What is the Price of OUR Stuff?
Ever wonder about the complete picture of consumption in our uber-consumer society and how it ties in with our global environment? Well I was recently turned onto the website for The Story of Stuff, which features a fantastic and informative story (with animation!) about our stuff-driven economy.The presentation is long, but if you’ve patience with it and ride it out, even the most informed of us can learn something new or at least feel inspired to pass the word along. There are also chapters to skip around if you’ve one particular section of the “stuff” driven storyline.The site offers solutions as well as the story of stuff, so it doesn’t leave you feeling helpless and hopeless against the system. Key message here? Social responsibility: consume less, consume more responsibly, spread the word, and take action against the exploitation of the earth and its people!
Jennifer Veilleux
Dr. Jennifer Veilleux is a geographer, writer, and artist. For more than a decade, she has worked on scientific research and security issues facing water resources shared across political boundaries. Research and curiosity has taken her to more than 50 countries on 5 continents, often to remote locations and marginalized communities. Veilleux takes portraits of people she encounters in her field work and recently released a collection, Portraits from Rivers of Change, that can be viewed here: www.jenniferveilleux.com. These portraits highlight two separate communities, one on the Mekong River the other on the Blue Nile River, facing relocation due to dam development. Dr. Veilleux works for Florida International University as a post doctoral associate for the Institute of Water and Environment and manages SELVA, the Serengeti-Lake Victoria Sustainable Water Initiative, a research project on water security of the Mara River in the Upper Nile basin of Tanzania. She maintains a blog, The Way of Water, dedicated to news and commentary about development on the Nile and Mekong, general water resources issues, and special topics related to women in science. She lives in Miami with her cat Mr. FC Sweet Tea.
