Response on The Story of Stuff and How Wolves Change Rivers videos

1st movie (21 mins): https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=9GorqroigqM&feature=emb_logo
2nd movie(5 mins): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysa5OBhXz-Q
Purpose: The Factory Farming and EPA links and these two videos below show the connection between our society’s consumerism and the consequences to indigenous people, the animals, and the land. Conservationist Wallace Stegner wrote, “Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed; if we permit the last virgin forests to be turned into comic books and plastic cigarette cases; if we drive the few remaining members of the wild species into zoos or to extinction; if we pollute the last clear air and dirty the last clean streams and push our paved roads through the last of the silence, so that never again will Americans be free in their own country from the noise, the exhausts, the stinks of human and automotive waste.” Watch the two videos and connect what you see to Stegner’s concerns. Think about what you learned about fracking, nuclear testing, DDT, and the Love Canal. The “Story of Stuff” gives you “the bigger picture” of what is driving our global consumerist society.

Assignment Details: In at least 400 words, create ONE academic paragraph using the sources with a clear topic sentence answering the prompt. Try to bring in a couple quotes or paraphrase in your paragraph from the sources and cite using MLA: (Leonard) and (Monbiot). Watch the 20 min “The Story of Stuff” by Annie Leonard, and watch this 5 min video by George Monbiot on how the reintroduction of wolves in Yellow Stone National Park changed the ecosystem, the behavior of the animals, even the river itself. Cite using Leonard and Monbiot. You may also bring in something about Factory Farming and/or Pruit’s changes to the mission of the EPA in your paragraph: cite “Factory Farming” and “Pruit” to identify those links.

Writing Prompt: Annie Leonard’s “The Story of Stuff” details globalized consumerism: resources are extracted, shipped, and turned into “stuff” for those who can afford to buy it. This puts wilderness, animals, and the indigenous people who live there at risk. How so? What is the connection between consumerism, loss of habitat, and environmental pollution in third world countries? How does the video on the wolves give us hope for change in the future? How are the two connected? What have you learned about global consumerism and the effects on earth systems? Optional: How do Stegner’s views highlight the problem with the system? How does the Factory Farming system and Pruit’s changes play into the problems with the system?