The Story of Stuff - Annie Leonard [172]
2. Strengthen unions by protecting the right to organize and choosing unionized businesses for everything from clothing to hotels. Support worker cooperatives too; co-ops build democratic engagement and ensure that profits are kept in the local economy and shared more fairly.
3. Tax pollution at levels high enough to make investments in prevention vastly cheaper. Because the amount of carbon in the atmosphere has reached such crisis levels and we must reduce it to 350 ppm (see www.350.org for more information), taxes aren’t enough for this particular pollutant. For carbon, we have to go to the main source of the problems—the biggest CO2 point emitters—and force them to change their energy consumption systems, sometimes quite radically. Many of the suggestions under the extraction section, above, will help achieve this.
Distribution
1. Ensure that sustainability and equity are the top goals of all trade agreements. In the United States, support the Trade Reform, Accountability, Development and Employment Act of 2009 (the TRADE Act, H.R. 3012), which would significantly improve destructive trade policies like those of NAFTA and the WTO. To learn more and get involved, visit www.citizen.org/trade/tradeact/.
2. Give preference to locally made products with tools like a gradual tariff on goods that is based on how far they’ve traveled. Support local business and locally made products to reduce transportation and support local economies. The goal is not to prohibit all long-distance trade but to increasingly strengthen local production and distribution to create self-reliant communities while also securing a just transition in those communities with export-dependent economies. For those products that are shipped long distances, prioritize rail transport over the more polluting planes and trucks.
3. Promote transparency and democracy in supply chains so everyone—workers, host communities, customers, and businesses along the chain—have access to information and a voice in decision making. Laws to support this would require that companies disclose all their suppliers (as both Dell and Hewlett-Packard now do), ensure worker rights and environmental sustainability along their supply chain, and make this information available to the public.
Consumption
1. Decommercialize our culture. Reclaim our mental and physical landscape from commercial advertisers. Ban billboards and other intrusive advertising. Prohibit commercial advertising to children and in public places. Get commercial advertising out of textbooks, classrooms, and all educational facilities. The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood conducts research and advocates for protective policies; to get involved visit www.commercialexploitation.org. Commercial Alert (www.commercialalert.org) runs numerous campaigns to decommercialize our schools, media, and communities.
2. Ensure public investment in commons like libraries, athletic facilities, and parks so that residents can meet their needs and enjoy leisure time without buying Stuff. Attend city council meetings to voice your opinion about budget priorities, or better yet, run for office yourself!
3. Adopt a progressive tax on resource consumption, allowing free use for basic needs while taxing higher-quantity use. For example, water to drink is free; water to wash your SUV or water your desert lawn is really expensive. A vibrant and often-heated discussion is happening on the international level as to what constitutes basic needs.
Disposal
1. Adopt extended producer responsibility (EPR) laws that hold producers responsible for the end-of-life management of their products, motivating better design at the front