The Story of Stuff: How Our Obsession with Stuff is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities, and Our Health-and a Vision for Change [Audiobook, MP3 Audio, Unabridged] [Audio CD]

Annie Leonard (Author, Reader)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 9, 2010

The unabridged audiobook on only two MP3 CDs!

We have a problem with Stuff. With just 5 percent of the world's population, we're consuming 30 percent of the world's resources and creating 30 percent of the world's waste. If everyone consumed at U.S. rates, we would need three to five planets! This alarming fact drove Annie Leonard to create the Internet film sensation The Story of Stuff, which has been viewed over 10 million times. Now, in a landmark book in the tradition of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, Leonard tracks the life of the Stuff we use every day -- how it is produced, distributed, and consumed, and where it goes when we throw it out.

Leonard's message is startlingly clear: we have too much Stuff, and too much of it is toxic. Outlining the five stages of our consumption-driven economy from extraction through production, distribution, consumption, and disposal she vividly illuminates its frightening repercussions. Leonard reveals the true story behind our possessions, and how we, as consumers, are compromising our health, safety, and quality of life. Meanwhile, all this Stuff isn t even making us happier!

The drive for a ''growth at all costs'' economy fuels a system in crisis, but Annie Leonard shows us that this is not the way things have to be. Expansive, galvanizing, and sobering yet optimistic, The Story of Stuff transforms how we think about our lives and our relationship to the planet.

This MP3 CD edition will not play on traditional CD players, but is perfect for transferring to iPods and other portable MP3 players. It will also play on your computer or MP3 CD player.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Leonard examines conspicuous consumption and its human and environmental costs in an expansion of her short documentary of the same name. The analysis is accessible, and Leonard is skilled at breaking down large and abstruse concepts for the listeners. She's less winning as a reader, however: her bubbly voice and predilection for overemphasis are grating—and occasionally, her explanations and prescriptions veer into condescension. These failings aside, here is a wealth of very important information. As a bonus, the MP3 CD includes the original video, but omits the charts and graphics in the book. A Free Press hardcover (Reviews, Jan. 25). (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Why is there so much garbage, and where does it go? A Time magazine Hero of the Environment, Leonard has traveled the world tracking trash and its wake of destruction. Her investigations convinced her that the impossible dream of perpetual economic growth and the rampant consumer culture it engenders are the root causes of today’s environmental crises. A rigorous thinker in command of a phenomenal amount of information, Leonard believes that we must calculate the full ecological and social cost of our “stuff.” So she takes us through the extraction of natural resources and the production, distribution, consumption, and disposal of various products, documenting ecohazards and the exploitation of workers along the way. Drawing on her extensive research, gutsy fieldwork, and efforts to live “green,” Leonard condemns the endless barrage of advertisements, the plague of toxic synthetic chemicals, and such covertly deleterious inventions as the aluminum can. Not one to tout simple approaches to complex predicaments, Leonard instead offers hard facts, diligent analysis, and an ambitious vision in this comprehensive critique, calling for strict environmental laws, an end to overconsumption, zero waste, and a new social paradigm based on quality of life, not quantity of stuff. --Donna Seaman --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio; Unabridged edition (March 9, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743599152
• ISBN-13: 978-0743599153
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (78 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,304,683 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Annie Leonard 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 and South Africa, in her work investigating and promoting anti-pollution issues internationally. Annie currently resides in California with her daughter.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

48 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars We are what we buy, March 10, 2010

By 

C. Lerza (Berkeley CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Story of Stuff: How Our Obsession with Stuff Is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities, and Our Health-and a Vision for Change (Hardcover)

