Live blog from Education Auditorium
Starting with a prayer song from a Cree elder, singer and pipe keeper and cleaner. Drum and singing is very impressive in here.
The introduction is okay, but a tad long.
Now Peta White is giving welcomes and thank-yous.
There’s a UPS with a dead battery peeping away in the background every 20 seconds, sounding like a truck backing up outdoors.
9:25 a.m. Annie Leonard is the keynote speaker of the conference here at the UofR.
Story of Stuff
She spent twenty years looking at where our stuff is made, and where it’s disposed of. Not “stoned, just stunned”, the mainstrream media isn’t that good at explaining the hidden impacts of our stuff.
She was hoping for 50,000 people to watch Story of Stuff, but got that in the first day!
She was featured for a week on Glenn Beck, as a threat, and as a result more teachers contacted her to teach it in more schools.
9:37 Faith groups, Let there be Stuff is the Christian one.
What sets us free, is turning up the volume, so social and economic justice is demanded by more. Be less whiny and wonky, waving charts around. Have to talk in an inviting way.
Three main problems:
Trashing the planet, each other, “and not even having fun!”
If we were having fun, we’d not want to change anything, we’d happily go down in flames. But the system isn’t even fun.
Don’t bicker about how many planets we’d need to support our rate of consumption, two or four, it can never be more than one. “To not know this you have to be living in a cave, or working at Fox News”.
We put toxic chemicals into things we put on our bodies, “how stupid is that?” “We cannot protect ourselves by making good personal choices”, the problem has become too big.
Kid smells toys before asking for them, no PVC in Annie’s house. She buys furniture that is used, so it has outgassed in other owner’s house. Clever!
Our newborns our born with more than 100 toxic chemicals in their blood. Gout and hunger are making a comeback.
The Spirit Level, a book, and carpenter’s tool.
Happiness levels are lower in the US than other industrial countries, and lower than parent’s. After a point of meeting basic needs, the things that make us happy are not based on things and stuff. Quality of our social relations is it. Having a sense of purpose and meaning. Sharing goals.
“We need way more fun.”
Green chemistry, bio mimicry, and other rays of hope.
But how do we have more fun?
(Many are turning to video games, but you spend them playing in different rooms with your fiends. I recommend biking to work to spend less time stressed out in traffic Bike To Work Regina )
There are maybe twelve people who aren’t good, but millions want our goals to come true, to have a cleaner and safer world.
Don’t make it difficult for normal people to join us in this conversation. As knowledge grows, frustration with others may too. Don’t use jargon like “materials” when you mean “chair”.
Climate change is really serious. Cap and Trade inherently flawed she thinks. Doesn’t match the science, disproportionally harms poor people. She was pissed off that people were saying it’s the best we can get in polite political circles. If MLK wanted a 20% reduction to discrimination by 1975, he wouldn’t have been taken seriously.
(A baby is squawking in the background, finally leaving the room.)
Consumer self, and citizen self make up our identity. Our citizen self has atrophied. Ten ways to save the planet lists leave out co-operative action. You don’t get extra points anymore for doing the basics like recycling.
