It may not be a Video Friday, but we’ve got something better.
Annie Leonard of The Story of Stuff is featured in Elle Magazine this month and the lengthy article is enlightening, entertaining, and inspiring. Here’s a taste:
But stuff makes us happy, we argue, and don’t we have to support the economy?
Not so fast, Leonard tells a group of business leaders in San Diego on a cold and rainy morning in late January. They’re an atypical audience for her, but she dearly would like to reach beyond the eco-inclined. “If you look at the Happy Planet Index”—an annual study by the New Economics Foundation that measures happiness per unit of resources consumed—“the U.S. is 114th out of 143 countries. We have less leisure time than Europeans but more stuff; Europeans, who are both healthier and happier, have more leisure and less stuff.” Study after study shows—surprise!—it’s not the flat-screen TV that makes us happy, it’s the quality of our social relationships and rallying around a shared goal.
“Many people would reject what you say because it doesn’t sound American,” a man in a suit comments dryly.