Annie Leonard's book tells us so much about our world and about, as it says on the cover, the environmental and social impacts of "our obsession with stuff." But it also tells us about who we are and what we think is important. Not preachy or judgmental, Annie creates a new way to think about the choices we make in our own lives and how they connect to everyone and everything. It's really a book about community and how to create one, and how to make choices --both personal and political --that can lead to a healthier, safer and more sustainable world for all of us. Loved the mix of personal stories and analysis and the detailed footnotes and citations. You can read the whole book, or just dip into individual chapters. It's well written and tells a great story. A great read that will make you see the world differently -- and open up many opportunities to make change. My only criticism is that the pages are very dense --would have loved more graphics and white space -- and I don't like the feel of the paper (100% post consumer recycled of course) but I know the author wanted to walk her talk by insisting on the highest possible green standards for publishing. This book picks up where the video leaves off with lots of discussion of solutions and what we can each do to create a more sustainable life for ourselves and the planet. One more thing: this book is not anti-stuff or anti-profit. The message is that life is about more than stuff or profits --that we should honor and appreciate everything we have (Who made those shoes? Where? How did they end up in my closet? Who raised the beef in my hamburger and how? How did it end up on my grill?). And of course businesses need to make money, as do we all. It's just not the only thing that life is about.

31 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You need to know this story!, March 17, 2010

By 

Robert J. Monn (NY,NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Story of Stuff: How Our Obsession with Stuff Is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities, and Our Health-and a Vision for Change (Hardcover)

Annie Leonard and Ariane Conrad bring essential details to light about our stuff!

In this important book I finally caught on to the concept of "real cost." While it is nuts how much stuff people buy that they can't afford the really crazy thing is that we pay nowhere near the real cost of almost anything that we buy. We don't pay to treat the poisoned children in the developing world that have no clean water because of the techniques used in materials extraction, we don't pay for a living wage for the oppressed peoples that manufacture our goods and we certainly don't pay for our goods to be "disposed of" in any kind of a way that would keep more pain and suffering and damage being done.

This isn't a political screed (and don't believe anyone that tells you that it is) -- this is the story of how our very real stuff interacts with millions of people and the environments of nations all over the world. Point being that it is not a story about governments or ideologies. It is about people and materials and how we can make things better.

The book is very well written and has the 'flow' that Annie has when she speaks on her film (which is very good -- google it if you haven't seen it yet) and goes into all the details. It also has a lot of really good stories from Annie's travels all over the world gathering the information that she has put in this book.

Honestly, I think that this is an essential book -- buy it and read it, then make the changes that you'll know you should.

23 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Patient: Know thy self, March 13, 2010

By 

Eco-manblue "Eco-manblue" (Takoma Park, MD United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Story of Stuff: How Our Obsession with Stuff Is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities, and Our Health-and a Vision for Change (Hardcover)

I heard Al Gore on the evening news once describe the climate change trend as the "Earth has a fever." In her book, The Story of Stuff, I found that Annie Leonard explains -- with sobering, and yet hopeful clarity -- why our planet is overheating from, in part, massive over-consumption by a relatively small part of Earth's human population. Without diminishing the appropriate emphasis on "how are we going to get out of this mess and not just survive, but thrive," the author illuminates the materials cycle, from extraction all the way to the dump. Clive Cussler or Robert Ludlum, it's not, but it kept me interested enough with anecdotes and a sense of humor rarely present in most tomes about how we're screwing ourselves and the 3rd Rock. I was happily surprised, and even energized, by her inclusion of a basic roadmap of sorts for reversing the over-consumption cycle -- one of our species most damaging trends. Here in the U.S., we are at the vanguard of a trajectory that threatens to make us consumers of the world, instead of citizens of the world. WIth more and more power and rights being ascribed to irresponsibly bottom-line-only-focused corporations (witness the recent Supreme Court Citizens United decision), I found the Story of Stuff entirely refreshing with its practically presented idea that I can take charge of my behavior, and increase the quality of my life by shifting how I consume. This is a handbook for crafting a better way of living with ourselves, families, and the Earth. The Story of Stuff would make a great curriculum for K-College students. Beyond the classroom, I hope everyone gets this book and then we can begin to make this important transition together!