Trying to make a positive change in a toxic world can be frustrating. There are just too many different problems, it seems. For years, I felt useless and truly hopeless about ever being any help at all, and couldn't see how anyone could make a difference with the range and scope of the issues: pollution, climate change, environmental destruction...there was just too much.
It wasn't until about six years ago that I had a change of heart. One video helped me put the big picture together, seeing how all the issues that I felt so strongly about linked together. I owe this revelation to a simple, powerful video, The Story of Stuff.
The big picture now seems very obvious and so simple. But having learned the linear production cycle in school, and being brought up in a consumer culture, it can be hard to see the full issue and the possible solutions until it's quite literally drawn out for you.
Since this video was made, Annie Leonard and her team at the Story of Stuff Project have made numerous other videos that expose and explain social and environmental problems. The underlying message in all of them is that there are many ways to help, and that the efforts being made ARE actually helping. This message was powerful enough to get me looking into new ways to produce and protect our most basic needs: food, water and living materials.
It wasn't long after I saw the Story of Stuff that I stumbled upon Permaculture and saw the ways that I could help build healthful, life-promoting production and consumption patters for myself and my community.
It wasn't until about six years ago that I had a change of heart. One video helped me put the big picture together, seeing how all the issues that I felt so strongly about linked together. I owe this revelation to a simple, powerful video, The Story of Stuff.
The big picture now seems very obvious and so simple. But having learned the linear production cycle in school, and being brought up in a consumer culture, it can be hard to see the full issue and the possible solutions until it's quite literally drawn out for you.
Since this video was made, Annie Leonard and her team at the Story of Stuff Project have made numerous other videos that expose and explain social and environmental problems. The underlying message in all of them is that there are many ways to help, and that the efforts being made ARE actually helping. This message was powerful enough to get me looking into new ways to produce and protect our most basic needs: food, water and living materials.
It wasn't long after I saw the Story of Stuff that I stumbled upon Permaculture and saw the ways that I could help build healthful, life-promoting production and consumption patters for myself and my community.
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