Information Literacy

Information Literacy: Reflecting on The story of Stuff Student: Professor: Course title: Date: Information Literacy: Reflecting on the Story of Stuff Introduction The video basically examines the underside of people’s patterns of production and consumption. It exposes the links between an enormous number of social and environmental issues, and calls people together in creating a world that is not only more just, but also more sustainable. It teaches the viewer something, and makes the viewers laugh. Thesis statement: the three most important issues the video addresses include (i) depletion of the world’s natural resources; (ii) toxic chemicals and how companies internalize costs; and (iii) excessive shopping and consumption as a way of life. The three most important points Depletion of the world’s natural resources The world’s natural resources are being exhausted and depleted as people are using too much stuff. In the past 3 decades alone, one-third of the earth’s natural resources base have been consumed and gone. People are exploiting the planet very fast such that the planet’s very ability for people to live in is being undermined. In the United States for instance, there is less than 4 percent of the original forest left and 40 percent of waterways have now become undrinkable. The U.S. is in fact using more than its share considering that it has 5% of the worlds population but is consuming 30 percent of the globe’s natural resources and producing 30 percent of the globe’s waste. Moreover, 75% of the world’s fisheries are at present fished at or beyond capacity and 80% of the world’s forests have been destroyed. In the Amazon alone, 2,000 trees are lost every minute. In this system, if one does not buy or own a lot of stuff, then he/she does not have any value. Toxic contaminated products and how companies internalize costs The speaker in the video talks about toxic chemicals in products used everyday which waste people. In the production phase of the linear system, energy is used in mixing toxic chemicals with the natural resources to manufacture poisonous contaminated goods. There are more than 100,000 synthetic chemicals in use in commerce today, but very few of them have in fact been tested for their impacts on health and not any has been tested for synergistic health impacts. As long as people continue to put toxins into their industrial production systems, there will always be toxics in the stuff brought into homes, schools, workplaces, and people’s bodies. For instance, brominated flame retards (BFRs) are chemicals that make things to be fireproof but they are actually extremely toxic. Such toxics build...