As long as we keep putting toxics into
our industrial production systems,

86
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we are going to keep getting toxics
in the stuff that we bring

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into our homes, and workplaces, and schools.
And, duh, our bodies.

88
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Like BFRs,
brominated flame retardants.

89
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They are a chemical that make things
more fireproof but they are super toxic.

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They’re a neurotoxin–that means toxic to the brain
What are we even doing using a chemical like this?

91
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Yet we put them in our computers, our appliances,
couches, mattresses, even some pillows.

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In fact, we take our pillows,
we douse them in a neurotoxin

93
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and then we bring them home and put our heads
on them for 8 hours a night to sleep.

94
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Now, I don’t know, but it seems to me that
in this country with so much potential,

95
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we could think of a better way to stop our heads
from catching on fire at night.

96
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Now these toxics build up in the food chain
and concentrate in our bodies.

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Do you know what is the food
at the top of the food chain

98
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with the highest level of many toxic contaminants?
Human breast milk.

99
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That means that we have reached a point where the
smallest members of our societies - our babies

100
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are getting their highest lifetime dose of toxic
chemicals from breastfeeding from their mothers.

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Is that not an incredible violation?

102
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Breastfeeding must be the most fundamental
human act of nurturing;

103
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it should be sacred and safe.
Now breastfeeding is still best

104
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and mothers should definitely keep breastfeeding,
but we should protect it. They should protect it.

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I thought they were looking out for us.
And of course,

106
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the people who bear the biggest
of these toxic chemicals

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are the factory workers,
many of whom are women of reproductive age.

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They’re working with reproductive toxics,
carcinogens and more.

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Now, I ask you,
what kind of woman of reproductive age

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would work in a job exposed
to reproductive toxics,

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except for a woman with no other option?
And that is one of the “beauties” of this system?

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The erosion of local environments
and economies here

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ensures a constant supply
of people with no other option.

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Globally 200,000 people a day
are moving from environments

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that have sustained them for generations,

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into cities, many to live in slums, looking for
work, no matter how toxic that work may be.

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So, you see, it is not just resources
that are wasted along this system,

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but people too.
Whole communities get wasted.

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Yup, toxics in, toxics out.

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A lot of the toxics
leave the factories in products,

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but even more leave as by-products, or pollution.
And it’s a lot of pollution.

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In the U.S., our industry admits to releasing
over 4 billion pounds of toxic chemicals a year

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and it’s probably way more
since that is only what they admit.

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So that’s another limit, because, yuck,

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who wants to look at and smell 4 billion pounds
of toxic chemicals a year? So, what do they do?

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Move the dirty factories overseas
Pollute someone else’s land!

127
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But surprise, a lot of that air pollution is
coming right back at us, carried by wind currents.

128
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So, what happens after all these resources
are turned into products?

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Well, it moves here, for distribution.

130
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Now distribution means “selling all this
toxic-contaminated junk as quickly as possible.”

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The goal here is to keep the prices down, keep the
people buying, and keep the inventory moving.

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How do they keep the prices down?
Well, they don’t pay the store workers very much

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and they skimp on health insurance every time they
can. It’s all about externalizing the costs.

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What that means is the real costs of making stuff
aren’t captured in the price.

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In other words,
we aren’t paying for the stuff we buy.

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I was thinking about this the other day.

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I was walking
and I wanted to listen to the news

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so I popped into a Radio Shack
to buy a radio.

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I found this cute little green radio
for 4 dollars and 99 cents.

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I was standing there in line to buy this thing
and I was thinking

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how could $4.99 possibly
capture the costs

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of making this radio and getting it into my hands?
The metal was probably mined in South Africa,

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the petroleum was probably drilled in Iraq,
the plastics were probably produced in China,

144
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and maybe the whole thing was assembled
by some 15 year old in a maquiladora in Mexico.

145
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$4.99 wouldn’t even pay the rent for
the shelf space it occupied until I came along,

146
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let alone part of the staff guy’s salary
who helped me pick it out,

147
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or the multiple ocean cruises and truck rides
pieces of this radio went on.

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That’s how I realized, I didn’t pay for the radio.
So, who did pay?

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Well. These people paid with the loss
of their natural resource base.

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These people paid with the loss of their clean air
with increasing asthma and cancer rates.

