The presentation given by Annie Leonard's conveyed us a lot of valuable information with its focusing on material economy. It has been presented that a process which starts from Extraction, Production, Distribution, Consumption and Trashing. Basically it is a process of making goods, consume goods and dispose goods that is involved in the world we live on.
In the first step, extraction, it revealed the fact that we are running out of resources by over exploration of nature resources in the process of supplying raw material to make goods, because of the huge demand of consumption by us.
The second step is manufacturing, the process of producing goods by using energy. The problem is the take in toxins and toxins generation from the production.
Distribution is especially important in today’s intense competition market. As Annnie demonstrated in the presentation, she can buy a pair of shoes with a so low price which is not even enough for paying the rent of shelf in US. The question rise up is who is paying the cost?
Consumption is considered as the driven factor in the whole process. It is because of people’s high demands for new stuffs, desire of catching up with the newest technology and countless advertisements exposed in our daily life which has a dramatic impact on our purchase decision. Unfortunately 99% goods are in trash within 6 months according to Annie. It indicates a huge waste of resources we consumed that in many cases we may not need to do so. However it seems is the rulers plan to stimulate material consumption to make the world running. Is it a right strategy? I doubt it.
Disposal is the last step in this process. Even though two ways of disposal has been used but the problem is neither way is environmental friendly.
Based on the above process and problem description, it emphasized the crisis we are facing that is the deterioration of our environment, global warming, polluted air, water, natural disaster…And the concerns of public health, diseases… We have many examples in our life that the environment is getting worse. It is time for us to take serious measures to save our planet. A series of proposals are brought up by Annie, sustainability, equity, green chemistry, zero waste, renewable energy and so on. I understand to do all of these really requires governments from all over the world pay attention to and take effective measures seriously. As an individual we should not think it is only government’s responsibility to do this, even though we may not affect government decision but we can contribute ourselves by reducing waste, reusing whatever it is possible, consume what we really need, resources sharing. There are a lot of things we can do as individual to contribute to environment protection. And surely it is not a short period of actions we are talking about, it takes time and generations efforts, furthermore, it is a no ending efforts.
This presentation also let me think of the relationship of economy development and environment. Like now in some countries because of over exploration or heavy industry productions in order to speed up economy development, but on the other side, it has resulted in very bad environment problems. The question is: is it worthy to over seek economy development by sacrificing human beings’ health or even lives? If the countries nature resources are running out, public healthy are reaching the limit, how long time the economy development will stay? I think it is more important to secure people live in a safe environment, to build a society which people are satisfied with the life they are having, this is element factor which will lead to social sustainable development.
Yes, I quite agree with you that the environment around us is getting worse now. For example, the global climate becomes warmer and warmer, some glaciers in the Arctic Pole is melting. This will destruct the habitat of the animals living there, even influence we human.
回复删除And the other important thing is that we should not think it is only government's responsibility to protect the environment, everyone has this responsibilities and obligations. There are quite a lot of small things we can do every day, especially in developing countries. We all known that in many cities of China, all of garbage are thrown in one ashbin, usually we do not have the awareness to classify. So in this point, we should learn the method of the developed countries such as Sweden, training good habit of recycling. If everyone in this world try their best to protect the environment, tomorrow will be a harmonious day.