The Story of Stuff

Julie and I often talk to each other about how you protect your child from becoming a member of the consumer society, how you help her to learn values that are more human. So, tonight I discovered this short film that I want to share with all of you. Go and visit The Story of Stuff. The video you will watch will take about 20 minutes, so you want to do this when you have some time.

This is a very intelligent and witty discussion of how we go from resource extraction, through manufacturing, to big box stores, to the consumer's home, and finally to the landfill. Annie Leonard tells this very serious story in a light hearted way that anyone can understand.

Without becoming preachy, she gives us this vitally important information. It will make you look at the stuff in your life in a different way. And, right before Christmas, the time of institutionalized consumption of unnecessary stuff, is a good time to review just how the throw-away economy hurts us and the earth. Show it to the young people in your life and e-mail it to everyone you know. There is no need to live a life circumscribed by planned obsolescence, where we can be attacked by terrorists and our president tells us that the way to combat that is to go out shopping.

Fire

Having lived much of my life in California, I'm familiar with the typical weather patterns. Because California is west of the Rockies, the average annual rainfall is 21". Twenty-one inches is not a lot of rain, which is why California relies so heavily on irrigation, taking much of its water from the Colorado River. Of course, that's an average and most years are not average. Rainfall in California, for most of my life, has been like a punch drunk pendulum, varying between drought and flood, with more years of drought than of flood. Drought years bring forest fires, and they always have.

But this year's fires in Southern California are something absolutely amazing. As of midnight Tuesday, there were at least 14 wildfires burning between Santa Barbara and Mexico. This is already being referred to as the greatest natural disaster in the nation's history. As of Tuesday afternoon, more people had been displaced by this fire than by any event since the Civil War. That's more in a few days than in four years.

One fire expert on the news said that it is because of global warming. The earlier that summer comes, the longer the forests have to dry out; the hotter the temperatures, the drier they get each day. Early summers, hot days, add Santa Ana winds and what you get is a disaster.

I have been complaining about rain up here. Now, Juneau is in a temperate rain forest, and so we expect a lot of rain. We even have a joke about the Juneau Rain Festival running from January 1st through December 31st.

But, most summers we have about 21 straight days in late June or early July with no rain at all. No clouds. Blue skies. This summer the longest break in the rain has been four days, and there were clouds on one of those days. Record snow fall this past winter, I wouldn't be surprised if it's record rain as well.

So, now we know where all of this water is coming from. I, personally, would gladly send it back where it belongs.