151
00:09:43,020 --> 00:09:47,260
Kids in the Congo paid with their future –
30% of the kids in parts of the Congo

152
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now have had to drop out
of school to mine coltan,

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a metal we need for our cheap
and disposable electronics.

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These people even paid, by having to cover
their own health insurance.

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All along this system, people pitched in
so I could get this radio for $4.99.

156
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And none of these contributions
are recorded in any accounts book.

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00:10:05,900 --> 00:10:10,370
That is what I mean by the company owners
externalize the true costs of production.

158
00:10:11,440 --> 00:10:15,140
And that brings us to the golden
arrow of consumption.

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00:10:16,280 --> 00:10:18,920
This is the heart of the system,
the engine that drives it.

160
00:10:19,720 --> 00:10:24,390
It is so important that protecting this arrow has
become the top priority for both of these guys.

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00:10:25,020 --> 00:10:27,890
That is why, after 9/11,
when our country was in shock,

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and President Bush could have suggested
any number of appropriate things:

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to grieve, to pray, to hope. NO.
He said to shop. TO SHOP?!

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00:10:37,470 --> 00:10:43,240
We have become a nation of consumers. Our primary
identity has become that of being consumers,

165
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not mothers, teachers, farmers,
but consumers.

166
00:10:47,950 --> 00:10:50,750
The primary way that our value
is measured and demonstrated

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00:10:51,520 --> 00:10:56,020
is by how much we contribute to this arrow,
how much we consume. And do we!

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00:10:56,760 --> 00:11:01,870
We shop and shop and shop. Keep the materials
flowing, And flow they do!

169
00:11:02,700 --> 00:11:06,040
Guess what percentage of total materials flow
through this system Is still in product or use 6 months
after their date of sale in North America?

170
00:11:06,800 --> 00:11:20,650
Fifty percent? Twenty? NO. One percent. One!
In other words, 99 percent of the stuff

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00:11:21,350 --> 00:11:24,820
we harvest, mine, process, transport –
99 percent of the stuff we run through this system

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00:11:25,520 --> 00:11:30,190
is trashed within 6 months.
Now how can we run a planet

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00:11:30,920 --> 00:11:34,620
with that level of materials throughput?
It wasn’t always like this.

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00:11:35,030 --> 00:11:38,570
The average U.S. person now consumes
twice as much as they did 50 years ago.

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00:11:39,400 --> 00:11:43,900
Ask your grandma. In her day, stewardship
and resourcefulness and thrift were valued.

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00:11:44,670 --> 00:11:49,010
So, how did this happen?
Well, it didn’t just happen. It was designed.

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00:11:49,880 --> 00:11:54,150
Shortly after the World War 2, these guys
were figuring out how to ramp up the economy.

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00:11:55,010 --> 00:11:57,950
Retailing analyst Victor Lebow
articulated the solution

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00:11:58,680 --> 00:11:59,780
that has become the norm
for the whole system.

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00:12:00,620 --> 00:12:04,960
He said: "Our enormously productive economy
demands that we make consumption our way of life,

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00:12:05,860 --> 00:12:10,070
that we convert the buying and use of goods into
rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction,

182
00:12:10,760 --> 00:12:12,400
our ego satisfaction, in consumption.

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00:12:13,170 --> 00:12:18,070
We need things consumed, burned up, replaced
and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate.”

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00:12:18,940 --> 00:12:21,810
President Eisenhower's Council
of Economic Advisors Chairman said

185
00:12:22,580 --> 00:12:25,920
that "The American economy's ultimate purpose
is to produce more consumer goods."

186
00:12:26,650 --> 00:12:28,020
MORE CONSUMER GOODS?

187
00:12:28,820 --> 00:12:33,290
Our ultimate purpose? Not provide health care,
or education, or safe transportation,

188
00:12:34,090 --> 00:12:36,690
or sustainability or justice?
Consumer goods?

189
00:12:37,490 --> 00:12:40,260
How did they get us to jump on board
this program so enthusiastically?

190
00:12:41,090 --> 00:12:45,990
Well, two of their most effective strategies are
planned obsolescence and perceived obsolescence.

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00:12:46,900 --> 00:12:50,170
Planned obsolescence is another word
for “designed for the dump.”

