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A review by shelley_pearson
The Story of Stuff: How Our Obsession with Stuff is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities, and our Health—and a Vision for Change by Annie Leonard
4.0
This book kind of reminded me of Gone Girl, because it was well-written, but I didn’t really enjoy reading it. And both books left me feeling pretty bummed about the state of humanity. I listened to this one on audiobook, and it was read by the author, which I usually like. But I wish Annie Leonard had chosen another reader, maybe someone with a more soothing voice? I honestly don’t know if I would have finished the book if I were reading it, since listening is so much easier, but even still, I never looked forward to getting back into it. Starting at about hour 10 (the audio book was 14 hours) I pretty much always felt like, “oh great, I have to listen to that lady yell at me again.”
I mean, I know it’s not Annie Leonard’s fault that humans are using more resources than the Earth can replenish, and that US Americans especially are treating the planet like our personal plastic factory/garbage can. And at one point, she referenced people feeling overwhelmed and like there’s so much to do and so much wrong that you end up feeling like “What’s the point?” I don’t think that was her goal with this book, but it did make me feel like that. Often, when I read environmental books, I feel like individual people can’t make that much of a change, because the big polluters are big corporations. This book had plenty of nasty stories about corporations, like how they’ll go into a country and completely wreck their* ecosystem and drain their resources, and then refuse to take responsibility or compensate the residents. One sentence in the first chapter really stuck with me, something like that we should be living in harmony with the planet, but instead we treat it like an endless supply of resources and like it’s just something we can mine and drain like that won’t be a problem.
I recently read Junkyard Planet by Adam Minter, and it was interesting how differently the two authors viewed the global system. Adam Minter had this attitude like “Yes, people in other countries are recycling our crap with toxic chemicals and without safety guidelines or equipment, but they like it! They can make much more money this way than by farming! And Americans keep buying stuff and having junk to recycle, so at least someone will deal with it!” But honestly, I appreciated that Annie Leonard didn’t stop there. She pushed it further, like looking into WHY people couldn’t make as much money farming, and questioning how the USA treats the whole world like it’s cool for us to come in and steal resources and grossly underpay workers, and then ship our toxic trash back when we’re done with it. From the introduction, The Story of Stuff is pretty straightforward about challenging capitalism, which is cool but also made me feel pretty overwhelmed. Like “I’m sorry, you’re not just going to tell me which brands of shampoo I should buy, but you’re going to talk about how we have to take down the entire system, cut military spending, AND switch to a 20-hour work week?” It’s a lot. It makes sense, but jeez.
*I say THEIR, but I know it’s all connected, and the book did point that out. The toxic rivers just flow into the oceans and into the water system and we all just end up screwed.
I mean, I know it’s not Annie Leonard’s fault that humans are using more resources than the Earth can replenish, and that US Americans especially are treating the planet like our personal plastic factory/garbage can. And at one point, she referenced people feeling overwhelmed and like there’s so much to do and so much wrong that you end up feeling like “What’s the point?” I don’t think that was her goal with this book, but it did make me feel like that. Often, when I read environmental books, I feel like individual people can’t make that much of a change, because the big polluters are big corporations. This book had plenty of nasty stories about corporations, like how they’ll go into a country and completely wreck their* ecosystem and drain their resources, and then refuse to take responsibility or compensate the residents. One sentence in the first chapter really stuck with me, something like that we should be living in harmony with the planet, but instead we treat it like an endless supply of resources and like it’s just something we can mine and drain like that won’t be a problem.
I recently read Junkyard Planet by Adam Minter, and it was interesting how differently the two authors viewed the global system. Adam Minter had this attitude like “Yes, people in other countries are recycling our crap with toxic chemicals and without safety guidelines or equipment, but they like it! They can make much more money this way than by farming! And Americans keep buying stuff and having junk to recycle, so at least someone will deal with it!” But honestly, I appreciated that Annie Leonard didn’t stop there. She pushed it further, like looking into WHY people couldn’t make as much money farming, and questioning how the USA treats the whole world like it’s cool for us to come in and steal resources and grossly underpay workers, and then ship our toxic trash back when we’re done with it. From the introduction, The Story of Stuff is pretty straightforward about challenging capitalism, which is cool but also made me feel pretty overwhelmed. Like “I’m sorry, you’re not just going to tell me which brands of shampoo I should buy, but you’re going to talk about how we have to take down the entire system, cut military spending, AND switch to a 20-hour work week?” It’s a lot. It makes sense, but jeez.
*I say THEIR, but I know it’s all connected, and the book did point that out. The toxic rivers just flow into the oceans and into the water system and we all just end up screwed.