The Story of Stuff: How Our Obsession with Stuff Is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities, and Our Health-and a Vision for Change by Annie Leonard

Product Details

Synopsis

For the first time, Leonard brings our many environmental and social issues under one umbrella—our problem with consumption. Brilliantly combining information about the economy, cultures, and the environment, Leonard describes the five stages of the materials economy—extraction, production, distribution, consumption, and disposal—and vividly illuminates how this "growth at all costs" system operates. Visiting dumps and factories around the world, she reveals the real story behind our possessions—why it's cheaper to replace than to fix a broken flat screen TV; how the economic theory of "perceived obsolescence" encourages companies to bring out new computers and cell phones ever more rapidly, making us feel that we need the updated version. Leonard uncovers and communicates a new idea—that there is a deliberate system based on specific economic theories behind our patterns of consumption and disposal.

Expansive, galvanizing, and entertaining, The Story of Stuff transforms how we think about our lives and our relationship to the planet, and offers hope that change is within reach.

Biography

Annie Leonard is an expert in international sustainability and environmental health issues, with more than 20 years of experience investigating factories and dumps around the world. She's taking time off from her other work to write the book, but until recently she was coordinator of the Funders Workgroup for Sustainable Production and Consumption, communicating worldwide about the impact of consumerism and materialism on global economies and international health. Annie's efforts over the past two decades to raise awareness about international sustainability and environmental health issues has included work with Global Anti-Incinerator Alliance (GAIA), Health Care without Harm, Essential Information and Greenpeace International. She serves on the boards of GAIA, the International Forum for Globalization and the Environmental Health Fund. 

Annie has written about international environmental issues for a range of public interest audiences and will step this up and broaden her reach with op eds and features around publication time. She's appeared on radio and TV in the U.S. and other countries many times over the past 20 years. She had extensive media training and exposure during her tenure at Greenpeace. She's testified in front of Congress, been interviewed on CNN, publicly debated a US State Department representative, and done hundreds of public presentations. In 2008, Annie was named one of Time magazine's Heroes of the Environment.

Annie did her undergraduate studies at Barnard and graduate work in city and regional planning at Cornell. She has traveled to 40 countries, including Haiti, Bangladesh, India, the Philippines, Pakistan andSouth Africa, in her work investigating and promoting anti-pollution issues internationally. Annie currently resides in California with her daughter.