Pre-Class Post Week of 10.14.09

So to begin with, I think this book is going to be really interesting. It does a good job of presenting "facts" like the World Without Us but is much better at integrating it into a story and I'm hoping for more interesting solutions. Here are a few of my thoughts. * What if we found a way to regulate the waste that products create? If there were taxes on products based on the amount of waste it produces we would address the social costs of a product that aren't addressed now (kind of like the taxes on cigarettes). Or we could have flat-out limits on how much waste we're willing to associate with a certain product (life-saving products maybe would be allowed more waste than hair straighteners and cosmetics for instance). A more consumer-driven version of this same idea could be to force companies to lower their prices to cover the cost of waste to consumers (we do have to pay to have our trashed picked up, right?) * I found it really interesting that most of what we "consume" isn't actually consumed, it's thrown away. When I thought more about it most of what I bring home from the grocery store is packaging... and I probably pay much more for the food precisely because of the packaging it's in. That doesn't seem quite right... I pay more for my food/household items so that their containers can be hazardous to the environment. *The bit about diapers was also interesting to me. That diapers fill up landfills more than any other product seems strange and like something we could definitely find a way to tackle. Why don't we use biodegradable diapers more? Cloth ones? Joan- as the only person in our group with a real personal investment in this matter what's your take?? * What struck me the most was probably our societies idea of "progress" as economic well-being (in the form of a high GNP). What an economically liberal concept that has completely infiltrated our collective unconscious (or conscious) and has become a global disease. It's strange too, because as people we usually recognize that well-being is not completely tied to money in our personal lives. Unfortunately it also seems that developing countries are buying into this "well-being-as-growth, progress-as-industry" model and probably killing their collective sense of well-being in the process. It would be interesting to look at how people in what we consider "developing nations" live, and judge nations based on rates of depression, suicide, mental health disorders, familial relationships, etc. and see where the US and other "industrialized" countries rank. It seems that with progress and economic gain we've also inherited a myriad of problems. Is it even possible to retain the benefits of industrialization and economic growth without the negative side effects? If not, then would we rather live unhappy and wealthy or happy and simply or even (god forbid) without any luxury?