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00:12:50,970 --> 00:12:53,910
It means they actually make stuff
to be useless as quickly as possible

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00:12:54,770 --> 00:12:55,700
so we will chuck it and buy a new one.

194
00:12:56,540 --> 00:12:59,540
It’s obvious with things like plastic bags
and coffee cups, but now it’s even big stuff:

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00:13:00,480 --> 00:13:05,020
mops, DVDs, cameras, barbeques even,
everything! Even computers.

196
00:13:05,820 --> 00:13:07,250
Have you noticed that
when you buy a computer now,

197
00:13:08,090 --> 00:13:09,930
the technology is changing so fast
that in just a couple years,

198
00:13:10,790 --> 00:13:13,590
it’s actually an impediment to communication?
I was curious about this

199
00:13:14,390 --> 00:13:17,760
so I opened up a big desktop computer
to see what was inside. And I found out

200
00:13:18,700 --> 00:13:22,140
that the piece that changes each year
is just a tiny little piece in the corner.

201
00:13:22,870 --> 00:13:26,210
But you can’t just change that one piece,
because each new version is a different shape,

202
00:13:27,040 --> 00:13:29,510
so you gotta chuck the whole thing
and buy a new one.

203
00:13:30,610 --> 00:13:34,150
So, I was reading industrial design journals
from the 1950s when planned obsolescence

204
00:13:35,050 --> 00:13:37,750
was really catching on.
These designers are so open about it.

205
00:13:38,650 --> 00:13:41,350
They actually discuss how fast
can they make stuff break

206
00:13:42,220 --> 00:13:44,290
that still leaves the consumer
having enough faith in the product

207
00:13:45,190 --> 00:13:47,190
to go out and buy anther one.
It was so intentional.

.
208
00:13:48,060 --> 00:13:50,960
But stuff cannot break fast enough
to keep this arrow afloat,

209
00:13:51,900 --> 00:13:53,570
so there’s also
“perceived obsolescence.”

210
00:13:54,300 --> 00:13:59,640
Now perceived obsolescence convinces us to
throw away stuff that is still perfectly useful.

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00:14:00,440 --> 00:14:03,480
How do they do that? Well,
they change the way the stuff looks

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so if you bought your stuff
a couple years ago,

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everyone can tell that you haven’t contributed
to this arrow recently

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and since the way we demonstrate our value is
contributing to this arrow, it can be embarrassing

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Like I’ve have had the same fat
white computer monitor

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on my desk for 5 years.
My co-worker just got a new computer.

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She has a flat, shiny, sleek monitor.

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It matches her computer,
it matches her phone, even her pen stand.

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She looks like she is driving in
space ship central and I,

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I look like I have a washing machine on my desk.

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Fashion is another prime example of this.
Have you ever wondered why women’s shoe heels

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go from fat one year to skinny the next to fat to
skinny? It is not because there is some debate

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about which heel structure is the most healthy
for women’s feet. It’s because wearing fat heels

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in a skinny heel year shows everybody that
you haven’t contributed to that arrow recently

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so you’re not as valuable as that person
in skinny heels next to you,

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or, more likely, in some ad.
It’s to keep buying new shoes.

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Advertisements, and media in general,
play a big role in this.

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Each of us in the U.S. is targeted
with over 3,000 advertisements a day.

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We each see more advertisements in one year
than people 50 years ago saw in a lifetime.

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And if you think about it, what is the point of an
ad except to make us unhappy with what we have?

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So, 3,000 times a day, we’re told that
our hair is wrong, our skin is wrong,

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our clothes are wrong, our furniture is wrong,
our cars are wrong, we are wrong

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but that it can all be made right
if we just go shopping.

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Media also helps by hiding
all of this and all of this,

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so the only part of the materials economy we see
is the shopping.

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The extraction, production and disposal
all happen outside our field of vision.

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So, in the U.S.
we have more stuff than ever before,

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but polls show that our national happiness
is actually declining.

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Our national happiness peaked in the 1950s,
the same time as this consumption mania exploded.

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Hmmm. Interesting coincidence.

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I think I know why.
We have more stuff,

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but we have less time for the things
that really make us happy:

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friends, family, leisure time.
We’re working harder than ever.

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Some analysts say that we have less
leisure time now than in Feudal Society.

