It’s Brave Friday! Learn about the consequences of overconsumption by watching The Story of Stuff today

If media hype is to be believed, the day after Thanks­giv­ing — which has come to be known as “Black Fri­day” — is a day when great deals can be had at the mall, and is there­fore an unbeat­able oppor­tu­ni­ty to go shopping.

Regard­less of whether the hype is jus­ti­fied or not, today is a good day to think about the envi­ron­men­tal cost and con­se­quences of our use it up and throw it out cul­ture, which is extreme­ly waste­ful and unsustainable.

Activist Annie Leonard, who I had the plea­sure of meet­ing in per­son ear­li­er this year, has become one of the pro­gres­sive move­men­t’s best advo­cates for zero waste. In 2007, she wrote and nar­rat­ed an ani­mat­ed doc­u­men­tary, The Sto­ry of Stuff, which has been viewed by an esti­mat­ed twelve mil­lion peo­ple. The film’s suc­cess led to more films focus­ing on spe­cif­ic prod­ucts (the lat­est cat­e­go­ry being elec­tron­ics) and a book, also titled The Sto­ry of Stuff.

If you haven’t seen the orig­i­nal doc­u­men­tary, take a few moments to watch it now. It’s so well done that was con­demned by Glenn Beck and was the sub­ject of a cri­tique by the cor­po­rate-fund­ed Com­pet­i­tive Enter­prise Insti­tute, which has received mon­ey from the likes of the Scaife Foun­da­tions, Exxon Mobil, the Ford Motor Com­pa­ny Fund, and Pfizer.

Unlike Glenn Beck, and unlike the hacks who work for Amer­i­ca’s major cor­po­ra­tions, Leonard has actu­al­ly trav­eled the world, explor­ing the extrac­tion, pro­duc­tion, dis­tri­b­u­tion, con­sump­tion, and dis­pos­al of stuff.

She’s more than just a sto­ry­teller; she’s an eye­wit­ness to one of the great­est prob­lems of our time. That’s what makes her films so powerful.

If you have seen The Sto­ry of Stuff before, watch it again with a friend or fam­i­ly mem­ber. It’s released under a Cre­ative Com­mons license, so you can down­load it and repro­duce it to your heart’s content.

Put it on a USB flash dri­ve so you can share it with your friends when you’re away from your desk­top. Burn it to DVD and mail it to acquain­tances who have dialup Inter­net con­nec­tions. Or store it on your own serv­er if you have one.

It’s incred­i­bly impor­tant that the pro­gres­sive move­ment mas­ter the art of sto­ry­telling, so we can bet­ter com­mu­ni­cate our val­ues, prin­ci­ples, and pol­i­cy direc­tions to the Amer­i­can peo­ple. Annie Leonard has set the exam­ple for what we must do if we want to broad­en our reach and our impact.

Her work is incred­i­bly impor­tant and there’s no bet­ter time to share it than the hol­i­day sea­son, when Madi­son Street is in overdrive.