There were no stars this night. If we looked to the sky, the only thing that we would see, it would be a dark cloak waiting to be painted with the stories of the people that were living under it. At least just for some of them, the night it isn't dark for everyone! In my case, I was in my sunny living room, illuminated by five 45 watts bulbs, laying down on the new coach (bought because my sister was going to get married, we need to keep the appearances!) and surrounded by at least 4 eletronic devices: a smartphone, a playstation, a tablet, a heater and the television that I was watching.
Hunger Games, it was the movie that I was watching. A movie that represents a fragmented society, divided by districts, that should contribute with resources for the wealth of the Capitol. A place where it's possible to identify the distinct life conditions between the people that are living here and the people that are living in the districts, which are marked by hunger, poverty and lack of resources.
The movie ended and I really enjoyed it. As a consequence, I bought all the books and went to the cinema to watch the following sequel. As I commented with my friends, it's a good fiction story! However, if we tried to transpose it for our reality, how is it far from it?
Maybe I can't answer clearly to this question, there are however some facts that can make me think and reflect about it. We just have one planet, however we need 1,5 earths to meet our demands. Even more scary! In 7 billions of population, one third don't have proper access to the electricity and 2.7 million people already experienced water scarcity during at least one month (WWF, 2011), which indicate that there aren't an homogeneous distribution of resources all over the world.
In this world where I live, it's easier to throw away than fix or repair our devices. In the last month I broke the screen of my smartphone (a samsung s3), with one year of use. I went to the shop in order to get a draft of the budget for the reparation, however soon I discovered that it would be cheaper buy a new one rather repair my old cellphone.
Nowadays, each company have a section in their website speaking about sustainability and what they are doing to stop the climate change. However, when situations like the one that I just described are happening in one of the biggest worldwide companies, such as samsung, I keep myself asking, does this make sense?
The size of the problem increase, when we take in consideration that in the developed countries this becames so commom that noone is argueing about it. In his book Farewell to growth, Serge Latouche speaks about the negative connotation of sustainable development, a concept that was created inside a capitalism paradigm. He says that development or growing are associated with the increase of our production and, consequently, to the use of more and more the resources, which are being consume with a higher rate than the one that are being regenerated.
Letouche says also that, from an economical point of view, we should accept that we live in a finite world and, instead of promote an unconditionall growth and the infinite increasement of the GDP, we should strenghten our economy, like it happens with a snail. After their shell reach a determined size, they begin by fortifying the smaller layers of their shell, instead of building bigger ones that will difficult their movement.
Letouche says also that, from an economical point of view, we should accept that we live in a finite world and, instead of promote an unconditionall growth and the infinite increasement of the GDP, we should strenghten our economy, like it happens with a snail. After their shell reach a determined size, they begin by fortifying the smaller layers of their shell, instead of building bigger ones that will difficult their movement.
This view it's shared by Annie Leonard, in her book the Story of Stuff. She explains that our production system it's linear, instead of circular, it promotes disposal instead of recycling. She also tell us some interesting stories, for example, how the capacitors of the playstation are produced. They required the use of a material called coltan, which can be found in the Congo Republic. Let's just say that, the conclusion of this story it's, while in a part of the world there are several children playing playstation in their sofa and the only thing that concern them are the next videogame that they are going to play, in the other part of the world, there are children, without any life conditions or health system, working as slaves in fields with coltan to be later used to produce the playstation capacitors.
After all these information, I think that it's the right time to ask again, "how far are we from the hunger games?". It's possible to find several organizations working in human rights, the media were not so developed as it's now, however it seems that there are information that it's not being transmitted to the consumers. This situation it gets worst when we think about the paradigm that rules the developed countries, where there is this pressure to have a smartphone, a iPod or a playstation, otherwise we are not going to be cool. When everyone are using a cellphone to communicate, if we don't use also one, easily we are going to be consider a non social person and be excluded from the society. The question is, how can we change this situation?
I finish this reflection with a video made by Annie Leonard, The Story of Stuff:
Kids in the Congo were being sent down mines to die, so kids in Europe and America could kill imaginary alliens in their living rooms.
Oona King, 2005
After all these information, I think that it's the right time to ask again, "how far are we from the hunger games?". It's possible to find several organizations working in human rights, the media were not so developed as it's now, however it seems that there are information that it's not being transmitted to the consumers. This situation it gets worst when we think about the paradigm that rules the developed countries, where there is this pressure to have a smartphone, a iPod or a playstation, otherwise we are not going to be cool. When everyone are using a cellphone to communicate, if we don't use also one, easily we are going to be consider a non social person and be excluded from the society. The question is, how can we change this situation?
I finish this reflection with a video made by Annie Leonard, The Story of Stuff:
