The Story of Stuff

Leonard presents an interesting, transcendentalist approach to our current environmental calamities. While we are bombarded with news of ways to produce our products more efficiently, Leonard argues that it is not energy or resource inefficiency that is our problem, but rather unsustainable modes of consumption. It is our quest for the new type of electronic, or faster car, or the coolest new toy, perhaps a facet of our post-industrial consumer society, that is not only wreaking havoc on our environment, but on our mental and physical health as well.
But Leonard is not naive enough to suggest that an intrinsic element of the American economy will disappear anytime soon. She provides numerous examples, from better shaped cell-phone chargers, to the promotion of libraries, that channel our drive for "stuff" into more environmentally-friendly means. "Change," she states, "will come...eventually." The question is, will it come soon enough?
Her discussion in Chapter 3 regarding distribution was quite interesting. The only way in which real change will emerge is from an eventual change in the consumption habits of the consumer. While one might suspect that environmental and financial considerations would always stand in opposition, Leonard points out that that is increasingly not true. In a world more reliant on pesticides and transportation for food, a sizable market for organic and locally-grown food has emerged. This market is also not simply rooted in environmental concerns, but also has health concerns of pesticides and financial concerns of transporting food from across the world. It is this type of developming market, coupled with increasing energy costs in world with depleting fossil fuels, that will drive an eventual environmental revolution.