UppInt A: The Story of Stuff

WATCH: http://www.storyofstuff.org/movies-all/story-of-stuff/

ANSWERS:
 
1) What are the 5 stages of the materials economy? 
 1/Extraction                             2/ production                 3/ distribution         4/consumption                5/ disposal

2) What is wrong with this system?
It’s a system in crisis because it is a linear system and we live on a finite planet, and we can’t run a linear system on a finite system indefinitely.

3) What is the relationship between the governments and corporations?
As corporations have grown in size and power, the government has made sure corporations’ needs are met and satisfied

4) Other ways to say “Extraction” = Natural resource exploitation + trashing the planet

5) The US is using more than their share because…
The US has 5% of the world’s population but it uses 30% of the world’s resources and creates 30% of the world’s waste.

6) What does it mean to externalize the true cost of production? 
We are not paying for what we actually pay. People along the system are paying for it. People pitched in and made contributions- paying with their  health insurance, natural resources, clean air, future (dropping out of school) etc.

7) What has the national identity of the US become? Consumers

8)The American economy’s ultimate purpose is to produce more consumer goods

9) What is planned obsolescence?
‘designed for the dump’  making stuff to be as useless as fast as possible so we will chuck it and buy a new one.

10) What is perceived obsolescence?
Getting us to throw away stuff that is still perfectly useful. They change the way the stuff looks so we want to get a new one.
 
11) What do we do with the scare leisure time that we have?
Watch TV and shop

12) The point of an ad is to make us feel __ unhappy_______ with what we have and it can all be made right if we ___go shopping________________.

13) Recycling will never be enough because:
1/waste coming out of house is not the core of  the problem, 70 cans of garbage come from the factory for every 1 can from your house

2/ A lot of garbage can’t be recycled- either too many toxins or not designed to be recycled in the first place