Scan barcode
Reviews
Planète jetable: produire, consommer, jeter, détruire by Ariane Conrad, Xavier Guesnu, Annie Leonard
warrensampson's review against another edition
5.0
In short, concerning but a highly valuable read. Not only make abundantly clear the many issues with our modern consumer culture and economic indicators (like GDP) but provides solutions, suggestions and how for the future.
gwalt118's review against another edition
3.0
I read this in order to write a book review for an academic journal, which you can view here: http://www.nacada.ksu.edu/Resources/Book-Reviews/Current-Past-Book-Reviews/The-Story-of-Stuff-The-Impact-of-Overconsumption-on-our-Planet-Our-Communities-and-Our-Health.aspx.
dmlb's review against another edition
5.0
Run with this:
Biomimicary
Stakeholder capitalism
Extended producer responsibility
https://www.storyofstuff.org/
https://www.eartheconomics.org
Dive with this:
Capitalism is a human-constructed system that lives within the ecosystem of our planet but does not respect its limitations, it instead focuses on growth for growth sake, AKA GDP.
We need to learn the value of our stuff beyond the price tag.
All of our stuff is more than just the final item, same with its “carbon footprint”.
All items will need some form of mining, farming and resource gathering, manufacturing (human labour, wood, rock, oil, soil, water), packaging (wood, oil, water), transportation (oil, water, human labour), retail, sales & marketing (human labour, oil, soil, water, wood, rock).
A consumerist society is one that destroys and squanders.
The price you see on something doesn’t cover the actual cost of production of the product. For example, Who pays for water poisoning during manufacturing? The community it affects usually rather than the company that causes it. These are called externalized costs. Full cost accounting should capture these often forgotten or ignored social and ecological costs, so we can get a better idea of what it really costs to make stuff. Prepare yourself for the sticker shock when those hidden costs become visible.
The rate at which we use the earth’s resources in North America is unsustainable.
It’s not jobs vs environment. They’re interdependent and directly affect our health. Stop falling for the gaslight.
And if it turns out all the jobs that cause cancer and toxins to end up in our food sources or offspring at conception disappear, so fucking be it.
Our most toxic processes have been around for less than 100 years.
Of course, everyone needs to consume to live, we need food to eat, a shelter over our head, medicine when we are sick and clothes to shield us from the elements.
And beyond those survival needs, there’s a level of additional consumption that makes life sweeter. I enjoy listening to music, sharing a bottle of wine with friends and occasionally dawning a nice new dress as much as the next person.
What I question is not consumption in the abstract but consumerism and overconsumption. While consumption means acquiring and using goods and services to meet one’s needs. Consumerism is the particular relationship to consumption in which we seem to meet our social and emotional needs through shopping and we define and demonstrate our self-worth through the stuff we own. And overconsumption is when we take far more resources than we need and then the planet can sustain. As is the case in most of the United States as well as a growing number of other countries. Consumerism is about excess, about losing sight of what’s important in the quest for stuff.
Canada needs 4.5 earths to meet their yearly consumption (in 2008; wanna extrapolate what that might fucking be in 2021?)
Two tricks of the trade:
Planned obsolescence & advertising
Anyone who still believes psychology isn’t a science: advertiser use it and have plenty of data to run scientific methods on you to prove this belief otherwise. And they know children are the best market to brainwash~
Children see over 100 ads a day and are relentlessly targeted while advertisers obfuscate responsibility telling parents they are responsible for keeping their kids in a mole hole I guess to never me exposed
If we compare ourselves to someone who spends relentlessly we feel poor if we compare ourselves to those who can’t spend we feel rich. Our yardsticks were once limited to our neighbourhood. Then tv, each additional 5 hours of tv watched per day was an additional 1000$ spending per year.
We’re bombarded with about 3000 ads a day, but even the entertainment media itself if they spend lots in your show it affects you psychologically the same as an ad.
(Now the internet, and “personalized” targeted ads.)
Consumers are infantilized, kept in a childlike state where demanding gimme that is always okay. impulse over deliberation; instant gratification over long term satisfaction; narcissism over sociability; the now over the past and future
If we’re going to be adults about our consumer choices we must recognize we have responsibilities as well as rights. Adults know the world is complex and interconnected. Each act and purchase has consequences.
They mistake freedom of choice as having hundreds of flavour options today rather than clean air and water tomorrow, and everyone deserves human decency in the supply chain.
Each person has 2 parts of their identity a consumer self and a citizen self.
The consumer self is spoken to, validated and nurtured from day 1. From the moment we are born we are bombarded with messages about our roles as consumers. Our consumer self is so overdeveloped it has drowned out all our other identities.
Most of us lack a basic understanding of how to develop our citizen’s muscle. The Atrophy of our citizen selves is not natural, it’s a result of a century of consumerist conditioning.
It makes sense why we would get stuck there. Familiar is easy but doesn’t mean it is good. Sometimes we’re so deep in a runt we think it’s a groove.
Buying green is not the solution if you’re also not engaging as a citizen.
Over 1/5 of consumer products break within 3 years. And it is usually cheaper to replace/ impossible to repair forcing you to buy new.
If you’re mad about citizens receiving government welfare how about businesses? Their waste burdens our governments.
We need systemic change and paradigm shifts.
Biomimicary
Stakeholder capitalism
Extended producer responsibility
https://www.storyofstuff.org/
https://www.eartheconomics.org
Dive with this:
Capitalism is a human-constructed system that lives within the ecosystem of our planet but does not respect its limitations, it instead focuses on growth for growth sake, AKA GDP.
We need to learn the value of our stuff beyond the price tag.
All of our stuff is more than just the final item, same with its “carbon footprint”.
