I spent my first Earth Hour with good friends, enjoying a candle and gas lamp lit meal complete with thoughtful conversation. As far as energy usage goes, Earth Hour was probably just a drop in the bucket. But the hour with no lights really allowed us to think profoundly about our consumption of energy and how our decisions affect that. I’m grateful for friends who are not afraid to consider these concepts and for their willingness to participate in an event like this.
I want to thank Edward Burtynsky for his profound view of the waste that we create and the energy that we consume. His piece, Manufactured Landscapes, affected me deeply, causing me to truly consider my life and realize that most every luxury and comfort that I experience is provided for by someone doing something to offset it in a faraway place. The computer that I’m typing on at the moment will someday become e waste and be shipped to a small village in China where people will heat the mother board to remove any valuable metals. The people of the village will then import water because the pollution in the rivers from the piles of broken computers makes local water undrinkable. All the while, I will be enjoying my brand new computer that is oh-so-much sweeter than the previous. Now I can keep in touch with my friends on Facebook even easier (because my new processor is so much faster). We are not thinking this through. Because all of our waste is out of sight, we are not caused to think about our decisions any farther than we can see. Mr. Burtynsky presents a view of this process through his beautiful photography of waste sites and energy sources.
It makes me think, is my lifestyle worth all of this? It sure feels nice to get in a car with heated seats (especially this winter), drive wherever I want to go with my iphone so we can google all of the best restaurants in town, do some shopping at Williams-Sonoma for kitchen implements manufactured 2500 miles away, watch a movie then drive home. To consider the true cost of this little adventure turns the dream into a nightmare. We are excessive. And we are addicts to this consumption. Can we change? I urge you all to look at this movie and decide for yourselves what it means to you. Here is the link to the production studio that made this film and below is the link to his inspiring TED talk.
Edward Burtynsky’s TED talk:
