Humna Ahmed
Writ 101
Gregg Ott
1 November 2018
Dying Earth
Living in the United States, we often tend to forget about the bigger issues that other
countries are dealing with. Since we directly don’t see the extreme effects that hurting our
environment can have on where we live. In the video “Story of Stuff” the narrator explains the
bigger picture on how the “stuff” we buy has detrimental effects on cultures, societies,
economies, and the environment.
At each step, of the the material economy, humans have a tendency to exploit the
resources. Companies just in the United States take upto to 30% of the natural resources, and the
government doesn’t do much to regulate these systems, because it is the big corporations that
help boost up the country's economy that which in turn helps the government. What we fail to
see is the effects using all these resources has on the people living in the area and the land.
I believe it's a cycle, and all interrelated with how much a person is able to buy, spend
money and how much of a say they get on how resources are used. The people who live in the
forests and mountains in the third world, (where most of these resources are taken from) opinion,
on how the resources are taken or even if they should be taken, doesn’t matter since they aren’t
going to spend money to buy the products. The government doesn’t do much to help because
they need the corporations money, and the everyday consumer who does buy the products is so
busy in their everyday lives that they don’t notice or care to understand most of the time. The
everyday consumer is trapped in the cycle of sleeping, going to work, and using the “stuff” they
buy, that oftentimes they don’t stop to question where that “stuff came from”. The everyday
consumer which is the category most U.S citizens fall under needs the products to be new and
fast to keep up with the lifestyle. Corruptions are constantly creating new items for the customers
to buy repeating the cycle of creating, buying, and spending.
I believe if we want to see a change in the health of our Earth and the health of the
people, it is up to the mass majority people to make a change and question the authority. There
are many points of intervention. To recycling, from not buying products that have harmful
toxins, and protecting people that live on the land.