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And do you know what
the two main activities are

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that we do with the scant
leisure time we have?

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Watch TV and shop.

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In the U.S., we spend 3 to 4 times
as many hours shopping

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as our counterparts in Europe do.
So we are in this ridiculous situation

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where we go to work, maybe two jobs even,
and we come home and we’re exhausted

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so we plop down on our new couch and watch TV
and the commercials tell us “YOU SUCK”

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so we gotta go to the mall to buy something
to feel better, and then you gotta go to work more

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to pay for the stuff you just bought
so you come home and you’re more tired

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so you sit down and watch more T.V.
and it tells you to go to the mall again

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and we’re on this crazy work-watch-spend treadmill
and we could just stop.

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So in the end, what happens
To all the stuff we buy anyway?

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At this rate of consumption,
it can’t fit into our houses

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even though the average
house size has doubled

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in this country since the 1970s.
It all goes out in the garbage.

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And that brings us to disposal.
This is the part of the materials economy

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we all know the most because we have to haul
the junk out to the curb ourselves.

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Each of us in the United States
makes 4 1/2 pounds of garbage a day.

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That is twice what we each
made thirty years ago.

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All of this garbage either gets dumped in a
landfill, which is just a big hole in the ground,

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or if you’re really unlucky, first it’s burned in
an incinerator and then dumped in a landfill

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Either way, both pollute the air, land, water
and, don’t forget, change the climate.

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Incineration is really bad.

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Remember those toxics
back in the production stage?

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Well burning the garbage releases
the toxics up into the air.

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Even worse, it makes new super toxics.
Like dioxin.

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Dioxin is the most toxic man made
substance known to science.

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And incinerators are the number one
source of dioxin.

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That means that we could stop the number one
source of the most toxic man-made substance known

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just by stopping burning the trash.
We could stop it today.

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Now some companies don’t want to deal
with building landfills and incinerators here,

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so they just export the disposal too.
What about recycling? Does recycling help?

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Yes, recycling helps.
reduces the garbage at this end

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and it reduces the pressure to mine
and harvest new stuff at this end.

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Yes, Yes, Yes, we should all recycle.
But recycling is not enough.

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Recycling will never be enough.
For a couple of reasons.

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First, the waste coming out of our houses
is just the tip of the iceberg.

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For every one garbage can of waste
you put out on the curb,

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70 garbage cans of waste
were made upstream

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just to make the junk in that one garbage can
you put out on the curb.

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So even if we could recycle 100 percent of the
waste coming out of our households,

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it doesn’t get to the core of the problems.
Also much of the garbage can’t be recycled,

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either because it contains too many toxics, or it
is designed NOT to be recyclable in the first place

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Like those juice packs with layers
of metal and paper and plastic

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all smooshed together.
You can never separate those for true recycling.

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So you see, it is a system in crisis.
All along the way, we are bumping up limits.

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From changing climate to declining happiness,
it’s just not working.

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But the good thing about such
an all pervasive problem

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is that there are so many points
of intervention.

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There are people working here on saving forests
and here on clean production.

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People working on labor rights and fair trade

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and conscious consuming and blocking
landfills and incinerators

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and, very importantly,
on taking back our government

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so it is really is by the people
and for the people.

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All this work is critically important
but things are really gonna start moving

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00:19:39,080 --> 00:19:41,080
when we see the connections,
when we see the big picture.

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When people along this system get united,
we can reclaim and transform this linear system

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into something new, a system that doesn’t
waste resources or people.

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Because what we really need to chuck
is this old-school throw-away mindset.

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There’s a new school of thinking on this stuff
and it’s based on sustainability and equity:

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00:20:00,500 --> 00:20:03,900
Green Chemistry, Zero Waste,
Closed Loop Production,

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00:20:04,800 --> 00:20:07,130
Renewable Energy,
Local living Economies.

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00:20:08,010 --> 00:20:12,710
It’s already happening. Now some say
it’s unrealistic, idealistic, that it can’t happen

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But I say the ones who are unrealistic are those
that want to continue on the old path.

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That’s dreaming.

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00:20:19,380 --> 00:20:24,320
Remember that old way didn’t just happen.
It’s not like gravity that we just gotta live with

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00:20:25,120 --> 00:20:29,360
People created it. And we’re people too.
So let’s create something new.