All items will need some form of mining, farming and resource gathering, manufacturing (human labour, wood, rock, oil, soil, water), packaging (wood, oil, water), transportation (oil, water, human labour), retail, sales & marketing (human labour, oil, soil, water, wood, rock).
A consumerist society is one that destroys and squanders.
The price you see on something doesn’t cover the actual cost of production of the product. For example, Who pays for water poisoning during manufacturing? The community it affects usually rather than the company that causes it. These are called externalized costs. Full cost accounting should capture these often forgotten or ignored social and ecological costs, so we can get a better idea of what it really costs to make stuff. Prepare yourself for the sticker shock when those hidden costs become visible.
The rate at which we use the earth’s resources in North America is unsustainable.
It’s not jobs vs environment. They’re interdependent and directly affect our health. Stop falling for the gaslight.
And if it turns out all the jobs that cause cancer and toxins to end up in our food sources or offspring at conception disappear, so fucking be it.
Our most toxic processes have been around for less than 100 years.
Of course, everyone needs to consume to live, we need food to eat, a shelter over our head, medicine when we are sick and clothes to shield us from the elements.
And beyond those survival needs, there’s a level of additional consumption that makes life sweeter. I enjoy listening to music, sharing a bottle of wine with friends and occasionally dawning a nice new dress as much as the next person.
What I question is not consumption in the abstract but consumerism and overconsumption. While consumption means acquiring and using goods and services to meet one’s needs. Consumerism is the particular relationship to consumption in which we seem to meet our social and emotional needs through shopping and we define and demonstrate our self-worth through the stuff we own. And overconsumption is when we take far more resources than we need and then the planet can sustain. As is the case in most of the United States as well as a growing number of other countries. Consumerism is about excess, about losing sight of what’s important in the quest for stuff.
Canada needs 4.5 earths to meet their yearly consumption (in 2008; wanna extrapolate what that might fucking be in 2021?)
Two tricks of the trade:
Planned obsolescence & advertising
Anyone who still believes psychology isn’t a science: advertiser use it and have plenty of data to run scientific methods on you to prove this belief otherwise. And they know children are the best market to brainwash~
Children see over 100 ads a day and are relentlessly targeted while advertisers obfuscate responsibility telling parents they are responsible for keeping their kids in a mole hole I guess to never me exposed
If we compare ourselves to someone who spends relentlessly we feel poor if we compare ourselves to those who can’t spend we feel rich. Our yardsticks were once limited to our neighbourhood. Then tv, each additional 5 hours of tv watched per day was an additional 1000$ spending per year.
We’re bombarded with about 3000 ads a day, but even the entertainment media itself if they spend lots in your show it affects you psychologically the same as an ad.
(Now the internet, and “personalized” targeted ads.)
Consumers are infantilized, kept in a childlike state where demanding gimme that is always okay. impulse over deliberation; instant gratification over long term satisfaction; narcissism over sociability; the now over the past and future
If we’re going to be adults about our consumer choices we must recognize we have responsibilities as well as rights. Adults know the world is complex and interconnected. Each act and purchase has consequences.
They mistake freedom of choice as having hundreds of flavour options today rather than clean air and water tomorrow, and everyone deserves human decency in the supply chain.
Each person has 2 parts of their identity a consumer self and a citizen self.
The consumer self is spoken to, validated and nurtured from day 1. From the moment we are born we are bombarded with messages about our roles as consumers. Our consumer self is so overdeveloped it has drowned out all our other identities.
Most of us lack a basic understanding of how to develop our citizen’s muscle. The Atrophy of our citizen selves is not natural, it’s a result of a century of consumerist conditioning.
It makes sense why we would get stuck there. Familiar is easy but doesn’t mean it is good. Sometimes we’re so deep in a runt we think it’s a groove.
Buying green is not the solution if you’re also not engaging as a citizen.
Over 1/5 of consumer products break within 3 years. And it is usually cheaper to replace/ impossible to repair forcing you to buy new.
If you’re mad about citizens receiving government welfare how about businesses? Their waste burdens our governments.
We need systemic change and paradigm shifts.
See less
marabuckeye's review against another edition
3.0
Sobering but worthwhile read. Drives home the message that US environmental policy and pollution affects the rest of the world since we are such huge consumers. Some data is a bit old since book came out in 2010, but obviously the environmental damage is only getting worse so worth reading and taking action.
Also thought the message of “Reduce, Re-use, Refuse and then Recycle” was a good guideline to follow. As she outlines the limitations of recycling and the huge resource savings that are possible if the other “R’s” are followed first.
Also thought the message of “Reduce, Re-use, Refuse and then Recycle” was a good guideline to follow. As she outlines the limitations of recycling and the huge resource savings that are possible if the other “R’s” are followed first.
beetree's review against another edition
I started this but had to return it to the library. I think I'm going to go for the 20 minute film version though.
megthegrand's review against another edition
5.0
This book is depressing, for all the reasons you can imagine, but I am so glad to have read it. While I feel anxious and upset over what the future holds in terms of the environment, I also felt hopeful about the steps that some companies and organizations are taking to combat pollution and climate change.
justiceofkalr's review against another edition
3.0
This book will make you angry at everything and everyone for fucking the world up. But angry in a good way, I guess. Like go out and do things angry.
ioana_cis's review against another edition
3.0
A very intensive book - as it is written conscious of the amount of paper used, the font size was small and a page felt so heavily in as it contained so much information - slow reading for me.
As it is not my first book nor reading on this topic I knew a lot of the info presented and also about the solutions she suggested - still I consider it a good reading.
I do hope more people read about it and take action or at least see the video.
As it is not my first book nor reading on this topic I knew a lot of the info presented and also about the solutions she suggested - still I consider it a good reading.
I do hope more people read about it and take action or at least see the video.